R O L E O F T H E L A N D S C A P E A R C H I T E C T
The submitter led the project and was responsible for
golf course planning and design, clubhouse planning
and landscape architecture, resort planning (design
and landscape architecture) and community planning
(design and landscape architecture). Sub-consultants
were responsible for golf course irrigation, civil
engineering, environmental engineering, golf course
construction and golf course management.
S I G N I F I C A N C E
The purpose of Glacier Club’s new and revised courses
is to create a place of play that exists in harmony
with its wider setting. Most courses do not base their
design on environmental needs and most do not plan
for an operations system that will nurture the ecology
of the course as well as its environs over the long
term. Glacier Club was designed as a “green” course
and uses a unique blending of disciplines that blurs
the edges between landscape architecture, planning
and golf course design.
GLACIER CLUGB olf Course 2006 H O N O R A W A R D
C A T E G O R Y 1 A :
D E S I G N ( O V E R $ 5 0 0 , 0 0 0 )
P U R P O S E O F T H E P R O J E C T
The successful expansion and renovation of the Glacier Club
golf course is based on an exceptional design that sustained
the varied topography of the San Juan Mountains while utilizing
it to create engaging risk-and-reward golfing strategies.
With its panoramic mountain scenery, the Glacier Club had an
ideal resort setting when it was created in the1970s. However,
before its purchase by new owners in 2001, the Glacier Club
had deteriorated and revenue had declined. These problems
were addressed with comprehensive plans for a new private
nine-hole golf course, the re-design of the old course, and an
array of new accommodations.
Placed on a large parcel of steep and forested acreage, the
Glacier Club offered the potential for exceptional golf that
fit into the surrounding terrain and ecosystem. Innovative
use of sand underlay became part of an advanced system
of water conservation, irrigation, and drainage and bio-filter
swales that mitigated impact on the adjacent Las Animas River.
The preservation of native vegetation and more than 24 acres
of wetlands are additional examples of conservation, a concern
as integral to the design process as the creation of a rewarding
game in a Western setting.
As part of a master plan of expanded accommodations and
facilities, the new Glacier Club has been recognized as a
premier destination by Golfweek and Golf Digest. Expert
landscape architecture and a commitment to sound ecology
in southwestern Colorado have raised the standard of golf
course design.
C C A S L A P R O F E S S I O N A L D E S I G N A W A R D S P R O G R A M
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