A Routing Exercise for Wanna-be Architects

[Bill_McBride]

My entry.....

My routing evokes memories of Muirfield with two loops of nine holes, one wrapping around the exterior of the property and one on the interior.

Michael, a true Muirfield routing has the perimeter holes running counterclockwise.  That way the 90% of golfers who slice aren't ever in danger!

A good US example is Sonoma Golf Club in Northern California.  It's very similar to Muirfield's routing in Scotland in that the front nine is outside counterclockwise, the back nine inside clockwise.  Great stuff!

[Garland Bayley]

No offense meant Brian L., but I think skanky hooks by right handed or slices by left handed on 18 tee would be slaughtering folks on the tees of 16 and 15 green.  

I don't think this high handicap lefty is bad enough to hit people on 16 tee. 15 green may need some protection though.

[RJ_Daley]

Garland, you apparently haven't seen the 'hozel rocket' shot yet.  

[Garland Bayley]

Garland, you apparently haven't seen the 'hozel rocket' shot yet.  

A right handed buddy is a specialist in that shot. It afflicts him on the short par 3s at our course. He is especially suseptable after certain reminders that happen when playing for money.

[Michael Dugger]

Michael, a true Muirfield routing has the perimeter holes running counterclockwise.  That way the 90% of golfers who slice aren't ever in danger!

Good call, Bill, I was not aware Muirfield went the other direction.  Good to know!

I did dedicate some thought to the OB issue.  It is that reason, for one, that I have the front and back nine configured as I do.  I did not want the slicer teeing off #10 right off the bat.  

That said, the outer loop will present problems OB right to the slicer on #10, surely.  However 11 and 12 are clear.  #13 is my "short hole" so it shouldn't be an issue there.  #14 is my drivable par 4 in which any player could lay up with an iron so I think the threat is reduced there.  #15 is a dog leg left so I think the golfers will try to cut a corner if anything, decreasing the chances of a lost ball.  #16 could be a lot wider, but the threat is certainly real there because you will need a big tee ball on this long par 4.  #17 is also a one shotter.  You could get in trouble there, but this is the closing stretch so you best be on your game by then.  And then I left a generous "slicers pocket" to the right of the LZ on this uphiller.  I think the back 9 would probably play ok for the slicer.




A good US example is Sonoma Golf Club in Northern California.  It's very similar to Muirfield's routing in Scotland in that the front nine is outside counterclockwise, the back nine inside clockwise.  Great stuff!

[Bill Brightly]

I have to say I really like Michael's effort! Especially the way he used what little elevation change there is to make 9 and 18 rise to the clubhouse, while the first and tenth tees are elevated to a nice downhill tee shot to start the nines.

Now, I know you didn't put in all the bunkers, so I cant quiet yell where the Redan, Eden, Short and Biarritz will go...but it is one hell of a start!

[Brian Laurent]

No offense meant Brian L., but I think skanky hooks by right handed or slices by left handed on 18 tee would be slaughtering folks on the tees of 16 and 15 green.  

No offense taken.  There are a bunch of shaky spots on that routing that do not abide by the 15 degree rule.  #5 green is the one that really scared me.  

[Jason Topp]

I've never tried this before, hence the poor graphics.

My only thoughts were that I would want to get to the top of the hill when first walking the course (and it is northeast so not directly into the sun in the morning).  Other than that, I just tried to fit in holes that seemed fun.

I wound up with a 250 yard walk from 17 to 18, but could not figure out how to fix it.

Looks like par would be 71, yardage 6570.  The yardage surprised me.  It seemed longer.

1.  460
2. 340
3. 130
4. 360
5. 230
6. 530
7. 460
8. 440
9. 330
10. 500
11. 375
12. 175
13. 420
14. 150
15. 390
16. 280
17. 540
18. 460

Holes I like:

10 is supposed to be like 13 at Augusta

4 seems like fun.  The bunker is supposed to be where a 270 yard driver would try and aim

5 is supposed to be like the par 3 12th at Bandon Trails.

6 looks like a fun reachable par 5.

[Robert Thompson]

Is this the land for the third Cardinal course? Kevin Holmes is the architect there, I believe...

[Bryan Izatt]

Robert,

Yes it is the third course at Cardinal.  Thanks for identifying the architect.  My source kept forgetting the name.  I don't recognize the name.  What else has he done around here?

Have you looked at the property?

