Continuation of thread about great sites that weren't taken full advantage of

[Mark Brown]

Great sites or settings where the archichtect didn't take full advantage of its natural attributes.

I'll start it off with Old Tabby Links by Palmer (not a top 100 course) on Spring Island, Bloody Point on Daufuskie Is. by Morrish and Weiskopf, Atlantic and Ocean Forest by Rees Jones.

At Ocean Forest there were a lot of natural sand dunes and Rees grassed all of it. It could have been somewhtat of an east coast Bandon Dunes.

[TEPaul]

Mark:

This may be a little off the subject but this week Wayne and I are getting together with head pro Scott Nye of Merion who came to Merion from Ross's York C.C. and Ron Prichard and we're going to analyze Ross's York C.C overlaid on a Flynn routing proposal for the property to see if we can determine some pros and cons of either. I believe Craig Disher put this Ross/Flynn overlay together. This should be interesting as I don't know if anyone has actually done something like this before. Apparently the two routings are pretty different, which being Ross and Flynn doesn't surprise me at all.

[Tom_Doak]

This was a topic I suggested so I feel compelled to contribute a bit, particularly as it is languishing.

From my own experience, I would put Old Head and The National (Moonah course) in Australia on the list.  I looked at both sites in their raw form and I was disappointed with the finished product.  It's probably unfair of me to say so because I am predisposed to the ideas I had for either site ... so I'm sorry in advance.

Old Head was a VERY difficult site in that it lacked proper acreage and, other than coastline, there were few natural features to work with.  Someone said on the other thread that it lacked interesting contour in the fairways, but that was a function of the land; my feeling is that they built TOO MANY mounds around the greens which are clearly artificial and detract from the wonder of the site.  I'm not sure it would have been a great course as a super-minimalist design, but I think it would have been far more interesting.

The National is a much better course than Old Head, probably a 7 on the Doak scale, but my impression going in was that the land was a 9.  It suffers from too much grass definition -- you can see across large swaths of the site, and it was once grazed as a single, amazing rolling surface, but now it just looks like strips of man-made golf holes separated by thick rough.  The imposed scale of the golf course ruins the original appeal of the site.  Cape Kidnappers has some of the same issues, though we are trying to work on it.

It's more speculative of me to nominate other courses where I didn't see the land beforehand, but certainly the present incarnation of Timber Point on Long Island is another; and I believe there are lots of courses in northern Michigan which failed to put the sandy soil to good use.

[Brent Hutto]

Honestly, I probably wouldn't know a "great site" if it bit me in the rear end but I've commented in another thread that the Legacy golf club near Aberdeen in the Pinehurst area is the most ass-backwards course I've ever seen. When you're walking between holes (considerable distances in some cases) you're on firm, sandy, rolling ground forested with pine trees. But then you arrive at the next hole, generally poorly-drained and built on mucky black soil that seems to have been dredged up when they were creating the lake on the site.

Maybe someone can correct me but I always thought that sandy soil was supposed to be the ideal place to build a golf course because it's easy to drain and can support firm, healthy turf. Yet the final result is a course with soft, wet fairways and boggy spots near some greens. The obvious question is why, why, why.

I learned to play golf (as an adult) on a pretty cheap public course that wasn't even designed, it was built by a guy who owned some land and a bulldozer. But being across a ridge of sand hills all but a couple holes were totally enjoyable to play an hour after a two or three-inch rainfall. Maybe that biases me toward being frustrated with wet playing conditions. I always hate paying $50+ to play courses that don't provide as good a playing surface as a $20 one nobody ever heard of.

[TEPaul]

Tom Doak said;

"The National is a much better course than Old Head, probably a 7 on the Doak scale, but my impression going in was that the land was a 9.  It suffers from too much grass definition -- you can see across large swaths of the site, and it was once grazed as a single, amazing rolling surface, but now it just looks like strips of man-made golf holes separated by thick rough."

