Desert Forest's Crowned Fairways

[NAF]

I recently had the pleasure of playing Desert Forest.  I was amazed to see the challenge possessed by Red Lawrence's fairways.  They are crowned, hogbacked, angled and just a challenge to all but the perfectly struck shot.  As a member they must be a joy to play on a regular basis.  The demands on one's tee shot made it the most challenging course I've ever played (in the absence of wind) other than Pine Valley the first time around.  I realize many here know of the course's merits, but I'm surprised more in the world of golf don't see what has to be one of the most strategic designs out there.  I was also amazed by the quality of the greens and their shaping.

Strategy on holes like the dual fairway 7th were wonderful as was the bunkering which fronts green sites. The longer the hole the wider the bunkering in front of the green and pinched in on the shorter holes.

BTW, the club just hired Karl Olson 2 months ago as super.

One of my good friends who is a  golf architect and known to some here said Red Lawrence inspired him to become an architect.  I can now see why!

[Brad Klein]

Well, I hope you also stopped in to DFGC's pro shop and bought their club history, which I wrote. There's a very detailed explanation of how the course and those crowned fairways evolved.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

NAF aka Noel, it is very cool that you were able to make your first post about Desert Forest's crowned fairways and not the incredible green complexes.

[A_Clay_Man]

Noel, While I had one of the worst ball striking days of my life, I found the design to be so much more than the sum of it's parts.

Have you seen the aerial of the course? It is amazing how mis-leading that aerial is. The holes look like they are all straight and cookie cutter, cut out of the Sonoran Desert, yet when you golf there, you never feel like they are straight at all. Amazing!

One of the things that I was perplexed about were the bunker shapes, with their clean lines, I wondered why they were so clean, when everything visual had a subtle cragginess. Then it hit me, the clean line really stands out and screams DON"T GO HERE. The greens were lessons in simplicity and more challenging than people who like everything handed to them, care for. I spoke with a couple of members at Oakland Hills who didn't see any value at Desert Forest, and they loved Desert Mtn. Nough said  

One other VERY interesting fact, when the course hosts other clubs in competition, they kick ass because the other clubs are designed with little reverance for the craddle or core principles.

[Patrick_Mucci]

NAF,

Are these crowned fairways ....... SPINES ?    

Brad Klein,

I probably played Desert Forest prior to your writing the history of the club.

I look for club histories whenever I visit clubs and would be interested in knowing how one can go about obtaining a copy, if they're available to non-members.

Thanks

[Jason Topp]

My impression from reading various descriptions of Desert Forest is that you would need to play extremely conservative golf to keep the ball in play.  Generally, such golf is not my preference and it seems precisely opposite to the strategic options golf generally preferred on this site.

Is my impression accurate?  What makes it such a great course?

[NAF]

Brad- I did get the club history and many of your friends at DF wish you a nice hello.. I'm heading back to Connecticut this afternoon and plan to read your club history.  I'm actually looking forward to also reading about the history of Carefree.  

Reading about the evolution of the fairways will prove interesting.. They are spiny, hog backed whatever you want to call them.. Like Adam Clayman I had a poor ball striking round and probably failed to break 90 something I almost never do.  I got crushed, many balls in the desert.. Meanwhile the member who generously hosted me hit 200 yard shots in the fairway every time (they were senior, older gentleman) but always in the fairways.. They were all members 15+ years and some of the kindest men I've met in golf!

Adam, I thought the bunkering was almost Maxwell like in spots but I see your point as well.  One caveat, the greens were terrific which I didnt expect b/c in the Confidential guide Doak was a little critical of their shaping if my memory serves correct although he said it was one of his favorite desert layouts.

Pat- Brad's book is EXCELLENT and can be had by calling the pro shop.  One of the best pro's Ive ever met, Mr. Doug MacDonald can help you I'm sure.. Believe it is $40.

Jason- The course is still strategic, it just requires you know where to miss in spots or else you'll be in the desert.  Tremendous demand on your tee shots.  It is not a long course from the member tees..6500 yds. Despite playing so poorly, I marveled at the course and playing it, something I would not on a modern average course that is uninspiring.. DF is inspiring.

[Lou_Duran]

A dear friend, the late Jack Crudup, was a member of Desert Forest and he introduced me to the course years ago.  It is what desert golf should be all about, and pretty much ruined me for what has been built in the Phoenix/Scotsdale area since.

When I last saw Jack, his hips and knee joints were so bad that he had a hard time getting the ball airborne.  Despite playing to a low single digit handicap for much of his live, he still derived great joy from batting his ball around his beloved course.

Jack also enjoyed vicariously the battles of his many friends with this difficult but highly enticing course.  He had a standing bet with a number of us that we couldn't break 80 from the back tees.  I don't recall him having to pay-off.

