This new par-3 course isn’t what it seems — but it is endlessly fun

Fake grass has a real and growing role in golf.

Once largely reserved for backyard short-game setups, it has spread its reach into all kinds of public venues. The most prominent of those projects is SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., the indoor home of TGL. But the synthetic trend has taken (artificial) root at lower-profile playgrounds coast to coast.

The latest? Shortland Golf Club in Portland, Ore.

Shortland is the brainchild of Mike Fritz, a longtime golf junky and former footwear developer for Nike Golf who saw a void in his hometown market. To the east of Portland, some 45 minutes into the suburbs, was a sweet par-3 course, providing quick and easy access to the game.

“But there was nothing really like that on the west side of town,” Fritz says.

What to do about it was another matter. Land for a new course was scarce and expensive.

“I figured the only way to pull it off was to find something that was closing or ready to be sold,” he says.

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Fritz found just that in the old footprint of Sandelie Golf Course, a modest 18-hole layout, 30 minutes from downtown, whose owner was ready to retire. By 2022, the land had been parceled and was on the blocks. Fritz acquired a 31-acre quadrant and put a plan in place.

On a plot that size, there wasn’t room for a full-scale course, and Fritz didn’t want one, anyway. He knew enough to know that building and operating such a place was similar to opening a restaurant: sounds fun until you actually do it. Even if you got through design and construction, maintenance and labor were long-term obligations that could drain your bank account and drive you mad.

Fritz had been around and played a lot of courses. Among his memorable rounds was on a player-friendly par-3 course at Skamania Lodge, just over the Oregon border in Washington, that featured artificial greens and tees. Another was a loop on the Bad Little Nine, a wickedly engaging par-3 layout at Scottsdale National Golf Club in Arizona. 

What about something of a hybrid of the two? A short course that combined the subtleties and strategy of fine design with the benefits of synthetic turf.

For help, Fritz turned to Jackson Kahn Design, the architecture firm behind the Bad Little Nine, among other widely praised projects. It so happened that one of Jackson Kahn’s lead associates, Connor Dougherty, was Portland-based. Jackson Kahn had experience with backyard short-game setups, and though this was the firm’s first stab at a public-access course with synthetic turf, Dougherty and principal designer Tim Jackson had a good idea of what they wanted to create.

“The goal was to put a lot of character and movement into the greens and make them interesting to hit to,” he says. “We wanted a couple that would allow for creativity and to be a playable experience for everyone.”

It helped that fake grass was no long the inferior turf of generations past. Like golf equipment, it had advanced by leaps and bounds in the modern era so that it now played fairly true to life, bouncing, rolling and receiving shots in a manner close to that of real grass.

It was up to Jackson, Dougherty and Co. to do the rest.

The design they dreamed up is a 19-hole par-3 layout that loops, clover-like, around a square parcel, with a clubhouse and food cart at its center that the routing touches three times along the way. Holes range from 59 to 104 yards, with generous greens that vary in their shape and contouring, posing a grab-bag of demands. The 19th hole is overlooked by a clubhouse veranda aptly known as the “heckler’s deck,” which is not as intimidating as it sounds. After all, most golfers know better than to heckle a beginner, and most seasoned players can handle a good-natured ribbing. If not, they would have switched to another game.

All the tees, bunkers and putting surfaces at Shortland showcase synthetic turf from Celebrity Greens (the “sand” isn’t sand but 2-inch turf, painted white). That means no need for raking, watering, mowing or fixing ball marks. The putting surfaces, though, still call for care; they are rolled and sanded to keep them running smooth and country-club slick. Transition areas feature natural grass, mown to the height of a friendly pitch and putt. Miss the green and there’s a chance to recover.

Shortland has been busy since its early August opening, and last week, it added another draw: a 19-hole putting and chipping course called the Nest that can be played with a flat-stick or a wedge. Take your pick. The grass is fake, but the experience is real.

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