This is one of the most interesting remarks I've ever read on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com. It makes one really ponder. I know exactly what TomD means by too much grass definition in man-made looking swaths across apparently a single (amazing) rolling surface. This is precisely what I've been thinking about on a similar piece of land on a property we've been looking at. The solution of how exactly to avoid this and retain the look of that natural looking single swath of land but with golf holes (fairways) on it is problematic, though. I'd like to see minimal earth-moving on it and was thinking the best way to retain that single natural swath look would be to use natural grass to sort of dial down somewhat to a lot on the visibility of large fairway areas from various perspectives and angles. This gets into other problems though, unfortunately, I guess. Most golfers don't like architecture that dials down on the visibility of target areas (fairways)---eg this sappy notion of everything being right in front of you. But I like that dialed down visibilty of target areas (fairways) a lot. I feel it makes golfers "feel" the land and its problems and solutions for strategies in golf much better and the ways to go rather than just having it all smack dab in their eye!

A most interesting remark by Tom Doak. I'd sure like to hear how he would solve that problem he cited at National.  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark Brown,

Spanish Bay.

How can you say that Atlantic was a GREAT site ?

[TEPaul]

I always like Old Head and never felt as critical towards it as some seem to be. I was very interested to hear Tom Doak say above perhaps in those interior holes they did too much shaping around greens and such which may not be necessary. Obviously it was sort of flat and featureless in that interior area but in the end I guess one should ask---So What?---that site has that one non-architectural feature that works so well with golf---eg Wind!---and they probably could've just gone with that. There was some unfortunate and really artifical looking shaping, particularly on some of the west coast holes right around those greens but I was told that was a later application that was basically defensive, as, believe it or not seeing as how high over the coast line those holes are they were still getting really damaged by the elements.

[George Pazin]

I've asked this question before and never really received a satisfactory answer:

How does one really truly and accurately evaluate a "great" site? It seems to me that often people base the site on how the final product turns out, especially with regard to the architect. If he's a "minimalist" and the course turns out great, obviously he was working with a superior site (others' opinion, not mine). If he's someone who tends to move more dirt and a course turns out, shall we say, less than special, well, obviously he was constricted by the limitations of the site.

As a corollary, how dependent on the site is an architect when producing a superior course? I know setting can make things extra special (think Cypress Point or Sand Hills, or any of the many oceanside courses), but I continually come back to the example of Oakmont. This land is, at least on a superficial level, no different from any other land in western PA, yet there is only one Oakmont. If someone can explain to me the difference in Oakmont's property versus the rest of western Pa, I'd love to hear it. You could probably say similar things about Lehigh. Its hilly, somewhat severe land would be right at home in western PA, yet it is a much better course than most we have over here.

Look at something like Doonbeg - dunes galore, but since the course has not quite lived up to expectations (at least, that's how it seems to me), now people are saying that the dunes were too severe. Is the property really that different from Ballybunion's? I ask this as a serious question, I've never had the pleasure of visiting the Emerald Isle.

I think site selection is far more difficult and uncertain than most think, and I think it is much more incumbent on the architect to truly maximize a property than many believe.

If great courses like Oakmont and Riviera can be built on land like the land they sit on, I'd say there are a helluva lot of courses out there that sit on sites that were not taken full advantage of.

[Donnie Beck]

Atlantic is by no strech a great site, but it isn't horrible either. I find Rees's mounding to get very monotinous. Bobby Ranum does as good a job as anyone keeping it firm and fast and conditions are second to none. I wonder what could have been if there weren't some many enviromental issues with the site.

[George Pazin]

Donnie -

It was a few years ago already, but Pat Mucci did assign us all a homework assignment of buying and reading the book about the creation of Atlantic. I think it's entitled Miracle at Breeze Hill and it was indeed a great read. There were tons of environmental and public policy type issues surrounding the creation of Atlantic, and I greatly admire the principals for having the tenacity to see it through.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

I am probably going to get blasted on thei one, but here goes anyway.

One small disclaimer tocover my ..you know what...I did play this course soon after it opened,and that is the only time I have played it.
That been said, I was somewhat dissapoitned in Kingsbarns, I truly felt as though it was somewhat "americanised" and lacked a touch of natural feel.
I suppose I am saying I felt it was not minimalist enough for my taste, considering the land it was built on.
As time has progressed, it may be that the blending of fairway/rough/fringes and such have given the course a more natural and linksy feel..on my visit, that was not the case.

Ther I have opened myself for critisism as I have read most people like the course.

[TEPaul]

Michael W-P;

You're definitely not the first or only one who's said that about Kingsbarn. If you happened to see some of the before and after photos on here of it you'd see exactly how much they did. That was some pretty bland raw land. I've never seen it in person but it did look interesting in the photos. We also met with Mark Parsinen in NYC at his apartment for about half a day and he certainly is impressive to talk to  particularly about some of the deeper and more esoteric aspects of golf, golf architecture and its spectrum of strategic possiblities. I was really impressed talking with him. His heart and mind certainly seems to be in the right place in a conceptual sense.

