Doak to design new couse at Black Mesa

[Carl Nichols]

Garland-
Wel, I've played Chambers Bay but not BM, and you've played both, so I was trying to get a sense of relative difficulty (especially since I seem to recall your having said that CB isn't that hard a walk).   

[Garland Bayley]

Carl,

My recollection puts Chambers Bay easier to walk on three fronts.
1) green to tee walks, Chambers Bay has 3 longer than usual walks, but the others definitely average shorter. The terrain between green and tee is less severe. Advantage Chambers Bay.
2) Chambers Bay is made to be a walking course. You walk straight out from the tee to go to your ball. At Black Mesa you are forced onto circuitous routes on cart paths. It is made to be a cart ball course. Advantage Chambers Bay.

Those are the two I judge a course by. The third one is one many judge a course by, but I ignore.

3) The terrain at Chambers Bay seems to be less severe than at Black Mesa. On this one I could be wrong, but I also give it as advantage Chambers Bay.

[Steve Lang]

  Garland,

You make some good points, but I felt a main issue walking at BM vs CB is altitude.

Green to tee there's a couple of notable short hikes at BM like 4-5 or 6-7 and after the climb at 16, 16-17 or 17-18 but there are trails to make short cuts. The long-walk-considerable slope CB stress tests were more a pain to deal with vs BM's short hill long walks at BM..

I didn't remember circuitous routes from tee to fairway so I looked on google earth.. theres a couple of switchbacks off elevation and places where one doesn't want to go down and up through rough so you might follow the cart path, but I certainly wouldn't characterize the entire course that way.. most path lines are aligned with hole axis 

Frankly, for a destination course, I'm glad BM has carts.  It lets one walk 18 or a major part of it and get in another 18 without destroying the rest of the day's activities.. and perhaps more importantly allows all to play. 

I found the slopes at BM varied throughout the routing, while at CB once you make it to 14th tee its pretty much downhill from there.. no gca advantage just something for the walker's legs to look forward to..

now i hope you're not going to give me crap about only carrying 8 clubs at CB, BT, PD, OM, & BM

[Garland Bayley]

Steve,

Here's an example. Don't know where the picture was taken from, but it certainly looks like from a tee forward of the old farts tees that I play. What if you hit it up the left side? No way you are going to walk directly to the ball from the tee.  The cart path goes up the right side to cross all the gullies, arroyos, or whatchamacallits. It also happens to be a forced carry that if you hit it bad off the tee, you are SOL. In my first round I was SOL right in front of that bank the picture shows just before the fairway.



Your mention of short 6-7 transition has be puzzled, as it is the one I complain the most about.

[Garland Bayley]

I took time to use Google earth to measure green to tee walks at Black Mesa. I measured to the middle tees which is the best approximation of what I would be playing and also is the methodology I used in an earlier measurement of Chambers Bay. The generous measurement (because you cannot walk a straight line at Black Mesa in the rugged landscape) comes in at 1958 yards. 70 yards longer than Chambers Bay which has the three much maligned walks in the range of 250 yards, at least one of which they provide a shuttle for.

Jeff Brauer tells me the industry standard is 50 yards as opposed to the nearly 125 yard walk for each green to tee transfer at Black Mesa.

[Steve Lang]

  "short hikes" was to be humorous, maybe I should have said "short marches?"

don't forget the snakes in those regions..  i broke 80 that day, and the worse lie i had was hitting off a cart path

[Andy Troeger]

Garland,
You complain about 6 to 7, which even at 125 yards is well worthwhile to allow for one of the best holes on the golf course, but also you've also complained about the hike up the hill on 7 to 8, which Adam says can be mitigated if you go straight left off the green.

