The post What does it cost to maintain a Top 100-caliber links course? This one told us appeared first on Golf.

The post What does it cost to maintain a Top 100-caliber links course? This one told us appeared first on Golf.

Instead of lush greens, which you often find on tees, fairways and putting surfaces at top courses in the United States, you’ll see a paler green likely with some brown and gold mixed in. You may have noticed this coloring when the Open Championship visited St. Andrews this summer.

The brownish blend isn’t because these courses aren’t treated with the same care as their American counterparts — quite the contrary.

It’s largely a result of Mother Nature.

“I would probably say 90 percent of it is the weather,” Eion Riddell, the course manager at Royal Dornoch Golf Club, in northeast Scotland, said the other day by phone. “Obviously we are dry and windy most of the time during the season and certainly have been this season. And, you know, we’re not into the lush, green, stripy look that a lot of American courses strive for.”

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The Scots also aren’t into spongey surfaces. Firmer, drier turf helps brings alive the ground game, the essence of links golf.

The net result for maintenance costs? Big savings.

Neil Hampton, Royal Dornoch’s general manager, said the maintenance budget for 2022 fiscal year (April 1 to March 31, 2023) is about £1 million, or about $1.15 million. That might sound like a good chunk of change, but that’s for a 36-hole facility, which includes the Championship course, ranked No. 3 on GOLF’s Top 100 courses in UK and Ireland list and No. 12 on our World list — and which Tom Watson once described as “the most fun I’ve ever had a on a golf course.”

Comparatively, the average maintenance budget for an 18-hole private facility in the U.S. is just over $1 million annually (that figure, of course, varies regionally), according to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. That includes all private golf courses, not just top-ranked ones, and is roughly the same as what Royal Dornoch pays to maintain two courses.

It’s not just the weather that helps Dornoch keep its costs down, Riddell said.

“Over in America, you have obviously a lot of problems with the kind of diseases there,” he said. “But over here, it’s not as prevalent, certainly on links courses. So our budget for fertilizers and chemicals will be probably, for the year, what you guys would probably use in a month.

“We hardly spray any fungicides, maybe once a year if we need to. We don’t spray any pesticides, but we still spray herbicides for weeds.”

Riddell’s work experience has primarily been limited to Royal Dornoch — he’s been on the job there for nearly four decades — but he has compared notes with many U.S. superintendents and said a maintenance budget as low as Dornoch’s simply isn’t possible at a comparable U.S. property, even at an American links-style facility like Bandon Dunes.

“It’s all to do with weather and growth,” Riddell said.

Or lackthereof.

While a top U.S. private club might need to cut its greens, fairways and tees every day, Riddell said Dornoch cuts only its greens daily. His team cuts the fairways, fringes and tee boxes just twice, maybe even once, a week. And the rough only once every two weeks.

The climate also helps them cut back on other daily items such as turf repair.

“When we’re dry and firm, we don’t tend to take many divots so we obviously save a bit there,” Riddell said. “Our day-to-day routine is probably similar to [U.S. courses], but we’re taking off less grass. So the job is done a lot quicker. You’re saving on fuel. You’re saving on all different things.”

Relative to U.S. courses, Dornoch and other U.K. links courses of its ilk also save money on water usage.

“We don’t use mains water,” Riddell said. “We have our own water sources.”

That’s a huge boon for Royal Dornoch, especially during what was an historically dry summer in east Scotland. (The club does have a license with the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency for their water rights, but Riddell said the cost is fairly minimal.)

“You’re talking probably hundreds of pounds and not tens of thousands of pounds [per year],” he said.

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Riddell said the only impact additional water use has on the club is additional energy costs from running the water pumps more often.

But even in the midst of a dry summer, Riddell said the water system had not been used in close to two weeks when we spoke in mid-August.

In the U.K., even lusher parkland-style courses enjoy smaller maintenance budgets due to another factor: staff size.

