Speaking of the grand scale of a course

[RJ_Daley]

As an adjunct to Neil's Ballybunion thread where Jeff Brauer noted the grand scale of the place, I wonder...  Which courses exhibit grand scale within the relative confines of an otherwise closed in site.  Anotherwords, are there course designs, routing, and tie-ins that actually tie-out clauserphobic views?  I'd be thinking of a course (though I never saw it) that might portray grand scale within an urban environment, with industrial neighborhood to boot, like Liberty National.  Does such a course need water adjacent on one side and urban backdrop on another?  What about courses perched in foothills over a city?  Broadmoor? Others...?

[Kalen Braley]

RJ,

While its not what I would call a "closed" site, one of the few times I can recall thinking about this while on a golf course was while standing on the 14th tee of Pacific Dunes where one can see bits and pieces of almost the entire course.  It was a terrific viewpoint and cool to see what lay ahead on the march home.

[Jeff_Brauer]

RJ,

Not meaning to be self serving, but when I saw the term scale, I was reminded that "Wow what scale" is one of the first comments people make on the first tee of either the Quarry or the Wilderness north of you.  In some cases, its relative to what they are used to.  Most northwoods courses have single or double row irrigation and narrow play corridors.  We used 4 rows of irrigation to really open things up and the first at the Wilderness is a long par 5 with a double fw, so it really seems big to MN and WI golfers.

Sometimes, the wide open views of open water can decrease the apparent scale of a golf course, although I have not seen Liberty National.  In other cases, you are right - long distance views at Sand Hills certainly contribute to its sense of scale.  If you could see a city at the end of that view, rather than a few cows, I think that would still preserve the grandeur, and there have to be a few courses like that somewhere.  Olympic No. 3 has the GG Bridge view, but that course has small scale. (Its a limited view)  The other problem with City Views are that they are best at night when the lights are twinkling which is not condusive to golf views.  I think there are some Vegas courses where the city is in plain view somewhat down below, no?

[Jim_Kennedy]

RJ,
Yale.

[Phil_the_Author]

Bethpage State Park and also the Black Course...

[Tom_Doak]

RJ:  My first thought when you mentioned big scale on a confined site was San Francisco Golf Club.  It's really not a huge piece of property, but the wide fairways and opportunities to see across other holes makes it feel big.  (The fall-off to the west is also a big factor.)

Incidentally, I think "grand scale" has become THE most overrated factor in golf course design today, just because it seems that a course can't compete for Best New unless it's at a grand scale.  Think back to all the winners in recent years ... and remember that waterfront usually provides grand scale.  But there are many great old courses that don't have grand scale and are great anyway, it just seems that nobody can build a new one to that model.

[Peter Pallotta]

RJ -

Rich Goodale had a wonderful post about this a while back, re vistas on some of the great old British courses -- something along the lines of how features on one given hole serve to enhance the vistas of any number of other holes, and vice-versa. 

this is an interesting topic, i.e. what (other than or along with) sheer size and scale creates that expansive feeling.

For me (and I know this is a matter of taste/aesthetics), having mountains in the background and playing into mountain valleys doesn't accomplish it, in and of itself -- especially if dramatic features and hazards and trees are  used to frame golf holes and not vistas.

I think that 18 individual vistas (i.e. where hazards and trees and dramatic features are set well back from the golf hole/field of play) go a long way in creating that expansive feeling, even on a small site

Peter

[David Stamm]

Torrey Pines has spots that make me feel this way. I felt this way when I was on the 10th and 18th at PGA West. Stone Eagle I think has this feeling in spots as well.

[TEPaul]

The only time I noticed that a golf course's scale somehow counteracted what might be considered a closed-in or perhaps claustrophic general site or feeling was Riviera golf course, and I would surmise when it had less trees in the old days it probably did this even more effectively.

