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Routing a golf course?

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Mike Nuzzo:
jonny,
I hope your progress is coming along.
Please post them when finished.
I've looked at several sites with only topo and aerial info first.
(see the Carthage Club in my interview)
You do your best until the first site visit, and then see what may work and won't.
Off site views are significant and vegetation too.

Depending on your ability to visualize the lands movement:
A hole that looks good in plan view may not be good in the field.
A hole can look average in plan view and be great due to the lands movement.

The following is one of my favorite quotes from this site..

--- Quote from: Gib Papazian on August 06, 2002, 04:40:38 PM ---Even more annoying is the practice of creating arbitrary rough lines in a lame attempt to give the fairway some shape or movement. If there is nothing to tie it in, the whole look strikes me as silly  - yet this is a common practice and does nothing to hide the lack of contour.

Better just to mow along the natural lines, even if that means the fiarway will be as straight as a string.

--- End quote ---

But your judges may like all those superflous squiggley lines too.
If you can, add a perspective view to give a better idea of what you are invisioning.

Good Luck.

Don_Mahaffey:
Jonny,
I'm not an architect nor a judge of routing plans so weigh what I have to say as you wish.
I'm guessing a course such as Pacific Dunes with back to back par 3s and 4 par 3's in the last 9 would never have won a routing contest. Yet, what was built on that piece of ground in SW Oregon is special. To win you'll probably have to have a good mix of yardages, have each par 3 be a different yardage and point in a different diection, no back to back 3s or 5s, design something 7700 yards long, all the normal stuff.
But, I just don't know how one could ever get the best use out of a piece of land unless their sole purpose is to use the existing land to build the best course possible. I know that's naive as constraints always exist, but I encourage all designers to build what they think is best, not what they think will be judged best by others.

Jonathan Davison:
thanks
Appreciate your thoughts.

Jeff_Brauer:
Johnny,

Not entirely sure I comprehend your question, espcecially since they are design competitions.  I have submitted similar routings, always with the disclaimer that I need wiggle room once I study the site as much as it deserves.  In fact, I am under contract for one now, where they have added a structure since the competition, the true base information shows some property changes, and oh yes, there is a sanitary sewer line that was never properly located....

So, any unknown condition can change a routing plan.  Also in the real world, safety concerns would change it, making you bail out on some potentially great holes.  

Lastly, I have always struggled with using a natural  hole that is a bit too far a walk/or ride from green  to next tee.  I have a lot of courses where I chose the natural hole, but also some where I spend more money in grading to put the tee near the previous green, even if slightly less natural.

Forrest Richardson:
Well, "18 of the most natural golf holes on the site" may not constitute a viable routing at all. I've often found loads of great holes, but as Yoda would say, "A course they do not always make."

What factors could deter the architect from using these holes? — There may be several, including some never before encountered. We are about to begin construction on a course with a mushroom farm on the downwind edge. Ever smelled a mushroom farm? It is not on my top list. There were several holes along this edge, but we chose the range...where no one hangs around except at one spot, the tee. We managed to position the tee as far away as possible. I suppose this is an environmental condition.

Should wind, hole direction, climate or soil conditions over rule a natural golf course? In some cases, I suppose. In many cases, you bet.

The trick in routing is to balance — and even unbalance — a scale of multiple arms. There are simply too many rules, all of which are just as easy to follow as to forget.

Good luck.

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