Sometimes it will be necessary to make changes to the existing landscape in order to build a green site, tee or even a complete hole. The crux is to make the changes look so natural that, at a casual glance, most golfers will not see the new land forms as artificial.
At IVGD, our goal is to create land forms that look so natural that it is very hard to see where nature stops and the constructed landscape begins. This often means spending a lot of time fine-tuning a land form that is already functional but doesn't look natural enough in our eyes.
The acid test is whether it appears obvious within a glance where artificial work has been done…. An artificial hill which is pleasing and natural to the eye will cost about six times more than a hill considered purely from a scientific point of view.
Tom Simpson “Golf Architecture. The Game of Golf” 1931
The model should be the natural sand-dune country which is found near the sea…... If the sand-dunes be taken as the natural and perfect model, it follows that their characteristics should be reproduced
Harry S. Colt “Some Essays on Golf-course Architecture” 1920