[mike_malone]

 We may go to Williamsburg ; the Strantz courses are on my list. But I see Kiskiack by LaFoy as well. A brief look at the course profile on line seems okay.

[Andy Hughes]

Mike, well, if you can wait a few months....We are heading there in May to play both Strantz courses a few times, Brickshire for our get-outta-town course and Kiskiack.

[mike_malone]

 Andy,

   I'll be telling you; we are thinking March.

[Bill Gayne]

I really like Kiskiack. It has a very strong finish. The 18th is a fantastic risk reward par five. If the bets come down to this hole it's a lot of fun deciding how your going to play off the tee. Generally in good condition. Nice staff and facility.

[Andy Hughes]

Bill, should I make some restaurant recommendations to Mike?  

[Lawrence Largent]

Lafoy totally butchered my club's Donald Ross greens he did a decent job on the bunkering. The greens though now feature this wonderfully mundane mounding around them that really serves no purpose. Two years ago we regrassed our greens and they looked into shaving the mounds off and that fell through due to all of the irrigation heads being on top of the mounds. Judging from some research I've done he did alot of work on Donald Ross courses in the early 80's.

Lawrence

[A.G._Crockett]

He did a very good job on the renovation of  Croasdaile CC in Durham, NC.  (Originally George Cobb)

[Michael Dugger]

I believe Lafoy employs his own version of camouflage learned while he served in 'nam.

?

[Michael Whitaker]

John LaFoy lives in my home town of Greenville, SC. He is very active with local golf related charities. As a matter of fact, a group that I am involved with is currently working with John to design & build a world-class practice facility for the Clemson University golf team. He also just helped us design and construct (pro bono) a practice facility in Greenville for the SC Golf Association's Junior Golfland Program (similar to First Tee).

John is a fun guy with a lot of great stories. I've never played one of his courses, but in conversations that I've had with him he professes a love for classic architectural design. He would love this website.

John is a former associate of George Cobb. His very first job for Mr. Cobb was at Augusta National! He made frequent trips to Augusta National with Cobb and, when illness slowed Cobb in his later years, LaFoy took over a number of the design responsibilities. In fact, he was most responsible for Linville Ridge Country Club in the mountains of North Carolina. LaFoy began his own design business in 1986.

Did you see the recent Ron Whitten article in Golf Digest about the par-three course in Greenville that has a different designer for every hole? Well, that was a John LaFoy project. If you didn't see it, here is a link to the article: Crosswinds Golf Club

Here is a link to an article that John wrote a couple of years ago that will give you a look into his head:

http://www.golftransactions.com/architects/architectscorner050803.html

[Andy Hughes]

design & build a world-class practice facility for the Clemson University golf team.

Ahh, I knew there was something not quite right about you Mike, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  

Go 'Dins!!

[JESII]

Mayday,

Kiskiak is good, and I would imagine much less expensive then its local competition. Putting money aside, I can attest to Royal New Kent and Kingsmill River as very good to great, Golden Horseshoe Gold as OK (probably comparable to Kiskiak but about 3 time the money I'd guess), and Fords Colony as good, but always in bad condition. FC has multiple configurations if I remember correctly and all are suitable, but I've never seen them in decent shape.

Have fun.

Sully

[Sam Sikes]

I know nothing about John LaFoy the person, but as an architect I would say he is very average.  The originals and redesigns that I have played would rank somewhere in the doak scale 2-4 range.  I dont really understand his "style" or lack there of.  How does a guy like LaFoy get jobs?  How much do his services cost?  Does he have any competitive advantages?

I think his work is similar to Joe Lee and George Cobb, of which I am not a huge fan.

[wsmorrison]

Funny, we changed our college reunion trip from Scottsdale to Williamsburg just last night.  Sully, I'll look into Kiskiak, Royal New Kent and Kingsmill River.  I think we are staying at the Kingsmill resort.  I wanted to see Flynn's James River Course at CCV (I'll be looking up a few GCAers there) and also visiting Sewell's Point in Norfolk.  Looks like we'll be there for four nights at the end of April.

Now that we have the golf straightened out, dining, drinking and tatty bar suggestions would be most welcome.

[Scott_Burroughs]

I've played 3 of his designs in the Raleigh (Triangle) area of NC, Devil's Ridge, The Neuse, and Wildwood Green.  All are housing projects and the courses are decent enough.  Nothing too special.  Too much shaping for my tastes.  Actually, Wildwood Green wasn't too bad in that area, IIRC, but haven't played it since the re-do in '96.  Likely one of Lafoy's earliest, in 1986.  

Like Rees, 'too much' shaping occurred later in his career.  Rees' earlier designs (that I've seen) are much more natural.

[Bill Gayne]

Funny, we changed our college reunion trip from Scottsdale to Williamsburg just last night.

Wayne,

I'd re-evaluate the classmates. Wiiliamsburg is nice but it sure as hell isn't Scottsdale.

[wsmorrison]

Bill,

We're all a bit nutty.  Due to demands upon everyone, it is hard to get more than 4 nights away and we thought it would be too much to go out to Phoenix for that short a time.  

We tried to think of a place that we haven't been to, there's the two Flynn's I haven't yet seen and we also needed a place that would have good bike trails.  Williamsburg seems to have a bit of most of what we're looking for.  

Honestly, at this point, if there's something better, we're ready to do just about anything.  We're pretty hurting as you can tell.  Even though we are  eight close friends, one guy wants gambling and other sins, four guys want good biking, eating and drinking and three guys want good golf, eating and drinking.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

John is one of the nicest and funniest of the gca fraternity.  Also plays a great banjo and collects a lot of interesting, ah, stuff, like knives, etc.

I played Kissmeass the day Payne Stewart and Bruce Borland perished in the plane crash, and enjoyed it.  I also enjoyed his course in Nebraska that won the best new award years ago, called Quarry Oaks.  

I contributed a hole to his par 3 course, although I am not sure he used it in the final design.

[Sean_A]

I hadn't realized that Wildwood Green is a LaFoy course.  I thought the course was a cracker for $25.  I would take it in a heartbeat over a few other well known Raleigh-Durham-Pinehurst area courses.  It has great balance in that there are plenty of go for it tee shots, but there is a sensible layup option.  A few holes have water.  The greens have decent movement and there is great elevation change in the land.  Easily the biggest drawback is the excessive ob due to housing.  Even so, I would reco Wildwood Green.  

Ciao

Sean

[A.G._Crockett]

Likewise, I didn't realize Wildwood Greens was LaFoy.  I played there several times years ago before I really had any interest in GCA, and liked it.  As Sean says, it is a great value for the Triangle area.  

I'll repeat that his renovation work at Croasdaile was very, very good.  Very subtle, but great improvement to the bunkering and greens.

[mike_malone]

 When I saw the Williamsburg flyer it showed a water hole at Kiskiack. I thought  "Oh no!" but then I went to look at the hole by hole depictions on the course's website and I thought it seemed to be understated . I look forward to playing it now. It always helps me to go beyond the first impression.

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