[David Stamm]

Neil Crafters thread prompted me to ask, in terms of getting the most out of the least amount of land available, what are the most efficiently routed courses? Kingston Heath I would think would be a worthy contender as well as Merion because of the small acreage. I would imagine that there are Ross courses like Wannamoisett that seem to be a great example as well. Where else?

[Matthew Hunt]

Royal Worthington and Newmarket

TOC

[wsmorrison]

A course designed with foursomes in mind would likely produce an efficient routing.  Sunningdale Old, Royal St. Georges and Rye immediately come to mind.  Maybe that is because I played Sunningdale Old today, Rye yesterday and RStG the day before.

[David Kelly]

Riviera. Except for the driving range every bit of the canyon is used for the course.

[Chip Gaskins]

Mid Pines in Pinehurst.  Certainly not much wasted space there.

[Bob_Huntley]

Dallas Country Club on something like a hundred acres.

Certainly Riviera, with a seamless route from green to tee.

Bob

[Joe Andriole]

Wannamoisett and Seminole

[PThomas]

Mid Pines in Pinehurst.  Certainly not much wasted space there.

that's the first one that came to me

[Sam Morrow]

Dallas Country Club on something like a hundred acres.

Certainly Riviera, with a seamless route from green to tee.

Bob

Dallas Country Club is very interesting, I get a kick of out warming up in the batting cages, playing 1, and then crossing (Mockingbird?) on the big bridge. I'm interested in seeing the renovations which will get rid of the 2 wonderful little par 3's on the bayou near the clubhouse.

[Dan Boerger]

Old Head. Whether or not one likes the course, or even thinks a full 18 holes should have been built,  one can't help but be impressed with the routing.

[Dan Herrmann]

Is there a more efficient routing than Merion East?    The economy of space out there is first class.

[Keith Williams]

Cherokee Country Club, Knoxville, Tn.  A very compact, efficient Ross set on a gently sloping hillside.

Keith.

[archie_struthers]

 


ditto to Dan's nomination of Merion East...there's a lot of really good stuff on that little piece of land

[Kyle Henderson]

Of the "classic" course I've seen, Pasatiempo and Riviera get the most out of small parcels.

On the modern side, The Ocean Course at Half Moon Bay and (CA, not one of my favorites) and Wildhawk (Elk Grove, CA, a sleeper course that has a lot to offer at a very reasonal price) don't feel overly "shoe-horned", despite very tight confines.

[Tim Gavrich]

How about Caledonia?  I know that a lot of people complain about #9, but I think the setting is so lovely that it's not at all a chore or detriment to the round to have to walk an extra 100 yards or so to get from #8 green to #10 tee.

[Mark_Fine]

Probably any course dating back to the 19th century would qualify as efficiently routed.  Beyond that, who knows?  As time passed, architects started to have to deal with so many conditions and constraints (ones that the golfer playing the course had no idea about).  Wild example - The Plantation Course sits on 770 acres.  Does anyone know why C&C couldn't have managed with say only 600 acres    For some reason they didn't (or couldn't).  So I ask the question, is that course efficiently routed? 

If your post is about "small acreage" golf courses, then that is a different story. 

[Sam Morrow]

A little off the beaten path but Corsicana (TX) Country Club is a tidy little routing with Willie Lorimer laying out the first 9 in 1917 and A.W. Tillinghast renovating that 9 and building an additional 9 in 1926. The course is on the site of an old hunting club and the course is built around a large lake.

[Jon Spaulding]

Claremont CC in Oakland; not on a par with some of the other courses mentioned, but very enjoyable, and I didn't see a wasted millimeter throughout.

[Tim Nugent]

Got to go with St. Andrews. At only 96 acres, most of the double fairways play in a corridor less than 400' wide and at it's narrowest - 240' wide.  Especially when you consider that the greens are perhaps the largest in golf, with the double greens averaging over 40,000 sf (about an acre).  The greens, divided by 18, still yield an eyepopping 20,000 per green - about 3 times the size of a typical green.
For a modern design, I second the Caledonia call.  It feels so much bigger than it really is.  And what's wrong with the little 9th? The chowder is a great compliment.

[Mike Benham]

Why is efficient being applauded?  If efficient means squeeze holes into the property, planting trees to separate holes and provide a safety zone, then it is a negative.

The 6th, 7th and 8th hole section of Pasatiempo should not be applauded as efficient in its current condition.

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

Wilshire CC and Brentwood CC are not on large land parcels but do a wonderful job of using the topography.  Brentwood was a wonderful sporty course until they decided to utilize SoCal's expert architects for a modernization.

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