[Robert Thompson]

I hear the property is very so-so, and that might be kind. Kevin Holmes is the in-house architect for MBTW, a landscape architecture firm. He's a good player and has done a lot of relatively low budget work -- places like Watsons Glen in the GTA. He did a course in Sault Ste. Marie called Crimson Ridge that is quite good, with some dramatic holes and a couple of good par threes.

I'd be interested in seeing Kevin's routing for the same property. He's tried some things that haven't worked -- but at least he's tried....

[Garland Bayley]

Holes of interest
1 presumably gains elevation, goes through woods/OB bottleneck.
4 presumably that is a small stream running to the pond. short par 4 green guarded by stream on left, pond in back. Fairway is poorly drawn (as they all are - novice artist) but should be wider to right making stream also risk/reward for drive not attempting the green.
5 3 version, long penal over water, + 2 shorter versions, probably should be a deep bunker on right to guard the shortest tee shot.
7 Creek provides risk/reward tee shot. should be more fairway on the left by green
9 Drive out of shute like ANGC, shute should be widened.
10 Can you say talking stick north?
11 Hard 4/Easy 5
12 Stream again forms risk/reward drive
16 to 17 is a long walk.7 and 17 could almost share tees.
Par 35 - 37 - 72
Yardage 2945 - 3750 - 6695

EDIT
8 sloping fairway, skyline approach.

EDIT 2 notice almost all woods are left in place. Tee to green on 14 is 330, remotely possible if you carry all woods. Hopefully you don't pop up and come down on someone on 15 tee.

[Garland Bayley]

M. Dugger,

tooo much back and forth routing for my tastes.

[Garland Bayley]

Jason,

Obviously not out and back.
I like your 6, 9, and 10. Is 1 intended to be skyline green?

[Dan Kelly]

Garland --

How long is the tee-to-green carry on 14?

[Garland Bayley]

Garland --

How long is the tee-to-green carry on 14?

330

[Garland Bayley]

Brian L,

I can see the marketing literature now - featuring the 16th. Good use of the stream on 18.

[Bryan Izatt]

http://themnrstore.mnr.gov.on.ca/english/map.asp?tid=0&zoom=5&map=1017615048750&DisplayImage=True

Not that this helps much, but it is the best I could do for getting you a vague topo map.  On problem is that the mapping seervice cuts the available map right through the property line.  If you look on the left hand margin and find the 80* line, you will see that the far left road makes a peak up to the 90* line.  The land is within the area left of the road between 70 and 80*, where 80 is about where Mike Dugger's 8th LZ from that green is located.  But, some of the land is on the adjoining map.  It is still hard to read the contour elevation lines...

Dick,

Thanks for the link.  I didn't find that when I was looking.  And, I used to work for the government.  

It's impossible to read the topo line elevation numbers, but, using the lake between 70 and 80 on the west edge of the map as a reference point you can see the mound/ridge/knoll directly east of the lake as I indicated in my aerial.  From looking at the site it may be 15 to 20 feet higher than the marshland to the noth and west.  As you can see the marsh land has no topo lines in that area because it's real flat.  The marshland lies from there to the northeast on that map.  A lot of the marshland area is shaded green and has no topo lines.

[Bryan Izatt]

I hear the property is very so-so, and that might be kind. Kevin Holmes is the in-house architect for MBTW, a landscape architecture firm. He's a good player and has done a lot of relatively low budget work -- places like Watsons Glen in the GTA. He did a course in Sault Ste. Marie called Crimson Ridge that is quite good, with some dramatic holes and a couple of good par threes.

I'd be interested in seeing Kevin's routing for the same property. He's tried some things that haven't worked -- but at least he's tried....

The site looks like a tabula rasa to me (save the south-east corner).  Probably worse than so-so.  I too am interested in what the architect can do with it.  We should know by early next summer.  As I understand it the owner also owns a sod farm down the road and they are planning on sodding parts of the holes, so the design should be revealed fairly rapidly.  I'm not anticipating a world class course by any stretch.

[Bryan Izatt]

Michael, Garland,

You guys win the artistic award so far.  Nice presentation.

One lesson learned so far is that routing without long walks between holes might be hard.  Do you suppose it would be harder to route a course where the tee needed to be within say 25 yards of the preceding green like the old Scottish courses had?

[Bryan Izatt]

I've never tried this before, hence the poor graphics.