Desert Forest is all about golf.  Nothing fancy nor cheap.  It doesn't have great elevation change, but it rolls, moves, and weaves throughout.  Keep it in play and below the hole and it can be had.  Evening golf with the giant Sejuaro (sp) cacti, gambil quail, rabbits, assorted other wildlife, and a setting sun is nothing short of magical.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Note to Architects. Study Desert Forest before building another course in the area. I do not know if it passes the 80 acre test, but it is sure a great course in a desert full of very average ones. The routing, fairways and green complexes are a statement of what one can do on a relatively flat piece of ground.

[Tom Renli]

I believe DF may be the best combination of difficult and fair that I have ever played.  They hosted the Mid Am Qualifier in 2004, with one player breaking par.  The USGA set it up par 71 and about 6,900 yards with hole 9 playing as a 490 yard par 4.  A swing aggressive on a conservative line philosophy does not apply much as there are not many conservative lines.

Beyond the narrow width of the fairways in general and the runoff of them, an additional defense against length is comes into play.  That is illustrated early on, holes 2 and 5, both par 4s that require a sharp right to left shot if you are to hit driver and hold the fairway.  Somewhat like Olympic, in that if you hit it farther, it requires you to move the ball.  Hole 7, a par 5 is the only hole that you have a big, dramatic decision off the tee.

All in all, a wonderful place - pure golf and a shame that more have not learned and incorpated these features into the recent desert designs.

[JohnV]

Having not been to Desert Forest, I'm a little leary to comment, but I constantly read comments here about how width is good and then I see everyone praising a course with narrow crowned fairways that kick the ball into bad country and I can't help but wonder why  this course is great vs others that exact similar punishment in different settings.

[cary lichtenstein]

Could someone please explain to me why "crowned fairways" are good.

Ditto with "crowned greens"

[Lou_Duran]

JVB,

I don't recall DF being all that tight, or with fairway slopes like Olympic- Lake #17.  The course is tight in that the desert is not played as a lateral hazard, and you just can't drop a ball where it crossed a non-existant boundary.

BTW, one can like C & C's use of breadth and also enjoy courses which require more specific, defined challenges.  But even with the latter, there are still many choices to make: when to let it all out with a driver, when to lay-up short with a more controllable club, when to run the ball up the sloped but relatively open entries to the greens.

If the course is maintained properly to its site and construction, there are all sorts of shots available even without 120+ acres of turf.  DF seemed to offer great variety without having to irrigate all that many acres.  It just seems to fit its surroundings extremely well, and though it is hard- you will spend some time in the desert- I found it to be a lot of fun.

Cary,

It is not as if there is a gigantic hand swatting away good drive and approaches.  For the most part, to the best of my recollection, the course rolls gently and naturally with the site.  Certainly, I can't think of anything man made that's imposing, though some of the natural wash-outs are to be avoided at all costs.

Come to think of it, DF is quite a departure if one's taste favors Florida's higher-end private and resort golf.  By today's standards for desert golf, DF would probably not tickle a lot of people's fancy.  For me, not a big fan of the desert, DF is mighty fine, even if I can't break 80 on it.  

[A_Clay_Man]

JVB- Honestly, It isn't like other desert course narrowness. It seems to have plenty of width, just not enough for the extremely inconsistent. Plus, recoverability is not always impossible.

Cary, Unpredictability is their greatest result. The value is they can propel ones ball to areas unimagined, or intended. They also give more interest to the stances on the next shot, other than flat.  Unlike the lies that East Lake offered up this last weekend. I didn't see one difficult stance due to lie, the whole tournament.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I will underscore the width of the fairways. They are plenty wide. The crowns are not so severe as to take a well hit ball to the rough or desert as it be. However, it makes one make good shots to stay in play if one is aggresive off the tee. It is a course to be studied from my way of thinking.

[Brad Klein]

DFGC has only 55 acres of total turf cover on the course. The slighly crowned fairways steer the ball into pockets, so that on tee shots you are reading drives as if you were reading putts in terms of how they break. Not a single fairway bunker out there - well, one big one, the desert.

The club history book is unusually detailed, going into the development of golf in Phoenix, lots of material on architect Red Lawrence, the utopian visionary land developers behind Carefree, as well as the club's wacky financial and agronomic history.

It's an old fashioned golf club, no pool, no tennis courts, no cart paths, no dinners (except once a month on a Saturday), just a 7,000 sq. ft. clubhouse. Disclaimer - I'm an honorary member, so my judgment is totally biased, but I love the place. Modern golfers often prefer Whisper Rock or Desert Mountain, but old fart traditionalists (like myself) prefer DFGC.
New super - Karl Olson, formerly of NGLA via Tucson National - is a genius and solving some longterm maintenance problems and has just gone through an extensive turf renovation program, though I'm sure they are still not overseeding the fairways in winter.
 