It seems that for you, walkability is about 75% of the value of a golf course. At the very least, its the topic that consumes the vast majority of your posts on threads I read. Nothing wrong with that to be sure, but for those of us interested in hitting a golf ball too and not just the quality of the hiking, Black Mesa has a lot to offer 

And where exactly should they have put a walking path on the 9th hole that you pictured? I sure wouldn't walk through there (even on that little raised area) without a club in hand even if they built a path. As Steve mentioned, there are far more snakes at Black Mesa at any one time than there are golfers!

[Garland Bayley]

... but also you've also complained about the hike up the hill on 7 to 8, which Adam says can be mitigated if you go straight left off the green.


As I wrote above, Adam needs to get his facts correct, and now I see you do too. Adam, made the original mistake in my original thread on the course, and he was corrected there. Apparently, he has never bothered to read and find his mistake. Here is my correction from that thread.

Garland, There are some oservations I would take issue with. One is the characterization that the walk from 7 green to 8 tee is long. I can see it, if a person exited the green on the right and them had to follow the path all the way back up. But, honestly exiting green left is a short climb. There are other tricks to the walking paths from hole to hole which you must've missed also. These tricks aren't really tricky, they just require better observation.

I believe you meant 6 to 7 tee. Let's just say that you definition of short is apparently different than mine.
...

[/color]

It seems that for you, walkability is about 75% of the value of a golf course. At the very least, its the topic that consumes the vast majority of your posts on threads I read. Nothing wrong with that to be sure, but for those of us interested in hitting a golf ball too and not just the quality of the hiking, Black Mesa has a lot to offer 

In my original thread, I praised #4, #11, #14!, #16, and #17. However, there are holes that degrade from the course too, like #12, and #15. #1 is a good opener for the strong golfer, but a poor opener for a weaker golfers.

...

[Andy Troeger]

Garland,
I'm not sure when you complained about 7/8 transition, but I certainly recall that you have on at least one thread over the years. Its not that big of a deal quite frankly, but Adam did not make it up. It was not in this thread and evidently was not in the thread you're highlighting. I think the climb up the hill from 11/12 is steeper and less avoidable.

As mentioned before, I played #1 with a guy that can maybe carry the ball 150 due to multiple back surgeries. He made that carry comfortably from the blue tees and loved the hole. Its visually intimidating for sure--I tend to abandon my hybrid which would be my normal club of choice because I don't always hit it high. Three iron is safer, but I can still carry that 200 yards so I'm not the guy you're referring to.  I'm going to take my Dad up there next time he visits, he doesn't hit it far either and will play farther up, so I'll be curious as to what he says.

[Matt_Ward]

This is such utter rubbish about the incredibly demanding walks at BM.

Please -- I'm holding my sides with laughter.

Walk plenty of other places -- like Bethpage Black or Bandon Trails and the demands BM presents are very small indeed.

Yes, carts are provided -- big freakin deal. If that is the sole determining factor on whether a course is great or not then the overall listing of places will drop dramatically.

When people can't talk about the actual shots / holes one encounters then you get some sidebar topic that is tagged as the major "shortcoming" of the place. How bout the drive into BM being on a road that isn't black-topped -- should not that be mentioned too.

If someone were to pull a shot into "never/never" land you can access the area by simply walking. There are few walks at BM that are onerous. This is nothing more than a canard of epic proportions.

[Garland Bayley]

This is such utter rubbish about the incredibly demanding walks at BM.
...

There are incredibly demanding walks at BM? Where? Please point out an incredibly demanding walk at BM that has been mentioned in this thread.

[Sean_A]

This is such utter rubbish about the incredibly demanding walks at BM.

Please -- I'm holding my sides with laughter.

Walk plenty of other places -- like Bethpage Black or Bandon Trails and the demands BM presents are very small indeed.

Yes, carts are provided -- big freakin deal. If that is the sole determining factor on whether a course is great or not then the overall listing of places will drop dramatically.

When people can't talk about the actual shots / holes one encounters then you get some sidebar topic that is tagged as the major "shortcoming" of the place. How bout the drive into BM being on a road that isn't black-topped -- should not that be mentioned too.

