The Golfdom Files: A bit of wilderness on the golf course
With news of Pine Valley being awarded its third-ever Walker Cup Match in 2044 (yes, you read that correctly), we’re going back 51 years to the May 1974 issue of Golfdom. In this feature, we look at how Pine Valley maintains its natural beauty. If you’re reading this in 2044, let us know how different Pine Valley looks 70 years after “Project ’74!” To read the full article, visit our digital archive.
Project ’74: A bit of wilderness on the golf course
By Fred V. Grau
The term “wilderness” means many things to many people. In irreducible simplicity, it means “naturalness.” But a wilderness on a golf course? Why not? To drive a point home, let’s look around us to see if the wilderness concept may not already be accepted and in progress on golf courses. Let’s admit at the outset that a golf course wilderness will not be the clear, rushing, fish-laden streams and the massive forests of Daniel Boone’s day. Nor will it be the mighty rivers, the mountains, the plains or the majestic awe-inspiring scenery that met the Lewis and Clarke expedition.
For openers, I cite Pine Valley CC, nestled in the sand dunes and piney woods of southern New Jersey. The backing of president John Arthur Brown and the expertise of nature-loving superintendent Eberhard Steiniger have combined to create a true wilderness, faithful to the nature of the country. The golf course has been enhanced by the efforts to preserve the true wilderness concept.
A few examples. As the golfer walks from the 15 tee, he crosses a bridge where turtles can be seen sunning on nearby rocks. Wild fowl are present, but not completely trustful of golfers with clubs. In a dense thicket of rhododendron, he stoops to drink the pure, sweet, cold water from a flowing spring.
If his drive on the 18 fades toward a pond surrounded with aquatic plants, the golfer may be rewarded with a glimpse of a wood duck flashing to its nest set in the center of the pond safe from the ever-present marauding muskrat. Or a trophy-sized bass may thwack the surface as it falls back from an attempt at a free-flying insect.
I have seen major soil disturbances in the pine woods where flourishes the sweet huckleberry. Such is the dedication of the entire crew to preserve nature at Pine Valley that one may pass by the disturbed area the next day, and it is as though nothing had been disturbed. This is a vital part of the wilderness concept of naturalness. Even in the huge never-raked bunkers, the wilderness concept is encouraged. Here grow the Hudsonia, a native heather; a sedge that develops naturally and is a feature of the course; huckleberry bushes that belong to these woods and broom sedge, a relative of the tall prairie grasses of the Midlands.
These are only a few of the wilderness features that make Pine Valley unique. Steiniger continually patrols the course to see what needs to be trimmed, what to be added, what to be eliminated. He has done this so skillfully and so unobtrusively that golfers believe that nothing ever needs to be done to keep the course perfect.
Do other courses follow the wilderness concept? Yes. But no two are alike. They differ in terrain, soil, natural vegetation, water and, most importantly, in the personality and imagination of the golf course superintendent.
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