[jeffwarne]

Donnie-
Atlantic gets better every year(Bobby Ranum is top notch),some particularly good work is going on this fall-I think it was a pretty good site-although the farmland did make it a bit topsoil heavy
 unique kettleholes and varied topography
the enviromentalists did keep the site from being maximized with 200 foot wetland setbacks

[JSlonis]

Michael,

Our foursome had the same feeling as you for Kingbarns on our first visit to Scotland in Aug. 2003. There are some very good holes with some spectacular views, and while we all enjoyed the course, I couldn't get passed the notion that it seemed as if something wasn't quite right.  Maybe the problem was that I knew how manufactured the entire course was.  I wouldn't discourage anyone from playing there, in fact I would recommend it.  It is definitely a course to be seen.  

I could best describe my view of Kingbarns by saying it felt like a "Disney World" vision/creation of Links golf.  

Now that I think about Kingsbarns, I wouldn't mind seeing it for a second time.  There certainly is alot to take in when playing KB for the first time, perhaps after a 2nd round, I'd be able to appreciate it a little more.

One thing that did surprise me after the fact was how low the Tour players scores were at Kingsbarns during the Dunhill Cup.

[Tom_Doak]

Michael:  Personally, the thing that impressed me the most about Kingsbarns was that the features appeared natural to me even though I knew they weren't, and that the grass transition from fairway to rough to junk was much more natural-looking than on most new courses.  Perhaps you saw it on a bad day or in a bad season; I know they struggled a bit with the turf early on after cutting it too low too quickly.

Tom P:  What National should have done was either a) keep grazing the cows, or b) place some of the holes a bit closer together so they could mow everything between them a la St. Andrews, and vary the sizes of the turfed areas instead of having them all of a similar width.  We are essentially doing this in Palm Desert now to break up the "desert" look of that site.

[jeffwarne]

Michael WP-
Kingsbarns is certainly not my kind've place with the American style operation(pros and clipboards everywhere) and clubhouse(minimalist never came to mind with the operation),but I thought the architect did an excellent job with the course.
It never had a chance to be one of my favorites because of my prejudices going in and the other low key,historic,enchanting,natural places I"ve played in the British Isles .
Nonetheless,despite my prejudices,I thoroughly enjoyed the course and the setting hard on the ocean(which counts with me)
The land itself before the course(from the pictures I've seen and the surrounding land)did not look particularly linksy.
I ask you though,if it were you and you had this somewhat featureless(or at least duneless) land in a wonderful setting,what would you do different?
If you were told that the architect didn't move any dirt(and just found the holes),would you like it better?

I'd be curious to have some of the architects(minimalists or not)weigh in on this.

[Brian_Gracely]

This are some nice animation "transitions" on Kyle Phillips website for Kingsbarn

http://www.kylephillips.com/home.html  (lower right-hand side)

[Tom_Doak]

We have had some interesting discussions about minimalism at Sebonack, although without ever using the word.

At the par-3 17th, in particular, the owner said he loved the contour as it was originally ... with a large dune obscuring pretty much the entire green site, as well as the view toward the bay beyond the green.  Neither Jack Nicklaus nor I was particularly fond of that arrangement, so eventually we all agreed to eat away the left-hand side of the dune to see some of the green.  As Jack put it, what if God had made the dune a bit smaller on the left, would you have liked that more or less?

The problem, though, is that once you go down that road there is no logical stopping point ... today none of the original mound is left, and we're still tinkering with that hole, whereas a lot of the holes we left alone are long since finished!

I believe the pinnacle of minimalism is not necessarily to do a course where you don't move any earth, but to minimize the number of places where you do have to do work.  The fewer places you have to put something back together, the more likely you'll get them all done seamlessly.  [For the math geeks, an example:  if you're 80% successful at doing perfect construction work, then if you only have to do major earthwork at three holes, you have a 51% chance of getting it all right; but if you have to do earthwork at ten holes, your odds of pulling it off every time are down to 11%.]

