Barnbougle: Another voice in the chorus

[Shane Sullivan]

I wanted to add my voice to the chorus of praise for Barnbougle Dunes.  My husband and I spent two days there and played three very very enjoyable rounds.  

What made the experience so enjoyable for me was the tee placement.  I know I was playing off the correct set of tees because on every hole I had to map my way to the pin (as opposed to the usual pattern of try and hit it as far as possible up the middle).  It was the most fun I have had playing a course.  Because the tees were in the right place for me it meant the course presented a challenge I felt I could meet - even if it did take me a few rounds.  The obstacle to me scoring well was not just length.

Also, the naming of tees and the mixing of recognised colours (it's not every day I get to say I beat my handicap from the blues!) broke down preconceived notions about which tees people should play from.

In my opinion Barnbougle is the best course I have played (I even preferred it to Kingston Heath).   If you have the opportunity to go - take it.

[John Kavanaugh]

Congrats...you are offically the first butt girl...that is if my sister in law doesn't count.

[Ian Andrew]

John,

Shane takes the time to make an observation about the golf from her perspective - providing us with a rare women's perspective (something sorely lacking on the site) - but you don't care, your just dying to upset as many people as you can.

When is your next year long sabatical from the site - I'm looking forward to it.

[JESII]

Seconded!



Sorry Shane, anyway any idea how the design team established their tee locations? I am sure it's no guarantee that an interesting hole at 420 will necessarily be interesting from 360 so I wonder what the thought process includes.

[John Kavanaugh]

Ian,

I simply pulled this valuable post back to the top of the page by including Shane in a group with my sister in law of female Doak fans...butt person is not a derogatory term when it comes to Doak.  I seem to include myself in the family of butt people.

Ian...now that you are on your own..I can only hope someday your fans are bum boys or bum girls.  I only choose bum because of your logo and the British term for butt...I hope you don't mind.

[Chris Kane]

JES, I might be wrong, but I believe that Jill Spargo, a consultant on women's golf for Mike Clayton, selected the locations of the women's tees.

[Shane Sullivan]

Two things:

Firstly, there are no women's tees.  There are four tee boxes and before you head out the pro asks your handicap and gives you the card for your tees (and only your tees).  I had just asked for the card for the forward tees and was very chuffed to be told I would have to play back one set!  I think the tees were (from the front) white, blue, red and black.  

Secondly, there were a couple of things that made the tee placements work - sometimes, on the longer holes my tee would be a fair way forward.  Othertimes the tee was placed in such a way as it straightened out some of the dog leg.  My favourite was one instance where the tee was off to the side but elevated where the back tees were not (and the view was spectacular - my husband came up on the last day to see what I had been raving about).  Usually if there is an elevated tee shot the forward tees are placed lower and lower down eliminating much of what would make the hole interesting.

PS: John, I had assumed butt girl wasn't an insult - something along the lines of bum buddy.

[Sean_A]

Two things:

Firstly, there are no women's tees.  There are four tee boxes and before you head out the pro asks your handicap and gives you the card for your tees (and only your tees).  I had just asked for the card for the forward tees and was very chuffed to be told I would have to play back one set!  I think the tees were (from the front) white, blue, red and black.  

What a great idea! This would go a long way to sorting out vanity caps and slow play.  Why hasn't anyone mentioned this before about Barnbougle?

Ciao

Sean

[ed_getka]

Shane,
  Thanks for the posts and the insights. I look forward to seeing the course next year when I make my first trip down.

Thats cool that Mike Clayton has a consultant for women's golf. I have not heard of that before. Other than Pete Dye's wife Alice that is.

[Tom_Doak]

Um, Chris, Jill Spargo was never at Barnbougle during its construction as far as I know.  (I wasn't there every day, of course.)  Most of the forward tees were placed by myself and/or Brian Schneider.

It's great that Mike Clayton has a woman as a consultant.  I've got a young woman working for me now, too, Sara Mess, who was our intern a couple of years back.  And she has some ideas about placing forward tees, naturally, but that's not her primary role in the company.  

Nor does being a woman really make her much more qualified than me to decide where they should go.  I've always thought pretty carefully about where the forward tees ought to go, although in some instances there just ISN'T a good place to put them because of the nature of the topography.

