Westhaven Golf Club, Franklin, Tennessee

[Tim_Weiman]

Is anyone familiar with a project in Franklin, Tennessee (near Nashville) called Westhaven Golf Club?

[Tim Bert]

It is too close for me not to be familiar with it. Unfortunately I haven't set aside the time to get a closer look other than driving by it. The grass is coming in.

This Art Hills design got some press her for the amateur design contest with respect to one of the holes on the back nine.

[Mike Hendren]

Two Tims,

Interesting that the original announcement cited Gil Hanse as the architect.  I believe a certain Georgia Techie also looked at the job.  Early word from the super at Golf Club of TN is that it looks tough.  I hope to arrange a walking tour of the course next month.  I would love to have your company - let me know if you're interested.  Based on Hills' recent work at Olde Stone in Bowling Green, perhaps we'll be pleasant surprised.

Mike

[John Mayhugh]

Mike,
I wish I had known about this course when I was down in Franklin last weekend.  Sorry you couldn't join us.

If you make it out there to look around, try to take some pics.  I'm interested to see if the shared fairway on 14/17 (both par 5s) is anywhere near as cool as the routing looks.  The planned housing seems to be nicely out of the way.
 

[Tim Bert]

Mike - I'd love to join if the timing works.  Please let me know when you plan to go.

John - All you had to do was ask.  I forgot about your affinity for Hills courses.   

[John Mayhugh]

Mike - I'd love to join if the timing works.  Please let me know when you plan to go.

John - All you had to do was ask.  I forgot about your affinity for Hills courses.   

I didn't know about the course until reading this post!

As to Hills courses, they're not all gems, but some sure are. 

[Tim Nugent]

John, thanks for posting the Master Plan, What happend to the 13th hole? Is that the Design contest hole?
Also, I liked the double - mono fairway used on 14/17. (anyone have a good term for it?). Really gives those scared of all that water down the left a place to bailout to.  Should also help keep someone from getting killed on the 2nd green (which looks to be in jeapody from a big hook off #17)

[Tim_Weiman]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback.

After five years of commuting weekly between Cleveland and Nashville, I'm finally moving to Nashville (Franklin) full time. So, checking out options on where to play golf is something I'm early in the process of doing.

I can't count myself as a Art Hills fan by any means, but the property doesn't look bad and it will be less than 10 minutes from my house.

Certainly I'd like to do a tour.

[John Mayhugh]

John, thanks for posting the Master Plan, What happend to the 13th hole? Is that the Design contest hole?
Also, I liked the double - mono fairway used on 14/17. (anyone have a good term for it?). Really gives those scared of all that water down the left a place to bailout to.  Should also help keep someone from getting killed on the 2nd green (which looks to be in jeapody from a big hook off #17)

The 13th is the Links design contest hole. 

I'm afraid you just called my shot on the 17th (hitting someone one the second green).

[John Mayhugh]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback.

After five years of commuting weekly between Cleveland and Nashville, I'm finally moving to Nashville (Franklin) full time. So, checking out options on where to play golf is something I'm early in the process of doing.

I can't count myself as a Art Hills fan by any means, but the property doesn't look bad and it will be less than 10 minutes from my house.

Certainly I'd like to do a tour.

Tim,
Art Hills gets generalized a lot.  The last two Hills courses I played are the Dunes Club in Brooksville, FL and Olde Stone in Bowling Green, KY.  Both are very good courses that I enjoyed a lot.  Olde Stone is a little under two hours from my home (Louisville) and I joined because I like the club that much.  Of course, a good national member deal didn't hurt either.      Olde Stone is about an hour from Franklin.  If you want to check it out sometime, message me.

Last weekend I played with GCA'ers Tim Bert & Russ Miller at Vanderbilt Legends.  You might want to check it out as well.  36 holes, Cupp/Kite.  The 18 I played was around a 5 on my version of the Doak scale.  Seemed like a nice home base.

[Tim Bert]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback.

After five years of commuting weekly between Cleveland and Nashville, I'm finally moving to Nashville (Franklin) full time. So, checking out options on where to play golf is something I'm early in the process of doing.

I can't count myself as a Art Hills fan by any means, but the property doesn't look bad and it will be less than 10 minutes from my house.

Certainly I'd like to do a tour.

As Bogey told me 3 years ago, welcome to the architectural wasteland!

I think the plans for the course call for it to be private - which may be exactly what you are looking for just not sure based on your wording.  It's always possible that the current economy will require them to do some type of split public / private set-up until membership is ramped up.  I haven't heard anything about what type of membership commitment they've got.

[Tim Bert]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback.

After five years of commuting weekly between Cleveland and Nashville, I'm finally moving to Nashville (Franklin) full time. So, checking out options on where to play golf is something I'm early in the process of doing.

I can't count myself as a Art Hills fan by any means, but the property doesn't look bad and it will be less than 10 minutes from my house.

Certainly I'd like to do a tour.

Tim,
Art Hills gets generalized a lot.  The last two Hills courses I played are the Dunes Club in Brooksville, FL and Olde Stone in Bowling Green, KY.  Both are very good courses that I enjoyed a lot.  Olde Stone is a little under two hours from my home (Louisville) and I joined because I like the club that much.  Of course, a good national member deal didn't hurt either.      Olde Stone is about an hour from Franklin.  If you want to check it out sometime, message me.

Last weekend I played with GCA'ers Tim Bert & Russ Miller at Vanderbilt Legends.  You might want to check it out as well.  36 holes, Cupp/Kite.  The 18 I played was around a 5 on my version of the Doak scale.  Seemed like a nice home base.

I didn't know a Mayhugh-modified Doak scale existed!  Did you give full credit for the exciting par 3 I showed you on the adjacent Little Course?

