changes at Dismal River?

[PThomas]

this course came up on the "Nicklaus on Doak" thread...there were rumors of several holes being changes/modified...anyone know the specifics??

[Brad Klein]

Paul,

I was told by the Dismal River staff a year ago when there that at least four fairways were to be regraded to make them more playable. I was also under the impression that at least as many greens were to be substantially reshaped.

My impression of that place was that as the first post-Sebonack routing, Nicklaus' people were determined to make it a naturalistic routing. They proceeded to produce the routing in, I was told, two days.

It showed it.  

[jeffwarne]

The course wouldn't have to be regraded and reshaped if those pesky members and guests  "understood what a golf shot should be"  
perhaps a collaboration on the redo might be appropriate.

[RJ_Daley]

Dr. Klein,

Had you said something like, the Dismal River course had an average GW rating of 6.3 or some such rater evaluation numerical assignment, I would be left wondering if it was any good.  But due to your excellent and succinct post, I am left with little ambiguity on whether the course might be any good, or whther I'd want to see it.

[John_Conley]

A lurker has been wondering if this day would come.  Finally, a post addressing the revisions at Dismal!

 

[David Stamm]

My impression of that place was that as the first post-Sebonack routing, Nicklaus' people were determined to make it a naturalistic routing. They proceeded to produce the routing in, I was told, two days.

It showed it.  

Probably because that's all JN could spend on the site. 2 days? That explains changes already happening. Would this qualify as "re-perfecting"?


I wonder if the members think they got what they paid for.

[Adam Clayman]

I reported on the changes.
The most significant was made to the 13th. Regraded is an understatement. The green was also brought some 60 yards closer to the tee. It's a peanut shape, elongated vertically to the approach. I can't comment on which greens were regraded but many were. They are still very fast, just not as ridiculous as the originals due to the reduction in slope. The biggest playabe difference was in the maintenance presentation to the native areas on either side of most of the holes. Making the corridors play effectively wider allowing one to find their ball for a decent chance at recovery.

There's no question JN's team is trying to capture the aesthetic but they missed the mark on the intelligence behind the feature shaping and routing.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I played there in August.  The head pro Rob Brown (if my memory serves me) told me that the at least five holes had been reworked.   It looked it too.  Evidently they are going to do some serious regrading on 18 to make the shot into the green less blind.

In fact he said that he would like to have all the ratings from a year ago erased because the course is so different.  I'm still not certain they have finished tinkering with it.  I like the course but it will still get better.  The most impressive thing about the place may be the 17 mile paved road that was built form the main road.

[Jon Wiggett]

perhaps a collaboration on the redo might be appropriate.

How about with Bobby Clampett

[RJ_Daley]

This neatly ties into the "are you serious about GCA" thread, in my view.  

Remember back when DR was being proposed and built.  We had a pretty long discussion about JN not seeking out a review of SH, and Lipe coming on here defending the methods and approach to design and construction that their firm had undertaken out there.  The suggestion that it was bad form and unwise for JN not to at least have a good look-see at SH was pooh-poohed by Lipe as I remember.  Afterall, JN has played all the great courses of the world, and what does he need to see another for... (that was what I got out of those remarks by Lipe).  

Then, we were treated with pictures during construction and grow-in, and some of us called into question the wisdom of some obvious features and how they were a departure from some of the lessons learned at SH.  (not everything at SH went hunky dory and some stuff needed tweaking as well)  But, we were told by Lipe and the developer of DR that everything was under control, and they knew just what they were doing.  

All this points to what I termed on the other thread as hubris, to say that because you have all this worldly golf playing experience, there is nothing substantive to learn from one's predecessors.  Even if C&C aren't exactly or actually JN's predecessors, they beat him to the sand hills and learned, and enough was written that even JN and his team, including Lipe, might have learned a thing or two about construction, design, extremes of terrain combined with weather, that was encountered in the other seminal sand hills project.  If JN and their team could pay respect to learn, they would be better for it, it seems to me.  And, even their clients would be better off.  

