Flexibility has become a popular buzzword in golf architecture as of late, but putting that concept into practice – while maintaining a desired level of quality and variety in terms of the holes themselves – has proved difficult for designers and operators alike. But a recently opened course in Florida, built on just 50 acres, is one of the first to be built entirely around that theme.
The semi-private Trilogy Golf Club at Ocala Preserve is located within a Shea Homes residential community 90 minutes north of Orlando. The first design collaboration between Tripp Davis and Tom Lehman has resulted in a routing – one with multiple greens on four holes and expansive tees areas throughout – that creates essentially four different courses that are walking-only.
“We both knew that the imperative factor was the time it takes to play these days,” says Davis. “How can we split up this site into different segments so that it could take different amounts of time with different levels? We did six different routings to begin with and kept coming back to six holes around the model home complex. When you are working within a residential development, you do 50 different routings. But we always knew that first six-hole routing would stick. And we worked everything around that.”
In this case, everything means four routings that rotate on daily basis. Those initial six holes (all par threes) form the Gallery Loop. That same stretch also kicks off the Skills Course, an 18-hole par 54 routing with holes ranging from 63 to more than 200 yards. Currently this configuration will be the only one open to the public (on Fridays, Saturdays and holidays). The Players Loop is a six-hole, par-24 routing with one par three, four par fours, and one par five, ranging in length from 168-532 yards. Three times around the Players Loop provides a 6,732-yard, 18-hole layout called the Players Course. As one example of the hybrid nature of the routing, that lone par five (the second hole on the Players Course) contains three separate greens: one is used for the par five hole and all three are used for individual holes on the Skills Course. A short-game practice area (there is no full-sized driving range) complements the layouts.
The small footprint of 50 acres forced the designers to place a greater emphasis on approach shots. “At the competitive level the game is really played from 100 yards and in,” says Lehman. “You can drive it great, but 100 yards in is where you really get the job done. The whole idea was how we can develop something where you can help people really develop their game from that distance without sacrificing traditional golf. To me, gimmicky is the extra wide holes. That’s not golf. Is this gimmicky? No, it’s not. You can get a USGA handicap playing the six-hole loop and I think that’s important.”
The design process started in June 2014, with Davis and Lehman meeting both in person at the site and exchanging various routings via e-mail. Construction started in January 2015 with a grand opening this past February.
“A couple of times when I thought something worked Tom would come back with ‘Well, I think you need to tweak this’,” laughs Davis. “But I like to be challenged. He provided a lot of different ideas. The bunker styling was his idea; we tried to do more of an Australian Sandbelt-style of bunkers (filled with semi crushed stone mostly made up of finer sands and lined with the Better Billy Bunker system). That turned out to be the difference in the look and feel of the course. He made four visits to the site. One time he visited and I couldn’t be there. By the end of the day our shaper almost had heatstroke. He said he couldn’t keep up with Tom.”
For Lehman, the project also provided an opportunity to counteract what he sees as a damaging industry trend. “So much of what I have seen in golf course architecture over the last 20 years are courses built to really take a beautiful photograph,” he says. “It looks amazing and there is all this water, bunkers, fescue grass. Then you go play it and it’s too hard; the bunkers are too deep, the water is everywhere, you lose your ball in thick grass. I really truly believe that golf course architecture over the years has been dictated by the rankings and what amazing photography a hole will make, and far less about playability. Good golf is no different whether it’s here, Augusta, Winged Foot or the Old Course. A really cool golf shot is a really cool golf shot. A lot of the holes we built at Ocala Preserve are just missing the driver. But we’re asking you to hit really cool iron shots or rescue shots.”
Adherence to tradition – or not really seeing anything other than a championship golf course as being a golf course – is one factor holding back similar projects according to Lehman. “I grew up in Minnesota and every little town had a nine-hole course,” he says. “The idea of 18 holes has become more of a modern thing. It used to be, let’s go play nine and maybe 18. That tradition changed. And then it became a championship 18. The average guy can’t play that kind of course. Golf used to be way more of a lifestyle when I grew up. Your life kind of revolved around the golf course and all of your friends played. It’s not that way anymore. The more we can bring that back the better. This course is a really good starting point. You can bring kids out there and smacking a driver around on the par three holes is a great way to learn the game.”
Davis sees access to shorter loops of holes as a growing trend. “When we’re doing new 18-hole courses a lot of our clients now want us to route it in such a way that you play six holes and it comes right back to the clubhouse,” he says. “I’m the same way. With my kids and wife, I can’t go out to play for four and half hours. We have two courses in Norman, Oklahoma where I live so I can go hit balls and play a few holes. I get to play maybe 30 times a year, half of which will be six holes only. It’s a matter of time. I think we will see more of this. A lot of it will be companies like Shea and Trilogy taking a chance on doing courses like this, so this one is out there now and we can learn from it.”
Davis had done some alternative type facilities previously, including a nine-hole par three course south of Dallas with different loops and a facility for golf teams at his alma mater (the University of Oklahoma) with four greens and multiple tees. “I think working on those two helped because I understood you could think outside of the box. And that’s really what this property required. The whole concept was driven around the first six holes to maximise real estate and then creating a multiple of 18 that you can play quickly. The other 12 holes on the Skills course were an evolution.”
While the economic viability of such a design remains to be seen, Lehman believes at the very least it’s a step in the right direction.
“Everyone is always talking about doing something different with golf and making limited space work, but make sure it’s real golf,” he says. “We really didn’t use anything else as a template for this – we kind of created our own template.”
This article first appeared in issue 44 of Golf Course Architecture.