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[Jim Colton]

East Si-ide!

Apparently Snoop Dogg has put out a bunch of albums since 'Doggystyle' and 'Doggfather', but I really stopped paying attention.  Surprisingly, I thought for sure this would've been the first intersection of GCA and Snoop Dogg, but he pops up multiple times in the Search function.

Looking at his song catalog, there are actually a ton of workable song names that could go on a golf course.  I'm usually against naming unless the course is really worthy, which my design definitely is not.  Maybe if I win the contest I will go back and name the holes.

I imagine the course logo would look something like Ballyneal's, except a marijuana leaf behind the 'B' instead of a yucca plant.

I'm not familiar with anything beyond those first couple of albums either.  I'm not a huge fan of naming holes, but your Snoop theme would yield some interesting ones.

Wonder how much Snoop your fellow Ballyneal member, John Kirk, has on his iPod? 

John, I couldn't resist.  This is the closest I'll ever come to designing my own course, so what the heck.  I went back and named the holes.  I've brought GCA to a new low.

1 - G Funk Intro
2 - Upside Ya Head
3 - Lay Low
4 - Who Am I? (What's My Name?)
5 - The Shiznit
6 - Gold Rush
7 - Deep Cover
8 - Gz Up, Ho'z Down
9 - Gin & Juice
10 - