Australian golf’s most prolific Major winner, Karrie Webb, has turned her talents to golf-course architecture and is intent on making a new name for herself.
Ross Perrett Perrett has seen and done it all.
Having worked in more than 30 countries and built golf courses on every imaginable type of land including derelict fish farms in Thailand, abandoned quarries in Egypt, rice paddies in Indonesia, rubbish tips in China, farmland in Scotland, reclaimed land from the sea in China and the occasional stunning sand dunes in Australia, he hadn’t left too many boxes unchecked.
Now, he’s ticking off another first by teaming up with Australia’s greatest Major champion in Karrie Webb. By shifting turf with the queen of Australian golf, Perrett is redesigning the entire stereotype of this male-dominated industry. And no one is more ready to make a noise than Webb herself. Here, she shares new insights into the challenges of building a course for everyone, losing Aussie jobs to foreigners, and why the design industry is taking huge steps forward with her appointment, and not just from the back tees.
On venturing down the design route…
Golf course design has been an option for me nearly my entire career. Very early on I was approached by David Marriner, who owned Laguna Quays in my native North Queensland, to build a second course on the property. That project went all the way through, from me seeing it as a rainforest, to me seeing the corridors and seeing it shaped. Right before it was to be grassed the company went bust and now it’s a rainforest again. I was only 25 when that opportunity came out. I’ve been redesigning Townsville Golf Club with Bob Harrison for the past 10 years. It’s been an ongoing process and hopefully we’ll get it done at some point.
On being welcomed by the boys…
Ross Perrett and Peter Thomson approached me around 2011 when they were putting in a bid to design the Rio Olympics golf course. I had a fantastic experience with them on that process. Peter was a wonderful gentleman and every time I was with both of them there was such a great mutual respect between us and I really felt like I was a part of the team from the very beginning. Nowadays I spend a lot of time with Ross. We put in a few other bids for work including RACV Royal Pines and another course up in Uluru, so we’re planting a few seeds. Last year I heard Indooroopilly might be coming up for expressions of interest and Ross and I agreed to start working together on a bid. Fortunately, we got the job! I think we decided with that success that there could be a lot more opportunities as a partnership so we officially formed the Perrett Webb design firm.
On why Perrett Webb made sense…
When Ross and I talk about our likes and dislikes of a golf course, we are very much on the same page. The thing I love about Ross as a person is, in many respects, he’s just a typical Aussie bloke. He loves his sport, particularly AFL and golf. He’s someone I can always have a beer or glass of wine with. He has a very artistic side to him. He loves to paint… very much into his art. He has bonsais and a very different side to him that not many people would know about, and it makes him an incredibly interesting person to be around. The self-portrait he painted, left-handed after he lost the use of his right hand following his stroke, is amazing. He couldn’t even swallow after the stroke but he’s talking a lot better and every day he’s getting more movement back in his right hand. Hopefully he’ll be back to full strength really soon. He’s always been super respectful of my knowledge. I probably downplay my importance in the partnership but Ross tells me I’ve got it all up here in my head, it’s his job to pull it out. Working together on Indooroopilly has been great in this regard. Ross sees the work from a designer’s point of view and I see it from a player’s point of view. From the very first day I worked with Ross and Peter, it’s really opened my eyes up to the whole experience.
On understanding a new art…
I played all over the world so I feel like I have a holistic approach to playing golf and the courses it’s played on. Good design more often than not comes down to good land. I know in our interview process for the Rio Oympics course, we were asked if we would design a course more like a links course, or a US-based course. I said why wouldn’t we design it like an Australian golf course, or at least with that mentality because I really felt our courses had their own look and feel rather than simply following something from another country. I’ve always said Australian golf courses have the best of both worlds and there’s no better example of this than down on the Melbourne Sandbelt. There, you can bump and run or with certain pin placements, be forced to play target golf to a degree. It truly captures the creativity of links golf and the precision of American golf all in one. My opinion on what I like about a golf course has definitely broadened over time. If you’d asked me 10 years ago, it was how a course played strategically and what it had to offer, rather than the holistic view. In fact, there were probably lots of courses back then that people asked me what I liked about them and I probably didn’t have a full answer. Even though I was very single-minded with how it played, the overall beauty of them was probably something I subconsciously enjoyed but didn’t really know that was why I enjoyed it.
On golf course design’s greatest challenge…
As a player I’m always looking for something that’s going to challenge my ability. But I’ve played in plenty of pro-ams over the years and I like to see the amateur golfer have plenty of options to play the hole. The puzzle to producing a great course is making it challenging for the elite player and still enjoyable for the amateur, ensuring they’re not losing balls all day or spending most of it in bunkers. Our brief at Indooroopilly was all about the experience for our members. They said, “If you can make it challenging for the top players, great, but we don’t want our members to have an unenjoyable time.” That’s the jigsaw puzzle: creating pin positions that make the course a couple of shots harder on a medal day, but then on a Thursday afternoon competition you can set the course up for every golfer, man or woman, to go out and play to their handicap.
On designing from the back tees…
I get designing courses from the back tees … I do. If you are a course that wants to be rated from there, that’s how it will be rated. It’s up to what the club or owner wants. I know how good the guys are and I want to create a challenging experience for them. I also want to create a set of tees for women’s professional tournaments. The challenge when we play professional events on any existing course is we are bombing it over fairways bunkers or we are not reaching them, and so we are never playing the holes the way they were designed to be played because there are never any tee boxes that cater to our length. I think the average length of the female professional is about the same as the average men’s club competition so that’s where the majority of the golf is going to be played. I know Indooroopilly is making sure the ladies’ tees – well, I don’t like to call them the ladies’ tees – the ‘forward’ tees aren’t just an afterthought in our redesign. They’re making sure we cater for the people who want to play off the forward tees and ensure we deliver the same playing experience.
On losing Aussie jobs to foreigners…
Seeing overseas architects land Australian-based projects is really frustrating because there’s no one better equipped to re-design an Australian golf course than an Australian designer. I take nothing away from guys like Tom Doak and Gil Hanse, both exceptional at what they do, but I think Australian design companies can do as good a job for half the price. Clubs are also likely to get a more personal experience during the entire process because we’re based here, not flying in at different times to complete the job, at the club’s expense.
On her dream project…
I’d really love to build a course from scratch. I don’t think there’s one course in Australia being constructed as a brand-new job. There’s lots of redesign work but nothing new. I think there will be plenty of opportunities in the near future. Somewhere on the Mornington Peninsula, King Island or mainland Tasmania would be very appealing. But I’d love for Ross and I to get an opportunity to build something iconic.
On the closure of public golf courses…
I think it’s dangerous to get rid of greenspace for cement buildings. It’s not good for the course of nature to not have greenspace to clean our air and all the other things scientists tell us. Council-owned golf courses in particular need to have a sustainable business model without costing too much money. One of the challenges to designing courses in Australia is we don’t have unlimited access to water or boast huge ground crews, so you can’t just go out and design a course that requires lots of water and maintenance. It requires more thinking … more than is currently being done.
On golf course rankings…
As I’ve gotten to understand them a bit more, I don’t really like how course rankings work. Some aren’t even based on the course itself. For example, I’m a member of a course in Florida and one year I was away for a month and when I returned, I noticed the club had planted 500 trees in the most random places on the course. When I asked them why, they said it was because they were trying to block out the houses as that’s one of the criteria the course was being judged on. Apparently if you can see houses from the fairways it’s a check against the course but that’s not how a course is played. Some rankings even take into account the locker room and clubhouse experience. Seriously? It should be the playability of the actual course, not the experience unrelated to its playability, that dictates a course’s standing in the game.
On why green doesn’t mean great…
The perfect example that made me realise that Australia doesn’t put as big an emphasis on “green” as the US involved, ironically, Hannah Green. During her first year as my scholarship winner, Hannah was over at the US Open and we were driving to the course for a practice round. As we drove through the gates Hannah shouted: “Oh my God, it’s so green!” In America everything is so long and lush, particularly off the fairways. In fact, there’s a course in Florida where the greenkeeper was copping hell from his board because there were weeds in the rough – weeds! I was like, It’s the rough! Here in Australia, at Royal Melbourne, for example, we don’t water much off the fairways. It’s left to Mother Nature and it makes complete sense. The only thing that’s watered nowadays, and we’re seeing it more and more with guys like Coore and Crenshaw and their courses, are the tees, fairways and greens. Let the rough be rough. Let it be yellow and natural, not green and artificial.
On why clubs should choose Perrett Webb…
I think with Ross’ design experience, my playing experience and also being a woman, we’re going to bring a different element to the design business. I’m going to think about the playability of the course as a whole, not just from the back tees. I think we’re also both on the same page when it comes to making golf courses financial, not leaving them with the burden of extravagant upkeep costs or an expensive redesign invoice. Membership clubs need to be able to pay the bills and, ultimately, stay in operation. We’re here to ensure that happens.
