Gil Hanse’s Architecture 101: The Trouble With Trees
No architect wants to remove them from a golf course, but it’s often the best solution I am frequently asked what is the most difficult part of restoring Golden Age golf courses. My answer is always the same: trees. People look at trees wistfully, even romantically, and their opinions are always subjective. But when we […]
Gil Hanse Explains the Importance of Fairways
Most golfers don’t think of the fairway as an architectural feature, instead believing it’s just there for maintenance. However, we spend almost as much time marking out fairway lines in our new construction as we do anywhere else on the course. Why? Because the fairway is the first target every golfer aims for and where […]
Gil Hanse’s Architecture 101: Still On the Tee
Still on the Tee: There’s more to the importance of tee design than you—and the author—suspected We have already determined three things relating to the position of tees: 1) The routing of the course will establish the location of the tees; 2) The strategy of the hole will determine the angles of approach that each […]
Gil Hanse’s Architecture 101: Now On the Tee
The lowly teeing ground is only lowly if you overlook its strategic—and pleasure-producing—impact In hindsight, our discussion of a golf course’s features should logically have started with tees, since they are the starting point for each hole. However, tees are not the first feature that comes to mind when thinking about a golf course. In […]
Architecture 101: Routing
I am a dinosaur when it comes to computer-aided design, still clinging to pencils (and usually golf pencils, at that), erasers, and sheets of tracing paper when sketching out a golf course. I wear out erasers, and when working directly on a topographical map I sometimes wear out the map. The first stage of course routing […]
Gil Hanse’s Architecture 101: How Bunkers Look
There’s more to a bunker’s visual appeal than meets the eye The highest form of the art of golf course architecture is blending the design seamlessly into the surrounds through the use of shaping/grading or vegetation. I certainly feel that way about bunkers. Perhaps, in my case, it is a nod to the original eroded, […]
Gil Hanse’s Architecture 101: Where Bunkers Lie
The placement of bunkers on a course is one of the key elements in creating strategy Having started our examination of golf course architecture with greens—and appropriately ascribing sovereignty to them over all other features—we turn to the most visible feature on any course, the sand bunker. Bunkers have always had two distinct characteristics as […]
Gil Hanse’s Architecture 101: Greens and Their Complexes
On a visit to The Los Angeles Country Club in preparation for the 2023 U.S. Open, I did something that I rarely do. While walking the course with the superintendent, we putted on every green. And I must say, it was a lot of fun, free from trying to “make” a putt and instead watching […]
Gil Hanse’s Architecture 101: Green Design
Having navigated one year of writing about the importance of finding, organizing, and identifying the best set of golf holes to comprise a full golf course, it is now time to turn to the components of those holes—which bring holes to life, add flesh to the bones, and ultimately are what the vast majority of golfers […]
Gil Hanse’s Architecture 101: Building the Natural
With a routing in place and the best of the natural characteristics maximized, it’s time to start thinking seriously about the placement and character of the golf features. On our projects, my partner Jim Wagner and I always emphasize to our team that we want to “build the natural,” that is, create aspects that appear […]
