The Armchair Architecture Contest...Cool idea for next contest - Please comment

[Ian_L]

Congrats, Andrew!  The judges' comments have been really interesting so far.  What a great project.

[Dan Moore]

I put together some overlays showing the routings over the topo map. 

Course Map


Hurdzan/Fry/Whitten


Anthony Gray


Doak/Goerges (Red #s indicate Doak holes from original routing)

[Steve Lang]

  Charlie,

Looking at 10 threads spawned from your efforts i counted 368 replies and 8287 views, that puts this in the top 75 threads on gca.com and right up there in the recent tophandful of on topic discussions.. to keep focus on gca is good. 

perhaps things should have been kept on one thread with links to photo servers.. ?

[Charlie Goerges]

Nice Job, Thanks Dan!

[Charlie Goerges]

Well Steve, I guess we could be considered guilty of electronic noise pollution!

All: I'm sorry I've not gotten to everyone's questions, I'll try to ASAP.

[Yannick Pilon]

Tom,

I felt that the contestant were entitled to a good analysis of their routings since they obviously spent a lot of time on their design.  So I have spent a lot of time writing down my comments, and it came up to over twenty pages in all....

I was hesitant at first to have Charlie publish all of my comments.  I certainly don't want to look like a little "know it all', and drown this board with my comments.  God knows I still have a lot to learn in this business, but if Charlie beleives that he should post all of them, then so be it!

However, it should be known that I might not be around too much to defend my opinions in the next few days....  I'm going on a month long trip, with limited access to computers and I need to pack the family! 

Cheers!

YP

[Charlie Goerges]

YP, I'll let each of the competitors post the comments I sent them if they wish. I sent everyone the comments anonymously because it's easier to let the cat out of the bag than get him back in! None of the judges wanted to be anonymous to avoid being criticized. I am keeping their numeric rankings anonymous unless they wish to release them.

[Peter Pallotta]

Dan - thanks very much for posting the routings over the topo map. That's helpful. (I mean, really helpful!)
Andrew - congratulations
And Charlie - goes without saying, terrific work seeing this through to the end

Peter

[Charlie Goerges]

Thanks Peter,

It was definitely a marathon. No scratch that, it was more like a siege; though I couldn't tell you which side of the wall I was on!


I'm a bit scatterbrained right now, but someone asked whether I'd do it again or something to that effect. My answer is yes. It's been a long, difficult process but I think it has been worthwhile. And as far as I'm concerned there will be another contest in the future, but it will be quite a while (unless someone else decides to take over). We'll work all of that out in a debriefing once this thing fully winds down.


I think Rich Goodale noted in an email to me the sheer amount of data generated by the contest. Rich, you are correct about that (and you don't know the half of it)! When you consider backup copies of everything on both my hard drive and the contestant's and all of the preliminary stuff, it stretches far into the Gigabytes.


I'm obviously proud of the work the judges, contestants, (and I) have done. You guys have been good sports all along the way.


Some housekeeping items:

I still plan to try and get a "favorite holes" string of posts together. Anyone (and I mean anyone) should feel free to do so. If you can post the images yourself along with a few words, that would be great. If you're not able figure out the picture posting thing, you can let me know and I'll try to do so. Contestants, you can feel free to play around to get the perfect angle/look or just post images you've already got (which may already be perfect).

It was mentioned a couple of times to me to do a rundown of sketchup and my process in order to explore its use in contests as well as for pure discussion purposes. I plan on doing a major write-up on this subject in the medium-term future. I've come to think of it as a Core Information Brain Dump.

Okay, enough of my stream of consciousness writings, Merry Christmas to ALL and to ALL a Good NIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGHHTTTTT!

[Garland Bayley]

Jim,

I have never considered the issue before. After all I am an amateur, but considering my home course I found there is only 2 more up than down, which seemed more balanced. I am wondering if I placed too many greens too high (or you visa versa) or if this type of thing comes out all over the map. Do architects even consider balancing it?

I didn't get an answer to this on this thread, but I was able to steal a quick look at the comments sent, and the answer is yes I did place too many greens too high.

[Charlie Goerges]

More importantly Garland, what did they think of the esker hole?

[Charlie Goerges]

Hey all,

This week I’m going to be slammed (and not in the good way) so I’ll mostly be available later in the evenings. So I’ve not abandoned the thread, I am still working on a post of favorite holes for this thread and I’m trying to get it down to 1 hole per contestant with a couple of angles per hole. So feel free to post your own favorites or whatever you’re moved to post. I’ll be checking in during the day, but won’t likely have much time to post.

All the best,

Charlie

[Garland Bayley]

More importantly Garland, what did they think of the esker hole?

The esker hole was liked by the judge that wrote about it.

Hole no. 7 is unique and very interesting.  The extremely wide fairway gives an incredible amount of options to golfers.  The left side of the fairway is the most obvious way to go off the tee, but the bunker in front of the green will make the second shot tougher.  I would prefer to try to carry the linear mound on the left side of the fairway to set myself up for an easier approach.  Hopefully, it will be possible to drain the low area in which the green is located; otherwise, this might be a nightmare for any superintendant.

[Garland Bayley]

Here is my esker hole as posted on my course thread http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,38984.0.html

7th  392  354  296



...
Once I determined that I could use it as a diagonal hazard, I laid out one of my favorite holes on the course, the 7th. Having succeeding in finding decent holes 5 and 6 first, followed by this hole, I began to think I might find an interesting course on this landscape.



...
If the golfer chooses not to cross the central ridge, then he is faced with a approach over the first green side bunker on the course.



