[Garland Bayley]

Please feel free to write any thoughts you have of the following armchair design. Look below the image for hole descriptions.



The longer hole at the top is named Tables Turned, because the championship tees for scratch players and plus handicap players play at nearly the shortest yardage. The low handicap tees play a little longer, and the bogey golfer tees play at the longest yardage. The final and shortest tee is for the highest handicap short hitters. The tee arrangements are created so that the best players hitting full driver have the smallest target, while the bogey golfer hitting driver has the largest target. From the championship tee, areas A and C would be the targets of the drive. Area A gives the best angle into the green which slopes down to the wetlands. The typical lie in area A would promote the ball turning to the right into this slope. Area C would allow the player to drive the green if he can turn the ball enough into the slope to prevent it from running down into the hazard.
The area below the green is sandy waste area that should collect long approaches from the area C direction that don't hold the green. The bogey golfer tee is an anti-Robert Trent Jones tee. The hole will play pretty much the same distance from all locations, but the lines chosen off the tee will differ by placement of the markers. The targets here are A and B.
Players that risk the fairway bunker to get to area A have the best angle of approach to the green. Playing the safer drive to area B then requires a longer carry over the hazard and less support from the slope of the green.

The shorter hole is named Sistine Chapel, because the shape of the sand quarry reminds me of the finger of God giving life to Adam in the Michaelangelo fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The contours around the green are to be adjusted if they were not the contours in the land originally. The green slopes slightly to the front to be receptive to the approach shot. Also, the center of the green is the highest when crossing the green side to side. Therefore a miss to the wrong half of the green will only allow a putt if the ball is near the front and the hole is near the front on the other side. Otherwise a chip or pitch may be necessary to cross the center. It is safer to miss the green off of the side where the hole is cut. The bunker slopes back to front, with the steepest slope in the back of the bunker. The front lip of the bunker is just high enough to prevent the use of a "Texas wedge." The slope extending out from behind the green on either side of the green will help contain balls in a location from which to chip onto the green. The contour line around the sand quarry is intended to be maintained as the boundary of the quarry. The sand quarry will be a waste area.
The bogey golfer tee will be at the highest point in the field, giving a full view of the green. The two back tees will be built up enough to allow at least half of the flagstick to be seen wherever it is on the green.

Many of you have read Grounds For Golf by Geoff Shackelford. In it he provides two topographical maps for designing golf holes. I chose one of the maps and designed a couple of holes. The holes are shown and described below. I would like to know what you think of my designs. Also, I would like to see what others have designed. I searched the site and found references to the topos in the book. However, it appears that no designs from these topos have been posted to the site. If you have done this exercise, I would like to see  the results on this thread.

[Garland Bayley]

Can someone tell me how to make the graphic bigger? I opened it Paint on my computer, stretched it 200% both ways, saved it, and uploaded it again. I got the same result even though it was twice as big in Paint.

[Eric Franzen]

Photobucket is limiting the displayed size of the image. The easiest way to get around that is to upload the file to a regular web storage account.

[Ryan Farrow]

Garland, if you want, you can e-mail me the file and I could mess around with it in Photoshop.

I renewed the book from our school library about 3 and still didn’t get to the end. I have that and a few others being ordered on Amazon and I’ll see if I can come up with something in the future.

[Ryan Farrow]

Garland's Design in all of its glory:

[Jeremy_Glenn.]

Garland,

I’m not sure if you posted these for comments (good or bad), so I hope you won’t be offended if I offer mine.  But, given that this is a discussion group, I’m guessing that discussing your design is fair game…  

The first thing I noticed is the location of your 215 tee and 180 tee on the lower hole.  I would only play those tees in a full body armour, as it would be bombarded with incoming tee shots from the championship tee of the upper hole.  I would make sure the 215 tee is AT LEAST 50 yards from the green (ie move it down, though I can’t make out the scale), with the 180 moved even farther down.  This also gives players hitting from the 180 tee a slightly better angle in.

I like the idea of the lower hole, basically a par three-and-a-half.  Ample room is given to bail out, while tempting the golfer to go for the green.  But the green seems like an awfully small target, and I doubt many players would be able to strategically plan not only hitting the proper half of the green, but also the front of the proper half.  Any way to make the green a little more forgiving?

Another thing to take into consideration is the location of a 10-foot step about 40 yards short of the green.  Essentially, that step will make the hole blind from the tee, as you won’t be able to see the green (or the flag or bunker) which sit just below it.)

Your concept for the upper hole is very unique.  I really like it, actually, a fantastic idea.  Who says the lower handicappers need a longer hole??

As noted above, though, your “C” landing area needs to be bigger, especially moving the tees of the par three out of there.  Your fairway bunker adds another layer of strategy to the typical “double-fairway” concept.  Good idea.

Anyway, hope these comments are appreciated.

[Garland Bayley]

A boat load of thanks to Ryan for helping me get this posted in a decent size.
 Call me a happy camper.  

[Garland Bayley]

Garland,

I’m not sure if you posted these for comments (good or bad), so I hope you won’t be offended if I offer mine.  But, given that this is a discussion group, I’m guessing that discussing your design is fair game…  

Yes, I want comments, and yes it is fair game.

