Tim Liddy...the work of..

[John Kavanaugh]

The only Liddy that I recall playing is Cambridge in Evansville, In.  They just finished the clubhouse and the course is growing in nicely...anyone else played it.

Link to photo gallery: http://www.villageofcambridge.com/gallery.php

How bout his other courses...Never met the guy..what is he like.

[Doug Ralston]

John;

Sultan's Run is not far from you, in Jasper IN. It is a hell of a course. Beautiful to the extreme, and always in good condition. #18 is the special waterfall finish.

I have heard much to the good about Trophy Club in Indianapolis. I think more or less links golf. I have heard even best of all is Rock Hollow in Peru Indiana.......definitely on my 'to do' list.

Doug

[John Kavanaugh]

I've played Sultan's Run many times...oops, I forgot it was a Liddy.

Link: http://www.sultansrun.com/SultansRunWeb/sulframe.htm

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tim's a very nice, very thoughtful guy. He's passionate about golf architecture too.

We spent a few weeks in Scotland together when he was starting work at remodellng the Duke's course at St. Andrews.

I haven't played a Liddy-designed course. However, I do know he impressively jazzed up the Duke's course with help from an all-star cast of bunker gurus!  

[Nick Church]

I enjoyed Trophy Club every time I played.  I recommend it highly among the great public golf available in Indianapolis.

I also enjoyed Rock Hollow --- usually once a year we made the trip up to Peru.  If it was closer, I would have played it more.  The first hole was a great way to start.

I also had the blessing to be a member of The Bridgewater Club.  As I understand it, Mr. Liddy was heavily involved with Mr. Dye's design of that course.

[TaylorA]

My understanding is that he did a lot of work with Pete Dye on the Purdue University course. I had the pleasure of meeting Tim by chance when he and Pete were working on the Purdue North course.

He's a very gracious guy and you could really see his passion for architecture.

[Glenn Spencer]

Trophy Club is great, a very interesting round of golf and I thought the 17th hole was fabulous. 1 was really cool and there was a good little short par 4, No.12 that I liked. I am going back there this weekend to meet some friends from Chicago to settle some grudge matches. I am looking forward to seeing 13 again, I thought it was a little tough at 485 and not much place to hit driver, it didn't seem like. I felt like you could drive it through the fairway, I could have been wrong. 10 is not too wonderful, but outside of that, I found it awesome. Course does not come back to clubhouse at the turn, never a bad thing in my mind.

[Ken Fry]

Jaka,

Rock Hollow is a great course about halfway between South Bend and Indy.  Played it about a month ago.  It's less than a mile off US 31 just north of Peru.  It had been about five years since I'd been down to play and I forgot how good the course is.  It'd built in an old stone quarry which would be a new style of golf for you.

Ken

[Matt_Ward]

John:

The Trophy Club is a superb daily fee facility in the northeast suburbs of Indy. Check out the Web address and accompanying photos:

http://www.indygolf.com/show.mv?trophyclub+&page=holeF

Fine layout and given the flat piece of land still manages to keep the player's interest with an array of interesting shots.

Glad that Glenn mentioned the 13th hole and I view it as one of the best public holes in the entire Indy area. The drive must use a right-to-left characteristic but the slightest pull left will result in some very demanding 2nd shots. The putting surface is well done and only accepts the best of approaches.

A visit to the general Indy area should include time spent there. Be interested in how people view the qualities of The Trophy Club versus that of Puragatory which is not that far away in Noblesville.

[GDStudio]

Ken, Glad you mentioned the Rock.  I spent alot of time there (grew up 10 miles away and used to fish with my dad at the old quarry a few times way before they developed it).  It was actually my first course I worked on, and the biggest reason I pursued this profession.

Tim did a great job there in creating (discoverying) some beautiful golf holes.  The setting is wonderful, but I am sure the fact it was built in an old quarry really added to the dificulty.  It sure did in the construction!

From what I remember he had good clients in the fact they wanted to showcase a great course.  

Besides, who doesn't love an uphill 601 yard Par 5 narrow as heck fairway with trees on both sides!

[Andy Troeger]

Sultan's Run and Rock Hollow are two of my favorite public courses at any price, and I would say are the two best I've played that are kept at reasonable prices. Both are very worthwhile if in the area, and Rock Hollow is very easy to get to off US 31. Sultan's Run is a lot tougher to find, but equally worthwhile!

The Fort, in Indy, I believe also was one that Liddy worked quite a bit on, and is also a fine course. I've only played 12 holes since it got dark before I finished, but I do hope to get back for the whole round soon. Purdue-Kampen is my least favorite of the bunch, but its definitely tough!

[Kenny Lee Puckett]

Trophy Club is great, a very interesting round of golf and I thought the 17th hole was fabulous. 1 was really cool and there was a good little short par 4, No.12 that I liked. I am going back there this weekend to meet some friends from Chicago to settle some grudge matches. I am looking forward to seeing 13 again, I thought it was a little tough at 485 and not much place to hit driver, it didn't seem like. I felt like you could drive it through the fairway, I could have been wrong. 10 is not too wonderful, but outside of that, I found it awesome. Course does not come back to clubhouse at the turn, never a bad thing in my mind.

