What does your course say to the golfers who play it?
What does it say to the golfers who could play it, but don’t?
These were the central questions our clients in Kenosha County, Wisconsin asked of themselves, and asked of us, over the last 18 months. The answers underlie our redesign/reconfiguration of the 63 holes owned and operated by Kenosha County, Phase 1 of which is scheduled to break ground this spring.
This column is about communication, and what your course communicates to golfers — about itself — has always been important. But it’s downright crucial in today’s golf market. In my view, the issues facing Kenosha County (and the message our work will send to its customers) are instructive for anyone who manages public golf courses across the country.
Some background: Kenosha administers two separate municipal facilities, the 18-hole Petrifying Springs Golf Course in Kenosha, and the 45-hole Brighton Dale Links in Kansasville. Both are fairly popular venues for golfers in southeastern Wisconsin, but the county and Lohmann Golf Designs (LGD) felt they could be a whole lot more popular, diverse, profitable and efficient.
Here’s our plan: Petrifying Springs will undergo relatively minor renovations that improve the maintenance standard while adding tees, removing trees, improving drainage and irrigation. We’ll leave untouched the layout’s trademark green complexes. This is a short course, just 5,979 yards. LGD will extend it to just more than 6,000 yards, but even at that length, it will continue to best serve the county’s senior, female, youth and novice golfers.
The plans for Brighton Dale Links are more involved. Way more.
The existing White Birch and Blue Spruce layouts are both 18-hole, par 72 routings that measure 6,977 and 6,687 yards, respectively. Red Pine is a 9-hole, par 36 of 3,512 yards.
LGD plans to take the Red Pine routing and pluck nine holes from the Blue Spruce to create a single, 7,000-yard, 18-hole “championship-level” course. We’re not going to build a $125 golf course. But we are going to provide an experience that is 1) better than anything the county now offers; and 2) distinct from the other 27 holes at Brighton-Dale.
The remaining 27 holes will all be upgraded, as well, but they will operate as three separate nines of a quality and difficulty lying somewhere between the new championship 18 and those at Petrifying Springs.
By reconfiguring the course routing, LGD will also create enough room to build a 25-bay driving range and practice facility, to include a short-game area, practice green and a junior routing located within the range itself — an innovation we at LGD have frankly pioneered at several different facilities across the Midwest.
The major design issue at Brighton Dale — the main problem it had when it came to communicating with golfers — was a lack of distinction between any of the five 9-hole routings there, plus the lack of a worthy practice area. Why play there? All the courses were the same? Our plan improves all 45 holes but creates new, higher levels of quality and challenge for county golfers, while improving but essentially maintaining the character of 27 holes for those who liked them just the way they were.
As with many redesigns, the work in Kenosha County stems from something practical — and unavoidable — in this case, an outdated, inefficient, leaky irrigation system at Brighton Dale that simply must be replaced. Replacing irrigation capability for 45 holes of golf is no small undertaking; it involves digging up the entire golf course. The county wisely saw this as an opportunity to reassess and improve the entire facility.
So, our work will also immediately and vastly improve the efficiency of the maintenance staff by eliminating labor-consuming tasks like irrigation repairs, bunker clean-up after storms, and removal of standing water.
Without these maintenance efficiencies, our project might be called an exercise in “rebranding”, but I don’t think that’s anything to be ashamed of. In leaner times, like these, golf courses must better compete and sometimes that means communicating better what you have to offer.
Course designers and course managers can’t get carried away, of course. For starters, getting carried away on the renovation front often means spending a lot more money. Look at Petrifying Springs: It’s a fun little track that can be spruced up without major meddling with the greens, which are the highlights of the course. It’s also a perfect place for seniors, kids, novices, etc. Why eliminate that option?
The Brighton Dale reconfiguration is more complicated. We have plucked what we feel are the best 18 holes of the 45. If the budget allows it, we will further distinguish this new routing from the other nines by regrassing all 18 greens with a modern bentgrass and instituting a consistent but far more dramatic bunker style throughout.
In a perfect world these course changes would take place concurrently with the installation of a new irrigation system. However, the seriously rundown nature of the existing system may mean laying the new irrigation before some of this course work (especially new bunker placement) has been roughed in. The reality is, we’re obligated to do it this way because the existing irrigation is so bad, if it’s not replaced, long-term turf health on all 45 holes will be endangered.
This is another message we will urge all golf shop personnel at Brighton Dale to communicate to each and every golfer that comes through. Once our work is underway, this tells them to expect some potentially unsightly fairways during their round.
But it also tells them their golf course is about to get a whole lot better.
About The Author:
Bob Lohmann is founder, president and principal architect at Lohmann Golf Designs, Inc. He provides hands-on leadership and management of all LGD projects.
Check out his blog at lohmann.com.