Vision 2050: Bradley Klein calls for a reorientation of golf
Bradley Klein, one of the best-known American opinion leaders in the field of golf course design, knows the world’s golf courses like no other. The book author, journalist of the Golf Channel and consultant to numerous well-known American golf courses critically observes the change in climatic and, therefore also, economic conditions, particularly in the USA. In our Vision 2050 series, he makes it clear that the operators and managers of golf courses, those responsible for professional tours and the players must change the way they work.
Bradley, as we speak, Arizona is suffering from an extreme heat wave, and Florida has just had tremendous rainfall and flooding. How do you assess the situation of the American golf scene concerning climate change?
Klein: In terms of the climate change, there’s clearly at least three kinds of extreme weather that affect the golf industry. The first one, we noticed about 10, 15 years ago, was more extreme rain events with two, three, four inches with a greater frequency. Florida, to take an extreme example, just had 20 inches of rain in one day. That’s a lot. That’s crazy.
And then intermittently with that, we’re seeing extreme droughts in between. We are seeing a lot of golf courses retrofitting to have more up-to-date irrigation systems so they can provide a steady supply of water to carry them through the dry phases. And at the same time, they have to have the ability to absorb drainage from these massive rain events. And those are compounded because many of the golf courses that were built in ex-urban or suburban areas are now surrounded by hardscape and areas of concrete and pavement so that you don’t have run off. The golf course essentially becomes a drainage basin for the community.
Extreme heat is a problem because it increases the need for steady irrigation and more water use. It’s also an extreme health threat to outdoor workers. And this is an area of the industry that really has not been addressed. You know, we have states now like Texas where you’re not even required to provide water, drinking water to outdoor workers. They’ve withdrawn that as a right of workers, which is crazy.
And then the third one that we’re seeing is rising coastal waters, which might not seem like a big issue when it’s an inch or two every few years. But when you have low lying courses like Seminole in Florida, which they’re now preparing to raise the dike level on the outside and to raise their fairways above the water table. And you’ve got coastal erosion all along the Eastern shore, up in the Cape Cod area, for example, on the Carolinas, and around the entire rim of Florida.
Do you have the feeling that the golf industry has realized how big the problem is?
Bradley Klein: I would say that the golf industry has been very slow to recognize this. They have to catch up. And the short version is golf superintendents understand the physical geological transformations that they’re confronting. The problem is that course managers, pros, GMs, and owners are reluctant. One, because it’s expensive. And two, because politically, I have to say the golf industry is very conservative politically. Most superintendents are Republicans. But there’s a political reluctance as well to embrace the whole agenda of sustainability and long-term survivability.
How do you see the future of new golf courses in areas like Nevada or Arizona, when water is not available and the heat is extreme?
Bradley Klein: Denver is a good example. Denver doesn’t have enough fresh water to permit any more new golf courses. And while there might be demand post-COVID for the game, the ability to build facilities requires access. And you can only use recycled water so far. Recycled water is essentially high mineral content cleansed from homeowners and commercial usage. And you can recycle it, but you can’t use it for greens because you build up mineral content and salts, and you have to flush it out. So if you don’t have potable fresh water, you’re really going to end up with some turf issues. So you have to have access at least partially, if not fully, to fresh water. That’s harder to get; it’s more expensive. I think part of the issue also that compounds the reluctance of many facilities to adjust is the assumption of members who are wealthy and have moved into these second-home areas that they’ll just pay for it.
There are golf courses in Palm Springs, California or in the Las Vegas area that are spending a million dollars a year for water. That’s not sustainable. It’s not just that the price is going up, it’s that the availability is declining and they have to adjust.
This concerns mainly a particular sector of society. 30% of all clubs in North America are private. So many homeowners, I’ve seen this, for example, in Palm Springs, move to a place and they want a green golf course. They also want it overseeded, which absorbs about 30% more water than if you don’t oversee. That’s primarily for aesthetics to have it green. There’s nothing wrong with a dormant golf course. It might not take cart traffic very well, but it plays very well. It looks brown and thank goodness at Pinehurst where they just had the U.S. Open, they don’t overseed it anymore.
Golf courses such as Royal Dornoch or the Old course at St. Andrews are still top quality. What could golf course architects learn from these historical courses for the future?
Klein: The architects are not the issue. The real issue are the media. And the media don’t understand this. The PGA Tour does not understand this. The PGA Tour does not care about that issue. They want to present a green, lush grass surface to their players, and that’s what the media show, and that’s what the people see.
Let’s talk about the length of courses. The longer they get, the more resources they need. Should courses become shorter in the future?
