Santa Fe

A free-form green with real shaping to it and a sand bunker cut into the fringe, set into a boulder border with decomposed granite around the outside. The bunker is the point: it lets you practise the up-and-down rather than just rolling putts across a flat surface.

Building a bunker into a green means two different constructions meeting at one edge. The green base is compacted tight for a true roll; the bunker is dug, lined and drained so the sand does not turn to soup after rain. The fringe turf is seamed between them so there is a defined lip to play off.