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Golf Landscaping Design:An Opportunity to Create Extra MemorabilityThe golf landscaping design we are refering to here is the landscape planting (softscape) and hardworks such as on-course buildings, paths, steps, retaining walls and the like.Because of the ever increasing complexities of most professions in the modern age, there is a growing need to specialise in order to be able to offer the most high quality and competitive services. While there are definite overlaps and areas of common ground between golf architects and landscape architects, the two disciplines are more parallel, rather than one being an extension of the other. Golf landscaping design is incorporated into golf design in varying degrees depending on project specific particulars. The role of Landscape Design in Golf ArchitectureEvery project and site is different. Driven by site and project constraints isolated during the early stages of planning a golf course project, the general parameters for golf landscaping design will become apparent.A desertscape golf course, for example might have minimal introduced landscape, relying on the contrast between lush turf and harsh native rocks and vegetation for the bulk of its landscape effect. A parkland course, on the other hand might benefit from the introduction of many trees of different shapes and color, as well as shrubs and groundcovers. Where it is decided that a site will benefit from the inclusion of large amounts of introduced landscape, the golf architect and the landscape designer, should they not be one and the same, must carefully coordinate their actions to ensure maximum benefit is acheived from the landscape in a manner that can be readily maintained. Some of the major considerations are as follows:
Golf Landscaping Design Considerations- Golf course design stategy and playability and its relationship with golf landscaping design.- Use of the shapes and features of the golf design in the golf landscaping design - Plant locations and types in relation to the specific site requirements
The scope of Landscaping Design in Golf Course DesignAlthough it is often advisable to work closely with a good landscape architect during the design of a golf course, we have found that it is usually not advisable to actually rely on the golf landscaping design to create the key strategic attributes of a golf course project.This is because landscape has a tendency to change over time due to the following factors: - The seasons - Plants coming to the end of their life, and needing to be replaced (or not being replaced) - Changes in labor costs, which can render large sections of landscape suddenly unmaintainable - Disease in plants A golf design strategy that relies on plants for it to function could suddenly appear quite rediculous should any of the above occur. For this reason, we ensure that every design strategy will function well and look quite attractive with minimal landscape, in order to allow for any possible future occurences. In addition, most seasoned golfers are able to quickly pick up on the fact that a somewhat "cosmetic" strategy has been employed and will tend to feel a little cheated when they are presented with playing strategies that are not governed by the core elements of golf design, such as greens, tees, fairways, bunkers, water and rough.
Allowing for Landscaping Design in the Golf Course DesignThe safety buffer zones that must be incorporated into the designated golf course land area on all projects not only gives ample space for golf landscaping design, but in most cases makes some form of landscape planting virtually indispensable.There has been alot of discussion about the merits of trees on golf courses, but on most courses, some form of planting is deemed beneficial between fairways, behind greens and tees and along boundaries with other land uses. In this way, it is generally not necessary to make extra space provision for landscape areas on a golf course layout, unless for preservation of certain existing trees or plant species, or the incorporation of a wetland as a part of the golf landscaping design.
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