Pat and others, I'd be glad to send you (at cost) a signed copy of the book. Just email me.

[Anthony_Nysse]

In the new LINKS Magazine, there is a nice article about Desert Forest and how is came to be what it is today with some really good pics. One their website, they talk about how they don't overseed and now Brad mentions it also. Take a look at the pics, those fairways sure look overseeded and contrast nice on that dormant bermuda rough.....someone shed some light!

Tony Nysse
Asst. Supt.
Long Cove Club
HHI, SC

[Brad Klein]

Tony, they overseed tees, greens and the immediate approach areas. Most of the Links Mag. photos are par-3s. The photos on pp. 58-59 are both of the par-3 8th hole (the one on p. 58 is mislabelled as the 18th but it's the 8th). These photos had to be shot years ago, when they overseeded DFGC.

The Links article, if I may say so, borrows very heavily from my book - way too heavily.

[Mike Hendren]

How often to modern architects/shapers build bunkers that attempt to mimic the lines of nature and thereby appear "natural?"  

Desert Forest is a testament to the futility of doing so.  Lawrence's rounded greens and bunkering are a simple juxtaposition to the natural surrounds with which he apparently saw no need to compete.  

While the fairways are generally convex, they are not uniformly so, giving the accurate player the option to use them to his advantage.  For those of us who hit and hope, they're a nightmare - but they dish out exactly what we deserve.  

Moreover, Lawrence makes excellent use of spines that are diagonal and perpendicular to the line of play.  The 16th comes to mind where the green is imminently reachable in two for the player who can carry the ball down the left-hand side and pick up the turbo-boast on the back side of a slight crown.  The more timid who plays right will have his ball braked by that same ridge and will need three shots to reach the green.  Really good risk/reward on the tee box, though far more subtle than the option at the three-shot 7th.  

A notable exception to the crowned fairways is the 15th where the fairway was apparently slightly carved through the desert.  This gives it a feeling of playing through modest dunes directly toward Black Mountain in the distance.  A unique hole that doesn't appear contrived or out of place.  

This is the firmest and fastest golf course I've ever played (the bermuda was just greening up at the time).  You might say slick. The result was that every single shot required thought and execution.  There was a sense of relief when I got to retrieve the ball from the hole as I'm not sure anything on the greens was a gimme for anybody in the group.  

IMHO, desert golf has done nothing but devolve since Desert Forest was built.  

Mike

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

omg Mike, That was well written!! You are the Gibby of Tennessee.

[Mike Hendren]

Tiger,

I'm no Papazian.  Heck, I'm not even a Gilbert.

Around the bowl.
Down the hole.
Roll Tide Roll.

Mike

[Jim Sweeney]

I fully concur with Mr. Klein and Mr. Hendren. DFGC is the best I've played in the Valley of the Sun. A pioneering course which has stood the test of time as well as any.

To my mind the tees shots were the course. One can play conservatively or agressively, but he had better be pretty accurate on the aggressive lines. It's been awhile, but I recall wonderful use of deception off the tee; that is, if you're choosing the agressive line, you better choose the right line, and execute the shot precisely. Shouldn't those who deem themselves worthy of taking the risk be held accountable for poor choices or poor execution?

The greens are, naturally, very similar to Lawrence courses of the same period, large and rounded with two or three tiers often separated by 1-2 ft. elevation changes. Finishing on the correct tier means a fairly level birdie chance, while finishin on a tier above or below means negotiating a long and steep slope, making long putts difficult to judge for speed.
Karl Olson was the Super. at UNM South, another well regarded Lawrence course, in the late 70's, and it has never been as good since. He did a fantastic job there which propelled him to bigger and better jobs leading up to this appointment. I won't claim that DFGC is a more prestigeous job than NGL, but DFGC is very fortunate to have him. I take it from Brad's comments that DFGC may have had some maintenence issues in recent years ("(he is) a genious at solving..long term maintenance problems"). If so, they are doubly fortunate and I hope they just let him do this thing and sit back and watch.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Mike I am so ready to play. This Tiger is leaving for Birmingham/tuscaloosa in morning. GO Tigers. You cannot beat the tide down early enough or often enough. I want to send them DOWN to where that dead Bear lives by the time the sun sets Saturday afternoon. It is very clear that I am in a good club of people who feel DF is the best desert course I have seen or will likely ever see.

[Brad Klein]

Not only is the article a blatant ripoff from my book, but the photos are from 1997-98 and bear little resemblance to the current layout, which has far fewer trees and does not overseed. Nice job of journalism on Links' part.

[Tom Jefferson]

Any photos available to post?

Thanks in advance,
Tom