Modern Era

Beginning in the middle of the twentieth century, substantial paved roadways and the interstate highway system heralded a new era of golf course expansion. Significant grading of new course designs became habitual as large-scale hydraulic earth-moving equipment and considerable refinement in the use of explosives became available to the civilian population after World War II. In the early 1950s, the widespread use of golf carts began, permitting individual holes to be built out of sight of others as the tee of the following no longer needed to be close to the previous green, thus allowing designers to explore significant elevation changes in a single course. In addition, new composite metals allowed for lighter clubs, which hit higher and farther and heralded the era of target golf.