Fazio interview re Ritz Carlton Club, Sarasota, FL

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Here are some excerpts from an interview with Tom Fazio about his new course in Sarasota, FL, the second high end club to open there recently. The first was RTJ2's Founders Club and the third will be Nicklaus' The Concession.



Tampa Bay Business Journal - 2:08 PM EDT Thursday
Famous golf architect unveils new Sarasota course
Larry Halstead
In what was once a tomato field, renowned golf course architect Tom Fazio has created the latest of Sarasota's high-end golf clubs.

He was in town Thursday to answer questions about the Members Golf Club in anticipation of its Dec. 16 opening.

Members Golf Club is owned by the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Sarasota and will allow hotel guests to play the course, but it is primarily a members club with a golf membership cap at 300.

The opening of a new course is bittersweet for the designer.

"The fun is in digging in the mud to create the course," Fazio told a media-heavy crowd on the 13th tee box, "not in the actual opening day."

He said he was given 315 acres of wilderness as a blank palate to design an "old-style" golf course, one that emphasizes the open space environment with no residential restrictions.

Members Golf Club was constructed without the usual Florida amenity of fairway-lined executive-level homes.

Members Golf Club has six tee boxes to accommodate all skill levels of golfers, with the back tees set up at 7,549 yards.

"The length of the back tees is built for today's golfers," he said.

Fazio and his crew dug 15 lakes on the property to collect the dirt to contour each fairway, giving the course a rolling fairway feel as if it were the natural origin.

"I try to make a course look like we didn't build it, like this was the natural setting," he said.
 
 
 

[rgkeller]

>>"I try to make a course look like we didn't build it, like this was the natural setting," he said.<<

No bunkers, one may assume.

[BCrosby]

"Fazio and his crew dug 15 lakes on the property to collect the dirt to contour each fairway, giving the course a rolling fairway feel as if it were the natural origin [sic?]."

Let me get this straight. Fazio is digging trenches to find dirt to create rolling contours on land that is naturally flat to make the land look natural.

Surely it's me. He can't possibly be saying that.

Please, somebody, anybody, tell me what I'm missing here.

Bob

[A.G._Crockett]

Bob,
You're missing the fact that the fun is digging in the mud!  

[George Pazin]

I think he meant natural in the sense that Shadow Creek looks like the parkland found in other areas naturally. It's up to everyone else to determine if he succeeds.

In case one of the site's mindreaders infers that I'm being sarcastic here, I'm not. Another example would be Tom D's Rawls Course. It does not look natural relative to surrounding flatlands, but in and of itself it looks natural (to me, at least). Contrast this with the highly sculpted approach of other designers, which could never really occur naturally in any setting.

It's a press release, at any rate - don't spend too much time thinking about it, Bob.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Interestingly enough, this is the routing that Steve Curry and I had the opportunity to listen to Marzolf speak about at last years Golf Show.

Granted his marketing fluff is not speaking to the treehouse, but what would you have done with a completely flat site?

I would have dug a lot less, but still needed to dig.  Look at Lubbock - although they were a little above sea level.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Give Fazio a break on this one.....

Flat land doesn't work, it needs pitch for drainage.

What other gca wouldn't use bunkers?  Leave this out of the discussion.

Critique the fact that he dug several moderate sized lakes?  My in laws live in Florida, and many have small ponds that (I think) were natural behind their houses.  It will not be a stretch for most to believe lakes on a Florida course are natural.  Now, if it were Trump, he might have tried to recreate the everglades to be more spectacular.......

George P has it right - Faz is the expert at moving earth and still providing a low profile look, without lots of artificial mounding, with fws that appear to sit in natural valleys, and with cart paths well hidden, and yet providing good access where needed.  

That will appear natural to most, and function well as a golf course.  

[BCrosby]

Agreed George. Either the release is incoherent blather or it ought to be rewritten as follows:

"Fazio and his crew dug 15 lakes on the property to collect the dirt to contour each fairway, giving the course a rolling fairway feel as if it were [ the artificial replication of a course a thousand of miles away in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and with no relation whatsoever with the flat sandy scrub that naturally exists in and around Sarasota. ]"

Just trying to be helpful.

Bob

[BCrosby]

Jeff -

Adding contour is probably a good and necessary thing around Sarasota. But Fazio shouldn't bruit about that he is doing a "natural' golf course. At some point my cognitive dissonance meter starts melting down when people talk like that. They need to mean what they say. At least about the big stuff.

Bob  

[rgkeller]

Fazio did not say he was building a natural golf course.

He said he tried to build a golf course that appeared to be in a natural setting.

[Kelly Blake Moran]

What other gca wouldn't use bunkers?  Leave this out of the discussion.

You never know Jeff.  

[Daniel_Wexler]

I wonder how long ago Tom Fazio actually last "dug in the mud".....

[George Pazin]

George P has it right - Faz is the expert at moving earth and still providing a low profile look, without lots of artificial mounding, with fws that appear to sit in natural valleys, and with cart paths well hidden, and yet providing good access where needed.

Now hold on a second there - I did not say Faz is the expert at moving earth. If I made such a statement, I would lose my both my status as a card carrying member of the biased gca crowd and my standing among Fazio bashers out there! Please don't misconstrue what I was saying.

On a more serious note, if I had one aesthetic criticism of Fazio, from the half dozen or so courses I've seen, I'd say that someone - Faz, his crew, the maintenance crews at his courses - needs to do a better job matching the "natural" appearance of the topography with the general upkeep of the place. IMHO, it's very difficult to look natural with manicured perfection. Nature isn't that perfect.

[Philippe Binette]

I'll probably give Fazio a break on this one...

because Pete Dye did the same thing (it seems, I have not seen the place) to built TPC at Sawgrass, he dug a bunch of lakes to create dirt for the course.

The difference, Dye was not trying to fake a natural rolling site... but put a lot of movement in the fairways.

[Jeff_Brauer]

George - I was agreeing with you that it appears natural.

[Brent Hutto]

My naiive impression was that moving dirt from one spot (lakes) to another (fairways) was the only way to build and drain a golf course in Florida and other dead-flat wet areas. Is there in fact some other way to build a golf course on the sites used by Fazio (Ritz Members) or Dye (TPC Stadium)?

Heck, there's a course near Pinehurst where one of the Nicklauses dug out a lake and built the fairways with fill dirt even though the course is sited on rolling sand hills. Seems to be that's the default modern construction mode.

[Mike_Cirba]

Forget Fazio...he's just doing his thing...

I want to know who named their golf course "The Concession"?

I guess it beats "The Concession Golf Links At Munificent Mansions"  

[A.G._Crockett]

Forget Fazio...he's just doing his thing...

I want to know who named their golf course "The Concession"?

I guess it beats "The Concession Golf Links At Munificent Mansions"  

The Concession is the third course at the site (not this one) and will be a Nicklaus course honoring Nicklaus giving the putt to Jacklin in the Ryder Cup.  (In one sense, that will be Nicklaus honoring himself.)

One can hardly wait...

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Mike

The Concession is a Nicklaus project with Tony Jacklin as a consultant. You remember Jack's concession of a 3' putt to Jacklin in an ancient Ryder Cup, don't you? It's a high end residential development.

www.theconcession.com

Steve

[BCrosby]

Perhaps I'm being too metaphysical, but how can a course with contouring modeled on the Appalachian piedmont "appear to be natural" when located in Sarasota? Or Las Vegas?

Would a perfectly authentic igloo "appear to be natural" if located in Algiers?

Isn't this no more than what it seems  -  people playing fast and loose with the language?

Bob