Finding courses versus imposing courses

[Chris Moore]

I would like to hear a description of the process of "finding" a golf course or hole.  Is there a part of the hole that is found first?  Does it matter what part is found first?  If a piece of ground is irresistibly a tee site, is there a compromise involved when building the green?  Is finding (versus imposing) a course on the landscape a function of how much land is available from which to choose plus the topography?  Are there any great courses that have been imposed on the landscape?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Chris,

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you!

I have a fairly long description over on my Cybergolf.com series about routing process.  There may be some in both my Quarry series which I think is still posted, and the "Brauers Book" section, under one of those questions......Too much to type again, and too late.

Somewhere in there, though, I tell the story about fallling over laughing at the notion of "finding the greens first." While that does happen sometimes, it also happens just as often that I walk up a certain hill, or into a clearing and evision the hole from the same direction that someone plays it!

[RJ_Daley]

Obviously there are plenty of highly acclaimed courses that have been imposed on a landscape, when the landscape doesn't yield much naturally.  How about Doak's Rawls course at TT or Whistling Straits for two examples.

Yet, there isn't anything more instructive than getting out on a good pieces of rolling, interesting land, with a decent topo map, and doing several routing exercises.  If you have the chance to become very familiar with a good piece of land, and can spend many days doing so, I think you will find that sometimes you see the hole open up from a potential tee, and there it is before you unmistakably, and at other times you find the perfect green site and start to look at how you can bring the FW to that location most effectively.  Then, try to put a whole series of these ideas together in a logical 18 hole corridor progression.  

It sure beats the Sunday crossword puzzle!

[TEPaul]

The most completely "found" hole I'm aware of was at Ardrossan Farm which was not built. Maybe someday. But it's just sitting there for all to see and I doubt any architect would deny it. It's unusual in that some might think it's excessive but the playability of this landform is completely obvious. The reason I say some may think it's excessive is it just may be one of the "biggest" holes ever built. It moves down off an extremely broad ridge line that narrows as it goes along ending in a narrow diagonal that would be the green. The fairway would "shed" in parts of both sides particularly on the right down by the green that would be about 30 feet below the narrow ridgeline green.

The fairway on the first half of the hole would be around 130 yards wide and at the green-end it would be well over 200 yards wide. That kind of excessive width is only incidental however to topography that makes enormous optional sense. And believe it or not perhaps even all the way from the tee. Due to the slope of the ground in some parts of the second half on the right it looks like it might be possible for a long hitter with some wind to drive the ball down along side the green but perhaps 30 feet below it. In total distance this could be a drive of around 500 yards (due to the slope down on the second half on the right. But what a golfer would face from there is interesting and scary looking to say the least!  

The interesting thing about this "found" landform is as big as it is design-wise the ONLY thing that would need to be done to it would be to buld a few tees---absolutely nothing more. All the rest would only need to be seeded without touching---even the green who's interest is in it's shape, it's heigth from one side and the narrowing aspect of it on that ridge-line. It even has a small depression in the middle of it that could be used as is. There's even a great little mound about 50-75 yards from the front of this green-site coming right into it along the ridgeline.

Talk about a natural hole---this one to me is the ultimate. If that's not enough, the 17th hole in this routing is another wholly "found" landform that just happens to be an identical mirror image of Merion's great #5 (which is no more than about 3 miles away). On this one a green would need to be leveled up a little as the green-site seems to be a bit steep natually---but maybe not.

[HamiltonBHearst]

Mr. Paul

Do you have pictures that you could post of these landforms?  It may be an interesting excerise for the discussion group.  Of course most here might be more interested on the thread about getting access to rate Trump National.

[RJ_Daley]

When you get out on this sort of land (800 acres of it all as rolling and perfect as this) you could go mad just trying to fit all the perfect green sites and fairway corridors you find into a mere 18 hole course. Note the soil texture, not one rock in 800 acres of pure perfect sand-soil.  I have 27 holes routed, and there are 100 more combinations that are just as good.

[PThomas]

I wonder what is harder for an architect: not screwing up a great site to produce a great course, or building a good course from a nothing site?

[RJ_Daley]

Of course the archies can speak for themselves, but I think building from nothing is the talent side of it.

Working on a piece of land as above only runs the risk of people calling you a moron if you screw it up.  So if you are sensitive to what people think and say about you, the harder is screwing up a good site, which still makes that fellow a moron.

[Tom_Doak]

I don't know which is harder.  I do know which is more fun for me.

[Tags:]

Tags: