[George Pazin]

Well, the Open's over, the PGA is weeeeeeeeeeeks away, so I thought I'd start a new thread with the entries to the 2007 Lido contest, as I think many missed the discussion threads in recent weeks.

I'll be pulling over everyone else's designs shortly, please rip mine apart in the meantime.

First the image (please excuse the hasty drawing - I was kinda disgusted with my color version I sent in, so I didn't bother to keep a copy; this is a quick redraw):

375 yard par 4, 1 tee area


Basically, the idea is a different take on using hilly terrain, which we have tons of here in western PA. Instead of the typical elevated drive over the the valley, straight up the hill to the green, I am offering a diagonal tee shot, approaching the hill at a fairly oblique angle.

The green is oriented to favor an approach from the right. That way, a golfer is faced with three basic options:

1) play straight, swing away, get closer to the green, but at a cost of an uneven stance;

2) go long and left for a level stance, rewarding you with a short approach to the green, but at a cost of a potentially unfavorable angle and a more blind shot;

3) play shorter, straight or right, get a level stance, possibly a more favorable angle of approach, but at a cost of a much longer approach.

(There is also the option for the really big hitters of hitting it out to the right, trying to carry the uphill 300 yard pot bunker, for a favorable angle AND relatively flat stance - the costs are possible bad stance if too far left and possible really tough fairway bunker shot if not long enough. This area is also designed to be an interesting bailout area if you really screw up your drive off the tee, like a top or duck hook.)

The scale on the side view isn't very good, as Garland noticed - the hill would be unrealistically high. I'm thinking the green would be about 50-60 feet above the base of the hill.

One of the other aspects of the hole is that the green would offer several very different hole locations, so that the golfer might choose to play the hole different ways, depending on the hole lcoation.

I'll pull over the others shortly.

It would really be nice to hear some feedback, for my drawing and everyone else's. Architects are in fact required to post critiques - if you don't, I will be having your posting privileges revoked.



 

[George Pazin]

Jeff Doerr's entry:

Ok, so I took George's advice and had some fun. It amused my kids and was a pretty good exercise to think through the angles and shot values. As the saying goes, "it's not as easy as it looks!"




...yes, I will be keeping my day job!

[George Pazin]

Ryan Farrow's entry:

Since the announcement date for the winning entries has come and gone I think it is now time for everyone to post their failures, including you George.

I will start things off with the best par 4 never to be built in Montana:






I guess I was not, "the fanciful, the unorthodox, the ultra-imaginative."

...ehhhhh maybe I could live with that.  

[George Pazin]

Matt Cohn's entry:

[George Pazin]

John Lyon's entry:



(Yeah, right, he's only 17.... )

[George Pazin]

Kyle Harris's entry:

In the interest of my "me too" attitude here goes. Something with which I've been toying for a bit...

Contour Interval: 5 feet (just on 3 shown, this is a rough concept)
Distance from back tee to turn point: 280 yards
Everything else roughly to scale. The green is pushed up and benched into a left to right sloping hillside with the back right, right side and front right falling away from the center of the green.

[George Pazin]

Garland Bayley's entry:

I tried to create a strong line of instinct that would be difficult to score low from. There is one bunker, a deep one, in front of the green right on the line of instinct, from which the green basically runs away from in all directions. The line of instinct is strong because it is the only route that does not have a blind drive or is not very circuitous. The lines of charm that would allow the player to get the ball closer have a blind drive, or both a blind drive and blind approach.

When I later looked back at the contest information, I saw the reprint of Alister's guidelines and noticed he did not like blindness. Oops. Since I was breaking up existing dunes to create the hole, I wanted to give the created dunes some similarity to what the rest of the site has so it would at least seem somewhat natural. Therefore, I did not put cuts in my dunes  to make landing areas visible.

The description I sent with the entry is as follows:

The motivation for this design came after first playing Astoria Country Club with its quirky minimalist design routing narrow holes between 30 ft. high parallel dunes. When the course was created designs preserving the dunes and designs cutting through the dunes were submitted, with the design preserving the dunes winning out. The one slight misfortune of this is that there are two pairs of holes that are essentially mirrors of each other, running in opposite directions between the same dunes. Therefore, the variety of holes on the course is reduced as you feel you are playing the same hole in each case, but in the opposite direction. A redesign of the course could keep one each of these pairs as they are quite distinct given the width between dunes. One of the pairs has fairways approximately 12 yards wide, while the other pair has fairways over 25 yards wide in the shallow between the dunes.
The hole design I have created could be used to replace one of the holes that has a 12 yard wide base between the dunes, with the green nestled into this narrow area and the dune in front leveled near the green, the dune in rear leveled later providing a ‘backstop’, and the material from the leveled dunes distributed to bring a series of smaller dunes that define the options on the hole.
The hole is 380 yards long in a direct line from the tee to the center of the green and measures 420 yards around the dogleg of approximately 60 degrees. Various routes can make the hole as much as 440 yards long. There are two routes that could be played without crossing any dunes. The far right route (F) which would be the 440 yard route could be played with low drawing shots to keep the ball below the wind since this is a coastal area with winds blowing in at right angles to the dunes. The far left route (A) would allow a shot of approximately 160 yards between the sets of dunes to the fairway fronting the green after a drive of approximately 230 yards. It is doubtful anyone would try to cross the large dune in front of the green from this position. Route B allow a person that can carry the ball near 300 yards to get in a position for a blind wedge over the fronting dune to the green. The short but straight hitter may choose route C playing through narrow slots between dunes with a drive of 180 yards and a second of 160 yards to get in position in front of the green to try to get up and down. Routes D and E would be require blind drives. Route D would require a carry of approximately 250 yards and would leave a short iron into the green. Route E would give the most generous landing area for the drive carrying 210 yards. From there the player could attempt what would be essentially a bank shot off of the back dune to get the ball on the green. After a 220 yard drive, route F would leave a 220 yard approach that would most likely use the dune to feed the ball onto the green.

