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Jim Nugent

Re:Blackhawk - by Rod Whitman (with pictures)
« Reply #25 on: August 04, 2007, 11:00:57 AM »
We had a two day pro series a few years back and the holes that ranked the toughest were #1 and #9. We find this strange that they are both par 4's under 400 yards. The obvious challenge must be around and on the greens.. Strange but true fact.


Duane, what do you think makes these two short holes so tough?  (And how tough were they?)  Is there a lesson there that can be applied to other courses, so they can challenge top golfers without stretching out to 8000 yards?

Duane Sharpe

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Blackhawk - by Rod Whitman (with pictures)
« Reply #26 on: August 04, 2007, 11:12:00 AM »
Jim
We were confused why #1 was so tough but after watching a few groups, it was evident that putting would make or break your score. The green has an enormous amount of movement with a false front. If on the wrong side of the hole, you would easily 3  putt.
As for #9, it is a down hill par 4 that is reachable if you catch your drive on the right line temping the long hitters to strive for the tap-in eagle. If you hit the wrong line, a provisional is the best option. The green also slopes away from your approach shot and many balls end up rolling off of the back of the green. I believe the high scores were from greed and not being totally familiar on how to best play the hole.

Both these holes averaged around 4.5 for the two day event.
The course is only 6775 yards from the back tees but not many have been able to go crazy low.
Thanks for your inquiries.
Sharpee

George Pazin

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Blackhawk - by Rod Whitman (with pictures)
« Reply #27 on: August 04, 2007, 11:22:17 AM »
Tyler, Sean is pulling your leg.

Duane Sharpe, thanks for sharing your thoughts, your course looks both well designed and well maintained. Few things interest me more than hearing from a course's superintendent.

Where would someone fly in to visit Blackhawk? Edmonton?
Big drivers and hot balls are the product of golf course design that rewards the hit one far then hit one high strategy.  Shinny showed everyone how to take care of this whole technology dilemma. - Pat Brockwell, 6/24/04

Gary_Mahanay

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Blackhawk - by Rod Whitman (with pictures)
« Reply #28 on: August 04, 2007, 12:46:26 PM »
Duane,

You say that yall can mow the whole course in 5 hours with your current equipment.  How often do you mow fairways and tees?  How many acres of maintained turf do you have?  Is the native grasses in front of the tees and in the rough irrigated?  How often do you mow these native grasses?  The place looks awesome.  Hope to get up there some day.

Gary

Gary Slatter

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Blackhawk - by Rod Whitman (with pictures)
« Reply #29 on: August 04, 2007, 12:59:22 PM »
Great pictures! The week before I moved to St Andrews I was very fortunate to tour their next course, SAGEBRUSH, and it looked outstanding!!!  I lured Jeff Mingay away for my tour, and I was very impressed, can't wait to see it with grass.  Probably has the best bunkering that I have seen in the last 40 years.  Nothing cookie cutter about Sagebrush.
Gary Slatter
gary.slatter@raffles.com

Duane Sharpe

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Blackhawk - by Rod Whitman (with pictures)
« Reply #30 on: August 04, 2007, 06:36:02 PM »
George
You can access Blackhawk from Edmonton International Airport which is only 15 minutes away. All major airlines fly into Edmonton.
Gary
Our fleet includes , two rough mowers,two fairway units, one triplex for aprons, 3-26" walkers for tees and collars and 4-18 walkers for greens.  We cut our fairways and tees everyday during the summer months(may-Sept).  We hand rake all the bunkers around the greens everyday and fairway bunkers about twice a week.
The native grass(a blend of chewings, hard and sheep's fescue) gets knocked down  and picked up before every winter. This grass regenerates with seed head by June 1st every year. We do not mow it, fertilize it or water it. All we do is control the weeds. It was all planted at 2 lbs/1000 into the worst soil found on the property.(poverty soil as Rod calls it)  It has progressively been getting better year after year. I will try to post a few better pictures of it after this if I can figure it out.
Thanks for the inquiries and interest.
Sharpee

Jeff_Mingay

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Blackhawk - by Rod Whitman (with pictures)
« Reply #31 on: August 04, 2007, 09:22:18 PM »
Thanks for posting photos, Andrew.

The course does look great – much thanks to Duane’s efforts; in fact, Duane is a model superintendent in regard to doing everything in his power to maintain a golf course according to the architect’s vision. He deserves a lot of credit for his hard work, and more important, his open-mindedness and willingness to listen and learn about golf course architecture, particularly as things relates to Blackhawk.

In response to Andrew’s original post, Rod’s designed more than two courses – perhaps Andrew means two in the province of Alberta. There’s also Firethorn, Golf du Medoc (France), Langenstein (Germany), Irian Jaya (Indonesia), Sagebrush, and a handful we currently have in planning, including Cabot Links, of course. And, more people than those mentioned by Andrew deserve credit for building Blackhawk; most notably absent from Andrew’s original post is James Duncan, who had a lot to do with the way the bunkers came out, too.  

I’m glad Duane’s chimed in. He has a lot of interesting stuff to share, for sure.

P.S. Thanks so much for your compliments re Sagebrush, Gary (Slatter). It was fun to tour you around the site a few weeks ago. Thanks for making a point to come out. Geez, I’m blushing… the best bunkers you’ve seen in forty years?! Wow. The bunkers at Sagebrush are certainly different, and wild; they’re definitely unlike anything else in Canada. You’re right, too, there’s nothing cookie-cutter about Sagebrush. I’m very confident that's accurate.
jeffmingay.com

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