[Tom Huckaby]

RJD:

I think the absolute poster course for what you're getting at (grand scale within an urban environment) has to be San Francisco Golf Club.  It is just AMAZING how vast that course appears on the inside, while looking so confined and tiny from the outside.  Another contender is relatively nearby:  California GC.

It's a very cool thing when it occurs... and has to be pretty darn rare.

TH

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom Doak,

SFGC and other inland courses have bigger features which create a sense of scale, as do wide fw.  

There is also the factor of making bunkers and greens appear as big as they are. I noticed this yesterday at Pine Dunes - on a few holes, Jay had a slightly uphill situation and built big bunkers, but they appeared as slivers, either because he tried to stack two bunkers in too small a hill or had a small ridge in front.  So, playing a bit downhill and detail design can contribute to a sense of scale on those features as well.  Its been a while since I have been there, but the smaller features of PB don't give it a grand sense of scale to me for some reason, even with the Ocean there.  CP has grander scale in the woods than PB has on the ocean, IMHO.

No doubt there are some great courses without the bigness that creates scale - Merion being a good - but not the only example.  However, I have never consciously designed to a big scale just to win awards. I am sub or consciously aware of the scale of the design as to what works best to make the course best.  Sometimes, small scale does work better, esp. on wooded sites.  Going back to CP of SF, if the big features were stuck in smaller cleared areas, it might not look as good as it does, but its hard to be more specific on that.

[Peter Ferlicca]

Torrey Pines has spots that make me feel this way. I felt this way when I was on the 10th and 18th at PGA West. Stone Eagle I think has this feeling in spots as well.

I will agree with David Stamm on this one.  When you are walking down from the 7th tee at Stone Eagle and look down the steep cliffside to your right 1,300 feet below you, you definetly feel a sense of the scale of the property compared to the other courses.  10 and 18 at PGA West just send some much terror into your eyes when you see the holes wrap around the water with big rocks everywhere.

[Tom_Doak]

David Stamm:

Interestingly enough, the 10th and 18th holes are in a wider corridor for golf than the rest of the holes on the course (to leave room for spectators).  Also, where most of the holes there have a mound in the middle to divide the space, on 10-18 the big pond is in the middle so you can see all the way across both holes ... and the red rocks around the pond tie in visually with the distant mountains, which are more visible in the wider corridor.

Jeff B:

I didn't mean to imply that you would design at big scale just to win awards.  Personally, I always design to what I think is appropriate for the site.  But, do you not think that the big-scale courses generally win?  Is it true for your own works?  I know there are exceptions ... Ballyneal is pretty big-scale and it lost out to a development course in Florida!

[David Stamm]

David Stamm:

Interestingly enough, the 10th and 18th holes are in a wider corridor for golf than the rest of the holes on the course (to leave room for spectators).  Also, where most of the holes there have a mound in the middle to divide the space, on 10-18 the big pond is in the middle so you can see all the way across both holes ... and the red rocks around the pond tie in visually with the distant mountains, which are more visible in the wider corridor.

 

Tom, my comments were based on the fact that when I stand on those holes (especially 10) I, for some reason, feel very small.

[Jim Nugent]

I've never played mountain courses, but I have spent time in the mountains.  The huge scale there always overwhelms me.  What is the scale like at mountain golf courses? 

What is the scale like at Rock Creek?  Stone Eagle? 

 

[Tom_Doak]

Rock Creek and Stone Eagle are both "off the charts" big.  I don't know how you could have gone to either site and built them differently in that regard ... although, we did not opt to build the same scale of bunkers at Rock Creek that we had done at Stone Eagle.  (Gotta think about Huck's dad. )

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jeff B:

I didn't mean to imply that you would design at big scale just to win awards.  Personally, I always design to what I think is appropriate for the site.  But, do you not think that the big-scale courses generally win?  Is it true for your own works?  I know there are exceptions ... Ballyneal is pretty big-scale and it lost out to a development course in Florida!

