[Bradley Anderson]

Why aren't more golf courses built with greens like that? Those are soooo cool.

[Kalen Braley]

Why aren't more golf courses built with greens like that? Those are soooo cool.

Bradley,

I can only suspect its due to the mentality of "good shots should be rewarded" in a just manner.  And I never really noticed these kind of gripes until I joined GCA.com, but since then I just cringe everytime I hear it on the course.  I feel like telling them, a good shot would have taken into account the humps and bumps and been struck to compensate for this.

On a side note, if you're ever paired with Dave Miller at one of these group events like KP, bring the ear plugs cause he'll whine about this sort of thing all day long.    

[Mike Nuzzo]

I love all the comments guys - thank you.
I really hope we get to show it off a little in person.

How cool would it be to have an east vs. west GCA battle of epic proportions in the middle of the country and have the course to ourselves?
The odds of that happening are about the same as Huckaby going on another non-work road trip.... 

Bradley,
Aside from Kalen's accurate comments about the reward aspect, there are several other industry factors.  To build those at an established club, one would have to undo about 70 years of industry improvements and evolution.
USGA greens, speeds, construction, agronomy, irrigation, committees - have all tended to push greens toward the typical modern one.

You would also need a very talented team of designer and builder with enough time to trust each other and let them evolve.

cheers

[Lou_Duran]

Don,

Re: Emerald bermuda, on courses which get regular play, say 40,000+ rounds annually, how often would you have to aerate?  Verticut? Roll?

I am assuming that Emerald has more grain than TiffEagle and Champion, am I right?  Does it handle poor, somewhat salty water pretty well?

What other grasses did you plant?  419 for fairways, tees, and roughs?

With the low # of rounds Wolf Point will host, its projected maintenance budget is what % of what it would take if it was running 40,000+ rounds?

Are you going to bother with tee markers?   Do your irrigation heads show yardages to the greens?

Are there any special challenges posed by a course which will get very little play?  Do you plan to mow greens daily and otherwise have the course ready to play as if it would be open to the public or a regular membership?   

[Don_Mahaffey]

Lou,
All Bermuda grass spreads by stolons which grow above ground, and rhizomes which grow under ground. The ultradwarfs spread primarily by stolons; thus they easily get puffy and must be regularly plugged, verticut, and top dressed. Emerald is primarily a rhizomatous grass and because of that does not require as much intensive maintenance. At this time we think monthly verticuting, bi-weekly topdressing and twice a year aerifying will give us a nice surface. Maybe Carter can jump in here and share some of his experience as they have had Emerald for 5 years at the Traditions Club in College Station. Right now we are mowing daily with walkers and rolling 4 times a week. I don’t know that I would do it a whole lot different if we were a busy public course. Keep in mind that we are just now starting to maintain greens for play and I may answer a little differently after a couple of years. According to Morris Brown at Champion turf farms, Emerald does perform well even with poor water quality; again Carter may be able to jump in here as I believe they have water that is a bit more difficult to deal with than what we have here. As for grain, I don’t know, I suppose because the leaf blade is a little bigger than the ultras that we may have more grain, but with the tools available to us today I find grain to be more prevalent on a weekend telecast with Johnny Miller than on a well maintained golf course.   

We are 419 through the green.

That’s a tough question, but if I had to guess I’d say we run about 65% of what a busy course would spend to maintain at a high level. We need fewer people because we don’t have to race play and we can get by with fewer machines because we don’t have 7am shotguns.

Right now we do use tee markers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were gathering dust soon. The course has no yardage markers of any type.

We have the course ready to play every day by 8:30 am. I can’t think of any special challenges that come from very light play. It’s all a bonus in my book.

[Will E]

The pictures look fantastic. Having been on property a few months ago I'm amazed at how the conditioning has progressed. Great job Don and crew!

What's surprized you guys the most about the course now that you've gotten to play it a couple of times?

[Neil_Crafter]

Mike
Great work! You too Don.
Fabulous to see the photos all green after seeing so many in the dirt.
Love the green shaping too.
cheers Neil

[Sean_A]

This looks to me like a proper golf course.  The sort that might hug the low lying dunes and just allow fairways to roll into greens.  I really like this look and am very pleased to see this sort of thing being done on a large scale.  Are there any more pix?

Ciao

[Paul_Turner]

Fantastic.  The course certainly looks to have its own character.  The trees add something too.

[Kirk Gill]

That shot of the approach to the 5th green is so gorgeous, so natural, and yet you can tell that the shot possibilities are complex. You just want to see a ball rolling on that turf. I haven't had the opportunity to see many greensites like that on the courses I've played. It's a different kind of golf, and I like it.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Will,
I don't know about surprised, but after playing yesterday - me and Don's inagural round together - the holes sure got a lot tougher when he put the pins where he did.

Pics to follow...

Neil - it sure was a lot of pictures of dirt.... thanks.

[Paul_Daley]

Congratulations Nuz and Don,

Talk about possesing Wolf-like single-mindedness! I well remember the preamble a few years ago: the vision and ambitious plans; inevitable financial worries; releasing tidbit-by-tidbit on your website; introduction of Nuz-blog, and so forth. You've seen it through: NASA must seem light years ago.

We're all looking forward to more pics. Great shapes, to date!

[Mike Nuzzo]

I played my second round at Wolf Point last week.

The setup / maintenance alone is worth a long visit to see Wolf Point.
If you haven't ever seen maintenance this good - get on a plane immediately!

