This new Par-3 course is not what looks-but is endlessly fun

False grass has a real and growing role in Golf.

Once it is reserved mainly for the short -back games configuration, it has spread its extension to all kinds of public places. The most prominent of those projects is Sophia center In the Palm Beach gardens, Fla., The inner house of meeting. But the synthetic tendency has taken root (artificial) in the low -profile coastal playground on the coast.

Last? Short golf In Portland, hour.

Shortland is the mind of Mike Fritz, a long golf junction and former Nike Golf shoe development who saw a void in his hometown market. To the east of Portland, about 45 minutes on the outskirts, was a sweet Par-3 course, providing quick and easy access to the game.

“But there was nothing like that on the west side of the city,” Fritz says.

To what you have to do for it was another matter. The land for a new course was scarce and expensive.

“I realized that the only way to attract it was to find something that was closed or ready to sell,” he says.

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Fritz found exactly in the old route of the Golf Sandelie course, a modest layout with 18 holes, 30 minutes from the city center, which had gone to the belly in late 2022. The land was then parcel and was in blocks. Fritz won a 31 -hectare quadrant and placed a plan in the country.

In a plot that size, there was no room for a full -scale course, and Fritz did not want one, however. He knew how much he knew that the construction and operation of such a place was similar to the opening of a restaurant: it sounds fun until you actually do it. Even if you have taken on design and construction, maintenance and work were long -term liabilities that could drain your bank account and go crazy.

Fritz had been around and played many courses. Among his unforgettable rounds was on a par-3-friendly course with players in Skamania LodgeJust over the Oregon border in Washington, which represented artificial and tee greens. Another was a loop in Nine bad nineAn incredible Urban Planning of the PAR-3 at Scottsdale National Golf Club in Arizona.

What about something of a hybrid of both? A short course that combined the details and strategy of good design with the benefits of synthetic terrain.

For help, Fritz addressed Jackson Kahn Design, the architecture firm after nine little bad, among other widely praised projects. So it happened that one of Jackson Kahn’s leading associates, Connor Doughery, was based in Portland. With his colleagues in Jackson Kahn, Doughery had experience with the short -back games configuration, and although this was his first blow to a course with publicly synthetic terrain access, he had a good idea of ​​what he wanted to create.

“The goal was to insert a lot of character and movement into the greens and make them interesting to be hit,” he says. “We wanted a couple who would allow creativity and be a movable experience for everyone.”

It helped that the fake grass was not long the inferior terrain of past generations. Like golf equipment, it had progressed from dances and borders in the modern age so that now it would play quite true for life, dancing, rolling and taking shots in a way near the real grass.

It depends on Dougherty to make the rest.

The design he dreamed of is a 19-3 holes that loops, such as clover, about a square pack, with a club and food carriage in its center that the road touches three times along the way. The holes range from 59 to 104 yards, with generous greens that vary in their shape and contouring, presenting a demand bag. The 19th hole is overlooked by a veranda club with a place known as the “deck of Heckler”, which is not as intimidating as it sounds. After all, most players know better than throwing a beginner, and most experienced players can handle a good nature ribbon. If not, they would have passed into another game.

All teas, bunkers and surfaces in Shortland strips display synthetic terrain from Greens Celebrity (“sand” is not sand, but 2-inch, white painted terrain). This means there is no need for getting, watering, mowing or adjusting the ball signs. However, laying surfaces still require care; They are rolled and sandy to keep them running smooth and gentle. Transition areas contain natural grass, stuck to the height of a friendly square and putt. Miss Green and has a chance to recover.

Shortland has been busy since its early August opening, and last week, it added another draw: a 19 -holes for placement and fragmentation called the nest that can be played with a flat stick or a wedge. Get your choice. The grass is false, but the experience is true.

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