The most influential course built in the 1990's

[David Wigler]

IMO this is a very easy question.  Without a doubt, the most influential course built in the 1990's was Shadow Creek.  Look at the effect it had on Golf Architecture.  Shadow Creek elevated the golf designer to the vaulted status of "Golf Architect".  Built in 1990, it lifted us out of two decades of very poor architecture (Some of Pete Dye excluded) and started the second golden age.  It created a subclass of Supermodels that Fazio founded and Nicklaus, Dye, and Palmer (Undeservingly) joined.  It must have expanded the mind of everyone involved in golf architecture as to what could be done.  Rees Jones and others (For good or bad) have modeled their entire recent bodies of work on trying to replicate Shadow Creek.  

On another thread, we discuss The Preserve as being the best inland piece of land seen for a golf course.  Shadow Creek clearly had the worst piece of land for a golf course.  What Fazio created is nothing short of brilliant.  #17 at Shadow Creek may is the most visually attractive golf hole anywhere in the world that is not blessed with a large body of water to frame it!!  Now I understand that on GCA, the most thought provoking hole would be a better compliment and #17 is not a tough decision hole.  Truly though, can anyone stand on the 17th tee and not have their jaw fall into their hands?  #18 is a tremendous risk/reward par five.  In fact, all of the par fives at Shadow are fantastic golf holes.  Fazio succeeded in building an Oasis where you get lost in the golf course.  Obviously, there is not a single natural feature in the entire place (Right down to the wildlife that was imported for the course) but it works.  The course has the same aura that Prairie Dunes or Bandon Dunes has where you get so lost in the golf course that you forget there is a world surrounding it.  

Now I know that the majority of GCA legends are fans of the tradition firm and fast course and Shadow is the exact opposite of that but I would love to read your reviews of it.  This course is the work that allows Fazio to mail it in these days and will be the course that his legacy is always judged on.  I have only played it twice but I really believe it is easily one of the best five courses built since World War Two and the most influential course built since Augusta National.  

[Ben Cowan-Dewar]

Sand Hills and Whistling Straits.

[David Wigler]

Ben,

Sand Hills and Whistling Straits are both very good golf courses but from an influence standpoint, I am not sold.  How many times have you seen a course try to model itself after Sand Hills?  While it may continue to win #1 rankings in Golfweek's Modern list, for some reason, it had a negligible effect on changing the way architects build courses.

Whistling Straits IMO had almost no influence on architecture.  It was the third course built at a resort setting.  The concept of building dramatic vistas against a large body of water was an established practice from over fifty years ago.  An argument could probably be made for Bandon Dunes (If you build it, they will come) and a point at Arcadia Bluffs to prove Bandon’s influence but they were already coming to Kohler before Whistling Straits was built.  

Have you played Shadow Creek?  Do you see its influence in some many courses being built today?  Do you think it is a great course or just a great architectural achievement?

[Dan Kelly]

Sometimes, history reveals itself in a flash:

Most important event of 2001?

Flash! 9/11! Terrorists Attack United States.

(Or maybe not. Maybe, in long hindsight, the big story of the year will turn out to be Segway -- the device that, future historians will see, allowed the creation of entirely new kinds of cities throughout the developing world. Who knows? The year isn't even finished yet.)

Other times, history withholds judgment.

I think it's WAY too early to decide which is the most influential golf course built in the 1990s.

Ask again in 20 or 30 years. Maybe the answer will be clear by then.

Yes, it could be Shadow Creek (super-expensive, super-artificial). But I'm hoping it will be Sand Hills: super-inexpensive, super-natural -- leading to decades' worth of adventuresome, entrepreneurial ventures, finding the golf courses that nature built.

Here's hoping, further, that if Sand Hills sparks a continuing, long-term renaissance of minimalist design, the courses that follow will be more accessible to true (if not wealthy) golfers than Sand Hills apparently is nowadays.

[Craig Van Egmond]

Sand Hills was an example of what you can do with a fabulous site and great restraint.

Shadow Creek is an example of what you can do with a terrible site and an unlimited budget.

Both influential in there own way, but which would you rather play?   I'll see you in Nebraska.  

[David Wigler]

Dan,

I am asking this out of true curiosity, not in any way as a criticism.  Did you feel that Shadow Creek was artificial while playing it?  

