Namesake courses

[Dale_McCallon]

The thread about Engh's Harmony Club in Colorado sharing a name with the development  in Georgia made me wonder what other "name" courses have been taken.  Which ones are any good?

I know in Elizabethtown, KY there is a Pine Valley (which is for sale if interested) and I think outside of Lexington there is a Cherry Hills.

There has to be lots of them out there.

[Tom_Doak]

Dale:

There are tons of namesake courses ... St. Andrews most of all, Pine Valleys, Oak Hills, etc.  Most of them were named in an era when naming a new course was not a big marketing decision.  Nobody was going to mistake St. Andrews in Yonkers, NY for the real thing, and the others were pretty generic names which just took on a new importance because one of them turned up on lists of the best courses in America.

Naming courses today is a bit different.  The goal is presumably to find a new and interesting name to market your new course and make it stand out from the crowd, but there have been several examples of courses choosing similar names to a successful modern course, which sometimes appear to be an attempt to piggyback off confusion with the other.  Sometimes it's just a coincidence, but sometimes it is not.

I guess trademarks might be the answer but I'm not sure they apply to golf course names, because there is already such a precedent of multiple St. Andrewses.

[Jay Flemma]

You hit the nail on the head Tom.  The answer is to pick something unique not tied to the locale if possible and then to search it to see if its in use or if it has numerous geographical incarnations.

"Pine valley" can describe any valley with pines, but it also acquired secondary meaning in the golf industry, so is able to be registered, although I dont think they can force a renaming of other Pine valleys because they existed many years ago.

[Tom_Doak]

Jay:

The problem with that is that I've always felt a course name is better if it's relatively simple and it DOES have a geographic significance ... like say, Pacific Dunes.  But you can't claim a "secondary meaning in the golf business" for a while, so that leaves the door open for others to copy the name in the short term.

[RichMacafee]

There is a Pacific Dunes in Port Stephens, New South Wales, Australia.

http://www.pacificdunes.com.au/pages/

[Tom_Doak]

Rich:

I knew that when I posted ... I saw the name in a list of courses being operated by Troon Management.  It opened in 2005.  Everyone think that name was a coincidence?

[Andy Troeger]

Tom,
You obviously know more about this than I, so contradict if I am wrong...

It would seem like any really good golf course being built today is going to want the unique name, which greatly decreases the chances of doubling up. Why would you want to name your course something that's going to get you confused with someplace else.

Weaker courses might be more likely to want the namesake to piggyback, but the better course isn't likely to lose too much business accidentally in that case.

[Tom_Doak]

Andy, I agree, Pacific Dunes in Oregon isn't losing any business because somebody mistakes it for the one in Australia.

However, there is an architect in Australia who can tell everybody he designed Pacific Dunes.

[Andrew Summerell]

However, there is an architect in Australia who can tell everybody he designed Pacific Dunes.

At least James' other well known Aussie course has an original name:

- The Cut at Port Bouvard

What a mouthful!

[John Kavanaugh]

The one that gets me is that there is a Vista Verde in Ohio...I just wonder why?  

[Kalen Braley]

This topic has my got my curiosity up.

Do we have any cases or instances of a course/resort successfully suing another to change or drop its name?

I have to agree with the point that Tom alluded to on this one that is it seems very lame that anyone can design a cow pasture type course somewhere and call it Pacific Dunes.  I'm not suggesting that the one is Australia fits this bill, but just more in general terms.

[Jay Flemma]

Jay:

The problem with that is that I've always felt a course name is better if it's relatively simple and it DOES have a geographic significance ... like say, Pacific Dunes.  But you can't claim a "secondary meaning in the golf business" for a while, so that leaves the door open for others to copy the name in the short term.

Yeah, secondary meaning takes five years or a ton of money.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Would you explain the process?

Eventually the knuckle head who named it Pacific Dunes is going to be getting a lot of credit for that other architect.

That is so lame.

[Matthew Hunt]

The problem with that is that I've always felt a course name is better if it's relatively simple and it DOES have a geographic significance ... like say, Pacific Dunes.  

You have hit the nail on the head Tom.

In Ireland "Royal County Down" is mixed up with "Down Royal"

[Jim Franklin]

I heard that when Tom Fazio was building Sand Ridge in Cleveland that they originally were going to name it Sand Hills and Ben Crenshaw called and asked him not to name it Sand Hills so that's where Sand Ridge came from.

[Paul Payne]

There is a Deer Run located not to far from the TPC at Deere Run. Can be confusing until they quote the greens fee.

[Doug Ralston]

Dale;

The 'Pine Valley' in KY is mediocrity. The course near Lexington is 'Cherry Blossom' and it is quite good indeed.

Doug

[Wayne_Kozun]

There is a Deer Run located not to far from the TPC at Deere Run. Can be confusing until they quote the greens fee.

There is also a Deer Run golf course in Ontario.

[Wayne_Kozun]

There are Victoria Golf Clubs in both the sand belt in Australia as well as in Victoria, British Columbia.  They are both excellent courses and may win the contest for best namesake pair.  

There are Sunningdale Golf Clubs in both London, England and London, Ontario - the one in London Ontario is where I was married.  The one in Canada is 36 holes - the first course designed by Stanley Thompson and I believe the second by Robbie Robinson.

[Ken Moum]

The question I have is, How did we end with Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Long Grove, Illinois???

http://www.golflink.com/golf-courses/golf-course.asp?course=14235

K

[Brian_Ewen]

I did wonder how many Stonehaven Golf Clubs there were around the world , and could only find three , which surprised me .

1.My Home Course - N.E. Scotland.
2.A Nine Holer in Ontario.
3.A pretty new course in West Virginia.
4.The Stonehaven that Greg Norman built but never opened and is now Mirabel.

Unless you know different ?.

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

A somewhat unique name is also no gurantee of singularity.  My club Musgrove Mill GC was certainly unique sounding (or so I thought when I first joined) being named for the Revolutionary War Battle of Musgrove Mill that took place in the river valley where the course is located.

However when traveling through Alabama a few years ago I came across Musgrove GC west of Birmingham on the way towards Russleville.

And speaking of "Namesake Courses" several years ago I took my friend from Atlanta Roger Musgrove to play my club, and he ended up joining.  His comments were simple "How many times do you get a chance to join a club that has your name embroidered on all the shirts and golf bags?"  

Closer to the truth is that Musgrove offers an unbelievable non-resident membership and it was a good logistical fit for his sales territory at that time too.  But I still tell the story that he joined "Because my name is on the shirts."

[Andrew Thomson]

There are certainly a few "National" Golf clubs.