By - Anoop Jha
Why designing Golf Course is so different from most of other sports
Golf is one of the fastest growing popular outdoor sports in the world. It is quite fascinating and very different from other sports in terms of its playfield design and layout in the midst of lush undulating surrounding; it has a touch of natural ecology with varying texture of surface made of grass, sand and water, with carefully placed and maintained vegetation. Though it is a laborious game but it is quite rejuvenating in terms of environment.
Designing a Golf course is very different from designing fields and courts for other sports like, football field, Race track, tennis, badminton, swimming pool etc. because of scope for flexibility and creativity it provides in terms of planning and design elements for localised treatment while staying within the prescribed standards. Most of the other sports have a very standardized and rigid layout for their field and court, and provides very little flexibility and scope for creativity in design, except envelop i.e. indoor and outdoor stadium buildings / envelop. Golf course provides a much wider scope for creativity which is specific to physiography and profile of site.
Layout Design Guidelines
Par - 3 : 250 yards [230 M] & below
Par - 4 : 251 to 450 yards [410 M]
Par - 5 : 451 to 690 yards [630 M]
Par - 6 : 691 yards [632 M] or more
Typical elements of a hole on a golf course
1. Teeing ground
2. Water hazard
3. Rough
4. Out of bounds
5. Sand bunker
6. Water hazard
7. Fairway
8. Putting green
9. Flagstick
10. Hole