I don't draw plans for greens or bunkers. Instead I calculate the quantities of material required and sculpt them in the field in real time. This has a long tradition of producing the best, most intricate greens and surrounds, the best bunkers and bunker clusters. It is the tremendous, cost saving-quality increasing benefit of having the architect on-site daily.This method is more akin to art, with absolute flexibility to modify or abandon ideas as the work is in progress.
Plans in the hands of the builder, regardless of how good, and absent of the architect, how most courses are constructed, result in a stiff, rigid process, because that is what document in the hands of the builder do! They drastically eliminate flexibility and creativity. Opportunities and refinements are lost... as no architect has or ever will draw perfect plans... ever.
Though I don't draw detailed plans for greens and bunkers, I do sketch out ideas, often dozens, some with vast differences, others with slight but significant changes. I don't insert heights, unless someone else is shaping greens for me, and would like a reference, and then these heights are mere suggestions.
When I'm shaping these features, I don't take the drawings with me in the field, but instead take the spirit in my heart and go from there. I'm free to change, and seize opportunities I could never imagine at a drawing board.
What I'm seeking with these sketches is general contours, strategy and drainage flow. With drainage I seek to move water off the green in at least two directions, and as little off the front of the green as possible.A lot of golfers believe the green should be tilted towards the player to help stop the ball. The problem with this concept is the surface water drains off the front of the green, making a nice wet spot at the entrance to the green where there is a lot of foot traffic, creating a maintenance nightmare. All that water draining off the green also prevents the ball from being bounced int the green; the standard approach of many golfers.
Tony Ristola
www.agolfarchitect.com
agolfarchitect@yahoo.com
+1(909) 581 0080