[Brent Hutto]

I believe the pinnacle of minimalism is not necessarily to do a course where you don't move any earth, but to minimize the number of places where you do have to do work.  The fewer places you have to put something back together, the more likely you'll get them all done seamlessly.  [For the math geeks, an example:  if you're 80% successful at doing perfect construction work, then if you only have to do major earthwork at three holes, you have a 51% chance of getting it all right; but if you have to do earthwork at ten holes, your odds of pulling it off every time are down to 11%.]

It's probably even worse than that. If a hole doesn't get done right the first time (20%) you'll often end up making further changes to compensate and those changes will only have an 80% chance of working out right so there's a (4%) chance of doing a second reworking and so forth. That's actually a quite well-known pattern of events in software engineering and is part of the reason why software systems of even modest complexity never end up working quite right. In fact, the "fixup" work usually has a lower rate of sucess than the original changes.

[Sean_A]

Michael W-P and Jeff

Kingsbarns is not really my kind of club either.  It's not really a club at all, more an upscale American pay and play.  A club is a difficult object to create.  However, as Tom states, I was very impressed with the what was created.  I think as a course, it's one of the best new ones I have seen, but I won't be rushing back at £120 a pop.

Ciao

Sean

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Jeff,
Good question, and thankfully because I am not an architect I can answer simply by saying...I DO NOT KNOW....with regards to what I would do differently.
I understand that it was built where it was, so that its proximity to glory would aid in it's success as a business.
I have to agree that they did not have a great deal in terms of land to satrt with, and with that in mind they did a good job.

In a simplistic way my answer would be find a better site, but I am sure Mr Doak is shuddering at that comment thinking.."you idiot you cannot always find a good site" that I also understan..hence the use of the word simplistic.

I did not think it was a bad course at all, but just not a course that lives up to alot of those around it.
I am sure that most Americans who travel and play it, love it because it is what I would call 'american Links' and after all that was the primary purpose for the owners to build it.

Ithink many links purists think the same way ,but to a lesser degree, about Turnberry. It somehow lacks the overall feel of true links.
About 5 years ago I went home with a bunch of memebers from my home club.
We played the usual, troon, St Andrews, Carnoustie, Muirfield, Royal Birkdale, Royal Lytham,
I threw in Western Gailes,Prestwick ans Southerness..but they all though Turnberry was the best.
To a man the answer why was..it was the best kept and the greenest.

That I guess is my point,'Americanised' may not be the right word, but that is the word we used as we were growing up,when they started putting underground sprinklers on the Open courses...that is not that long ago.

In fact trivia question...which Open championship was the first played on a course with automated underground sprinklers?

[Mark Brown]

Atlantic wasn't a great site but it was good and I think the dunes/mounding all looked the same as did most of the green sites -- narrow openings in front with drop offs into bunkers on each side. Rees is a good guy but lacks creativity. His perfect circular bunkers make me crazy as does his containment mounding. You can't see the golf holes if you have to take a cart.

[SPDB]

Great sites or settings where the archichtect didn't take full advantage of its natural attributes.

I'll start it off with Old Tabby Links by Palmer (not a top 100 course) on Spring Island....

Mark - Did you include that in the marketing materials you developed for the course?  

Also, I think you're characterization of Ocean Forest is a bit extreme in its comparison to Bandon Dunes. Bandon Dunes sits high on a bluff, whereas Ocean Forest sits half on ocean, half on brackish marsh. Its lowland.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Donnie Beck,

I think you'd be pleasantly surprised by the changes that continue to take place at Atlantic.  I would expect most of the significant changes to be completed by 2006.

JeffWarne,

Bobby Ranum, Rick Hartman and others continue to improve the quality and condition of the golf course.

Mark Brown,

I don't understand your reference about carts and seeing the holes.  Could you elaborate ?

I would agree that perhaps too many holes have a narrow opening to one side or the other, but, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that that's already been poined out by interested parties, acknowledged and under consideration for alteration by some at the club.  Atlantic continues to improve.

With the environmental, permiting and legal problems inherent in the site, I don't know that I would classify it as a good site.
It's certainly not a great site, which was the subject of this thread.

What circular bunkers were you referencing ?

Now Spanish Bay is another matter.

[jeffwarne]

Patrick,

You're right-Rick Hartmann was the one who showed me the recent changes(I was the directoror of instruction there for 6 years under Rick),and deserves a lot of the credit-as do the members and board(and Rees) for allowing the course to evolve positively