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Media Coverage
Calgary Herald, June 23, 2008 Designers facing tougher challenges When he has saved the world from imminent environmental extinction, maybe Al Gore can turn his feckless gaze to the perils wrought by progress in the world of . . . golf. If ever there were a universe that has been changed irrevocably by the quantum change in club and ball technology, it is in Tiger Woods' playground. Looking at a number of impressive new and current course layouts in the Kelowna area last week shows an industry pointed to more dramatic and costly projects by the demands of technology. Noted Canadian course architect Doug Carrick - who designed the impressive Grey Wolf at Panorama, B.C. - is doing a redesign at Kelowna's Predator Ridge, host to this year's Telus World Skins Game. Carrick will add nine new holes while updating the current Peregrine nine. As I toured the spectacular new layout overlooking Lake Okanagan, Carrick spoke about the challenges facing designers who must accommodate even mid-handicappers hitting heroic drives. "The distance is the big thing," says Carrick, whose new course designs were voted 1-2-3 in Canada last year. "Jack Nicklaus has been talking about rolling back (the specs) on the ball for years. And I think he has a point. "The biggest impact (of longer ball flight) is having is that it's costing more money to develop courses. Where we are now using 200 acres for a course, 20 years ago we could build a course on 150 acres. And at 7,500 yards, it's taking at least an hour more to play these courses. Even if you're playing from the front tees it's taking a long time. "When I started in the business we were putting turning points in the fairway at 250 yards, now we put them at 285. That's quite a significant change. I think what we're losing is not just the shot shapes but the number of clubs that the top players are using. Who uses a long iron anymore?" Larger properties and longer playing times have the design business working to find a happy medium for the average golfer, says Carrick, whose Humber Valley course in Newfoundland was the top new course in Canada in 2007. "About 10 years ago there was a move to make fairways wider and more receptive to shots. Players like to hit their drivers and don't want to always be looking for their ball. But now we've had to narrow fairways, because use-of-water (restrictions) and pesticides have become a big concern." No new course better illustrates the increased costs and environmental issues demanded of high-end projects than The Rise, the dramatic aerie above Vernon designed by Gene Bates and Fred Couples. "This was probably the second most challenging course I've designed," said Bates as he watched Couples and Jarome Iginla christen the course (the most challenging: an Egyptian track called El Gouna where Bates had to build up the fairways 10 feet because it was salt water underneath). "I first saw The Rise four years ago. It scared the crap out of me. All we did was blast, blast, blast. The fourth hole, we lowered the ridge line up to 30 feet. Ian (Renton, course builder) kept blasting, and I kept saying, 'Down down . . . drill and blast some more.' They took me down back at the fourth hole, and we had to climb straight up the rock wall. I thought, 'I could die on this kind of project (laughs).' " Having the input of renowned PGA Tour star Couples helped. "Fred and I get along well. We've worked together since 1991. We never had a conflict. If he wants some changes, we make some changes. On No. 10, that ravine in the middle - our thoughts were to put a fairway on the left and right. But Fred said, 'Why not put a lake there?' And so we did." "On some projects you can go through a hill because it's all dirt. But here we had to go through rock. It's expensive. The environmental concerns were huge with the B.C. and local governments. We used the existing Moose Pond on No. 3 for golf and water storage, but we had to preserve the pond on No. as a wildlife sanctuary, too. "The Whiskey Jack course Fred and I are doing in Sparwood (ETA 2011) is a piece of cake by comparison. We just had to knock down a few trees, move a little gravel and make it right. It was a lot of open fields and a few holes on the river. Not hard at all." We'll have more next week on the burgeoning Okanagan golf scene, which now has 60 courses - including The Rise and Predator Ridge. For additional information regarding the project, click on the logo: 
Reprinted from Calgary Herald |
