[Patrick_Mucci]

Are architect's designs inherently compromised when the owner/developer insists that both nines return to the clubhouse ?

[Bob_Huntley]

yes

Bob

[Mike_Young]

Yep....but probably not as much as when developers tell you where the clubhouse has to be...

[Steve Kline]

Isn't the answer by definition yes. When someone insists on something in any part of the design doesn't it automatically take away potential options that could have been better. It doesn't mean that owner/developer is/was wrong, but by limiting the architect's choices the design has been compromised.

[jim_lewis]

Pat:

I have seen many examples that demonstrate the point you raise. Some are pretty famous. I argue that Bandon Dunes and Augusta National could have been routed better if both nines did not return to the club. (Please don't ask me how I would have routed them!) In both cases the 9th and 18th holes are two of my least favorite holes on the courses.

The 18th hole at the Barton Creek Foothills course is one of the worst finishing holes on an otherwise pretty good course I have ever seen. Long and straight uphill to the back of the Hotel.

The same problem arises when the owner (or somebody) is determined to maximize the number of holes that are on the water. And of course, if there is a large lake, the clubhouse must overlook it and the finishing hole be wrapped around the lake to mimick the 18th at Pebble Beach. My pet peeve in course design!

jim lewis

[Mike Nuzzo]

I think the fact that they would be nines is also more constricting.  Depending on the geometry of the property, returning can be ideal, but returning at the ninth efficiently leads to more compromises.

[Peter Pallotta]

Patrick,
I was going to answer "no", but I chickened out after others (including Mike Young, an architect) answered "yes".

Instead, I'll tell a story:

Writer-director Joseph Mankewitz had a script he'd written for Darryl Zanuck. Mankewitz loved the script, and thought it was the best he'd ever written. It was called "Letter to Four Wives". The trouble was, it was 180 pages long, or about 3 hours on screen. That was too long, and he knew it, and so he was hesitant about showing it to Zanuck, a tough s.o.b. of a producer if there ever was one.  Mankewitz tried hard to shorten it, but when he couldn't he finally screwed up his courage and gave it to Zanuck to read. Then he waited, and worried, expecting the worst to come from this producer he considered a philistine.  Finally, the script came back, with Zanuck's hand written scrawl across the first page: "Lose one of the wives".      

Mankewitz took the (absurdly simplistic) advice. The script became "Letter to Three Wives," and it won him an Academy Award for best screenplay.

Which is to say, even a great artist is sometimes helped by  the external constraints forced upon him by the money man.

Peter

[Tim Bert]

I'll fall for the trap.

I'll say not necessarily, as long as the area selected for the clubhouse is in a spot that lends itself to two holes away from that spot and two holes finishing at that spot that would have been selected for placement of holes whether or not the clubhouse was located there.  

[cary lichtenstein]

Yes, and especially when the architect uses a lake in between 9 and 18 and one green turns right and the other left in order to tuck them behind the water.

I've seen this happen so many times I lost count.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Surely you are most restricted by having to have 18 holes.

[Jon Wiggett]

Mark,

the topic of having to have 18 holes is one I have discussed in earlier threads. I feel, rather 16 great holes than 18 okay.

[Tom_Doak]

Patrick:

Here's some math for you on the subject.

We've done 25 courses to date.  Forty percent of them don't return to the clubhouse after #9 ... the other sixty percent do.

However, on nine of the 15 courses which do return to the clubhouse, the client specifically asked for the ninth to come back in.  And there was one course where there was absolutely no way to return at the ninth due to the shape of the property.  So, you can interpolate that of the 15 courses where I had a choice, I decided that 9 of the 15 were better off not returning at the ninth.

P.S.  As Mike Nuzzo suggested, it is the fact people want two even loops of nine which is the most restrictive part of the equation.  I've actually done three courses which came back after eight holes and one which returned at the 7th.

[Phil Benedict]

My course is an out-and-back routing but the 4th green is next to the 14th tee, which creates a convenient way to play nine if that's your preference.  Do you think the architect (Ross) planned it that way?

[Tom_Doak]

Phil:

Yes.  It might have occurred by accident, but Ross would have noticed the accident and incorporated that into the design.  We architects are always looking for convenient justifications of any quirks in our designs which we know will be questioned.

[PThomas]

Phil:

  We architects are always looking for convenient justifications of any quirks in our designs which we know will be questioned.

item #22 from the architects' "Tricks of the trade" manual

[TEPaul]

Hey Pat, in this vein do you want to hear something pretty cool? We call this Shinnecock's "Merion routing" and I don't think the sequence was lost on Flynn since he designed the course at first in three separate nines---eg not a single set 18 hole sequence. In one sequence #14 was #1 on a nine even though what follows was not that nine. So watch this sequence at Shinnecock:

#14, 15, 16, 17, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (back at clubhouse)=36
#1, 2, 3, 4, 18, 10, 11, 12, 13 (back at clubhouse)=34

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

That's pretty neat.

Did the third nine start from the current Pro shop location and where did it finish ?

[Lloyd_Cole]

Occasionally, a restiction on the artist's complete freedom of expression will force him into an unforseen corner where the possibilities actually surpass those that he would have found following his own instinct. There are many happy accidents in the creative realm, we are more likely to acknowledge them when our hands are not forced, but they are no less likely to occur...

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