I remember Doak having his Renaissance gathering at SH not too many years before embarking on BallyNeal.  I wasn't there, yet I remember the threads on GCA.com about discussions and considerations that those in attendance had about the methods and lessons to be learned from the building of SH.  Will TD come on here and say he learned nothing in his attendance and observations of SH then at other visits, that didn't at some point matter in his own masterpiece at BallyNeal.  

If I got that right, then is this a small example of the factor of why JN doesn't hit the homerun or even score well, and TD seems to continues to drive runs in?  Which archies have a firm understanding of the ODGs, Doak, C&C or JN?  Which ones have a reverance for the ODGs?  Which ones are driving the great designs now?  

[Jon Wiggett]

RJ,

I think JN is just carrying forward the  philosophy that stood him so well during his playing days. No one elses game interested JN as it didn't affect his. If someone else beat him it was because he didn't play well enough and not that the other player was better. Taking this into GCA means why bother looking at other GCA's work. If you are going to be the best (and he believes he is) then everything else is second best from which there is little to learn except how not to be the best. That is just the mind set of JN the player.

[Brad Klein]

Except that he's simply dead wrong about it.

Anyone who elevates ignorance and obliviousness into a principle of virtue, whether Nicklaus on design or John Kavanaugh on this site, condems himself (or his body of work) to irrelevance.

[Jon Wiggett]

Brad,

as far as JN is concerned, that is only in your eyes. Jack thinks he is the best, 'I am, therefor I am'. By the way I am more or less of your opinion although I don't believe you can regard JN as irrelevant. Also, my comments are my view on how JN looks at such things and based on opinion.

[Mike Sweeney]

Except that he's simply dead wrong about it.

Anyone who elevates ignorance and obliviousness into a principle of virtue, whether Nicklaus on design or John Kavanaugh on this site, condems himself to irrelevance.

Brad,

Critically irrelevant or economically irrelevant? Nicklaus Design currently has 100 designs under way according to their website. Okay with permitting and financing issues maybe you can cut that number in half, but economically it is hard to argue that they are not the market leaders by a long shot.

The Doak (or others) vs Nicklaus seems simple to me. Brand name producing volume vs craftsman with lower volume and quality of detail work. As a golfer and regular here it is obvious which model I prefer, if I was a higher end developer, I would probably choose the later.

Would St Andrews Beach be closed if Nicklaus rather than Doak was hired? I have no idea, just asking.

PS. I am sort of guessing that Barney is more of a Doak than a Nicklaus in the asphalt paving world.  

[Rich Goodale]

Ignorant as I am of the specifics, I am glad that Jack is making changes to DR.  Quite frankly, it makes me more, rather than less, interested in taking the the Cornhuskers tour, sometime in the future.

I am very sceptical of courses like Sand Hills who seem to rest on their laurels, rather than seek to find how they could be better.  Surely, if C&C chose 18 of 100+ plus great holes in the mid-1980's, a thoughtful rethink more that 20 years later might just find a way to improve the Sand Hills experience?

Just as McArthur always went back to West Point and his thoughts of "The Corps," I must always go back to Dornoch and imagine what the 1940 course there must have been, building on a very solid foundation from Old Tom Morris and then ameliorated by Simpson and Sutherland and Taylor and Sutherland and Ross and Sutherland and probably even the Wethereds.  And then, 1/3 of the course was gone!  WWII and aw that....

But in 1946 a motley crew of the local pro and greenkeeper, an interesting but past his sell-by date pro/architect and a competent contractor, grasped the opportunity of building the course out into new adjacent land that turned out to be far better golfing country than that it replaced.

As great as they are, great new courses such as Sand HIlls, Pacific Dunes, Friars Head, Kingsbarns, etc. could be better, and probably will over time as the egos of architects/developers are subsumed by revelation or just time.

I respect Jack for a seeming dedication to continuous improvement for Dismal river.  It is a pleasing sort of humility that he and other successful architects are not particularly known for.

[Brad Klein]

Seems curious, Mr. Goodale, to confuse evolving and tweaking a well-established golf course with fixing one as soon as, if not before, it opens, to make sure it's not unplayable.

