Design Philosophy for the Golf Course
The course should elicit anticipation and hopefulness of players of all skill levels; let it test your perceptual ability, judgment, decision-making, shot making, and emotional poise; let it not be difficult for the sake of being difficult; rather let it be interesting and engaging.
The design principles are to use the existing thresholds on the site as much as possible such as rivers, ditches, specimen trees, woodland areas, pine forest, marchlands areas, and undulations in the landscape. The aim is to build a course with many good exterior and interior views and to create beautiful landscape scenery.
The design provides generally a wide latitude for choice of wide fairways and generous play areas but there will be some holes with limited choice depending on topography, landform and strategy. As far as possible I will let the player see the result of a good play; let them see their shot carry over a hazard, their drives take a favourable way, or the approach shot nestle close to the pin. The topography will be used to its fullest, meaning that the holes will twist and turn, flow over, around, through and into an array of landforms.
As far as possible the course will provide dynamic holes, which is likely to yield a broad spread of scores. There will be a wide range of short and long par four and par five holes as a major characteristic of the course. Key in achieving this is to establish a consistent rhythm and flow of the holes.
Stockholm, Sweden, August 2008
Johan Benestam
M.Sc. Golf Course Architectur