General Design Category

Chambers Bay Golf Course and Soundview Trail - HONOR AWARD
GCH, formerly Belt Collins USA

Jury Comments:
This is a truly remarkable and brilliant project that could and should help to inspire and set a new standard for the selection of sites and standards for golf course design here in America and abroad. First in selecting a ravaged site and then for its remarkable physical reconfiguration and environmental inventions it is an outstanding of the art landscape design.

This course, so reminiscent of the most famous of the “link” courses in Scotland, that of St. Andrews, is not only grounded in its place, its climate and ecological context, but also presents a truly public recreational opportunity.

The emphasis upon the use of native plants, the creation of habitat, of public access to a scenic resource for recreation, and the power of landscape to transform and heal an industrial wasteland is outstanding and of the highest achievement.

Finally, this project is commendable for the obvious great success of the collaboration of a group of skilled professionals: two firms of landscape architects, one specializing in golf course design; another locally knowledgeable; a superb architectural office; and talented engineers. The Chambers Bay project demonstrates the promise of landscape design to restore highly disturbed sites and to provide great environments for society.