That is the thing that amazes me most about the course.  I know it is dead flat land that has a man made grade of 90 feet.  I know that it is bone-dry low desert that has water, lakes and waterfalls everywhere you look.  I know that no vegetation grows but Cacti and yet I see hundreds of plant species and wildlife everywhere I look but darned if it doesn’t feel real.  The true genius of this course is that I just did not ever feel that I was in an artificial environment.  That also is the danger.  So many designers with less talent, skill, budget or all of the above have tried to imitate this design and have come up with extremely artificial feeling golf courses.  Even Fazio has fallen far short of this mark in his other attempts to build artificial realities.  Heck, look at the train wreck Rees did at Cascada in his imitation.

Shadow opened twelve years ago.  I agree that calling Pacific Dunes the most ..... would be premature but I think the effect Shadow has had is visible in a vast majority of new courses being built today.  Shadow vs. Sand Hills would be an interesting match play.  They are both terrific.  If I could only play one, I think that I might choose Shadow because I believe it is truly unique and one of those courses that everyone who studies golf architecture should see.

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

Perhaps this is a west vs east coast thing, but I've yet to see the impact of Shadow in this part of the world.  

I recognize that others such as Cascata in the bleak Vegas desert have tried this approach, but generally EVERYTHING in Vegas is more illusory than reality.  I guess in thinking about it you have Trump's thing in Florida that might compare, but I don't know that throwing zillions at a blank canvas to create a golf course from scratch has caught on en masse as "influential".

However, I do think it's an important course as you suggest, if for nothing else it showed what was possible given enough money, manpower, and engineering talent.  I have never played there and the pictures I've seen have looked breathtaking and visually stylish.  Yet, other than your mention of the two finishing holes, I've found it extremely odd that most discussions of Shadow curiously omit mention of the holes themselves, for the most part.  

I do hope to see it someday, mostly because of it's high rating and for the same reason I'd also like to see the pyramids of Egypt....because nobody can quite explain exactly how they were built.

David;  what courses built in the past decade to you see as directly attributable to Shadow Creek as the model?

[Jeff_Lewis]

We can only hope that it will turn out to be Sand Hills.

[David Wigler]

Mike,

I am not a west coast guy.  I call Michigan home.  The influence that I think Shadow had was not to throw obscene amounts of money at any problem as much as create artificial environments using man made elevation, vegetation, mounding and water features to cause the illusion that course x could be anywhere and does not need great land to accomplish it.  Clearly, you are right that this is most often done in the desert where the natural land does not offer much in the way of golf.  In addition to Cascada, I think Southern Highlands, Talking Stick South, and obviously Primm Valley Lakes attempt this model.  In California, I have seen it at Cinnabar and Granite Bay among others.  Recently, I saw Norman attempt it at the Great White Course in Doral Florida.  The Oconee Course in Georgia abuts a wonderful body of water and yet still felt the need to create an artificial rock bed stream splitting two different par fours that is almost an exact replica of the one on Shadow Creek.  If it is not as prevalent on the east coast, I suspect it is because the land offers enough natural features that the need to create on such a grandiose scale is not there.

Your other point is very valid.  The course is so visually stunning that you get lost in it and tend to lose sight of specific features.  It is rare that Shadow Creek evolves into a discussion of specific golf holes like those that NGLA or Merion does.  In addition, with the exception of #17 the holes are so consistent in their design that few draw controversy and thus argument like #16 at Bandon Dunes.  To use an off color analogy, when I see an attractive women with world class breasts, I remember the breasts.  When I look at Heather Locklear, it is hard to discuss which feature is most appealing, so I discuss the women as a whole.  Does that make sense?  As I reread this, it could be interpreted that I am saying Shadow is better than NGLA or Merion.  I am not.  It just does not rely on strategy and thought nearly as much to achieve its level of greatness and therefore does not evoke as much specific hole based discussion.

[Dan Kelly]

David --

I didn't mean to suggest that I have played Shadow Creek, or that I have any opinion of its merits. I have not played it (though I'd love to) and have no opinion of its merits (or lack thereof).

I can't, therefore, even guess as to whether it feels artificial -- or, by contrast, just as real as "The Truman Show."

What I know about Shadow Creek is that it was totally manufactured and extremely expensive -- which is enough to tell me that, as a role model for the future, it's a bad one. I hope its primary influence will be to make more-natural, less-expensive courses seem even more attractive -- and that, someday, it will seem a curious artifact of a bygone era . . . like the Great Pyramids, as Mike Cirba suggests, but possibly more like Stonehenge: pretty obviously a sacred site, but what God was being worshipped? (I think we all know the answer to that one.)

All I did mean to suggest was that I hope Sand Hills -- which I have played -- will be the more influential of the two courses. Subtle artistry on great land is the wave of the future that I want to see.