Glenn and Matt -

I second and third your opinion of The Trophy Club.  Great shaping and bunkering that is evokative of links golf.  I have only played it in late March and early April during the Final Fours in Open Championship conditions:  Really windy and 40-50 degrees.  While #10 is quirky, I really like the #16, #17 and #18 finish.  #11 is as good a risk/reward half par, par 5 as can be found.  #2 is a good par 5 as well as it snakes its way around and accross a creek.  # 5 is a great drivable par 4 if the winds are cooperating.

I haven't seen much else of his work, but I would play The Trophy Club again before Crooked Stick.  It is much less penal, and the greens fees are lower than what you would spend on a caddie alone at C.S.

JWK

Wonderful place and a terrific value.

JWK

[Jeff Shelman]

I, like seemingly everybody else on this thread, really liked The Trophy Club. Very fun, very fairly priced course. In many ways it reminded me of Keith Foster's Harvester just north of Des Moines.

I played Trophy Club as my first round of the season at the Final Four and really enjoyed it. Liked it much more than my round at Brickyard Crossing a couple of days later.

Also, Tim's work on the new nine holes at Harrison Hills in Attica, Ind. (very cool pics in the courses by country section on here) is very strong.

[Glenn Spencer]

John:

The Trophy Club is a superb daily fee facility in the northeast suburbs of Indy. Check out the Web address and accompanying photos:

http://www.indygolf.com/show.mv?trophyclub+&page=holeF

Fine layout and given the flat piece of land still manages to keep the player's interest with an array of interesting shots.

Glad that Glenn mentioned the 13th hole and I view it as one of the best public holes in the entire Indy area. The drive must use a right-to-left characteristic but the slightest pull left will result in some very demanding 2nd shots. The putting surface is well done and only accepts the best of approaches.

A visit to the general Indy area should include time spent there. Be interested in how people view the qualities of The Trophy Club versus that of Puragatory which is not that far away in Noblesville.

I am playing Purgatory now on Friday and Trophy Club twice Saturday. I am sure that I will see a lot of both.

Jeff Shellman,

A friend that is playing with us this weekend asked me how it compared to Harvester. I said that I loved both but had to just barely give the nod to Harvester. That place is really special. I am no fan of 18 there, but sans that hole it is one of the best I have ever played.

[Glenn Spencer]

The only Liddy that I recall playing is Cambridge in Evansville, In.  They just finished the clubhouse and the course is growing in nicely...anyone else played it.

Link to photo gallery: http://www.villageofcambridge.com/gallery.php

How bout his other courses...Never met the guy..what is he like.

John,
That place looks pretty impressive. Picture 7, the par 3, looks like a great hole, what does that play?

[Brad Klein]

Liddy also did 90%+ of the design work at Wintonbury Hills GC in Bloomfield, Ct.. Besides doing numerous routing plans (with some input and approval by Pete Dye), Liddy also oversaw the construction work, which was no easy task at this municipal project where we had to bid the contract out on the basis of price, not experience or proven quality (I am being circumspect here).

What impressed me about Tim was:

-27 site visits during design/construction
-attention to detail and to getting the right shaper, even when it meant going head to toe with the contractor
-insistence throughout on drainage, playability and maintainability
-willingness to come back when it was done, even beyond the stipulated contract, to tweak and adjust
-patience with all involved, including three governmental layers of regulation
-the pride he took in the whole project and the fun he had when out in the dirt

Like most fine architects, Liddy becomes a totally transformed person once out on site. He's not an office person, he's a golf course person. He knows how to do he paperwork, but where he really feels at ease and free is out in the field.

[Brian_Ewen]

Mr Mingay
Does the words , ""impressively jazzed up" and "Scotland" , really belong together ? .

[Jason Tetterton]

Tim is currently involved in the restoration work being done at the Cardinal.  Here is a link below from the Winston Salem Journal.

http://www.journalnow.com/scripts/isapi_srun.dll/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ/MGArticle/WSJ_ColumnistArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149188591076&DPL=JvsIDSP7Dg0m5hcQJfsKFjvlCA0l4zs%3d&tacodalogin=yes

[Matt_Ward]

Truthfully, what amazes me about the national golf publications is how they all miss out in rating highly the qualities you see with The Trophy Club.

Tim Liddy's work there is exceptional because the land is indeed not that compelling -- despite that handicap -- the overall layout never bores you and you can see many of the elements that Pete Dye has used with other renown Indiana layouts.

What is also unique about The Trophy Club is the overall pacing of the holes. Liddy makes the player have to make serious adjustments -- not just in terms of overall yardage per hole but in the shaping of shots to desired areas.

Like I said, The Trophy Club is a far better public layout than many might imagine who live beyond the borders of the greater Indy area.

[Chris_Clouser]

I have only played one course that I believe Tim worked on that I did not enjoy.  Otherwise all of my rounds have been on excellent courses from The Fort, Trophy Club, Harrison Hills and the list keeps growing.  As much of an influence that Pete Dye had on Indiana golf for the last 40 years, I can only hope that Tim has that same impact with his work over the next 20 to 30 years.  

Aside from the work he's done he has helped to teach classes at Ball State about GCA and try to get others enthused about the topic.  Beyond that Tim is a good guy.  If he is the face of golf course architecture in Indiana then we're in pretty good shape.