[John Kavanaugh]

What are the dirty little secrets of golf course architecture that you have learned since you have become a student of the craft?  To start:

Public courses are dumbed down for the public.  It really saddens me that critics expect public courses to be of a less architectural interest because of slow play and the typical one time player.  The real secret may be that the public course does not make their bread and butter from the one time player and should not be dumbed down at all.  This is what makes it a dirty little secret.

[Tom_Doak]

John:

I really think that has gotten a lot better over the past 25 years.

When I was first starting in the business, or maybe still in college, GOLF Magazine did an article where they asked Nicklaus to design the same hole for four different situations.  His private-course version had a small green; the resort version had lots of flashy bunkers; the championship-course version a lot tighter fairway bunkering; and the muni version was plain vanilla.

Of course, Jack hasn't designed a lot of muni courses in his career, but when I read that I wondered why more public-course golfers didn't react to it and demand equal treatment.  In the CCFAD era, I believe more of them did.

By coincidence, Quail Crossing is my most austere public course design in terms of bunkering -- they didn't have a big budget to work with, and sand is expensive there, so the client asked me to limit the number and size of bunkers.  But, you might vouch for the fact that the greens are not "dumbed down" in the least; in fact, I was trying to make up for the scarcity of bunkering by making the greens really interesting.

[W.H. Cosgrove]

That many courses place "eye candy" out of the line of play to make the experience appear more difficult than it really is.  

I think OB sports was guilty of this and I can think of at leat one Palmer guilty of the same.

[John Kavanaugh]

The greens at Quail Crossing are as interesting as those at Pacific Dunes just without the bunkers or scenery.  I really didn't appreciate them until we became "friends" and you had explained some of the nuances.  I would say they are kept at a perfect speed quite by accident.  You gotta go there some day and see the shrine they have built to you.  The clippings of all your accolades are a joy to read and point at proudly saying "I know that guy."

[David_Tepper]

Certainly not all public/daily fee courses are "dumbed down" to facilitate public play.  There is a segment of the public course market that sells itself on being demanding and challenging. Clearly, a certain segment of the golfing public responds to that. PGA West and TPC Sawgrass are examples of that. Are the courses at Bandon "dumbed down?"

I would also think that some of the so-called "dumbing down" is simply a result of courses that are operating on smaller budgets, both when they are being constructed and being maintained on an ongoing basis.  Clearly some GCA's are better than others when it comes to designing a course that has appreciable architectural integrity on a limited budget.      

[Mike Benham]

For most architects, construction companies and course owners, hiding cart paths is not seriously considered ...

[Bill_McBride]

For most architects, construction companies and course owners, hiding cart paths is not seriously considered ...

Over the weekend I played Pensacola CC and a new Jerry Pate course, "The Preserve," near Biloxi.  It's called The Preserve because it's adjacent to a 1,000 acre plus natural savannah that has been preserved through a land swap that yielded the uplands to build the course and preserved the wetlands and savannah.

I played with the lead architect for Jerry Pate Golf Design, Steve Dana, at both courses, and noted several times how well the cart paths were hidden by subtle grading, sometimes just several inches, that kept the paths below eye sight.  It's a very nice touch that I don't think costs anything much extra but makes the course a lot easier on the eyes.

[BCrosby]

By coincidence, Quail Crossing is my most austere public course design in terms of bunkering -- they didn't have a big budget to work with, and sand is expensive there, so the client asked me to limit the number and size of bunkers.  But, you might vouch for the fact that the greens are not "dumbed down" in the least; in fact, I was trying to make up for the scarcity of bunkering by making the greens really interesting.

Tom - I was struck by the parallel with the building of ANGC in 1932.

Bill McB -

Since cartpaths are the single biggest feature on a golf course, I am baffled why golf architects don't devote more time to dealing with them.

They pose serious aesthetic, practical (turf wear, drainage, etc.) and strategic (shot interference) issues.

As far as I can tell, no one has come up with solutions to any of those problems. There's fame and fortune out there for the guy that does.

Bob  

[Jim Nugent]

Since cartpaths are the single biggest feature on a golf course, I am baffled why golf architects don't devote more time to dealing with them.

They pose serious aesthetic, practical (turf wear, drainage, etc.) and strategic (shot interference) issues.

As far as I can tell, no one has come up with solutions to any of those problems. There's fame and fortune out there for the guy that does.

Bob, the answer is obvious.  Anti-gravity carts, that float through the air.  

[RJ_Daley]

"dirty little secret" generally implies something underhanded, nefarious, and treacherous to me.  I don't think I've learned anything about that here on GCA.com, per se.  

As with any craft or area of business practice, I guess we all know intuitively that some of those sort of things go on.  

As to tricky and redundant design/build techniques, or 'overbuilding' a golf course beyond the course's market... well again, I suspect that to be the case sometimes from trying to read between the lines of some of the posts, but couldn't speak authoritatively on the matter.

Actually, I tend to think that I've learned more about the quality side of GCA, and the level of pride and professionalism that is present in GCA and associated fields, because we tend to have the archies, supers, principles and other people associated with the business of golf who care enough to come on GCA.com to explain their values and ideals and approches to their practice.  The learning over the years isn't about 'dirty stuff' so much as respected practices and efforts that go unnoticed by the golf public at large.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()