Photos of Riverfront, VA (A 'Doak Less Discussed')

[Tim Nugent]

At only $47, it looks like a great deal.  I realize Tom eschews perimeter berms but in this case a litttle earthwork at the property lines behind some of the greens coupled with some tree/shrub planting would mitigate the housing issue.  That said, I have to remind golfers that the real estate paid for the course and developers have this crazy notion that if someone buys a golf course lot, they must provide unobstructed views of the course.  Also, you can plant 2,000 trees on a new course and not know they are even there for 5 yrs and only after about 10 will they be big enough in scale to begin to visually screen adjacent houses.  So, how many developers want to spend a couple hundred thousand on trees at the end of a project?
Another housing element that should be looked at is the actaul setback distance of the house.  In most cases, 35' is typical.  We always fight for 50' min. because most people who buy on a golf course proceed to build decks/patios (outside rooms) to take advantage of the setting.  The average is about 15'-20' deep so that can put it just 5 steps off the course.  Granted, pushing for bigger rear yard setbacks eats up some real estate but helps in the long run from both the homeowner's and golfer's perspective.

Maybe they could raised the rates by a couple bucks and began a perimeter tree planting program?  They could get one a day

Tom - how did the engineer miss the water level by 4'?  Was is a water table issue or was it a final engineering adjustment to a preliminary estimate?

[Tom_Doak]

Tim:

You are right about a tree-planting program, although homeowners don't always like trees obstructing their views, either.

I don't know how the engineer missed the water level by so much.  The lake on #12 was used as a quarry for road materials for the Interstate beltway, and it was a pretty impressive hole in the ground -- I'd guess it was about 60 feet deep, which would mean they'd pumped it down 40 feet below sea level!  Possibly that just changed the water table around it so much that it never came back up to pre-quarry levels?

Ryan:

I appreciate that there are some very long green-to-tee walks owing to the real estate.  But, the course is not exactly hilly -- there isn't even twelve feet of elevation change from the highest point on the course to the lowest.  Considering that, the course has a fair amount of variety to it.

[rjsimper]

Ryan:

I appreciate that there are some very long green-to-tee walks owing to the real estate.  But, the course is not exactly hilly -- there isn't even twelve feet of elevation change from the highest point on the course to the lowest.  Considering that, the course has a fair amount of variety to it.

I'm not saying it could have been done any differently re: walkability...I am more disappointed that it could not have been more contiguous precisely because of the lack of elevation change.  Not that this affects me at all having played once and maybe not playing again for a few years, but if it was my daily player, I'd get tired of some of the unavoidable circuitousness.

One thing I am really wondering, though, is about that 14th hole...it's just so curious that the tee box is back between two homes on what seems like a perfectly good lot.  Did the developer not zone that spot for residential?  Tom, did you really want that back left tee?  Was the street not even there when the course was built?  How did that come to be?

[Scott_Burroughs]

Ryan,

As linked in the original post, the aerial taken pre-homes (on back 9) shows the tee was there all along:



Obviously, I've played it as well, and it is an odd location, but maybe the developer simply
allowed him to put the tee where he wanted (golf-first, instead of homes first) in this case. 
One housing lot won't make or br.....I mean make or really-make a developer's bank account.   Start muliplying that, and they'll push back.

[rjsimper]

Thanks Scott....still very curious that they didn't money-grab it and just say "hey, this hole could be 150 yards, who cares!" and throw one more house up for an additional $600k or whatever.

Glad they didn't, though...I thought that was a strong hole from back there.

[Tom_Doak]

Ryan:

I am sure if you wanted to put a $600,000 home on that tee, the new owners would probably sell it to you ... although it would not be a good investment as the rest of the homes are not as expensive!

The original developer of the course was an old friend of mine and a 1-handicap golfer, so I was able to talk him into letting me put golf holes in interesting places ... there was enough marsh frontage in the whole project that he could sacrifice some for golf.  In hindsight, I probably should have opted to make the course more compact, and not stretched it out from the northern peninsula (#14) to the southern peninsula (#4-8) ... but that did give him more golf frontage at the same time it gave the golf course more housing exposure.

[John Moore II]

OK, to save from making a new topic, I'll just reopen this one. Just a few questions.

Whats with the horseshoe bunker on #1? It serves no strategic purpose on the hole from what I can tell. Huge room left from the front tees and nearly anyone playing from the back tees can just blow over it.

Has the course always drained poorly? I've played here 4 times over the last 5 or 6 months and I've never played it dry. Yeah, we've gotten rain a bit, but it just seems like it doesn't drain very well at all.

Is the pond on #6 designed as a run-off pond for the residential area? Because #6 is certainly the wettest hole on the course and seems to be just about the lowest spot on the course.

[Richard Hetzel]

Houses are part of the equation....if the course is good and they are not intruding into play, why are they a bother?

Do the headquarters of the R&A really screw up your enjoyment of the Old Course when you play into 18 green?

Sometimes I think we carry this walk in the park mantra a bit too far.

I enjoyed the photos.

IMHO, the headquarters of the R&A is a "welcome sight" on that course; the two really cannot be compared. This course looks nice, it just has a housing development encroaching nearby. I tend to visually group these courses together separately from non-housing courses. I still play them, but judge them differently than others without homes, or very few man made objects.

St. Andrews is in a whole different league as far as man made buildings abutting the course is concerned.....

Overall, the course in the pics looks to be a very fun and enjoyable course and has been added to my list of places to play!

[Scott_Burroughs]

Ugh, old pciture threads are tough to look at since the horrid, 'anti-feature' scrollbars were added, so I shrunk all the pics down to a size that doesn't make you want to go bonkers.

[Carl Rogers]

Has the course always drained poorly? I've played here 4 times over the last 5 or 6 months and I've never played it dry. Yeah, we've gotten rain a bit, but it just seems like it doesn't drain very well at all.

Is the pond on #6 designed as a run-off pond for the residential area? Because #6 is certainly the wettest hole on the course and seems to be just about the lowest spot on the course.

Mr. Moore,
The course does have drainage problems in a number of because this area of Virginia is 20" plus over average rainfall in the last 14 or 15 months.  This year February was a real mess.
I am very lucky to live 10 minutes away!!
Soon, I will start a thread about the 4th hole that was initially part of Tom's new web site under a topic of their 'best' holes.

[John Moore II]

Has the course always drained poorly? I've played here 4 times over the last 5 or 6 months and I've never played it dry. Yeah, we've gotten rain a bit, but it just seems like it doesn't drain very well at all.

Is the pond on #6 designed as a run-off pond for the residential area? Because #6 is certainly the wettest hole on the course and seems to be just about the lowest spot on the course.

Mr. Moore,
The course does have drainage problems in a number of because this area of Virginia is 20" plus over average rainfall in the last 14 or 15 months.  This year February was a real mess.
I am very lucky to live 10 minutes away!!
Soon, I will start a thread about the 4th hole that was initially part of Tom's new web site under a topic of their 'best' holes.

Carl-I remembered the rain, we've gotten more than average for sure. But like I said, it just seems to not drain as well as it could.

Interesting that Tom said that was one of his best holes. I'm not sure I would consider it to be the best hole on the course, possibly not even the best par 3.

Nice to hear that you live 10 minutes away, I live about 15-20 minutes from there now. We'll have to play sometime for sure.