If someone were to pull a shot into "never/never" land you can access the area by simply walking. There are few walks at BM that are onerous. This is nothing more than a canard of epic proportions.

Some folks place a high value on a course which flows from green to tee and reckon its part and parcel of a good routing.  If its just the shots which create a great golf course then the use of carts can completely eliminate the need for a good routing.  To me it doesn't follow that because a course has great shots that it necessarily is a great product, but I can readily accept that there are many who don't buy into the idea of a routing being the most important aspect of the design.  

Ciao

[Garland Bayley]

Garland,
I'm not sure when you complained about 7/8 transition, but I certainly recall that you have on at least one thread over the years. Its not that big of a deal quite frankly, but Adam did not make it up. It was not in this thread and evidently was not in the thread you're highlighting. I think the climb up the hill from 11/12 is steeper and less avoidable.

As mentioned before, I played #1 with a guy that can maybe carry the ball 150 due to multiple back surgeries. He made that carry comfortably from the blue tees and loved the hole. Its visually intimidating for sure--I tend to abandon my hybrid which would be my normal club of choice because I don't always hit it high. Three iron is safer, but I can still carry that 200 yards so I'm not the guy you're referring to.  I'm going to take my Dad up there next time he visits, he doesn't hit it far either and will play farther up, so I'll be curious as to what he says.

Adam made it up (actually the most likely scenario is he mistakenly remembered my comment about 6 to 7, and called it 7 to 8 ). He had it in the very first thread I talked about Black Mesa, and somehow through urban legend it has survived. The thing I remember about walking 7 to 8 is walking downhill, so there must not have been much of an uphill component. I have commented on the 11/12 before.

On #1 on my first round I hit one left, and one right, and never found either one. On my second round, I didn't clear the hill from the whites on my drive (I guess you could say I foozled it), but managed to find it, and play on. As you can see, the worst club in my bag is the space between my two ears.

[Matt_Ward]

Sean:

BM flows very well -- and the walks there are within the means of anyone -- short of those who need 5-6 packs of cigs.

The routing is well done and if you should ever play the course you could attest to that for yourself.

The whole package works well in unison.

Anyone saying otherwise must have played a far different place than I have.

[Sean_A]

Sean:

BM flows very well -- and the walks there are within the means of anyone -- short of those who need 5-6 packs of cigs.

The routing is well done and if you should ever play the course you could attest to that for yourself.

The whole package works well in unison.

Anyone saying otherwise must have played a far different place than I have.

Everybody tends to have their own idea of what consititutes a good green to tee flow.  For me, I dislike walking backwards, BM has that in its favour.  However, it seems to me nearly every hole is designed from the back tees.  That is, the tees are essentially links from the previous green to the next hole and if one is playing the white tees that is 1000 extra yards of walking past back tees (not including if the walks tend to be up and down) - a lot of extra walking for a guy who wants to play a 6300 yard course.  Not only that but none of the tees look to be all that close to the previous green.  Granted, on a hilly site (including a very duney site) this is one of the routing pitfalls and the hope is the quality of the holes will make up for the extra walk. 

Ciao

[Matt_Ward]

Sean:

The only people walking backwards at BM are the ones with the low handicaps to support.

Otherwise -- the tees are immediately there for those who wish to play from the mid or shorter lengths.

The fact is -- you don't know this -- you need someone who is very aware of the course to correct any misperceptions you might have since you have never been to the course.

[Garland Bayley]

Sean:

The only people walking backwards at BM are the ones with the low handicaps to support.

Otherwise -- the tees are immediately there for those who wish to play from the mid or shorter lengths.

Anyone looking at Google Earth can see that is not true.

The fact is -- you don't know this -- you need someone who is very aware of the course to correct any misperceptions you might have since you have never been to the course.

The comments Sean has made would seem to indicate he has looked at Google Earth, and knows the proximity of the various tees to the previous green.

[Sean_A]

Sean:

The only people walking backwards at BM are the ones with the low handicaps to support.

