Golf Course Architecture - Issue 67, January 2022

11 MA I L BOX Dear Editor Bifurcation. Who uses the term outside of science and golf? Just whisper bifurcation in a golf setting and the room ignites. Golf ’s bifurcation proposes to resolve a gap in player expertise by adjusting the specifications of the equipment based on how that equipment is used. If you are a tour pro or high level competitor, perhaps your ball will travel a little less far than the ball used by players in a Saturday skins game. This is proposed to tighten the professional field of competition while enhancing the recreational player’s golf experience. We already bifurcate in golf architecture. We are uniquely able to offer the casual player the opportunity to play the same venue as the world’s top professionals via design and architecture. Golf courses are configurable in ways that allow for the delivery of recreational entertainment and stiff ‘competition’ within the same footprint. John and Jane Doe-Public cannot wander onto Wembley Stadium or Lambeau Field in Green Bay and spark up a game. In our game, anyone with the green fee is free to play multiple iconic places such as the Old Course at St Andrews, Pebble Beach, Bandon Dunes, and other championship venues. Golf bifurcates some of its best playing fields to enhance the experience of all skill levels of player. With the joy of bifurcation comes opportunity and responsibility. We don’t know how long the golf boom is going to last but if golf is to leverage and extend the glow, it should focus on consistent delivery of excellent experiences across golf ’s largest point of entry, the public golf course. The time is now to imprint positive golf experiences in the minds of new golfers of all abilities, demographics and genders. If you are selling more rounds than ever, tune up your architectural features and conditioning. Continue to force excellence into the municipal sector. Cobb’s Creek in Philadelphia, the multiple programmes housed at Houston’s Memorial Park, investments in the Forge by the city of Bettendorf, and the Wee course at North Berwick are all showing the way to celebrate the positive quality of life aspects of publicly accessible golf. Golf ’s bifurcation of accessibility is fantastic and unique. Its benefits are magnified when with a focused effort to deliver great golf and conditioning. In closing, if all countries of the world remain free of pandemic-enforced lockdowns, and as long as we are up and running, let’s keep the newcomers and returnees with a commitment to use the spoils of the boom to fix bad golf and expand the good. Vaughn Halyard Milwaukee, Wisconsin We are delighted to receive letters from readers, and the best in each issue will be rewarded with a golf shirt. Send to 6 Friar Lane, Leicester, LE1 5RA, UK, or email us at letters@golfcoursearchitecture.net Sandy was in Portugal last time out, on the par-five sixth hole of the RTJ II-designed Atlântico course at Penha Longa outside Lisbon. A number of eagle-eyed readers figured it out, but congratulations to Christopher Mack Fisher, who was first out of the hat – the shirt is on the way. It’s back to his favourite habitat, the links, for Sandy in this issue. Golf has been played over this land for the best part of 200 years, though the club that now controls it celebrated its 150th birthday quite recently. As ever, if you know the hole, and you’d like one of our sought-after GCA golf shirts, email your entry to, gopher@golfcoursearchitecture.net. GOPHER WATCH

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