Breaking new ground

[Colin Macqueen]

Gentlemen,

Adrian Stiff suggested in a recent post  (What % of golfers are looking for great architecture) that regarding architecture ".... a lot of stuff has been done without those thoughts in the ODGs head." 
This idea has crossed my mind a lot, particularly in regards to finer detail, but I  have never had the temerity to suggest that the professional architect did not envisage each and every nuance...but surely they don't.

In general do architects find a lot more in/on the ground once construction begins than they ever envisaged before breaking ground?
Do they have a feel that certain terrain or sites will yield more of these surprises than others?
Are the architects on this forum willing to give an example or two where they were pleasantly surprised with what transpired as the work progressed?

I'm breaking new ground as this is the first thread I have ever started!

Cheers Colin.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Colin,

I've always said some gca's fly into the wind and break new ground, and others get it backwards.....

The Quarry at Giant's Ridge was a site that we said "Kept on giving."

We knew about the sand quarries on 6-8 and used them.  But, as the centerlines were staked and cleared, we found an exposed rock outcropping on 11, dramatic mining topo on 13 that the topos didn't show, and other good stuff.  Also found some bad stuff, like peat bogs that forced re-routing of 5 and 12, but those may have come out better.

[Tom_Doak]

Colin:

If the ground is any good, the design will evolve as more nuances are revealed.

I don't even try to visualize the whole course in detail before we start building it.  I know I'll know it better as we progress through the construction, and I am always ready to take advantage of something cool we hadn't noticed before, as are the 5-7 bright guys we try to have on each construction crew.

[Peter Pallotta]

Colin - I should not speak, as the pros have already done so. But it seems to me that not only do architects "find" more nuance/features as their work progresses, they also "discover" more as time passes, even after years, i.e. I think that there is much more in (and that more emerges out of) a wonderful golf courses than was ever intended or envisioned, at least in the usual way that we understand intentionality. I think an architect's broad "intentionality" is always at work (conscious and unconscious), but that in the end there are as many unintended consequences as there are intended ones (though, even then, a leopard will not become a rhino, if you know what I mean). One aspect of your question that I don't think has been discussed much before is whether, through experience, architects can intuit which sites will prove must fruitful in this regard.

Peter 

[Brandon Urban]

Jeff,

I would expect that a site like Eagle Bend was the complete opposite of Giant's Ridge... relatively flat and not necassarily any distinctive features that you didn't know about before construction and didn't end up evolving much from the beginning. Maybe I am way off, though. I guess I just assume some sites are "givers" and others are pretty straightforward.
If that's the case, how would you say the sites you have been lucky enough to work with break out percentage wise between those two groups?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Brandon,

Eagle Bend provided exactly no hidden nuances, other than a lady coming out to tell us where she had buried her beloved dog, and wanting us to preserve that, and an FBI agent coming out wondering if we had discovered any bodies, because they had suspected some local murderer had dumped the bodies out there.

Not many sites were as unique as the Quarry, but we always find a few little things out there, even if very subtle that we think we can use.  But, on a dead flat site like EB, not many.  Add in that we only had a contract to draw plans, and only a few field visits, it wasn't really going to happen.  That said, we gave them exactly what they wanted - a $20 golf course.  As you know, I have others in the area that aim a little higher design wise.

[Brandon Urban]

Those are the kind of stories I love... Now I am dying to know which hole the dog was buried on!
I know it's a $20 golf course, but I think we need those... proabaly even more of those. It is an enjoyable course where you can spray the ball a little and not be punished all day.
How about one of your other courses in the area, Sand Creek Station, that I assume you would include in your higher aim designs. That site, too, is pretty flat and nondescript. I actually view it pre-golf course about the same as EB. How do those two, on kind of equal sites, become totally different outcomes... one a $20 course and the other regularly in the top 2 in the state? Is it just more time on the ground?
Sorry if this has been discussed before!

[Dan Herrmann]

Tom Doak - I have the idea!

Out at Dismal River, have a green located directly below Horseshoe and let it be the world's biggest punchbowl green!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Brandon,

$4.4M vs $2.2M, better contractor, more architect control, higher goals all contribute.

I used to joke that I had the no.1, 2, 3 (hoping on Firekeeper) and last place courses in Kansas.  That said, EB has done a wonderful job of upgrading the course over the years, often adding the stuff we should have put in first.  It holds some mid level local and regional tournaments now.

[Jim Nugent]

Eagle Bend provided exactly no hidden nuances, other than a lady coming out to tell us where she had buried her beloved dog, and wanting us to preserve that, and an FBI agent coming out wondering if we had discovered any bodies, because they had suspected some local murderer had dumped the bodies out there.

Sensitivities (sensibilities?) aside, could lead to some interesting hole names.