The first thing I noticed is the location of your 215 tee and 180 tee on the lower hole.  I would only play those tees in a full body armour, as it would be bombarded with incoming tee shots from the championship tee of the upper hole.  I would make sure the 215 tee is AT LEAST 50 yards from the green (ie move it down, though I can’t make out the scale), with the 180 moved even farther down.  This also gives players hitting from the 180 tee a slightly better angle in.

Actually, I placed those two tees to give the best angle to hit to a pin on either side of the center rise in the green. It was simply a novice oversight that I didn't think about how close they were to the other green. I now like the idea of moving them down, as 1/2 the time the pin would be accessible from the angle of approach, and 1/2 the time it would be a more difficult shot hitting to a pin on the other side of the rise.

I like the idea of the lower hole, basically a par three-and-a-half.  Ample room is given to bail out, while tempting the golfer to go for the green.  But the green seems like an awfully small target, and I doubt many players would be able to strategically plan not only hitting the proper half of the green, but also the front of the proper half.  Any way to make the green a little more forgiving?

In the book, Geoff made a couple of suggestions on what to think about when designing. For this hole, I took the "sense of humor" suggestion. I am requiring the players to have a sense of humor dealing with that green. So, yes it was small by design.

Another thing to take into consideration is the location of a 10-foot step about 40 yards short of the green.  Essentially, that step will make the hole blind from the tee, as you won’t be able to see the green (or the flag or bunker) which sit just below it.)

I don't have any experience judging land from topo maps. My reasoning was this: The "bogey" tee is located on what should be the highest point. Eye level is usually at least 5 feet. I would make the final placement of this tee so that most of the green would be visible from it. As far as the sandy waste area in front of it, I have no problem with it being blind (sense of humor). From the back tees, as I indicated, I would build them up so that approximately 1/2 of the pin would be visible. The shape of the bunker behind the green rises enough to point to the rise in the green so that the player would know where the rise in the green was without being able to see it.

Your concept for the upper hole is very unique.  I really like it, actually, a fantastic idea.  Who says the lower handicappers need a longer hole??

As noted above, though, your “C” landing area needs to be bigger, especially moving the tees of the par three out of there.  Your fairway bunker adds another layer of strategy to the typical “double-fairway” concept.  Good idea.

Anyway, hope these comments are appreciated.

The suggestion I took from Geoff on this hole was "temptation".  Does the pro try to drive the green? Does the bogey golfer try to clear that bunker to get the optimal angle. Since the C area is so steeply sloped, I actually did not take the fairway up too high so that incoming balls would be slowed if they landed in the rough.

Thanks for your comments.

[Garland Bayley]

Bumping this to see if others want to comment.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Garland,

Jeremy basically echos my critique.

A couple of other thoughts:

What separates the three first landing areas on the par 4 hole to cause the crazy mowing lines?  And, are they necessary?  Maybe if near the driving zone, but they are pretty close to the tee.

When the edge of a lower hazard angles against the line of play, the exact edge is often not visible, so you might be surprised at how uncomfortable the tee shot would be on the par 4, with the pinching wetlands.  And the bunker would hide even more of the visible fw that is the main landing area, making it look like there might not be a landing area at all, other than a layup of 150 yards or so.

I agree landing area C should be wider, and don't forget that you don't have to wedge in a flat area in between the steeper slope area. It could be wider, and the fw graded out to a gentle cross slope to create an interesting redan type shot.  In addition to being wider, why couldn't it extend back the natural ridge to provide a clear the wetlands tee shot for the middle tees?

Granted, if you are in love with the back tee being shorter (which is neat) it may make the hole easier as well from there.  If you used that idea somewhere else on the design, and put the tees on a similar angle, as is typical, then an alternate fw hole might be neat, and the advantage of going for it pretty good, given the the three tier green.

BTW, did you consider moving the green back to use the plateau at the end of the ridge as a backdrop or possibly the green surface of a longer hole that would also better justify a risky carry?

I agree the Par 3 is probably way too difficult and blind, which could be solved with grading a gentle valley through to hill for vision.  (however, the par 3 11th at Colbert Hills has a similar green, so I can't trumpet that too loudly.)  If the right side drains straight right as you indicate, any fade would have little chance of staying on the green!

Jack Nicklaus once told me he wouldn't shoot for a green target less than 40" in diameter.  If I read your sketch right, your green on the long par 3 is only 20 feet deep in spots, and nowhere over 30 feet deep.  There are some practical maintenance reasons to keep greens at least 40 -45 foot wide or deep as well.

It seems to me if the green moved more to the side of the quarry it might be better at that length, offering some run up, while still maintaining a similar Sunday Pin location behind the Quarry.  Also, the landforms near the championship tee suggest a wide tee there as much as they do at the front tee, so why not widen out those tees too, to give a variety of playing angles from day to day?

Just a few thoughts that would eventually occur to you on your fifth, sixth, or tenth redesign!  The problem is always settling on something, and knowing what is good to give up to get something else desireable.  Rarely is there only one "perfect" solution that cries out for a particular design.  

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