[Matt_Sullivan]

One other interesting point about some of the forward tee placements at Barnbougle was that on some holes the view or the "experience" was better than the back tees (the par 3 fifth is an example). On other holes the hole seemed to set up better from the more forward tees (16, 18). There was also an effort to get the forward tees elevated and on a different angle, rather than simply making the hole shorter and the tees lower (6, 14)

Given the thought that seems to have gone into tee placement, I would imagine the course is a lot of fun from any set of tees.

A comment for Tom and Mike. I really loved the course (like my wife, I thought it was better than Kingston Heath; also better than NSW; and better than St Andrews Beach). But  I really didn't like 18, especially the tee shot.

As a 3 hcp I played the back tees. All three rounds were played with the prevailing wind. Had between a 2 and 4 club wind against each round. The drive is pretty unattractive -- the most unattractive on the course -- looking straight into that enormous hill. And goddamit I just couldn't hit it far enough to have a reasonable crack at the green in two. With the three to four club wind I couldn't even think about getting home in two and actually laid up 30 yards short (with a three iron!). The last day I used a pinnacle distance ball that I had found earlier and made the green with a drive and a three iron.

I'm a reasonably long hitter (probably carry it about 240M or so) but uphill into the wind on the last, it's just a killer. Sure I could move up a tee, or play it as a par 5. But it is not just the difficulty but the unattractiveness of the tee shot that makes it a somewhat disappointing finish to the round.

I think my thing with 18 is compounded by the fact that I thought 17 is an absolute standout tough par 4 -- one of the best holes on the course. The elevated back tee gives you a great view (of the hole and the surrounding landscape): it's a great looking, demanding tee shot. And a good drive (into the wind at least) leaves you with a mid iron (for me 5 or 6) into a great green.

It might sound like I'm bitter about 18 because it beat me up (two bogies and a double). But I also struggled on 17 (two bogies and a par) and 15 (a par, a bogey and a double). But I loved 15 and 17.

So, Tom and Mike -- how did you envisage 18 being played? Did I miss anything obvious? And did you think about re-grading that hill? :-)

And so as not to sound like too much of a whinger I should finish by saying I thought it was a great course. Favourite holes: 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 14, 15, 17. It's a great layout, great experience -- a lot of fun

[David_Elvins]

So, Tom and Mike -- how did you envisage 18 being played? Did I miss anything obvious?

Matt,

If you couldn't reach 18 in two and you thought that 17 was a great driver-mid iron hole, I am tipping that what you missed was the back tee on 17!   In my experience it plays longer than 18.

I don't know what Tom and Mike think but in my opinion the tee shot on 18 is definetly one of the worst shots on the course however it is balanced out by the spectatular long iron shot into the green which has to be one of the best shots on the course.  The further forward and right you go with the tee, the better the tee shot looks but the shorter (and in my opinion, worse)  the second shot becomes.  If Tom was into earth moving I am tipping that instead of regrading the hill, he would have just built a tee a bit back of where this photo is taken from (the dune a few steps to the right of the middle teetee).  Looks good from here!

[Matt_Sullivan]

No David, I was right back on 17. But on 17 you have the elevated tee and a level fairway. Both 17 and 18 are about the same yardage on the card (around 400M) but you can hit the ball further off the tee on 17 because it carries further and then rolls, instead of thudding into the hill and kicking left, as it does on 18

My three tries on 17 I hit 4 iron short, 5 iron pin high and 5 iron to the back. I really smoked my last two drives on 17 -- I just loved the way the whole set up (I like to cut it a bit). In fact my drive on 17 the second time I played it was one of the best drives of my life! I would say 17 plays 2 clubs shorter than 18, even with the second shot on 18 playing downhill. This may be because we had a front flag on 17 each time; or because I never hit a really solid drive on 18.

I agree that a new tee would help on 18. The one you selected would suit me well!

Another interesting point about the course was that over the three rounds I pretty much dropped half my total shots to par on 15, 17 and 18. In fact in my first round I stood on 15 at level par and limped in rather poorly. Perhaps my struggles with 18 were of the last straw variety!

[Tom_Doak]

Matt:  The fifth tee which you liked so much, I have to give credit to someone else -- I think it was Greg Ramsay's idea.  The place I had picked out for the forward tee there was in front of the rest on a little shoulder, but you couldn't see the green well and the hole was still pretty long.  Greg was devoted to the idea of having as many tees in view of the water as possible.

As for 18, no, we didn't really consider the possibility of lowering the fairway.  It was the first hole we completed and frankly, I was just concerned with getting grass to grow on the fairway, which had the consistency of beach sand and a steady topdressing from sand blown off the beach.  If we had built that hole near the end of the process I might have thought of cutting 3-4 feet off the fairway, but it would have taken a LOT of work for the landing area not to obscure the green; the only hole where we did that much earthwork was the first.

