Why one sub-18-holer cracking our Top 100 Courses ranking should open the floodgates for more
Less is more for Bill Coore.
Between land scarcity and a rising appetite in golf for shorter rounds where the emphasis is on fun, a break away from standard-length, 18-hole golf courses should become a growing trend in course architecture. That’s the sentiment of the American architect behind the 14-hole Bougle Run course in north-eastern Tasmania – a ‘little sister’ to his adjoining Lost Farm design and Tom Doak/Mike Clayton’s original Barnbougle Dunes layout.
Coore was back at Barnbougle in early May to finally see the completed Bougle Run course for the first time, as travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic had prevented him from seeing the site in person since December 2019. In a resourceful bit of adaptation, Coore used video calls from Arizona – and trusted the expertise of his on-site shapers John Hawker and Riley Johns – to oversee the construction process.
Since opening in March 2021, Bougle Run has captivated visitors to the Barnbougle complex while adding an important new dimension to trips there. In Tasmanian summers when golf is playable up until 9pm, the 14-hole layout is an idyllic way to end a day which has probably already included 18 holes on one of the two ‘big’ courses. Or it provides a perfect place to begin or end a trip where travel time needs to be calculated. Logistics and timing factors aside, golfers also happen to just love the course.
That in itself is vindication for Coore, who had tried fruitlessly for much of his design partnership with two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw to convince clients of the opportunities shorter courses present.
“For years we tried to talk to potential clients about building a nine-hole course or even a par-3 course or even a 12-hole course if they had an interesting piece of property or it wasn’t big enough to do 18 holes,” said Coore, who grew up playing par-3 courses – as did Crenshaw. “But the conversations went absolutely nowhere because it was considered to be not proper golf.”
Fortunately Coore had an ally in Barnbougle owner Richard Sattler, who has a history of trusting course architects to work their magic on his land without playing the role of the overbearing owner. The result is a sleek and savvy use of some of the best property on the site, but land that would not necessarily be suitable for long holes. Coore was also aware of the potential of that portion of the site after walking it while designing Lost Farm. He knew it was ideal for golf but he couldn’t find a way to work that section into a full-scale golf course. As such, Bougle Run became a mere 14 holes with 12 par 3s of varying lengths and two short par 4s totalling a Lilliputian 1,791 metres.
It’s a simple but scintillating mix of design nous along with huge doses of fun. Throughout the journey, which can be taken by groups of unlimited size but generally requires only a couple of hours at most, are multiple opportunities to use imagination and guile to work balls off and along slopes and tiers towards the flag. It’s a haven for strong iron players and those with good short games, but the two short par 4s – one of which will almost always be downwind – play into the hands of powerful drivers. It truly is full-scale golf whittled down into a smaller but no less appealing package.
“There was no intent to make it 14 holes, that’s just how it actually turned out. I knew it was there and I knew it was big,” Coore says of the land that Bougle Run sits upon. “Extremely dramatic, but at the same time it didn’t lend itself to bigger holes. You’d have to bulldoze it away to build long holes. And it was just too pretty to do that.”
There’s even a course-within-a-course at Bougle Run. The first two and last two holes are routed in such a way that a four-hole loop is possible. While occupying the less spectacular land, it offers an ideal place for beginner golfers as each of the four can be played with just a putter if desired.
The death of 18-holes-only?
Fuelling Coore’s joy during his recent trip was news that Australian Golf Digest had deemed Bougle Run (and indeed all non-18-hole layouts) eligible for the recently released biennial Top 100 Courses ranking and how it had taken 63rd spot on debut. We viewed it as an important acknowledgement of the shift away from 18-holers, as well as being a nod to a likely future path in course architecture.
Coore credits Mike Keiser, the man behind the ever-expanding Bandon Dunes property in Oregon, for being part of the movement. It was Keiser who commissioned Coore and Crenshaw to design the 13-hole par-3 course called Bandon Preserve, which opened in 2012.
“He didn’t invent the idea of the short course,” Coore says of Keiser, “but he brought it into the awareness of people that it could be really good golf and interesting golf, just on a somewhat smaller scale. When he said, ‘I want to do a par-3 course at Bandon,’ he said, ‘People come here to play with the expectation they’re going to play 36 holes a day and they can’t do it.’ So he said, ‘We need something interesting and smaller but that will still keep their attention and that they’ll want to play.’
“I said, ‘Mike, what type of short course do you want?’ He said, ‘Here’s what I don’t want. I don’t want it to be nine holes and I don’t want it to be 18. I don’t want anything standardised or formulaic about it. Beyond that I don’t care… I don’t care how short they are, the only thing is I want to make sure that each one of those holes is of a quality that you could pick it up and put it on one of our regulation golf courses and you’d be happy to play it.’ That set the stage.
“It was totally driven by the landforms – and it was the same here.”
Coore says there were thoughts to build more holes at Bougle Run – by pushing further west, beyond where the sixth green sits and adding holes closer towards the eighth tee at Lost Farm – but that just created routing problems that couldn’t be easily solved. “So I thought, You know? Here’s the place to stop. Right here.
“And I don’t hear people at any of those places say, ‘Oh, it’s only 14 holes. It’s only 13. It’s only 17.’ It’s [still] golf.”
During his May visit, Coore encountered a man walking off the last green at Bougle Run, a golfer who happened to be a member of Kingston Heath Golf Club where Ogilvy Cocking Mead are currently building a short course that’s due to open later this year.
“This young guy looked at me and says, ‘Bill, Bougle Run is fantastic. We just absolutely love it,’” Coore retells. “‘I’m a member at Kingston Heath and we’re doing a par-3 course.’ And he said, ‘I can almost assure you that our golf course is because of Bougle Run. Our committee members have been coming here, playing it, looking at it and we’re finally getting one.’”
It’s a passing anecdote yet one rich in truth. There’s a propagation effect at play, as clubs and courses that perhaps once hesitantly considered diverging from the 18-hole norm can now see a ‘shorty’ in action and assess the concept’s viability from a more tangible perspective.
Between the pandemic and the associated boom in golf that has drawn so many newcomers, now is the era of the short course. The good news is: there’s more to come. Kingston Heath is joining the short course trend and Royal Queensland is pondering adding one of its own. That’s just two examples, however it’s not a concept limited to top-tier courses and clubs. It should be a consideration for any club contemplating a redesign of its existing layout or with some spare land and a willingness to break away from golf’s 18-hole mould.
