Answering the questions

[Geoffrey Childs]

Bump for an answer to Noel's question.

I was there at Pradera and spoke with Tim about the bunkering and their design intent as well.

I'd love it if you would expand on your statement

"The noses and slender nature came from my belief that my profession is more about art forms and human spaces than the creation of a field on which to play a game."

because I strongly disagree.  Golf is a sport and the playing field is there for the game.  It is not a museum or national park to be passive and look at it. I certainly think your profession is an art form and the more that a course is integrated with its surrounds and the better it pleases the senses the better the experience of PLAYING THE GAME will be.

I'd really appreciate your take on this.

[George Pazin]

George Pazin - nope no bunkers.                                      

Now if I could only remember what I asked....

Seriously, Jim, thanks for taking the time to provide thoughtful answers to the many questions. I look forward to your continued participation on here.

Warning: it's addictive.

[Ryan Farrow]

Jim, fair enough. I understand where you are coming from but its my understanding that bunkers which have the right drainage  and/or bunker liner installed rarely get washed out. It seems like there are issues either way so to each his own I guess. Thanks for answering the question.

[Matthew Hunt]

Jim, whats your thoughts on RCD?

[Brian Cenci]

Paul - I hope we one day get that oppotunity. Thanks.

Andy - certainly that green may allow you the 'opportunity to four putt on occaision. Don't feel bad, the first time putting from the bottom to the top the ball does not make it up the hill 95% of the time (I have six putted the 8th at Sanctuary. Actually, five putts and a chip). You have to learn to hit it hard enough to get up the hill. It's not a shot that you find on most courses, but I suppose that is what makes it interesting to me. If the hole is placed on the lower shelf, things get even more interesting. Hit the ball within that shelf and you have a shortish, yet heavily breaking birdie putt. If you hit the ball to the top level, the possibliity of a bogey is quite real. You have to be very creative to figure out how to hit that putt. It usually takes several times on the hole before you figure it out.

Ryan - I have in fact had the great pleasure of mowing my bunker faces. Certainly, a flymow is rquired and I find that old golf shoes with real spikes is helpful. The secret, as we have discovered, with these bunkers is to use growth regulators to slow the speed of grass growth. This allows for us to do the required mowing once every two weeks and in some cases every three weeks. Like you I to spent many years on a golf course maintenance crew. My biggest pain in the rear end dealt with flashed bunkers and the 'daily' chore of having to rake/shovel/compact the sand back onto the steep slopes after it washed down from irrigation or rain. Upon reflection, I suppose that my design tastes also were influenced by that experience.

Compared to the flashed bunker style, my superintendents have told me that ours are easier to maintain?  

Tommy - I suppose that I have said that on certain courses, you get 90% cart use. This is especially true in the mountains. However, I would not say that I design courses for carts. Much as with every element of the design process, I give them great consideration. Like it or not, much of the overall experience of the golfer will be gathered from the seat of a cart. If you don't consider that issue, you are missing an opportunity to be better. I simply choose to make an effort to present my work in a positive manner from the cart paths.

I am a guy that carries an old canvas Ping Sunday bag, takes six clubs to Ireland and plays in Merrill hiking boots. My heart lies with most of you guys on the walking issue.  However, I simply cannot ignore the realities of my profession.

Kyle -1. during the initial stages of reviewing a property, my sole focus is to location 'hot spots". These are significant points of character within the land. In those areas I mostly try to let the features determine the design of the hole. When connecting those hot spots with other golf holes, I take a little different approach. Many of these connectors must be created on sometimes nondescript land forms and the creation of a manmade concept is required.

       2. View the reply to Mike Nuzzo below.

       3. I am fortunate that I don not get the urge to tinker very often. Not because I feel that the work is 'that good', but  because I believe that the nuances of a golf course give it a personality. That is most likely why I like Carne so much. "it's so crazy it's bad and so bad it's perfect"                

Jordan - Fuz is a very cool guy to get to hang with.

Kalen - Regarding the term "muscle bunker", I honestly don't remember if it was myself or Ron Whitten that first called them that. It may have been both during a conversation. Sorry, I can't remember.

The front nine at Lakota Canyon is contained within two seperate canyons. We had to carve a little hear and there, but no real major long haul excavation. It was funky in the west valley (holes 5-9) because it was a drainageway for the mountains to the north. The 100 year storm event was something like 2500cfs. That is a lot of water. We had to create  a drain channel to accomodate that water.

The back tee at no. 8 was placed there because, due to the size of the valley, it was the only place to put it. It is a very cool view and tee shot, but a pig of walk up.

Mike - Four Mile Ranch was originally designed with our typical bunkers in mind. The property is so unique with an odd sort of character that I began to look at different bunker style concepts. We experimented with several options, but nothing inspired me. Then one day with my associate, Mitch Scarborough, we decided that we really liked the predominant land forms on the land. We call them 'hogbacks'. They are wedge shaped escarpments that slope at 15%-20% with vertical drops at the highest point. They stand from 3' - 30' high. Much like the three greens at Creek Club, it was my indecision that got us to the point of deciding to go the  different direction of, "let's preserve / construct these hogbacks as our hazards/obstacles/visual impact features". The hogbacks are covered with small, thin wafer like white limestone rocks. Additionally, they have sparse plantings of grasses and native vegetation.

For the most part the site is so unique that visual impact features may not even be necessary. Oh well, here we go!

Tim - I have viewed on this site and supported Ran with periodic donations since the very early days. I joined in order to reply to a post with which I took issue.    

Brian - I believe that Nick might have done that with Stan Eby but it could have been Britt. That was completed after I left in 1991.

Kirk - my first priority is to create an experience that is unique and fun. As a general statement I feel that golf is more fun as a gathering game than as a repelling game. One of the added benefits of this concept is that I get to be more creative. For example, let's say that the difficulty of a golf course is represented by a $1 bill. If you went to extreme and designed all of your features to be repelling, with the ball shedding away, you would use up 90cents of that dollar bill of difficulty just on that single design concept. In theory it would leave you with only 10 cents with which to be creative and outside of the box. On the other hand, if you design to a reaonable level of the gathering concept, you would only use , in theory, 40 cents of the difficulty. This in turn would leave you with 60 cents to be craetive with different and out of the box concepts. Both courses would, in theory, have the same $1 bill of difficulty, but the gathering concept would be more unique and interesting to play.

I know, what a load of ^#@(&%*$@$

Although most of my recent work has a good number of greens that are elevated in nature, I still design strong bowl greens as a matter of fun. Is it possible for errant shots to bounce toward that greens from the edges? Yep! Is it also possible for those same shots to stick up high on the banks when the grass is let to go longer? Yep! And oh boy, is that a tough shot. That simple factor, rough height around the greens, can modify the difficulty of the golf course by a lot of strokes. Is that good? Would you like to play a course that plays differently every week?

I like to think that my courses have a 'sense of humor' and you may need a creative side to fully 'get them'. I know that some may miss this point. However,the hope is that a bunch of us will get to go for a cool ride.      

Mark - Greetings!

Jim,
     Welcome to the site.  I've played Tullymore, True North, Hawktree, Lakota Canyon & Redlands Mesa of yours.  I personally like Tullymore & Redlands the best...but its hard to choose.  I find it interesting how many people on this site have been really pleasant with you since joining.  I can remember several different discussions of your work on this site with 75-80 percent of the people feeling very strongly about not liking your designs (I found it funny that some of those most critical had never played your courses and only seen pictures).  
     Anyways, my question is on #9 at Lakota...have there been any issues with runoff on that green?  When I played it two years ago it was in heavy rain and there was a 15' wide river running and erroding out the middle of the green.
     Also, at True North...what is the overall plan? Are they trying to go private?  They were asking $150 to play there and I felt that was overpiced for the area and course (nothing against the course...very solid...I felt that #3 was a little weird for a par 3 tho).  WHat are your views on True North?

-Brian

-Brian

[Jordan Wall]

Jim,

Since you probably think my post was a bit weird, I should inform you I am a High School senior, an aspiring architect, and I think guys named Forest Fezzler (right?) who wear shorts for the last hole of an Open are pretty cool characters.  The fact you worked with him is, at least to me, pretty intruiging, to say the least.

I hope to play some of your courses.
Unfortunately up here in Seattle we have no Jim Engh courses.
However, if there was, I'd be sure to play it!
I guess I'll just have to go to Colorado or something..

