Hidden Gems

What is this place, this thing, we call Royal Chappy? That’s a question more easily answered by beginning with what we are not. Firstly, we’re not a blueprint. No one designed Royal Chappy - it designed itself. There were no bird’s eye views in the late 1800s or early 1900s, except for actual birds…but they weren’t saying much. So there were no establishing shots of the area to be used for laying out a golf course. Far from being a blank canvas, our land was already painted - just a few details to be added perhaps, but already essentially fully formed. I’m pretty sure that my great granddad just looked at the land and thought, “that looks like a good place for a green. That makes sense”. And then laid out 24 holes. I doubt that an ounce of earth was moved to accommodate his vision (with the exception of their bottle dump that was made necessary by an enthusiasm for whiskey and rye). Frank (granddad) designed Beetle Cats, radial tires, and dental instruments, but he was known to let the natural world suit itself - he felt that it knew best. Later, after the Links had grown over and trees had been introduced to the land by littering birds (they had no regard for where they dropped their seeds), my grandparents reclaimed that which they could. Their layout in the early 60s remains for six of our nine holes. Again, they displaced next to nothing. If you walk the course now, you can see how stuff just sorta fits.

When Kim and George and Jeff and I renovated the six holes into nine, we also let the new three holes find themselves. Some trees and underbrush were removed, but otherwise the land was left alone. Whatever grasses that decided to grow in the area vacated by the trees, grew…what could not, didn’t. We reseeded the greens and tees, but let everywhere else just do their thing (they’d done it pretty well all by themselves for hundreds of years, so why bother them?)

So, to me, this lack of artifice, this absence of design, this laissez-faire attitude lends to our course its gem-like quality. It is relatively untouched and it is allowed to shine all on its own.

Our Links also benefit from the results of a fairly singular vision. There aren’t a lot of people involved in our “development”, rather it has been typical for one person to dictate direction and personality - Frank, Ham, and now me. This is a luxury afforded to very few golf courses - the opportunity to pass down a feeling through the decades is very rare indeed. My grandmother, Mary Marshall, was keenly aware and fond of the way things were as a child on Chappy - she learned and observed the ways of her elders - and saw no reason to do things any differently as an adult. She passed this aesthetic along to her husband Ham, who in turn passed it along to me. There really was nothing particularly purposeful about this process - I think we all just really liked the way things were done, and all the accordant fun that went along with it.

There’s a child-like quality to Royal Chappy, not in a frivolous sense but in its ability to harken back to joy we found in our childhood games. There is a freedom here to play the game the way that you’d like to play. There’s little artifice involved or fabrication instilled here - we don’t try to hard to tell you what we are. That’s up to you. There’s certainly some value in that.

When first we redid the course, and there were bills to be paid, I spent considerable time trying to “market” the Links. I wanted to spread an awareness of our course. I wanted it to “catch on”. But any attempt to do so seemed like I was simply placing something awkwardly atop the course, rather than it being already integrated. I couldn’t manufacture a vibe because that vibe was whatever any person felt at any particular time. Royal Chappy would be Royal Chappy almost in defiance of any label. So we remain relatively hidden, thanks in large part to the course’s unwillingness to named.

The appeal of the hidden gem is in its discoverability. Golfers at Chappy channel some of their inner-explorer when they set foot on the property. Everybody likes to find stuff, and that finding is all the more enjoyable when what you find is actually worth finding. We will never be known for our spectacular greens or breath-taking panoramic views, but we probably wouldn’t be so hidden if we possessed those qualities.

I read about “hidden gems” in publications, blogs, and articles. But I feel that any course that has the name Fazio, Nicklaus, Hanse or any other famed designer cannot truly be hidden. Their involvement alone makes it un-hidden. That is not to say that these courses aren’t stunning…just not hidden.

I love our little place in space. I hope that is obvious to anyone that comes upon us. We are small, unimposing, and a bit rough…but man are we loved.

Brad