Nature’s Gift to Golf
Below are excerpts from an article that originally appeared in By Design.
Wow...” It’s a word uttered by many when they first set eyes on the golf course at Erin Hills.
And 17 years ago, it was the word that quietly passed the lips of ASGCA Past President Michael Hurdzan, ASGCA Fellow, as he gazed across over 400 acres of pasture land in Erin, Wisconsin.
The land was owned by Wisconsin businessman Bob Lang. Like many who tried to buy it before him, and the cattle farmers it previously belonged to, he could clearly see its potential for golf. Lang had issued a request for proposals and Hurdzan and Dana Fry, ASGCA, teaming up with Golf Digest architecture editor Ron Whitten, were among those who responded.
“The scale and setting is so grand it’s almost unbelievable when you see it,” says Fry. “Your eyes can’t take it all in.”
“The property is so ideal in terms of its dimensions and natural rolls,” says Whitten, “Classic rumpled blanket topography.”
That ‘rumpled blanket’ effect is the work of glaciers. Erin lies on the Kettle Moraine, an area in the east of Wisconsin that is typified by its undulations and rolling hills. These landforms were created from deposits that were left as glaciers receded from the area around 18,000 years ago. Large chunks of ice that remained formed ‘kettle’ depressions in the ground, which have been revealed as the ice melted in the years since.
It’s the type of landscape that many golf designers seek to create. In Erin, Mother Nature had already done the shaping. “This was an opportunity to make a very naturalistic golf course,” says Hurdzan.
He and Fry had worked on a glacial landscape in Canada ten years before, creating the Devil’s Paintbrush course in Ontario, Canada, which is widely recognized as one of the country’s best. “I think we have an affinity for links-type golf courses with the naturalness of the undulation and fescue grasses and a little bit of quirkiness and blindness—I call it ‘real golf.’”
“There are lots of pieces of property that have ups and down to them, and a lot of rolls,” says Hurdzan. “But what makes Erin Hills unique in my mind is that it was a perfect rhythm of that— the humps and hollows didn’t come too quickly together, nor were they too far spread out.”
Working with the land
With a canvas so ideally suited to golf, from the very start of the project the design team committed to moving as little earth as possible.
“We had such a vast piece of property,” says Whitten, “We thought, man, we ought to be able to find eighteen holes out here without having to manipulate things.
“From the beginning, we all felt like Mother Nature is the best architect, let’s try to follow her lead.”
Hurdzan is known for his environmental approach to golf course design. “What sustainability means to us,” says Hurdzan, “is using the least amount of water, fertilizer, pesticide and energy sources, yet produce a market competitive round of golf.”
“When we started out, we weren’t trying to build a U.S Open course,” says Whitten. “We were trying to build a very low budget, inexpensive, daily fee course. I know Mike has preached this for decades, you do that in part by trying to find a piece of topography that allows you to build a course inexpensively, without a lot of work, and then maintain it inexpensively. Much of this is down to grass selection.”
For everywhere except tees and greens, the designers selected a grass species that is unusual for golf courses in the United States, and more commonly associated with British and Irish links courses.
“We chose fescue grasses because of the nature of the soils and because there wasn’t a lot of water,” says Hurdzan. “Fescue grasses are just naturally adapted to that sort of climate.”
Fescue requires less water than many other grass species that are used for golf, and it can be mowed to very low heights. This combination gives rise to a very firm playing surface, which would allow the designers to make the most of the undulations of the land.
Maximizing potential
For most golf course design projects, the challenge lies in handling the constraints of the property. But at Erin Hills, the lack of constraint was the challenge—and the desire to get the very best eighteen holes from such an impressive site.
“It’s like a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle,” says Hurdzan. “You try to find all the edge pieces and then work in. Our edge pieces were a river on one side and wetlands on two-and a- half sides, and the buffer zones we needed to stay away from. It was then just a matter of trying to find the best eighteen holes we could.”
“We spent three years routing the course,” adds Whitten. “We had all sorts of different routings, we would walk it and re-walk it and re-walk it. We started with trying to identify natural green sites, and then move back and forwards from there.”
Construction began in 2004 and the course opened for play in 2006.
“I think we did get the best out of every golf hole that we possibly could,” says Fry.
“The tee shots are fantastic. They are visually stunning and there are a lot of angles and risk/reward element to them. On number two, for example, you have three different angles you can take off the tee—hit it left, down the middle, or carry the bunkers and go for the green. Choices like that happen continuously.”
It’s the same with shots into the green, explains Fry. “You have to pick the spot you want to hit it and let the ball feed down. There’re just a lot of completely different shots. And I think the quality of the shot at almost every single hole is really good.”
“Part of it was coming up with some unusual holes,” says Whitten. “We didn’t want holes that you have seen a thousand times, and I think we achieved that. Erin Hills has really unique, distinctive holes. I defy anybody to show me a hole that is like the second or twelfth.”
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