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Hand jive
Hard work pays off at Santaluz Golf Club’s No. 2.
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Variety has long been a staple of good course design.
That’s certainly been the credo of golf course architect Greg Muirhead throughout his 20-plus years in the business and is very much in evidence at one of his recent projects, Santaluz Golf Club in San Diego.
A development by DMB Associates out of Scottsdale, Ariz., Santaluz GC was built in 2001-02 as the showcase property in a private real estate community a handful of miles inland from the Pacific Coast.
Muirhead took advantage of a lot of dramatic topography in the 18-hole design, which winds through deep valleys and along high ridges. The layout is also unencumbered by more than 900 home sites that are set far back from the course by a wide buffer of native grasses.
“Ownership let us put the holes where we really wanted to put them so we’d have a good variety ... a unique collection of holes,” says Muirhead, who has been with Montclair, N.J.-based Rees Jones Inc. since 1984 and is the current president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects.
Early round stunner
The most diverse of the Santaluz collection is the second hole, the most challenging in terms of shot-making options, playability and management. It’s an easy choice for GCM’s Unique Hole series.
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Muirhead’s résumé includes new courses in nearly every region of the country, as well as instrumental roles in the high-profile renovations of such venues as New York’s Bethpage Black, Atlanta’s East Lake and Santaluz’s esteemed neighbor, Torrey Pines. He has a pretty good idea of what constitutes a great golf hole — one that “fits” the land. He’s quick to add that No. 2 at Santaluz is a perfect fit.
“It’s the way we found it naturally,” is Muirhead’s explanation for the Santaluz gem, a par 4 with multiple tees that plays from 335 yards to nearly 450 yards from the tips. The hole’s key feature is a riparian channel that bisects the layout and affords a split fairway and thus challenging risk-reward options to the golfer. Better players usually opt for the left landing zone, which requires a longer carry over the channel, but if successful, presents a more straightforward approach to the green. The right fairway is the safer tee shot, but the riparian channel must be crossed eventually to reach the green.
“It gives the golfer a lot of shot options; the hole can be played a lot of different ways,” says Muirhead. “It’s a hard hole, but I think most of the golfers understand how to play it in accordance to their abilities by choosing the right tee and the right fairway.”
The architect embellished both landing zones with deep, sculptured “snake” bunkers along either side of the channel. A deep greenside bunker also looms for those who choose the left route to a large, contoured green.
“The riparian channel is a unique feature on the site that we didn’t encounter within the golf envelope anywhere else,” Muirhead says. “It was an opportunity to create a little diversity — some shot options that aren’t found otherwise throughout the routing. When you can create a hole like this around something that’s natural, it’s a neat opportunity.”
Down and dirty
The second at Santaluz GC doesn’t just give golfers pause. It’s also the epitome of the unique maintenance challenges the golf course presents.
Jim Timke, CGCS, came to Santaluz six years ago as construction superintendent after an eight-year stint at San Diego’s Carlton Oaks Country Club. He cut his teeth building and growing in golf courses in the late 1980s in the Palm Springs area, including working with Pete Dye on the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club.
A self-described old-school superintendent, the 22-year GCSAA member’s penchant for practicality has come in handy, literally, at Santaluz. Timke has a staff of three dozen, which may seem like a lot for an 18-hole layout, but he needs every one of them and even more in one of the most labor-intensive golf course management settings around.
There are turf challenges — bermudagrass tees, fairways and roughs and bentgrass (G-2) greens, plus no less than 200 acres of native grasses between the course and the home sites. And there are bunker challenges — 85 of them, comprising five acres of sand, loom throughout the layout.
To address the latter first, the depth and shape of the Santaluz bunkers make it impractical for mechanized raking and grooming, so Timke has it done by hand. Once a week, workers descend on the bunkers with fly mowers, string trimmers and edgers. After they clean up after themselves, all the sand is then hand-raked to perfection. In the meantime, four workers check the bunkers daily and spot rake as needed.
With 12,000 square feet of bunkers, the second hole is usually the scene of some of the busiest work.
“It’s (bunkers) a major part of the maintenance of the hole — it’s a major part of the maintenance of the whole golf course,” Timke says. “We have a 36-man crew, counting the mechanics, myself and my assistants. We figure if we had normal bunkers we could probably knock 15 guys off that crew.”
Instead, however, Timke also employs 13 workers separate from the maintenance staff just to tend to the vast native grasslands around the layout. That work — including annually mowing and re-seeding selected areas — is also mostly done by hand and with string-trimmers because the terrain discourages mowing equipment. Again, No. 2 stands out.
“There is more labor on the native areas around the hole and in the riparian channel than anywhere else on the course,” he says. “It’s a challenge.”
Perfect mix, perfect town
By the same token, Santaluz’s mix of bermudagrass and bentgrass raises its share of sweat, but Timke says it’s bittersweet. While the bermuda’s encroachment into the native areas demands much diligence on the part of staff, he says the mix is the best of all worlds because of San Diego’s famous climate consistency.
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“The bermuda is great against the salt buildup from the ocean,” Timke says, adding that he doesn’t overseed because the turf stays green year-round. “And the G-2, which I think is one of the best putting surfaces there is, actually is more vigorous than the bermuda because it’s kind of cool here most of the time. On the greens we use a herbicide around the bermuda collars and edges to ward off bentgrass encroachment.”
Timke agrees with Muirhead that the combination of shot options, fairness and beauty make the second hole at Santaluz GC a unique and memorable golf experience, and well worth the extra work.
“I’m used to getting out there and doing what it takes,” Timke says. “I’ve got a great staff and they understand that too. It takes that to make this place special.
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