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The Layout of Golf Courses "Puzzle"Designing the optimum layout of golf courses is like a rather large puzzle which continually changes according to the positioning of each element.
Golf Hole CentrelinesWhat are the pieces of this puzzle? They are golf holes, of course, but for the purpose of the layout of golf courses exercise, they are initially represented by centrelines. These centrelines are of varying length to accurately represent the lengths of the golf holes.A par 3 hole will have a straight line representing the back tee location linking to the centre of the green. A par 4 centreline will be made up of a two-section line, with a bend about 2 thirds along its length representing a dogleg The first straight section of this line represents the tee shot, while the second section of the line represents the approach shot to the centre of the green. Note That the length of the tee shot lines should be consistent for all par 4's and par 5's on the layout plan. If the plan has varying length tee shot lines, it could indicate an attempt to hide a layout design flaw. This applies to all par 4 and 5 holes, even those where you are encouraging golfers to hit an iron off the tee. It doesn't matter if the hole will be designed with a narrow landing zone, or if hitting an iron off the tee will obviously be the best play. A proportion of golfers will just pull out the driver and give it a whack anyway, so it must be allowed for during planning. We usually use a tee shot length of 230 meters (add about 10% for yards, approx. 253 yards) because this represents a fairly good average length tee shot for most good players. Pros are a different story. Par 5's have a centreline made up of 3 sections. The first section should be our standard tee shot length, the mid section varies from 170m to about 230m, while the last section varies from 70m up to about 120m. All of these golf holes have to be located on our site in a way that is sympathetic to the landforms and landscape, usually with 2 par 4's and 2 par 5's per nine holes, not starting or finishing with a par 3. The SurveyThe base for our "layout of golf courses puzzle" is the survey, which is usually represented on paper by contour lines of 0.5 or 1.0 metre vertical intervals (2 or 3 feet in imperial measurement), plus spot levels in flat terrain. The survey also shows tree and forest locations, waterways, any roads or services, the site boundaries, and in the case of an existing course, the locations of all irrigation, drainage, tees, greens, fairways, etc.This information gives the architect a good idea if the proposed locations of the centrelines will be acceptable and practically feasable in terms of layout of golf courses beyond simple 2-dimensional space allocation. The GuidelinesThe guidelines for this layout of golf courses "puzzle" are the buffer zones that must be included between golf holes to help protect against errant balls.Exactly how big these buffer zones should be is a contentious issue that always depends on the specific site conditions. But as an indicator, the following sketch shows how these buffers might look. Note the 70-75 metre clearance between fairway lines at the critical drive distances allows for 30-35 metres of buffer between 40m wide fairways.
 The Layout PlanArmed with this information and of course, the client brief, the Architect is able to go ahead and come up with the best possible Layout of the Golf Course.There are however a few different approaches that must be considered, according to the site conditions and the project scope. Refer the links below for more on these.
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