Otherwise -- the tees are immediately there for those who wish to play from the mid or shorter lengths.

The fact is -- you don't know this -- you need someone who is very aware of the course to correct any misperceptions you might have since you have never been to the course.

Matt

You didn't read my post correctly. 

It is true I have never been to Black Mesa, though the course combined with the area is an attractive proposition.  However, it is quite evident from Google Earth that there is a lot of walking forward to reach forward tees.  The course is essentially designed for the back markers.  This concept came up recently in another thread and it wasn't one I am enamoured with because it means most people will either walk a long way to their tee or just say screw it and play from the back tees and we all know either proposition isn't good in terms of pace of play.  In essence, to me, this is a critical aspect of how I define cart golf and as a walker, I would be very much inclined to take a cart at BM - I hate wasting time walking between holes - its just as bad as looking for balls in deep rough.  Again, I understand that many don't care about this, but for me it is a tick against the design whether or not the archie could not have avoided this issue.  It may be a tough standard for you to adhere to, but thats life.  I am used to close proximity of tees and greens and even at one of my clubs (Burnham & Berrow) I tick the walks against the design because I notice them.  Ideally, I shouldn't notice the transition between holes. 

Ciao 

[Pete Lavallee]

Yes, carts are provided -- big freakin deal. If that is the sole determining factor on whether a course is great or not then the overall listing of places will drop dramatically.

Matt,

Please answer this simple question:

Would Black Mesa survive without carts? Both Bethpage Black and Bandon Trails have their tee sheets full with nothing but walkers. Could BM survive financially as walking only facility?

[Bill_McBride]

Yes, carts are provided -- big freakin deal. If that is the sole determining factor on whether a course is great or not then the overall listing of places will drop dramatically.

Matt,

Please answer this simple question:

Would Black Mesa survive without carts? Both Bethpage Black and Bandon Trails have their tee sheets full with nothing but walkers. Could BM survive financially as walking only facility?

I know this question is for Matt, but I'll hop in as a major fan of Black Mesa and say "no."

One reason is the altitude, which will beat you down the first couple of days in Santa Fe.

[Tom_Doak]

I am not sure that 10% of American golf courses would survive without carts, if competing courses were still allowed to have them.  But I will always work to make my courses walkable for those who will.

[Garland Bayley]

I am not sure that 10% of American golf courses would survive without carts, if competing courses were still allowed to have them.  But I will always work to make my courses walkable for those who will.

Tom,

Are their rattlesnakes at Stone Eagle? If so, did you come up with a solution to the walking amongst rattlesnakes problem?

[Bill_McBride]

I am not sure that 10% of American golf courses would survive without carts, if competing courses were still allowed to have them.  But I will always work to make my courses walkable for those who will.

Tom,

Are their rattlesnakes at Stone Eagle? If so, did you come up with a solution to the walking amongst rattlesnakes problem?

I didn't try to walk Stone Eagle in the 115* heat, but did walk Apache Stronghold.  There are cool walking paths where you go straight off the front of the tee onto a desert trail. A couple of times I thought about rattlesnakes as I stepped over logs!

[David_Elvins]

I am not sure that 10% of American golf courses would survive without carts, if competing courses were still allowed to have them.  But I will always work to make my courses walkable for those who will.

I once heard a 10 minute conversation within a group in a clubhouse that concluded that Barnbougle Dunes would go broke if a course opened next door that allowed carts. 

I laughed at the time but now I am not so sure. 

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

Are their rattlesnakes at Stone Eagle? If so, did you come up with a solution to the walking amongst rattlesnakes problem?

Garland,

There are rattlesnakes all over the American southwest.  I never saw one at Stone Eagle, though I have probably done as much walking through the desert there as anyone ... I'm sure it was much more dangerous BEFORE we shaped and grasses it.  But, on all such courses, the only "solution" is to remain alert to the possibility and keep a golf club in hand.