[John Mayhugh]

I didn't know a Mayhugh-modified Doak scale existed!  Did you give full credit for the exciting par 3 I showed you on the adjacent Little Course?

Don't worry......it's not documented anywhere and quite variable.  It's similar to Doak's in that it's on a scale of 1-10, but I have a feeling that what I consider "worth a game if you're in town" is a bit different than what he would think.

The fourth hole on the Little Course is worth a separate post & photo tour.  Maybe an 11 on my 10 point quirk scale.  I really want to play it.

[Stephen Britton]

For the TN guys,

What is the status of the golf course that was to be built at Milky Way Farms down in Pulaski. I had a chance to walk the routing with a buddy of mine last year who has since relocated.

Seemed like a great piece of property? Has it been put on the backburner?

[Mike Hendren]

Stephen,

Haven't heard of that one.  We do seem do have hit a dry spell, however as courses designed by Nicklaus, Norman and von Hagge have all been halted during construction, primarily due to capital constraints.

Bogey

[Anthony Gray]

  how about TN national. Strange place when I visited. I looked at a few home sites and was invited to come back and play the course. When I called back 6 months later I was told play was members only. No way in h.e . double hockey sticks I would invest in a home without playing the course first. Where I live now I played the course first..loved it...bought a lot the next month. You don't even see Greg Norman's face on the billboards now? The course looked awesome from what I saw of it. The pro has a big photo of Kingsbarns in his office. When I looked at it he says "Kingsbarns..you ought to go".


  Anthony

[Stephen Britton]

Stephen,

Haven't heard of that one.  We do seem do have hit a dry spell, however as courses designed by Nicklaus, Norman and von Hagge have all been halted during construction, primarily due to capital constraints.

Bogey

Michael,

Check out the website, it's a Jay Haas/Kevin Tucker design. It's was supposed to be a big equine/golf high end housing community. I walked the staked out routing last year. It was  a really neat piece of property, rolling hills, great views, rock streams...

The mansion was to be the clubhouse which was Frank Mars house (Mars bar guy) built back in the 1930's/

http://www.milkywayfarmstn.com/

[Tim Bert]

Stephen,

Haven't heard of that one.  We do seem do have hit a dry spell, however as courses designed by Nicklaus, Norman and von Hagge have all been halted during construction, primarily due to capital constraints.

Bogey

Michael,

Check out the website, it's a Jay Haas/Kevin Tucker design. It's was supposed to be a big equine/golf high end housing community. I walked the staked out routing last year. It was  a really neat piece of property, rolling hills, great views, rock streams...

The mansion was to be the clubhouse which was Frank Mars house (Mars bar guy) built back in the 1930's/

http://www.milkywayfarmstn.com/

I haven't heard of that one either.  Thanks for the link.  The preview shows 5 par 3s, all of which are less than 125 yards.  Not sure I've ever seen that before...

[Stephen Britton]

Here is another link. Click on the news report video.

This place I heard was going to be a really high end gated community. Apparently a lot of music stars and celebs from Nashville were buying lots down there?

The course was supposed to begin construction this spring?

http://www.wsmv.com/news/11553813/detail.html

[Mike Hendren]

Interesting Stephen.  In the current economic climate and resulting dirth of residential construction,  a project of this magnitude would appear to be ambitious and poorly timed. 

Mike

[Eric Smith]

Regarding The Galaxy Club in Pulaski, the GCA of this project, Kevin Tucker (in collaboration with Jay Haas), is a friend and a great guy.  I asked him today about the status of the Milky Way Farms project and he said at this time they are uncertain what will happen with its development.

I had the pleasure of meeting KT a few years ago with my dad and after we got to know one another, we hired him to draw some preliminary plans for a golf course project we were looking into.

So I took him around the property one afternoon, describing my routing to him that I had spent maybe a year refining.  I thought maybe he'd tweak it a little bit when he went back to his office with the topo map.  A week later I meet with him and cannot wait to see the drawing - and he brings two drawings.  I figure one is my routing and the other is his version.  Well he completely ignored my routing - twice.   And I've never forgiven him!  

[Stephen Britton]

Thanks for the update Eric.

Thats a shame, I thought it was a great piece of property with huge potential.

[Tim Nugent]

Post your routing.  I can't believe that after spending a year refining it that lacks any merit.

For those who wonder about high-end in Tenn. remember Tenn. is one of those states with NO state income tax.  Like Fla, these states tend to attract High Income earners.
Looked at that routing for Milky Way Farms.  THink they should read the thread on slow play - 2nd hole a par 3, all water on right.  Does anyone know if these yardages are from the White Tee?  If not, it seems rather short for a high-end private - more like a AZ/Fla retirement course.

[Stephen Britton]

Looked at that routing for Milky Way Farms.  THink they should read the thread on slow play - 2nd hole a par 3, all water on right.  Does anyone know if these yardages are from the White Tee?  If not, it seems rather short for a high-end private - more like a AZ/Fla retirement course.

Tim,

I met some of the guys working on the sales team last year. From what they told me the design/routing had been changed several times, this may not be the final layout?

I have some photos of the property in the office I will try to post tomorrow.

Here is the press release for the project.

http://www.milkywayfarmstn.com/pdfs/press-release_070411.pdf

[Tim Nugent]

My brother is a Mars exec and is moving to Franklin county so perhaps I'll get to see this.  Nashville does have some tremendous land but it also has alot of rock just under the surface.

The press was interesting.  If you read the Forrest Richardson thread on Pro Designers, I mentioned how before they used Pro's for marketing cache, they would use movie stars by giving them a great deal on a house in order to attract other buyers.  Seems like they are using both marketing tactics together.  Pretty shrewed.