Tom Fazio's Best Golf Course Design.

[Ian Larson]

My only beef with Fazio is what he signed off on with Marzolf at Riviera.

[David Whitmer]

I have played a few Fazio courses, and I would say the best one is The Old North State Club in North Carolina. I have enjoyed every one of his courses I have played...not the greatest courses I've seen, but good, solid tracks. I would be very happy to spend every day playing The Old North State Club...it's a super-nice course in a great setting.

[Sean Leary]

I am interested to see what people think of Gozzer Ranch. I think Jim Franklin is going to play it soon.

It looks like it is on similar type property to Martis Camp.

I leave Friday and can't wait.

As I have said before, my top 5 Fazio courses would be:

1. Victoria National
2. The Alotian
3. Wade Hampton
4. Shadow Creek
5. Galloway National

with Estancia, Karsten Creek, Sage Valley, Flint Hills, and Dallas National rounding out my top 10.

Seems like a pretty good top 10. I need to play Flint Hills on one of my trips to Kansas. David Kelly even liked it, much to his chagrin

[Mike Hendren]

Interesting that both John Conley and Lou Duran mentioned Camp Creek in the FL Panhandle.  A nice course - but an underperformance given the fantastic sand based site with decent elevation changes a stone's throw from the beach.  A "5.5" golf course on an "8" site.  Odd routing with a 150 yards hike from the 9th green to 10th tee and four isolated holes on the back creating two 150 yards hikes.  

Bogey

[Jay Flemma]

No love for world woods?

Ventana Canyon (mountain course?)

Well at least we know it's not Turning Stone casino!  For certain.  Turning Stone = Junior Varsity.  But hey, they're having a great time at the kid's table of the TOUR.

[Sean Leary]

I would guess that Madison Club would now be part of the equation as well.  I hear it is fantastic for a desert course.

[Tom_Doak]

The interesting thing about Jim Franklin's list of top ten Fazio courses (of which I've only seen four) is that each of them except Karsten Creek was an eight-figure construction job.  Whereas half of my best courses are on the lower end of our budget range. 

[Sean Leary]

The interesting thing about Jim Franklin's list of top ten Fazio courses (of which I've only seen four) is that each of them except Karsten Creek was an eight-figure construction job.  Whereas half of my best courses are on the lower end of our budget range. 

Are any of those 10 naturally great sites though?

[David Druzisky]

Tom,  You have your formula for success and Tom and his crew has his.  Safe to say both seem to be doing well - big budget and low budget.  Like all of us you both probably have course that are not making it in the market and many that are okay no matter what was spent.

[David_Madison]

I've played at least 30-35 Fazio courses, 15 or more in North Carolina where I live, and likely all if not the vast majority of his best courses here. I believe that his two best courses in NC are Eagle Point in Wilmington and Mountaintop in Cashiers. I found Eagle Point to have very little of the excessive "arts and crafts" that may leave Fazio open to criticism. It's pure golf, interesting and challenging.

Mountaintop is wonderful, very possible better than Wade Hampton. It's bigger, stronger, and better constructed (lots of sand capping and a ton of drainage) so that it pretty much always remains dry and firm. It has some fantastic mountain views, and it's length and overall challenge level will hold up for any level of player while still being fair and playable for weaker or average golfers. Wade is excellent, a beautiful design with a number of great holes. They've done a lot of good work recently to dry out the course. The one missing piece I see at Wade (and also Pine Barrons) is that they haven't kept up with technology, so what used to be challenging, long holes are not so tough any more. The greens are still interesting and challenging, and you have to stay in the right spots or you'll 3-putt like crazy. But what used to be driver/4-iron is now driver/9-iron, and the long-iron par-3's are now mid-irons, so that challenge level is not what it used to be. I heard that they were going to add a number of tees to restore the old shot values.

Finley saddens me. While a student at UNC-Chapel Hill back in the late 70's, I loved that quirky old course. I believe that it was a Flynn design, but I'm not 100% positive. Now it's just a characterless slugfest to large, mostly flat boring greens. Maybe fine for competitive college golfers, but nowhere near as enjoyable an experience to play as the old course.

[Jim Franklin]

The interesting thing about Jim Franklin's list of top ten Fazio courses (of which I've only seen four) is that each of them except Karsten Creek was an eight-figure construction job.  Whereas half of my best courses are on the lower end of our budget range. 

I did not know his courses were so pricey. I don't want to sound like I am blowing sunshine up Mr Doak's butt, but that is a tribute to your ability that you can make a course for that much less AND have it be that much more fun. This is a Fazio thread, but I can't wait to see Rock Creek next week.

[PCCraig]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the North Course at Forest Creek in Pinehurst. A natural and rugged sand based property that has the look so many on here love and currently sits around #70 on GW's modern list. Compared to his work at The Glen Club in Chicago FC looks like a masterpiece!

[Aidan Bradley]

Three pages and not even a peep about Kuki'o. I assume it is because not to many have seen the course!!!!

[David Stamm]

My only beef with Fazio is what he signed off on with Marzolf at Riviera.

And the hatchet job at Bel Air.