We have thought about rebuilding the tees near the drop-off to the beach to give a tee with better visibility to the fairway; those tees get regularly bombarded with wind and sand and it's tough to keep grass on them.  However, I have not seen the hole since the opening day last December so I haven't had much time to consider revisions!

[Matt_Sullivan]

Tom, many thanks for the considered reply on 18. And thanks for a great course -- my wife and I had a ton of fun. It's now her favourite course (no doubt thanks to the 84 she shot on day 2!) and pretty close to mine as well

[Anthony Butler]

Matt:  As for 18, no, we didn't really consider the possibility of lowering the fairway.  It was the first hole we completed and frankly, I was just concerned with getting grass to grow on the fairway, which had the consistency of beach sand and a steady topdressing from sand blown off the beach.  If we had built that hole near the end of the process I might have thought of cutting 3-4 feet off the fairway, but it would have taken a LOT of work for the landing area not to obscure the green; the only hole where we did that much earthwork was the first.

We have thought about rebuilding the tees near the drop-off to the beach to give a tee with better visibility to the fairway; those tees get regularly bombarded with wind and sand and it's tough to keep grass on them.  However, I have not seen the hole since the opening day last December so I haven't had much time to consider revisions!

I am sure Tom is aware of the legend of how McKenzie and his collaborators got the seeds to stick to the ground when they were grassing NSWGC back in the late 20s. (The members newsletter is called "Windy Wales" which gives you an idea of how much it blows out there.) Apparently after the seed cover had blown off a couple of times they covered the exposed areas with some kind of renderings from a tannery, which bound the sandy topsoil to the seed cover-allowing grass to grow in that spot. I'm not sure if it also acted as food for the grass as well, but apparently the results were dramatic.

The last 75 years must have produced some kind of technology that would be even more effective to counteract the effects of wind and salt deposits than this rural remedy. Barnbougle doesn't appear to sit as high above the ocean as NSW, so Tom was also dealing with actual sand deposits from the neighboring beach... and both courses also have to deal with salt spray off the ocean.

[Tom_Doak]

Anthony:

We hydroseeded the whole golf course at Barnbougle, and that was AFTER we had spread some manure on the 18th fairway and disked it in.  Even with all that preparation, I wasn't sure the grass would grow there.  It was darned close to trying to grow grass on the beach.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tom,

Just curious, who's the green-keeper at Barnbougle?

All this talk about the course, and no one knows who the green-keeper is or where he came from. I'd like to know  

[Mike_Clayton]

Jeff,

The greenkeeper is Danny Brown who was at a small beachside course,Torquay,an hour south-west of Melbourne.I may be wrong but I guess he is in his early thirties.
He came from counrty Victoria and has a great wife who loves it down there.
There are many superintendents wives who would srtuggle in an isolated place like Bridport.
I suspect he will be there for a while - which is good for everybody

[Jeff_Mingay]

Interesting Mike.

Thanks.

[Anthony Butler]

Anthony:

We hydroseeded the whole golf course at Barnbougle, and that was AFTER we had spread some manure on the 18th fairway and disked it in.  Even with all that preparation, I wasn't sure the grass would grow there.  It was darned close to trying to grow grass on the beach.

Well that makes sense... met the guy who grassed Gold Canyon + some of the Troon courses in Scottsdale. He reckons you could spray hydroseed on the hood of your car and you'd be playing off it in two weeks! Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but the term "grass on steroids" was thrown about.

I am leaving for Sydney for a couple of rounds at NSWGC and Royal Sydney next month. Sure wish I had time for a side trip to Barnbougle. IMHO, the best seaside course in Australia built between WWII and 2004  is the Moonah course at the National... my Australian friends tell me Barnbougle is in a whole different category. Can't wait for your next venture down under!

BTW-You guys must be happy about the long-term committment from a good greenkeeper. If Gary Dempsey wasn't at NSWGC, I don't think the course would be in the world's Top 50. He makes that much difference.

[Tom_Doak]

Anthony:  Amen to that.  Most of my best courses have been managed by the same superintendent from Day 1, and it's the ones which haven't, which have deteriorated from their original beauty.

Say hi to Gary Dempsey for me; I met him a few years ago when I played down there, and he was of help getting us historical info for the Alister MacKenzie biography.