Photos from the Big Island

[Mike Nuzzo]

The following images came from our friend in Monterey.
They are from the Big Island.  Hawaii.
Looking forward to hearing about them.

[Scott_Burroughs]

I assume this is D.M. Kidd's soon-to-be-opening Nanea?

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Mike I do ont have a clue. where is it. John

[JakaB]

Has modern minimalism reached a new low....when can we grow tired of the hairy bunker mentality as an art form and develope some value of shot at the expense of nature.

[Joel_Stewart]

I don't know if this is Nanea, the course doesn't open until August so I would be surprised with the pins in the ground?  

This looked like a tough piece of ground to work with.

[RJ_Daley]

Barney, I agree.  The native bunker edges are being overdone, and in the wrong way.  When bordering or interlaced native grasses or plants within bunkers are so thick that it is unplayable and causes endless searches for lost balls within them, and there is slim margin between the hopelessly lost ball and a 1/2 or 1 stroke penalty in a sand bunker near greenside, then I think it has gone too far.  Native grasses around bunkering at Sand Hills (which to some extent seems to be the modern US architects model) is not really unplayable 90% of the time.  The "hairy" edge look is ragged, yet sparse enough to find it and get a club on it.  The above picture seems to suggest a torturous result if one strays into it.

[JakaB]

Joel,

I bet you are right...I can't imagine a new modern ultra exclusive having a round ass green like shown in pic 3...

[Scott_Burroughs]

Dick and John,

If you look closely at the first few pics, you'll see that the 'native' grasses are in fact growing out of the lava beds.  The grasses weren't planted there, they were already there, just like at nearby Mauna Kea.  Mauna Kea used to look like Mauna Lani, etc. with all of the black lava, but over the years (course is 35+ years old) grasses started to grow there.

No matter if the grasses were there or not, you certainly couldn't play from there regardless.  The grasses look better than lava, IMO and you might get an occasional hittable lie.

[Scott_Burroughs]

I forgot to mention that I'm almost positive this is Nanea, as the pics look like the ones on Kidd's web site.

Nanea is a 'private enclave' of Charles Schwab and George Roberts.

Here is an interview Golf Travel & Info did of Kidd on Nanea (from Ben Dewar's post in a previous thread):

GTI - You have another new private course - nanea - opening this summer in Hawaii. What made this project so different from your prior works? Did the fact that it was to be a private walking course change your approach?

DMK- This project was DIFFERENT alright. I went out to the Big Island of Hawaii for the first time in late 1999, and I was shocked! Barren lava flows down the side of an active volcano! I remember thinking that only in America could such an undertaking be possible.

The project is the realization of a golfing dream for Charles schwab and George Roberts. They enlisted me to help create a course on the Big Island that would be created in the tradition of many of the most celebrated private clubs in the US.

The course itself is finished and growing in, the practice facilities are just being completed, and by mid-summer the course should be totally playable, although the official opening maybe some time later.

The owners wanted a course they could walk and play over and over. As skilled golfers, they weren't interested in appeasing the masses of once-a-year resort golfers. This gives me far more freedom as a designer. The members will gain local knowledge fairly quickly, and so every feature doesn't have to be in your face off the tee. The strategy of play can be subtle and complex, all features of the classic old courses in my homeland.

[RJ_Daley]

Scott, I guess one can see the lava in the foreground of the first picture.  But, are all those tufts interlaced into the edges of the bunkers lava right up to the sand?  The tufts of native look like a bad hair transplant.

[Scott_Burroughs]

You can see in the 3rd pic, above the bunker at right, the lava in that barren strip, so the bunkers were dug into the lava/grass.  Maybe the edges were "transplanted" a bit, I don't know.

[Michael Dugger]

Has modern minimalism reached a new low....when can we grow tired of the hairy bunker mentality as an art form and develope some value of shot at the expense of nature.

My main man Jakab

I'm having trouble grasping your notion here.  I thought the native grass was integrated quite well into the turfed areas.  I so tire of the stark line between where manufactured ends and native begins.  Can you comment a little more here?  What are you proposing is better?  Please no ramblings about abstract concepts and what not.  Please provide a good, concrete example of what you would do.  What would be better that what DMKidd has done as depicted in the above photos?