Klein: Obviously at the elite and Olympic level, which is a totally different game than the game we all play, those courses all have gotten longer, so they have to be 7,500 to 7,800 yards, maybe 8,000. Older courses like the Old Course, or one of my favorite courses Wannamoisset in Rhode Island, are sitting on 100, 110 acres. Merion is 110 acres. The modern golf course has to be closer to 150 or 160, so your land parcel has to be bigger, but that doesn’t mean you have to maintain all of that. You can still build a 6,300-yard golf course for adequate play and then just tag on the back tees and not maintain the area in between.
I have to say the USGA Green Section has done a very good job of this with their new Deacon app. They’re able to measure the actual area where play proceeds, and it turns out that there are a lot of areas you don’t have to maintain. This can lead to a reduction in the maintenance of most golf courses.
Regarding the length issue, we saw recently both the R&A and the USGA have announced that there will be restrictions on how far the golf ball can go. And that’ll reduce about four or 5% what the distance would be under current playing conditions. That will be a bit of a help. But the real issue is for most golf courses to take a more realistic assessment of how much they actually need to maintain.
And it turns out you don’t need to be stripe-mowing your fairways. You don’t need six layers of cut around the greens. You don’t need to manicure all the areas with the ornamental shrubbery and plants and flowers in the name of the golf course spelled out in a perennial flower, in an annual flower. You don’t need to do any of that stuff
Has communication to become better, to educate golfers better?
Klein: That’s certainly the case. I think most golfers are taught or raised or have an expectation that the golfers will be manicured. They’ll have a good lie everywhere. All of that to me is kind of an indulgence.
So when you look in the future, like in 20 years, do you think that the overall appearance of golf courses will be a little bit scruffier?
Klein: Well, we know from data and polling that younger people are more attuned to environmental issues. When they become 35 or 40, they settle into a middle-class life, we hope and maybe join a club. Maybe they’ll take, let’s hope they take those values with them. So I suspect that there will be a generational shift in what people come to expect of their golf course; that it won’t be a flawlessly manicured corporate lawn. It’ll instead be an adequate but unpredictable playing surface. And that would be the ideal.
I do think that there are some trends pointing to this. The fact that places like Bandon Dunes are so popular; or everyone, when they go on a trip to Scotland, comes back impressed with what they’ve seen, even though it looks totally different from what they’re used to as a country club. Those are very positive trends.
In recent years, we have seen a decoupling between professional and amateur golf regarding playing abilities and the courses they play. So, how do we cope with that in the future?
Klein: When Donald Ross, Alistair MacKenzie and A.W. Tillinghast were designing golf courses, your elite player drove the ball 220, 240, and your average golfer hit it 170, 180. Now, the statistic for the U.S. Open at Pinehurst showed, the average drive was 307. So I think the key here is owners and operators have to decide who their actual client base is. And the focus for golf, for the forward tee players, has to be a playable golf course from 5,000 yards. And for most golfers, 6,200 to 6,300 yards is perfectly adequate. And then you add on the back tees, rather than as we saw all through the 80s and 90s, where the golf courses were being designed from the back tees and the forward middle tees were kind of an afterthought. If you design for 98% of your client base and forget the other 2%, you have a better chance of creating a playable golf course that’s sustainable in the long run.
In your opinion, how should investors in golf choose a location?
Klein: Golf would be better if it moved toward the sites that were either naturally draining along the coast or if they were industrial waste areas that were converted. We have too many empty parking lots and shopping malls that could be converted into golf courses. If you focused your golf course development on former hardscapes that were converted into public assets and use them as green space, you would be achieving something that would reverse much of the suburban sprawl and highway and concrete pavement syndrome that has wrecked so much of the landscape. And golf, in that sense, can provide a viable alternative because it’s also a moneymaker.
We currently see a boom of exclusive areas being built for example in Florida. Do we need more affordable courses for a sustainable future of golf?
Klein: Florida is a phenomenon. We’re seeing ridiculous amounts of money being spent and members willing to spend$300,000 to join a club, and they don’t care if it costs $30 million to build the golf course. Now, part of the problem is that post COVID, post everything, the cost of golf course construction is higher than it used to be. Now, having said that 80% of golf courses are still affordable. So, what you have to focus on is keeping golf affordable at the existing facilities. And that’s where the entry-level play is, that’s where senior play, that’s where junior play and beginners and all that can get on accessibly and affordably. And hopefully, that will keep up. But it’s a bit of a struggle.
Let’s imagine you can develop three mandatory guidelines for golf course designers for the future – which are they?
Klein: First one is design for 6,300 yards. The second one is to minimize the heavily maintained areas and focus on tees, fairways and greens. The last one is to stop trying to defend par and making the golf course difficult and instead focus on fun, enjoyment and success for everyday
Images: Sylvia Bothmer