The least successful approach to the green would be to come in over the bunker (dug by sheep of course) in a hollow on the left front of the green. There is a ridge between the bunker and the green that will help prevent shots running off of the back dune to run across the green into the bunker. Therefore, it would be extremely hard to get up and down out of the bunker. A hole location on the front ¼ of the green would utilize these features. There is a ridge running thru the back ¾ of the green that makes it advantageous but not required to approach the left rear ¼ of the green with a lob over the tall fronting dune. This would make a mini-Dell hole with a rock placed to designate where you must stay left of to keep out of the bunker. The ridge would also tend to shed balls coming in over the bunker to the wrong side for the current pin location. Two or three pinable areas would be placed in the remaining ½ of the green.

The hole is drawn with one tee. The options are so numerous that players of all abilities should find the hole interesting and challenging without additional tees.

[Garland Bayley]

George,

What prevents one from driving long right onto the shallower slope for an approach looking down the length of the green?

[George Pazin]

Nothing, really. Just the flat versus uneven part, and the pot bunker.

My contours are really also not accurate - the way it's drawn, it looks like it's perched alone on a volcano-like hill. In my head, I envisioned it more as one longish hill, perched on the plateau peak.

[Jeff_Brauer]

The problem with all those multiple route holes has been found in practice to be:

On flattish ground, not all of those bunkers would show up as well as intended.

In practice, some of us are questioning the value of two fw, much less the five or six shown. I think the least valuble ones would be removed, and thus, the entries should be vetted for just how valuble the options are.

Some routes really don't show as logical alternatives to me.

In my view, Kyle and Ryans have the most potential.  

[Garland Bayley]

...
In practice, some of us are questioning the value of two fw, much less the five or six shown. I think the least valuble ones would be removed, and thus, the entries should be vetted for just how valuble the options are.
...

I assume fw means fairway. The way I see it, none of the drawings have even two fairways. They all have one. The closest would be Matt's where the first part of the fariway is split.
 

[Matt_Cohn]

I really like Garland's entry. It's pretty brilliant to create a hundred yards of uncertainty about one's preferred line without even using a central hazard, and only one normal bunker on the entire hole.

It uses two other features I like a lot: first, challenging a player to stop the ball just short of trouble, as opposed to barely carrying it; and second, the opportunity to approach the green from sort of around the back, rather than just straight on. (I tried to use this idea in my entry, too.)

Good job. If you put in little strips of rough so it looked like you had four fairways, you might have won!    

[Garland Bayley]

...
Good job. If you put in little strips of rough so it looked like you had four fairways, you might have won!    

Thanks for the praise Matt. However, I suspect that what really won in this contest was drawing talent, because as the other thread pointed out, the winning designs when "vetted for just how valuble(sic) the options are" were found to be severely lacking.

[Dan Herrmann]

You know what's awesome about this - it shows just how great the professionals are.  They do 18 at a time, have to deal with gov't agencies, water issues, and they need to make a living.   The Game of Golf thanks them!

Wonderful entries folks!

[Joe Hancock]

How many days is it going to take to mow fairways on these new courses?.....

Seriously, the maintenance end of things needs to be considered a bit when drawing these multi-lines of charm, confounding, tempting, fairway option riddled holes......

Joe

[Garland Bayley]

Joe,

You thought maybe we were designing for munis? We of course design for the ultimate private, our own course where only us and our website friends get to play. Can't have the public coming in and complaining about our quirks now can we.

[John Kavanaugh]

I love the F option of hitting a 220 yd drive with a hazard right leaving a 220 yd approach.  Exactly what kind of handicap player would choose such an option intentionally?

[Garland Bayley]

John,

That drive is directly into the wind coming off the ocean. I suspect you would use when you don't think you can get it over the last 15 ft. dune playing into the wind. From there, you can play a low runner up the right side below the level of the 30 ft dune on the right. The only pin that would be hard to access would be the back left.

[John Kavanaugh]

Garland,

My point is why would anyone with the talent to hit a 220 yd approach take that route when you can simply hit the exact same shot down the middle and have 160 to the green.  It is not so hard to hit a 220 yd drive with accuracy but a 220 yd approach is rare stuff.  I don't see such a thing as a real option.  I don't even see Tiger taking that route if this was  the 06 Open.  I will say that in a world where design is propagated by phalic symbols your artistry takes quite the vulvanic route.

[Ted Kramer]

Garland,

. . . .

  I will say that in a world where design is propagated by phalic symbols your artistry takes quite the vulvanic route.

Amazing!

**And Garland, my comment has nothing to do with your entry, I happen to think it is really cool. I just had to acknowledge Mr. Kavanaugh's brilliant commentary.

-Ted

[Garland Bayley]

Garland,

My point is why would anyone with the talent to hit a 220 yd approach take that route when you can simply hit the exact same shot down the middle and have 160 to the green.  It is not so hard to hit a 220 yd drive with accuracy but a 220 yd approach is rare stuff.  I don't see such a thing as a real option. ...

It seems what you suggest could leave one with a 15 ft dune in front of ones self, forcing one to hit a high 160 yard shot into a 30 mph wind coming off the ocean. To each his own.

Actually the one route that seems to me somewhat superfluous is the A route. It only happens when I aim at E and lefty block or slice to A.  

[George Pazin]

John, if it would help you out, think of option F not as a desired option, but rather, an available option, should one's shot not turn out as planned, something many seem to overlook.

So far Jeff's the only architect not in danger of losing his posting privileges.

 

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