Chris Rattue: Rough ride for golfers

Greg Turner is planning a green revolution. And a fairway one, too.

Helping to carry his bag in this endeavour will be the greatest golfer of all time.

During the final six years of his career as one of our finest professionals, Turner prepared for his future by studying European courses.

He is now launching his course-designing career through a partnership with Jack Nicklaus, whom Turner first got to know during the 1998 President's Cup.

Turner told RoW that he cemented the link over dinner with Nicklaus this year. The golf legend was here to look over the Kinloch course his company designed near Lake Taupo and to fish in the South Island, as he has done for 20 years.

The resources of Nicklaus Design - which has 55 new courses in production worldwide - will be at Turner's disposal.

The always forthright Turner is hoping that the Joe and Jane Blows of golf in this country will benefit from his (Turner's) views and criticisms of course design.

He believes course architecture worldwide has been in "an uncritical, unhealthy state" for 30 years.

The major problems? First, office-bound designers have shunned involvement in the day-to-day shaping of courses in relation to the land.

And second, while top golfers play tournaments to launch new courses, they are muzzled by obligations so architects do not even know they have been getting it wrong.

"Golf-course design should be as much about sculpture as engineering," Turner said from his Queenstown home.

"One conclusion I reached was that modern computer technology and large earthmoving machinery weren't producing better golf courses.

"The subtleties and intricacies aren't there. You look at a hole and it's like template 36b. They don't fit the landscape - they look out of character."

New Zealand courses also suffer from an obsession with narrow fairways lined by trees and thick rough, he says.

"The game's hard enough anyway. Why punish the average golfer further for landing out there?

"Those courses are a nightmare for average handicappers. My theory is you create more interest around the greens for the better players, which is also a real challenge for lesser players."

Among Turner's current projects is a reworking of the highly-regarded Paraparaumu course.

He says the club is "paranoid" about the relative shortness of the course. It is over-watered to reduce run-on, and has too much long grass.

He wants to celebrate Paraparaumu's terrain and location, rather than fight it. The clever use of bunkers, placed primarily to test the low handicappers, is central to his course design theories.

"Paraparaumu should play like a links. Yes, it will be a bit short but so what. It will be fun," says Turner.

"Most of the courses here are only operating at 50 per cent of their potential, which is very frustrating. There is a lack of understanding about what makes intriguing golf in New Zealand.

"They need to make it a lot more fun for people to play ... at the moment the courses are just too hard for the high handicappers.

"Often, it wouldn't take any money to sort it out."

Rattue can only say hear hear.

LITTLE BEAUTIES

Greg Turner says the list of New Zealand golf courses includes many hidden gems. With a bit of a spruce up, they could have holes that rival some of the most famous in the world.

Turner's winning gem is Oreti Sands: "Talk to most people and they would probably rate this as only the fourth-best golf course in Invercargill. But by spending around $400,000 on Oreti Sands, you could turn it into the best links in the Southern Hemisphere."

And Turner says it has a natural selling point as the southernmost golf course on the planet.

Turner's runner-up is Chisholm Park in Dunedin. He rates it the best course in his old home-town.

One coastline hole reminds him of the famous Pebble Beach course on America's West Coast. "It costs US$450 to play a round at Pebble Beach. You can play at Chisholm Park for 15 bucks."