Hampton said Dornoch has about only 20 maintenance crew members for its two courses. At another top-shelf U.K. course, Sunningdale Golf Club, in London, managing director Tristan Hall said keeping a smaller staff is also something his club does to help manage cost.

“I would guess that most Top 100 golf clubs in the USA would have an average of 30-50 green staff for 18 holes verses an average of 15-20 per 18 holes (top 100) in the U.K.,” Hall said.

He declined to reveal Sunningdale’s maintenance budget, but said the costs saved in maintenance can be passed on to members.

“If we want to maintain a relatively low subscription (annual dues), then we cannot have as many staff, for example, as a U.S.-style club,” Hall said. “The expectations remain high, but we have to manage in a different way.”

The post What does it cost to maintain a Top 100-caliber links course? This one told us appeared first on Golf.

The post The best hole I ever played: Why Mammoth Dunes’ 14th is the top short par-4 of the modern era appeared first on Golf.

The post The best hole I ever played: Why Mammoth Dunes’ 14th is the top short par-4 of the modern era appeared first on Golf.

Many golfers find short par-4s to be the best holes in the game. The risk-reward calculation of “going for it” versus playing conservatively can flip a match with one swing of the club.

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to play some of the finest short par-4s in the world, and include among my favorites the 5th at Royal Dornoch, the 4th at Spyglass Hill and the 16th at Bandon Dunes. I’ve witnessed dramatic eagles, tap-in birdies, disappointing pars and temper-tantrum double bogeys after tee shots that needed “just another foot” of carry.

A few years ago, I watched a friend drive the green on the famously testy 12th at the Old Course, in St. Andrews — a cause for celebration that he spoiled just moments later by putting off the two-tiered green and winding up with a maddening bogey. Of course, just prior to his tee shot, he offered the perfunctory, “I didn’t fly 5,000 miles to lay up!”

Perhaps he should have.

Another time, I witnessed a buddy slice his tee shot over the out-of-bounds fence on the 18th at North Berwick West Links, only to have his ball ricochet off a parked car and bounce back into play, allowing him to get up and down for birdie. No harm done to the parked car, and a nice little circle on my friend’s scorecard.

Luckily for anyone who appreciates a good strategic challenge, many of today’s top architects value short par-4s and incorporate them into their designs. Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw do a great job of it. Tom Doak is another highly skilled practitioner of the genre. But perhaps my favorite short par-4 of the modern era was designed by David McLay Kidd. It’s the 14th at Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley Resort in Nekoosa, Wis.

Part of the greatness of any golf hole hinges on its placement in the routing. Kidd sets this one up beautifully with the 13th hole, a par-3 of about 125 yards that is the shortest and probably easiest hole on the course. Most golfers walk off the green feeling emboldened and chomping at the bit for the next challenge. A short stroll over a ridge leads to the dramatic 14th tee.

From here, the hole unfolds clearly before you, with all its possibilities and pitfalls. It’s decision time, a point underscored by your caddie, who will likely take a deep breath, exhale and say, “OK, let’s talk about the options.”

The hole plays downhill and can stretch to 325 yards, but most of us will play it from 260-290 yards. A perfectly positioned tee shot, landing just right of center, can carry the ridge to a downslope and onto the green. But precision is required. There are waste bunkers lining the right side, and the fairway slopes right to left. On the left side of the fairway is rough and a deep bunker positioned to grab a slightly tugged tee shot, a common miss when players are trying to squeeze a little extra out of their drive.

The safest play off the tee is iron to the middle of the fairway, leaving a wedge or less to the green. But what fun is that? You didn’t drive to Nekoosa to lay up.

So pick a line and rip it. That’s what I did. My tee shot flew over the hill, caught the downslope and rolled onto the green. True to form, I three-putted for par and considered breaking my putter over my knee. But that’s what a great par-4 can offer: a chance at glory or crushing disappointment, and countless other consequences in between.

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The post The best hole I ever played: Why Mammoth Dunes’ 14th is the top short par-4 of the modern era appeared first on Golf.