Cheers,
Jordan

[Kyle Henderson]

What is the status of the Montalcino Resort course in Napa? As I reside just beyond an hour's drive from there, I'm very keen to have some Engh "flavor" in my neighborhood.

Regarding Brian Cenci's post: I've always been a supporter, though I've only played Lakota (every June during the family reunion on the banks of Main Elk Creek).

[Kalen Braley]

Kyle,

Their website says early 2010 opening, so looks like you got about 2 years still to go on that one.

If you are close enough to play Lakota, you ought to take the extra 45 minutes to drive over to Redlands Mesa and give that a play as well.

Kalen

[Doug Wright]

Jim,

You've worked with a number of challenging sites. Is Sanctuary the most difficult site you've faced?

[Kyle Henderson]

Kyle,

Their website says early 2010 opening, so looks like you got about 2 years still to go on that one.

If you are close enough to play Lakota, you ought to take the extra 45 minutes to drive over to Redlands Mesa and give that a play as well.

Kalen

2 years, eh?  Oh well. Maybe I'll get the chance to see the course in construction phase.  

I tried to convince the cousins to head out to Redlands Mesa each of the last 3 years. Maybe the 4th time is the charm...

[Noel Freeman]

I see Jim Engh bumped up the Tommy thread and I was hoping to get some answers from this query 2 months ago.. I'm hoping he can expand on some statements he's made.. I'm keen to know the answers..

Jim-- anythoughts on the below

Jim

I had the pleasure of playing Pradera this past summer with some friends and your design associate Tim H.

We noticed that the course features well placed and very imposing central bunkering but there seems to be an upslope going into them from the tee facing side and a lot of heavy grass in their surrounds.

We mentioned to Tim that these features seem to be "anti-gathering" and you almost need to fly the ball into them to have a ball hit into these bunkers and we asked if this was by design. He replied that you did this on purpose and the design intent was "not to punish members good shots".  Your quote from above "The noses and slender nature came from my belief that my profession is more about art forms and human spaces than the creation of a field on which to play a game." seems to be in line with what Tim told us.  Are these imposing looking (and playing if you get in them) bunkers really more for art and eye candy then for playing the game?  Given that you said your "muscle bunkers" were inspired at Royal Portrush which certainly are gathering bunkers that were designed as hazards I wonder if you could explain a bit more about your design intent with regard to the bunkering schemes at your courses?

Thanks for your participation.

and

Bump for an answer to Noel's question.

I was there at Pradera and spoke with Tim about the bunkering and their design intent as well.

I'd love it if you would expand on your statement

"The noses and slender nature came from my belief that my profession is more about art forms and human spaces than the creation of a field on which to play a game."

because I strongly disagree.  Golf is a sport and the playing field is there for the game.  It is not a museum or national park to be passive and look at it. I certainly think your profession is an art form and the more that a course is integrated with its surrounds and the better it pleases the senses the better the experience of PLAYING THE GAME will be.

I'd really appreciate your take on this.

[Matt_Ward]

Noel F:

Be curious to know your overall assessment of Pradera?

t h a n k s  . . .

[Geoffrey Childs]

Matt

Noel and I will be happy to provide some thoughts on Pradera after Jim Engh answers the questions we posed regarding his design philosophy.

[RJ_Daley]

Now that is interesting...I went to send "Grumpy" an IM and got this:

An Error Has Occurred!
Many apologies, but you can't view just any profile.

 


Now that is truly a powerful and influential person, this Mr. Grumpy!!! 

[Joe Hancock]

Now that is interesting...I went to send "Grumpy" an IM and got this:

An Error Has Occurred!
Many apologies, but you can't view just any profile.

 


Now that is truly a powerful and influential person, this Mr. Grumpy!!! 

RJ,

HINT: It's Doctor Grumpy......

The error thing is popping up on everyones attempt to view any profile. I'm sure Headquarters is all over it.

Joe

[Matt_Ward]

grumpy:

What does one thing have to do with what I have asked of Noel F ?

Geeze, when did Noel F have outside "counsel" on such a routine question?

Pradera is Pradera -- whatever Engh does say doesn't impact what the course actually provides - pro or con.

I can appreciate the tap dance to a degree -- but being a bit more forthcoming would add to one's stance on the course itself.