World Golf Hall of Fame

In June, I was fortunate enough to join a family member for a bucket-list trip to Pinehurst, NC, a highly sought-after destination for all things golf, both historical and new. Among the numerous courses and famed grounds is the newly constructed USGA World Golf Hall of Fame. Although visiting this space wasn't on my initial agenda, we found ourselves with extra time and decided to explore the newly opened venue.

It's not often I enter a museum or permanent exhibit space and feel the inspiration I felt when entering the WGHOF. These spaces are notoriously hard to keep looking current, so to enter a truly new space was a joy. Separated into two floors, the venue was warmed with wood grain finishes, elegantly lit, and tastefully filled with video monitors and projections that injected movement into the space. What I thought would be a 10-20 minute visit turned into over an hour of exploring the displays as not only a fan of the game of golf, but also as a fan of the design and execution. Here are some of my key takeaways...

SUCCESSES:

• The displays were thoughtful, well executed, informative, and eye catching. Even to the non-golfer, I feel that the space would create intrigue.

• The individual exhibits were allowed to breathe, and one did not feel that it was crowding another. This allowed them to scale each one larger and make it more impactful.

• They blended the physical and digital elements in a soft manner. The "Flight of the Ball" display was more of an art piece than it was an exhibit, and the technology that was used did not distract from the visual elegance.

• The second floor "locker" style exhibits of each player were executed extremely well. Premium materials and intentional lighting made each one a work of art. Even better, they were done so in a well thought out, modular system so player lockers could be added and/or moved as-needed in the future.

• A large, partial digital screen in the second floor rotunda was just enough digital content to not overpower the space, but could easily be viewed and observed while walking or sitting throughout the room. Along with this content was light audio that helped fill the space with background noise.

• There was just enough tactility to add dimension and texture to the exhibits to avoid them simply being 2D graphics.

POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS:

• The digital integration of a few of the exhibits fell flat compared to expectations. The Flight of the Ball "AR" viewer was nothing more than a few preset info tabs, and left me bummed for what it could have been (and perhaps will be in the future)

• Many lockers also had a scannable pin that I was told would lead to digital artifacts and footage of the players talking about the items in their curated space, but when scanned the pins lead to a malfunctioning website. I know the effort it takes to keep digital tools running smoothly within a public space, so these things while disappointing, were not surprising.

Overall, I left the visit feeling inspired by the game of golf, and even more so for the environmental design and execution of the buildout. Huge kudos to Ralph Appelbaum Associates for their work on the space and to the USGA for pushing the exerpeince beyond typical and lackluster exhibits.