[Mike Sweeney]

Richard,

I am sure there are others, but Sand Hills (Dick Youngscap driving the dozer) made changes to the approach area of the first green between my first two trips. In addition, it is my understanding that mother nature tweaks the course every winter, and every spring there are changes as a result.

It is my understanding from a number of very good players (no Green jackets like Jack) that a number of Dismal River's greens were unplayable when it opened.

[Rich Goodale]

Thanks, Mike

I know that Pacific Dunes and Bandon Dunes and Kingsbarns have also been not insignifcantly tweaked since their openings.  Maybe Dismal River is more of of an extreme makeover than plastic surgery, but so what?  I give Jack (or whomever) credit for admitting they could do better, and then doing it.  Afer all, Frank Lloyd Wright went back and fixed that leaky roof at Falling Water, didn't he....

Brad

Not even my youngest daughter's 10-year old friends call me "Mr. Goodale."  Try Rich, or Rihc or even just Hey You!  It would be more polite in this day and age.

As for your point. what's wrong with admitting you made a mistake and then trying to fix it?  More importantly (my point above) what's right with building something great that could be even greater and just sitting on it because one is just not bovvered, as the chavs in the UK are now wont to say?

Not a good example for our children, or even budding GCAs......

Rhic

[Tom_Doak]

Rich:

How exactly has Pacific Dunes been "not insignificantly tweaked" since its opening, pray tell?  All that's been done in six years is to replace sand where it's blown out of a few of the bunkers.

For that matter, what's been done to Kingsbarns?

Neither is comparable to having to change twelve greens on a course that's a year old.

[Rich Goodale]

Tom

When I was at PD in 2001, you and your team were building a ginormous new back tee for the 1st, near the putting green.  Was that just a mere bagatelle, or did you eventually decide to not do it?

I'm assured that you haven't done anything so radical as changing greensites or the overall routing, but can you not imagine some time in the future when that might not be desireable?  If not, why?  Is it because what you have now is perfect, or because you believe that it is more important to retain design integrity than have continuous improvement that improves on "perfection?"

Kingsbarns has done and continues to do a lot of reshaping of greens, green complexes and routing theory.  I was there a few weeks ago.

You are the first to tell us about 12 greens being changed at Dismal River.  Yes that is a lot, but, if we end up with a better product, so what?  Are you, or Coore & Crenshaw or Nicklaus so good that you can get it right the 1st time, every time?  If so, good to you.  If not, why let your ego get in the way of better golf for those of us in the masses?

Constructively

Rich

[wsmorrison]

If the design had unplayable features and had to be significantly reworked, who pays for that?  Does it come out of the owner's pocket or does the design company Bear the responsibility?  Or a combination of both?  I've never been to Dismal River, but it seems possible that there were some serious mistakes made that might have been avoided.  Is Nicklaus so daunting a name and figure that he (or his insurance company) wouldn't be asked to pay for his firm's mistakes?  

[BCrosby]

"What's wrong with admitting you made a mistake and then trying to fix it?"

Well, let's see:

- someone has to pay for it;
- play is interrupted for existing members who paid their initiation fees only recently;
- the course is closed during the most important period for selling memberships;
- you get bad ratings from magazines for the first version;
- they may not come back to see the second version;
- if they do come back, the openning buzz is gone;
- your reputation as an architect is tarnished;
- questions are raised about how much time was spent on site - these sound like pretty big goofs;
- makes you wonder about the six holes they aren't fixing;
- finally, and most importantly, it raises questions about the original architect's ability to get it right on a second pass if he was so far off on the first.

Otherwise, there are no problems whatsoever.

Bob

[wsmorrison]

Nice summary, Bob.  I'm sure the owners are pretty pissed off no matter what and that the club will suffer as a result, at least for a time.

[Mark_F]

Would St Andrews Beach be closed if Nicklaus rather than Doak was hired? I have no idea, just asking.

Mike,

They never would have had that much money to pay him and construct the course in the first place.  

Interesting point, though. I have often wondered something similar. I think they would have sold more memberships overall.

I would be better off financially, however, because I wouldn't be a member.  

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Didn't one of the principals in Dismal River post here from time to time about the project? I'd like to see his response to Bob Crosby's post above.