My only thoughts were that I would want to get to the top of the hill when first walking the course (and it is northeast so not directly into the sun in the morning).  Other than that, I just tried to fit in holes that seemed fun.

I wound up with a 250 yard walk from 17 to 18, but could not figure out how to fix it.

Looks like par would be 71, yardage 6570.  The yardage surprised me.  It seemed longer.

1.  460
2. 340
3. 130
4. 360
5. 230
6. 530
7. 460
8. 440
9. 330
10. 500
11. 375
12. 175
13. 420
14. 150
15. 390
16. 280
17. 540
18. 460

Holes I like:

10 is supposed to be like 13 at Augusta

4 seems like fun.  The bunker is supposed to be where a 270 yard driver would try and aim

5 is supposed to be like the par 3 12th at Bandon Trails.

6 looks like a fun reachable par 5.

I like your 10th.  I assume the squiggles on the inside of the dogleg is a mound to discourage a direct attack at the green.

I don't think that your 2nd would work.  That's someone's back yard you'd be directing corporate tournament hackers across on the drive.  Players would just as likely end up aiming at (and maybe hitting) the third tee.

[Bryan Izatt]

Holes of interest
1 presumably gains elevation, goes through woods/OB bottleneck.

I think that there will a hole going through there but with different angles.  That area of the course is where they've started roughing out.  Not sure about the great bulb of fairway off the tee - a lot of fairway to maintain that will get little play.

4 presumably that is a small stream running to the pond. short par 4 green guarded by stream on left, pond in back. Fairway is poorly drawn (as they all are - novice artist) but should be wider to right making stream also risk/reward for drive not attempting the green.
5 3 version, long penal over water, + 2 shorter versions, probably should be a deep bunker on right to guard the shortest tee shot.
7 Creek provides risk/reward tee shot. should be more fairway on the left by green
9 Drive out of shute like ANGC, shute should be widened.

Not sure about shutes for public and corporate hacker play.

10 Can you say talking stick north?

Yes, but theirs was on the left side of a par 5.  Of course, you're on the wrong side of the ball aren't you, so it works out for you.

11 Hard 4/Easy 5
12 Stream again forms risk/reward drive
16 to 17 is a long walk.7 and 17 could almost share tees.
Par 35 - 37 - 72
Yardage 2945 - 3750 - 6695

EDIT
8 sloping fairway, skyline approach.

EDIT 2 notice almost all woods are left in place. It'll be interesting to see if the architect and owner decide to preserve the woodlots.  I suspect that the one on the west side of the property might get lost.  Tee to green on 14 is 330, remotely possible if you carry all woods. Hopefully you don't pop up and come down on someone on 15 tee.  Obviously you're not a lawyer

[Robert Thompson]

Isn't this exercise fairly useless without knowing the amount of fill that would have to be brought into low lying areas for drainage? As I recall in my solitary tour, the original Cardinal course (the one to the west) didn't drain very well and was very low lying. I think this is a tough site to create anything of interest. Some sites just shouldn't become golf courses. This might be one.

[Bryan Izatt]

I guess my thought in the exercise was to give those that wanted it, an opportunity to route a course on a real piece of property and see what some of the issues are with even preliminary routing.  After some time we can compare it to a professional design on the same property.  

It's clear to me that there will need to be lots of fill if they want to have it drain better than the west course or the back nine of the east course.  I'm not sure how that negates the routing exercise.  

I suggested in an earlier post that some additional pond excavation might be called for, both for drainage and to provide some fill.  I kind of thought the site might be loosely analagous to TPC Sawgrass - another course created out of a swampy nothing property.  The creativity of the architect is paramount in these kind of properties.

Whether a good course comes out of this fantasy exercise or through the real world process depends on a whole lot of things, including the amount of fill required. I suspect that C&C probably felt that Talking Stick North was a site that shouldn't become a golf course.  But it turned out pretty good.

Speaking of unlikely sites, I played most (before it got dark and started sleeting) of Braeben yesterday.  For a square 125 foot high garbage dump mesa, it turned out to be a not half bad evocation of a Scottish (highlands?) course.  I'm not a big fan of Ted Baker's designs, but this one was very creative and nicely done on a difficult piece of property.  Too bad he has such a love affair with impossibly small and difficult greens.

[Jason Topp]

Jason,

Obviously not out and back.
I like your 6, 9, and 10. Is 1 intended to be skyline green?

Thanks.  I honestly didn't think about it at all, but it sounds good to me.