I don't think difficulty of the sites is the only reason that Fazio's courses cost so much. It's not like the man is never given a good site, he's one of the most recognized arch's in the business so he's going to called upon in all kinds of scenarios. His design fee's are amongst the highest compared to his peers. I think Fazio's original courses for the most part are fine, but I think he's been a bit irresponsible in regards to costs. Almost none of his public accesses are "cheap" as less is more is never part of his repertoire. His modus operandi is to visully wow the customer so the customer feels they got their money's worth. Read his book and it really becomes evident why his budgets are so much. It's his design attitude. His courses require lots of water to maintain the "wow" factor and likes to move alot of earth around because he can. Wall to wall sod that always looks lush green in the photos is typical with most of his designs as well as features that have very little to do with the strategy but drive up the building costs. Fazio is not a bad arch, I just think he could do so much more for so much less. I'd also like to see him take more chances with his designs. He never tries anything edgey or controversial from an architectural standpoint. He always goes with the "safe bet" approach. And I think that's because with the fees he charges, he can't afford to take the chances he could or should.

[Tom_Doak]

David D / Sean L:

I did not mean to imply by my post that my style was better than Mr. Fazio's (as easy as it is for some to jump to that conclusion), or vice versa.  I was just pointing out how different an approach we have. 

My style is more dependent on having a good site to work with, and I make no bones about that.  When we don't have a great site, we can still build something pretty cool for not a lot of money [like Common Ground], but it's not going to compare to Martis Camp.  Frankly, I would rather do that than build a lot of courses like The Rawls where you spend $4 million more on, essentially, landscaping.

Mr. Fazio's style is not so dependent on having a good site, but whether it's a good site or not, he just does better work when he is building everything artificially instead of using natural contours in the fairways.  That's why I still vote for Shadow Creek as his masterpiece ... though I haven't seen the more recent half of Jim's list.

[Carl Nichols]

The interesting thing about Jim Franklin's list of top ten Fazio courses (of which I've only seen four) is that each of them except Karsten Creek was an eight-figure construction job.  Whereas half of my best courses are on the lower end of our budget range. 

Is that also true of many of Pete Dye's and Jack Nicklaus's top courses, at least if you're talking about 2009 dollars?  [This isn't meant to be rhetorical or snarky -- I don't know the answer, but it seems like Dye and Nicklaus might often have had significant construction budgets.]

[Tom Huckaby]

David:  I think you need to see Martis Camp.  The course is anything but conventional... Fazio took a lot of chances there... or so it looked to me.

Tom D.:    I have no clue about the work Fazio does in general - I trust your take completely - but at least there at Martis Camp, well... he sure fooled me if all of the contours were man-made.  Maybe they were.  In any case they neither looked nor played that way.  And many were very very bold.

I swear it looked to me as if it was his way of TRYING to do your style, or that of C&C, or a little of both.

But I could be completely full of shit.  Architectural styles are really really not my bag.

TH

[Greg Tallman]

The interesting thing about Jim Franklin's list of top ten Fazio courses (of which I've only seen four) is that each of them except Karsten Creek was an eight-figure construction job.  Whereas half of my best courses are on the lower end of our budget range.  

Certainly consistent with the belief that great courses are as much found as they are created.

Best Fazios I have played/toured:

WW Pine Barrens
Emerald Dunes
Black Diamond
Querencia
Chileno Bay - By the way Discovery is out on this deal and the latest is they have an LOI with another group who would, at least temporarily, open the course to the public much like is happneing at Diamante. No facilities to speak of but good golf is good golf though the inability to complete the entire landscape plan mars the experience. 

One more for the discussion... Mahogany Run in St Thomas, a real keeper.

[Tom_Doak]

Carl N:

I think you would be surprised at the differences in construction budgets between various firms.

Pete Dye's run the gamut ... Firethorn in Nebraska was a really low-budget affair ... so was Harbour Town for that matter.

Mr. Nicklaus is more conscious of the construction budget than he is pictured to be, although he knows that for some clients the sky is the limit.  I can tell you for a fact he was shocked how much Fazio was allowed to spend on the second course at Pronghorn ... Jack thought he was doing the client a favor by designing something which fit the flow of the land (rock), and they just turned around and spent the savings on the other guy's course!

[David_Madison]

A few years ago, at a Golf Digest Panelist's gathering I asked Tom whether he'd rather have a great site where he could "find" the course or would he rather have a plain site and manufacturer the course. His response was that his ideal site would be the parking lot at the Mall of the Americas in Minnesota, where he could 100% completely control every aspect of the finished course.

[Jim Franklin]

A few years ago, at a Golf Digest Panelist's gathering I asked Tom whether he'd rather have a great site where he could "find" the course or would he rather have a plain site and manufacturer the course. His response was that his ideal site would be the parking lot at the Mall of the Americas in Minnesota, where he could 100% completely control every aspect of the finished course.

You mean Shadow Creek . From reading the book, it sounded as if Steve Wynn had to twist his arm to build it though.

[David Stamm]

A few years ago, at a Golf Digest Panelist's gathering I asked Tom whether he'd rather have a great site where he could "find" the course or would he rather have a plain site and manufacturer the course. His response was that his ideal site would be the parking lot at the Mall of the Americas in Minnesota, where he could 100% completely control every aspect of the finished course.

This incapsulates the very reason why his courses cost so much.

[Ben Sims]

I know I keep talking about it, mainly cause I see it from afar everyday.  But is Briggs Ranch even in this conversation?

[Andy Troeger]

I've played 14 of Fazio's courses I think and am missing many of the major players, but I'd flip Jim's top two and put Alotian #1 and Victoria National #2. There's a bit of a gap after that, with Karsten Creek being #3. I'll be curious to see where we put Gozzer Ranch in that listing next week.

[Sean Leary]

Has anyone besides Matt Ward played Glenwild? Thoughts?