Extreme Golf Courses

When the first golf championship was won in Edinburgh, Scotland by Doctor John Rattray in 1744, no one could have imagined the evolution of the golf course in the next two and a half centuries. What started out as Scotts using sticks to thwack pebbles around the sand dunes has become an international multi-billion dollar

sport. Sophisticated, exotic and challenging course design are integral to the game as we know it today.

Unfortunately, the modern golf course has a serious issue in arid states like Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. Plush grass long-drive greens, manicured putting ranges, all very high in water usage and maintenance. Droughts and population increases have put a strain on municipalities to supply enough water to everyone without resorting to strict conservation measures.

A significant trend in golf course design and management is the creation of more naturalistic courses. Using the habitat natural to the area has proven to be very cost-effective in the long-run. Once established, natural habitat golf courses need far less water and can be maintained with less labor than conventional courses, often requiring no pesticides or herbicides.

The design and construction of a natural habitat golf course are based on using what material is there in the raw and moving, separating, sculpting and placing the ground aggregate into a logically cohesive course. Conventional building equipment is still necessary for grading and moving soil but probably the most important piece of equipment is a topsoil, rock, dirt, sand, gravel screener for aggregate recycling.

Instead of bringing in topsoil or rocks, a soil screener is used to separate the material which then can all be used for their separate purposes. The Portable Vibratory Grizzly (PVG) soil and rock screeners are designed for this kind of project. Portable and durable, the OMH ProScreen USA PVG topsoil screener series offers 6 different models - both 2-product and 3-product screeners - for different jobs and purposes.

The natural habitat golf course provides challenges to golfers not offered on conventional courses. Winding through rough hills, gullies, valleys and other natural obstacles, the experience can be termed “extreme golfing”. With water conservation and land protection very real concerns, the future of the modern-day golf course may very well lie rooted in its past.