39 Photo: Vaughn Halyard At Kirtland in Ohio, Nagle has recaptured original green dimensions and bunker shapes of the second-generation restoration projects incorporate enormous new irrigation systems. The funds available for restoration have also changed massively in recent years. In the late 1990s to early 2000s, a big project might be US$3-6 million. A project now is typically double that. A combination of confidence in the strength of their business and the successes of earlier projects has emboldened clubs to sign up for more comprehensive restorations. For example, a number of clubs have now bought into much stronger tree management programmes. An architect’s vision for a full restoration in the first generation was often limited by the willingness of the club to implement tree management fully. Beginning in the late 2010s, the idea of a tree management programme that had goals beyond agronomics was gaining traction, allowing fairways and greens to be expanded back to their original scale. The boldness that clubs have embraced as a result of the success of previous restorations, as well as those at other, sometimes competing courses, has also been enhanced by the technology and information now available to restoration architects; this has given clubs more confidence that the architect is able to deliver the vision they outline. The fear of losing the contours of century-old greens designed by Golden Age masters has diminished through the use of modern technology, specifically the ability to laser scan greens and put them back to their original form. The treasure trove of aerial photographs and online information available to an architect today is way bigger than that which could be found 25 years ago. And the ability of architects to take that information and scale it to match today’s golf courses has transformed how we approach projects. I’m currently working on a plan for the Meadow Brook Club and have secured a 1966 aerial photograph. We can identify three greens in that photo that still exist, triangulate them and compare them to today’s images, and create a scale that gives the precise size of all the original features. This means we have much more detailed information about what was originally built, giving us a far stronger foundation for making informed decisions about how to restore it. Jim Nagle is a golf course architect and founder of Nagle Design Works INSIGHT
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