Tom D,

After thinking about it, I am not sure any of us can "design for awards" or at least, taking the approach of designing whats' best for the site is more likely to win than designing to match recent winners strength's. 

That said, we do design for golfers, and if most are wowed by a large scale, there is nothing wrong with designing to impress them either, at least on a site where a variety of styles could be workable.  As one example, would Cypress Point have been as spectacular with farily mundane Ross bunkers, vs. Mac's dramatic flare?  In general, if we like wide fw, that sort of sets up "bigger" course features to match.  If we clear narrow corridors, smaller features seem more desireable.

Scale also takes on subltle relationship dimensions.  I think some courses (some of my own included) have bunkers that are too large a scale for the greens, etc.  I think the Maxwells had over scaled bunkers in this regard.   In fact, I think that is one of the subtle reasons that many don't like modern courses - the bunkers got too big for everything else. 

I also think we could explain many here dislike for "Reees Peices" by simply saying that those bunkers are either to big for their simple shapes, or the edge is not detailed enough for their size - in other words the scale of the bunker edge is out of proportion with the scale of the bunker itself.  In fact, as all bunkers got simpler in shape, and built bigger to accomodate power rakes, they lost a lot of character for practical reasons that ignored the design principal of scale, proportion, balance, etc. that most of us have a pretty good handle on as designers.

[RJ_Daley]

For you archies... if you were designing a course in or within an urban backdrop (big buildings-skylines) with a big enough budget to move alot of dirt, dig some lakes to get alot of fill, etc., would you have any tendancy or technique that would be used as a general approach to give grand scale to the looks and views?  For instance, would one technique be to purposely build up teeing grounds, and FWs lower, and then try to have many greensites and surrounds rise so as the golfer sees more of a platform green with skyline views to the horizon, but not so much clutter in the near distance?  Or, some of these modern urban or just suburban sites are coming from capped landfills.  In that case they are usually the high ground due to the capping.  Is that a general feature where you would be looking to employ a technique to give scale to the overview of the urban area?

To some extent, I may be getting way from golf hole design as the primary emphasis and most efficient upon the ground in order to achieve the desired scale and view on a site that would more than likely be extensively earth moving project than routing and simplicity.

I guess I'm just looking for some "go-to" construction/design technique that you gents use to achieve scale in a particular setting.

[Tom_Doak]

RJ:

Mark Parsinen goes to great lengths to set up the horizons of his greens in certain ways to emphasize water views and distant views ... I would say that was his primary design contribution to Kingsbarns, and from what I've heard, he's all over it at Castle Stuart as well.  (I know it's his idea because we were going to work on a project together a few years back, and he was trying to do the same thing there.)

I've got a project now with an urban background (in China) and I am trying to figure out how to use it, it's really the first time we've had something like that.  Part of the problem in China is that the skylines of big cities have been changing pretty rapidly!

Jeff:

I do think there are design ideas that would qualify as "designing for awards" but I'm not going to go there right now.  I don't think scale is one of them, per se ... it's pretty hard to create if it's not there.

My point was more that Best New voters gravitate toward big scale designs, so that handicaps any of the potential contenders that don't have it.

[J_ Crisham]

Peachtree in Atlanta has this same feeling . An extensive tree elimination program has really opened things up. The sightlines across the course give the impression that this is a large piece of property . Much better track now that the chainsaws are done.              Jack

[Tom Huckaby]

Rock Creek and Stone Eagle are both "off the charts" big.  I don't know how you could have gone to either site and built them differently in that regard ... although, we did not opt to build the same scale of bunkers at Rock Creek that we had done at Stone Eagle.  (Gotta think about Huck's dad. )

Denis Huckaby will be pleased to hear about his contributions to the golf world.

 

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Tom, Have you got a replica of the Great Wall in your Chinese course yet? Think how many replica Swilcan/Swilken Bridges there are....

[Chip Gaskins]

if i remember correctly you can see the 10th green and the 18th green from the #8 tee box at pebble beech....to me that is a very grand scale...