However, if the golfer crosses the ridge, he finds an open green front to play down into. The problem is that the golfer has to correctly choose what portion of the ridge he can cross. Taking the safest crossing to the right opens up the possibility of the ball bounding down to a much lower elevation that is found on the right side of the hole back there.



The view from behind the green below and the view from the tee probably best show how short right off the tee can lead into a depression that will add distance and give a poor view of the target.

[Charlie Goerges]

I thought the hole was pretty innovative. An example of freedom like what one of the old guys who wrote about golf architecture might have said (I have no idea which one or if I'm accurately characterizing th idea).

At any rate, you set it up so the player could blaze his own path to the green. Kind of like cross-country golf, which I also mentioned in relation to Ian Linford's esker hole. Though your focus is more on the freedom and Ian's (as I saw it) was on the shots required.



Also, I am working on a "favorites" post made up of holes that were among my favorites for each entrant. I am purposely excluding the esker holes in this post because they've already been shown. Noone who would like to post some favorites or other discussions need wait for me as I will be pretty busy this week.

[Garland Bayley]

For anyone interested, my course thread has been updated with the judges' comments.

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,38984.0.html

If those comments on each hole are from Yannick, then he should know I greatly appreciate them. Also, everyone here owes him a great big thank you for the time and thought he put into his judging role.

[Garland Bayley]

I wish to discuss one of the comments from a judge concerning my design. I will point out that I realized that my design may have placed the greens in too severe locations, but my interest in learning the software over revising my design caused me to leave them as is. One comment I got was the following, and it is not from the only judge that thought too many of my greens were located on high points.

I am not sure that the green of hole no. 5 is in the perfect location.  High points appear to be good spots to locate greens until you realize how tough it makes them. 

I wonder who thinks they are tough. I drew my greens at high points with short grass surrounding them. Are they too tough because if you miss them it is hard to get close and save par? The average golfer misses almost all greens. Once missed, the average golfer is satisfied with a chip to a safe spot and a two putt. So are they too tough, because the best golfers end up too often with the same bogey the average golfer got?

Look at the video from Gil Hanse & Co. that are building Castle Stuart. They make exactly the same point. Many of their green surrounds will be difficult for the pro, but will not hinder the average golfer from playing his game.

Were the judges for this contest too indoctrinated in some of the standard ways of doing things to fully appreciate a design using gravity golf?

If I had put more bunkers around my greens, the average golfer would have left a few in the bunkers in getting around the course. That would be too tough. It would discourage the average player. However, of what value is it to have the expert golfer saying something is too tough, when the average golfer doesn't find it too tough?

[Tom_Doak]

Garland:

If you can design little short-grass features that really don't make it harder for the average golfer, that's genius at work.  It's also pretty hard to do.

If your greens are elevated 4-5 feet and surrounded by short-grass chipping areas, those types of recovery shots can be VERY hard for the average golfer, if the greens aren't relatively large.  Think of Pinehurst #2, which walks the tightrope between "cool" and "so severe you can't even get a chip to stay on the green."

[Garland Bayley]

Tom,

I suspect the "domed" nature of Pinehurst #2 greens contribute to the difficulty. As an average golfer I don't chip within 10 feet all that often. Therefore, getting it on the green within 20 feet is very acceptable to me. I know I don't have the experience building greens like you do, but it is hard for me to imagine my requirement to chip within 20 feet is as hard as the pros requirement to chip within 5 feet.

[Tom_Doak]

Garland:

You are right about that.  But it all depends on your greens ... if they're so severe that the average golfer will sometimes fail to get the ball up the slope, and other times skull his chip over the green and down a bank on the other side, that might be tougher than a bunker shot.  (It will CERTAINLY be tougher for the pros than a bunker shot.)

[Garland Bayley]

Garland:

You are right about that.  But it all depends on your greens ... if they're so severe that the average golfer will sometimes fail to get the ball up the slope, and other times skull his chip over the green and down a bank on the other side, that might be tougher than a bunker shot.  (It will CERTAINLY be tougher for the pros than a bunker shot.)

I can chilidip any chip and fail to get it on the green, and I can skull any chip over the green, but I usually don't do it multiple times in a row like I sometimes fail to escape a bunker. EDIT: I blame such chipping failures on me, not on the course. I blame the course for having too many bunkers.

[Garland Bayley]

Garland:

You are right about that.  But it all depends on your greens ... if they're so severe that the average golfer will sometimes fail to get the ball up the slope, and other times skull his chip over the green and down a bank on the other side, that might be tougher than a bunker shot.  (It will CERTAINLY be tougher for the pros than a bunker shot.)

Note that Tom seems to agree that the type of green locations and surrounds that I created is tougher for the expert. And he seems to be shading to agreeing that it is not necessarily a burden on the average golfer.

So are there others that would agree with the contest judge that the green locations made TEP National too tough?

[Charlie Goerges]

Garland,

I can't say whether they are too tough or not; perhaps it's not just a matter of toughness, but also "too much of a good thing" so to speak. In other words, by having a preponderance of elevated crowned greens, do you think it's possible you missed some better greensites?

Charlie

P.S. Tell Tom to hit the short-game practice area if he thinks the shots are too tough  .

[Garland Bayley]

Charlie,

Quantify preponderance.

[Charlie Goerges]

In checking, it seems that a minimum of 10 would qualify as both crowned and elevated and 2-3 more are either slightly crowned or elevated. Now that is just a quick check, I could be off. Bear in mind that I like the crowned/elevated green and I'm speculating why some may have thought that you used too many of them.

Sorry I have to cut myself off mid-post here, but I've got to catch my ride. I'll be back later.