My round was significantly more difficult than my previous visit.
Don had a perfect maintenance meld - very firm & very fast.
Many of my shots bounced / rolled through to the back of the greens.
The wind had shifted from the prevailing direction - it doesn't play more difficult - just different - and very hard to compensate for a down wind pitch.
I chipped from 40 yards to a large green into a bunker.   
I putted from the fringe off the 5th green.   
The pins were definately on the more challenging side - but my routes were definately too aggressive given the conditions + Don and I had a match...

Someone requested some pics from the tees.  Here are a couple.
2nd from the forward tee
Bunker on 14
6th from the forward tee - on the green side of the creek
14th green:

[Jim Thompson]

When asked about his round, Mr. Nuzzo had only the following comment, "Birdie Ball has been very good to me."

[Mike_Cirba]

The fact that Tom Doak asked if all those contours were natural or man-made is a great compliment on the face of it. 

Looks really great, guys.   Keep it up.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Happy Memorial Day

[Mike Nuzzo]

I love the 15th hole and green.
It plays from 140- to 190+ yards - the green is deep.

I've played it safe and made some easy pars.
I've played it aggressively and made some bogeys.

Note the density of the trees and the cearing of the underbrush!

Views from the front and from within the left swale.

[Neil_Crafter]

Mike
Just curious about that photo of the bunker on #14 - with the apparent inclusion of those trees within the fairway now, are they likely to be unduly affected by irrigation? In Australia a lot of native trees don't like being hit by excess irrigation at the edges of fairways. Interested in your thoughts.
cheers Neil
ps like the bunker!

[Don_Mahaffey]

Neil,
I'm going to answer your question to Mike, and hopefully Mike will jump in with anything he wants to add. At Wolf Point there are very few trees within the irrigated turfed areas. The one you see there on 14 was left with the idea that we would see how the hole played and how the tree did with golf course all around it, knowing we could remove it at any time. We did reduce the irrigation in that area. We have two less heads than if we would have continued the triangular spacing minus the tree. Remember, we are in a humid, tropical area that gets around 50 inches of rain a year. The live oaks here seem to do just fine even in areas that tend to stay wet during our rainy periods. Much different than what I've seen in other parts of the country where you have to be very careful with irrigation when working close to natives. Time will tell how it works out, but I do know that leaving the tree seems to be the right move.

[Mike Nuzzo]

What Don said.

I was struggling with which way to shift the 14th fairway.
There were some trees on the creek that I was trying to save - along with the one in the middle of the fairway.  I was trying to figure which way to shift the fairway - walking with Don - when he suggested - hell lets keep it in the middle and see what happens.

It is still there for good reason.
It has impacted my play without hitting it.  it is hard to judge the lay up distance when too close.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Happy U.S. Open & Father's Day
New pictures as follows:
1, 2, 4 greens
6, 15 tee views
and a few of our fine furry friends

[Michael Dugger]

fabulous pictures.

Wonderful!!! Truly, the images keep getting better and better. 

It looks like you guys have built a fabulously unique golf course.  I hope it is a hit!!!

[Michael Blake]

Looks effing awesome!

[Scott Stambaugh]

Mike-

On your website, you briefly mention the hiring of a shaper who had no previous golf course experience.  What features did you allow this person to work on, and what marching orders was this person given?

As a GC Supt, hiring people who have no experience on a golf course has its positives and negatives.  But, it has always fascinated me how you can always find that individual who is clueless but produces something that is genius.

Scott

[Mike Nuzzo]

Mike & Mike,
Thank you.  It is even better in person.

Scott,
All of the finish shaping credit belongs to Jacob.  He lived on site for 6 months and was all business and an all-star.  He was the heart of the construction (aside from irrigation and drainage) - but before and after things were a little different.

In the beginning we were instructed to use the labor and equipment that was available from another construction interest to pick up their slack - they prep oil sites and put them back when finished.  Picture bulldozers making things flat. 

It was always understood that they would try to do the rough earth work and we would bring in a expert to finish.  There were about a half dozen operators that got to the site.  two were good clearers, one was good a being angry while digging ditches, one was good at talking on the phone while destroying excavators and one turned out to have a very creative streak - on half the days he came - the other half he was just bitter.  The 1/2 creative one was quite good and he is the one I was referring to on my site - I would encourage him to get out around the natural areas around the creek and see how the shapes blended together.  I was very excited one day when he went off on his own for a walk to get some natural shapping ideas.

Unfortunately it turned out to be a banner year for them, so they weren't as available as we would have liked.  Don was on site before we started construction and their success slowed us down.  We did start chipping away - Don on site every day, me a couple days a week breaking in a dozer - or it breaking me in.  We even got Joe Hancock to spend a few weeks on site helping to make a bigger dent.  It helped to formulate the principles that would guide us, how we'd get the course built and we worked on my dirt communication skills vs. my usual high socitey communiqué.

Throughout the process Don built up a detail / finish / maintenance crew that is now first rate thanks to his training - including an ex-farmer as a mechanic.  (Farmers certainly understand the principal of minimal watering!)  One of those also turned out to be an all-star probably the best aside from Jacob.  He was our plating man and bunker guru.  Prior to that he built all the barb wire fences on site - by himself! - some of the straightest fences I've ever seen.  It turns out he wasn't a just a great fence builder, but a great craftsman and operator.

Aside from Jacob and Joe only one had even seen a golf course before.  It worked out very well in our case, because Wolf Point doesn't look very much like a golf course and it sure didn't when it was only dirt.  Until we started mowing greens someone would have had a very hard time identifying what was what - even today there is no way I can find all the tees without my cheat sheet.

Overall the percentages are low for finding a highly talented individual and probably zero percent without excellent instruction.

Thank you for reminding me to update my website. 

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