[Paul Richards]

David:

For better , or for worse , you are probably right.

The "monument to excess" or the "monument to oneself"
seems to be the trend of the nineties.

Golf architecture in the nineties can be summed up as:

OVERSPEND THE UNLIMITED BUDGET!!!  

[rjbay]

Not having seen all the courses in built in the 90's, it might be presumptious for me to comment, however both Sand Hills and Shadow Creek have had a profound influence on me and the work we did at Twisted Dune.

I have to say that I really enjoyed my three days at Sand Hills, playing golf with good friends at a beautiful, quiet, oasis of golf in the middle of Nebraska, who would have thunk it!
Dick Youngscap, Coore & Crenshaw, and all those assocaited with Sand Hills should be justifiably proud of the job they did.
Given an unbelievably beautiful site, conducive to their low key style, everything is just right.

I think the criticism of Fazio at Shadow Creek is patently unfair. I am a huge fan of the classics, but Shadow Creek is Exactly what the doctor, Steve Wynn, ordered. It is Las Vegas with a touch of class, just like the Bellagio. It might not be right many places , but Shadow Creek is definitely not your ordinary golf course. The whole concept works here, right down to the understated clubhouse. Yes, understated!

One golf course had a bad piece of land, but they could dig and give some interesting elevation changes to an otherwise boring site. I think some might protest too strongly that this is inherently bad.

For me both were inspirational, I love the look of Sand Hills, the raggedy windswept feel of mother nature. But I can really appreciate what Shadow Creek is all about, and why!

  

[john f]

Without Sand Hills, where would Coore & Crenshaw be? It appears that Sand Hills has brought them the recognition of being one of the best (not exclusively though) at using the natural landscape and bring out the best in what nature intended.

If I look at thier resume it appears (and I may be WAY off on this) that after Kapalua they didn't do many projects. I know Ben was still very competative on the Tour and they were involved in the Riviera greens issue at that time, but it doesn't appear that thier ability and recognition took off untill after Sand Hills became recognized.

Now they are spoken in revered terms, they are in great demand and thier body of work is evolving and putting up great courses. So based on that, the evolution of the design that C&C seem to be leading (with many others such as Doak, DeVries, Hanse, Nelso, Brauer & others..) and the recognition of the Traditional value of the game, I'd nominate Sand Hills. Their may not be others like Sand Hills, but without it, the landscaoe now and in the future may be very different.

[David Wigler]

John F.

You have made a very compelling argument for Sand Hills.  Let me put it through this test.  Does the public at large speak about C&C in revered terms or is it GCA posters?  Are the majority of projects these days going to designers like C&C, Devries, Doak, et al or are they going to Fazio, Nicklaus, RTJ Jr., Rees, Damien, Curley, Art Hills, etc. who design far more for aesthetics than purity?  I think that the question, “Which course built since 1970 has been the most influential to GCA?” could easily and accurately be described as Sand Hills but I fear that GCA is a Vacuum.  Once put to the test of the golfing public at large, they would rather see a beautiful faux falls than a perfectly placed cross bunker setting up an approach to a natural greensite framed by a sand dune.  If you concede that point, than I think Shadow beats Sand Hills on influence.

[Tim_Weiman]

David Wigler:

I hope Sand Hills will be the most influencial course, but agree that Shadow Creek is more likely to win this perhaps dubious prize.

[Craig_Rokke]

Shadow Creek help spawn a thousand CCFD's, but I'm still waiting for even one architect who has seen Sand Hills
to come away with anything other than great praise.

[TEPaul]

Very interesting thread! Shadow Creek and Sand Hills very well might be the most influential courses built in the 1990s. Why? To me because they both have had tremendous notice and the two of them probably set the spectrum of golf course architecture in the 1990s. There is almost nothing about them that's remotely similar--differences in money, differences in site sensitivity, differences in naturalness and artificiality, differences in aura, etc. These two courses are probably the best examples of the spectrum of the tastes and perceptions of the golfing public as to what the ideal is in golf architecture.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Time will tell. In addition to the new courses already mentioned, perhaps a restoration or a group of very positive restorations might turn out to be the most influencial. Or maybe the faux restoration/remodelings of courses like East Lake and Sea Island will be most influential -- I hope not.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Tough call deciding between Shadow Creek and Sand Hills, but just the fact that those two are the most mentioned shows a division in tastes that I don’t think existed not so long ago. To be influential, it has to be imitated, and I think both of these courses have had a tremendous impact on course architecture. We hear more about the Shadow Creeks of the world because they have the means to get noticed, but minimalism is alive and well, and a growing trend. Waterfalls, artificial creeks and pine trees in the desert were all the rage in the 80’s and 90’s, and many developers hold the belief that good, artificial eye candy is the most risk free investment. But, the undercurrent of minimalism is alive and spreading. We are in a back to the future mode in much of the golf world. I think two or three years ago was the first time I heard some of my customers ask for firmer/faster conditions and suggest that although color was nice, it should not be a priority. They are still very much in the minority, but those ideas are heard more and more. The Shadow Creeks of the world are louder, but the courses influenced by the Sand Hills style are more in number, and I believe history will show this time as the beginning of the changing tastes of the American golfer.  

