Nature of Soil/ Drainage on Monterey Peninsula

[Evan_Green]

How does the soil differ on the various Monterey Peninsula courses? Connected to this, which are thus the better draining and which are the poorer draining courses?

While I havent played in Monterey much in the winter, my guess is that CPC, Spanish Bay and MPCC Shore would drain pretty well and Poppy would not, with Pebble, Spyglass and the MPCC Dunes in the middle. Am I far off?

[A_Clay_Man]

From a layman's perspective most of the soil on the peninsula is not all that ideal. From what I have been told, Clay is the problem. Pacific Grove, Ft, Ord and Spanish bay are the best draining, that I'm aware of. I'd assume the new Shore Course is also adequate, but if there wasn't extensive sand capping on the forest holes, they likely have the same problem as the rest of the courses.

[Stan Dodd]

Echo Adam re Spanish Bay.  Played last week after rain and it was in great shape ball was running in fairways and greens were firm.  
PG drains well except for a couple of spots on the front.

[Bob_Huntley]

Spyglass has improved immeasurably over the last few years, where once it was a bog in the winter rains, it can play better than most on the Peninsula.

Poppy Hills is at the highest elevation in the Del Monte Forest but preferred lies are de riguer during the wet season.

I played Cypress last Friday and found it to be the wettest I've seen it in many a year. No. 4, a perennial waterway is still a pain. Surprisingly, No.12 was extremely mushy and I almost lost a shoe in the muck.

I haven't played Spanish Bay in years and cannot comment.

MPCC Dunes has the best greens in the forest but certain hole are lift, clean and place. The Shore, with its one and a half feet of sand capping is still the course to play. A little mud on the ball at times but still a bunch of run.

The problem is that the soil is mostly clay, allied with the surounding hills dumping runoff into the lower ground toward the sea and you have a catch basin of some size.

Bob

[Tom Huckaby]

Evan - as you see, your initial assessment wouldn't be far off at all, although you need to move Cypress into the bottom tier.

My experience is this:  all of these bow completely to Bayonet and Blackhorse at Fort Ord, which is the best draining course in the entire greater Bay Area by leaps and bounds.  In fact it's not even close.  That place is a marvel.  In fact if it's raining here (which it did all March and now continues into April) - that is the place to play.  I can't explain why - an agronomist I am not - it just sure seems to be sandy based, or plays like sandy based courses anyway.

TH

[A_Clay_Man]

Huck, That entire SE corner of the bay and almost the entire fort is all sand. Heck, it's right next to a town called Sand City. All of it used to belong to Cliff Harris' dad. He sold it piece meal for $20 an acre.  It is the greatest waste of dunesland known to man. If the ASGCA would try, I bet they could influence the gubernator to create the finest public golf facility in the nation on the dunes at ft. ord. (which is state park, now, if im not mistaken) but since they are so apolitical there's no one to lobby on the side of the American golfer. I wonder what the price of pebble beach would be if the state of California entered their golf course market and offered world class links golf for 10% of what RJ charges?

Hey Tom Doak, would you consider a $1 design fee for the opportunity to design such a place?

[Tom Huckaby]

Adam - cool - yeah I've driven by Sand City so many times, I figured that had to be the case - just wasn't sure if the sand part extended up the hill to where those golf courses are.  They sure play and drain like sand-based courses!  They are pretty incredible in that respect - not much else (if anything) in the Bay Area is like this.

We've dreamed about those dunes many times... Seems everyone who drives south from Santa Cruz or San Jose asks why can't they be made into a golf course.  Dare to dream, I guess.

 

[Brian_Sleeman]

Seems everyone who drives south from Santa Cruz or San Jose asks why can't they be made into a golf course.  Dare to dream, I guess.

That's exactly what I was thinking when I was out there - seems there's absolutely no use of them at all right now.