Sand Hollow (Links)

Favorite Hole

No. 8, par 4, 346-449 yards

Starting from the eastern end of the Links Course, this stout par 4 works uphill to the middle of the property. From there, the long par-4 ninth hole takes players back to the course’s western starting point, near a natural sandstone amphitheater that serves as a concert venue. It’s a tough finishing duo, and classically linksy in its straight-line return to a visually prominent home base. (Think of The Old Course’s gradual journey back to the city of St. Andrews.)

The eighth is an unprepossessing hole, but it represents two aspects of strategic design that often get ignored because they’re hard to perceive in aerial photos: obscured sightlines and the overall tilt of a green.

The fairway sits on a left-to-right diagonal in relation to the tee. Placing your drive on the right side of the corridor requires an aggressive, partially blind carry over a bunker and some desert waste. The reward for this play is a clear view of the green on your next shot. If you bail out to the more visible part of the fairway on the left, your approach will be obscured by the flashed-up, heavily vegetated lip of a large bunker about 50 yards short of the green. Also, from this angle, the left-to-right slope of the putting surface will not work to your benefit. On the whole, it’s easier to find the correct section of this tumbling green after a bold tee shot to the right side of the fairway.

Originally, the eighth and second greens formed one large, Old Course-inspired complex. Sadly, the greens are now separate.

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Overall Thoughts

The contrast between the Championship and Links courses at Sand Hollow offers a case study in how less can be more in golf architecture, particularly when the land is good. To be clear, I like both courses. The Championship 18 is not only spectacular but also well designed; its best holes are both beautiful and strategically sound. However, a decade and a half into the resort’s life, the Links nine appears, at least to me, to have more staying power. The smart, subtle design rewards repeat play, and the course’s presentation prioritizes function over flash. This is what golf looks like when it’s built to last.

The main reason for the Links Course’s sturdiness is its architectural restraint. Andy Staples and John Fought refrained from introducing out-of-place elements that might have made the course more conventionally pretty but would have required additional upkeep and expense.

For instance, all of the sand that the construction crew used to create the greens, bunkers, and other artificial features came from the Sand Hollow property itself. Nothing was trucked in. Even the North Berwick-like wall that factors into the second and fifth holes was constructed from local materials. One day, while driving to the site from his nearby residence, Staples saw a big pile of black lava rock outside of another in-progress development. The Sand Hollow team ended up acquiring it for the cost of hauling it away, and they used it to build the wall at the Links Course. This devotion to native materials kept costs under control and allowed the course to feel—and, more importantly, function—like it belonged in its landscape.

Staples and Fought also avoided major earthmoving on the project, letting the land speak for itself. This was a smart choice. While the Links Course’s property doesn’t have enough large-scale movement to be immediately impressive, it has a great deal of small, chaotic contour, as well as a general south-to-north tilt. The architects took advantage of these characteristics by simply draping the holes over the ground. Nos. 1 and 2 are good examples of this approach. Both sit on a strong right-to-left slope, but instead of propping the golf features up against this grade—as many modern architects would, in an effort to create level and “fair” lies—Staples and Fought left the natural tilt of the land intact, allowing it to be the primary challenge from tee to green.

When Staples and Fought did manufacture contour, they remembered a piece of advice that consulting agronomist Dave Wilber gave to Staples. Across a stretch of natural, low-profile linksland, Wilber said, the undulations tend to peak at approximately the same height. The same is true of ocean swells. So, if a golf course is shaped in a links-inspired style, it won’t look right if some contours are tall and others are short with no rhyme or reason. At the Links Course, therefore, Staples and Fought made sure the peaks of the hummocks, both artificial and preexisting, more or less matched across the property.

In general, Staples and Fought’s architecture does not draw attention to itself. While there are a few overt references to The Old Course—particularly on the par-3 fourth, an Eden hole; the par-4 fifth, where the black-lava wall imitates the geometry of the Road hole’s right boundary; and the par-3 sixth, vaguely a tribute to the Short hole—the Links Course is not a template gallery. It’s more interested in emulating the character of The Old Course. It wants to capture the modesty of unmanipulated linksland and the durability of golf features that weren’t constructed in defiance of the natural terrain.

Of course, it can’t get all the way there—not in the high desert of southwestern Utah. The fairways at the Links Course, seeded with a mixture of Kentucky bluegrass and fine fescue, will never approach real links-like firmness. Nor will the bentgrass greens.

However, the Links Course does play noticeably firmer and faster than the Championship Course. The likely reason for this, according to Staples, is that Sand Hollow has devoted more resources to keeping the Championship Course green and photo-ready. More water, more fertilizer, more money. An unintended consequence of this helicopter parenting is that the playing surfaces now have a thatch issue and no longer drain particularly well. The course may need a turf renovation in the coming years. The Links, on the other hand, does not have to sell $200 green fees, $400-per-night suites, or the 80-some homes currently being built on the Championship Courser’s back nine, so its turf has not received as many inputs over the past 15 years. The result? The grass is still healthy and producing some bounce and roll.

In other words, less is more.

1 Egg

The Links at Sand Hollow’s property does have some limitations. Its narrowness forces every hole but the par 3s to play east-west, and the surroundings—aside from the Rock Bowl by the first tee and the Pine Valley Mountains in the distance—aren’t exactly attractive. Also, it’s too bad that the course’s original one-cut presentation has given way to a more conventional differentiation of fairway and rough. Still, the rippling terrain, restrained architecture, and firm-enough turf make for a credible approximation of links golf.

Course Tour

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