[John_Conley]

KAPALUA PLANTATION, for after it was built it led to increased credibility for Coore/Crenshaw.  Sand Hills and Cuscowilla followed.  

[Ben Cowan-Dewar]

David,
First, I have not played Sand Hills, so I am giving it pretty lofty praise, aren't I?

I guess in defense of Sand Hills over Shadow, Pacific Dunes again has burst into the spotlight in a similar fashion that these two courses did.  Obviously it is not simple to say they are similar courses, however the minimalist approach is certainly making a comeback.

While, Shadow may be the most unique and memorable to the general public I do not think it will be as influential.  The major reason is that aside from Cascata I do not think there will be an architect who will get a blank cheque to create it.  Therefore, I do not think Shadow will influence how the rest of the designers make their courses, though the minimalist approach may make a comeback (especially if it comes at a lower cost.)

As for Whistling Straits, perhaps I blew it a little with that one.  I guess I saw a more reasonable parallel between the minimalist look even if the land did not exist.  I would not call it the third course built at a resort though; it is night and day from the two courses at Blackwolf.  I guess my view was that if heaps of money are going to be thrown around they will be done so to create minimalist looks versus artificial.

It has been a long trying day, so I hope this all makes sense.
Best Regards
Ben

[David Wigler]

Don and Tom,

The more I think about it, the more I must concede you are correct.  Perhaps the title deserves a split National Championship (Much like I hope happens if Nebraska and Oregon can win).  Comparing the two courses is truly a study in contrasts and all of us seem to agree that it is one or the other.  Both courses present the same dangers as well.  There is a very fine line between understated and plain.  It is going to take skilled Architects to provide the Sand Hills look without ended up with Goat Farms.  On the other end, we have all seen courses built to resemble Shadow but without the skill and dollars, they come off feeling horribly manufactured and artificial.  

One of the highlights of my College experience was a road trip to Wisconsin for Armadillo Days my freshman year.  The guest speakers were Abbie Hoffman and G. Gordon Liddy and the debate was on the legalization of Marijuana.  The dramatic difference between the people, styles, and true beliefs made it absolutely enthralling.  It would be well worth the price of admission if we could get Fazio and Crenshaw into a room and listen to the debate the correct way to build a golf course

[BillV]

As far as a model influence, it could be Troon North. What???

Changes in the US Federal Tax Laws minimized the deductibility of membership fees, dues and entertainment.

It (TN) was the original stellar service-laden CC-FAD that spawned Troon Golf and caused the explosion of these monstrosities.  Gorgeous, big lush courses without much real substance. Fabulous beauty when it forst opened, now ticky-tacky desert house city.

Shadow Creek, I don't honestly remember which came first, but forinfluential Troon North probably has been more influential than any of the above mentioned.

Prior to any of these courses can anyone think of an earlier CC-FAD than Kemper Lakes in Chicago (1980)?  They took one step further in ammenities than Jim Jemsek's Cog Hill.  Like or dislike the course, it was a really noice place to go and play CC conditions for the muni guy.

The beauty-laden, modern indulgence CC-FAD with the Tour Bag hacker, cart-riding ceegar smokin' can't play in less than 5 1/2 hrs plague that has beset our beloved game, possibly changing it forever, had its real start at Troon North, therefore I submit it for humble consideration.

[TEPaul]

Here's a course that is undeniably the most influential course in the world! Certainly for how other courses manage their course and maybe even for how new courses look. It's unquestionably the best known golf course by the greatest amount of people simply because more people see it every year than any other course in the world.

That would be Augusta National! What, you say, ANGC was built in the 1930s?! Well that may be so, but if you add up the annual changes in the 1990s one could make a good case that it was built in the 1990s too!

[Chris Hervochon]

Would definitel say everyone is right with Shadow Creek.  But, Tom Paul beat me too it by saying Augusta National!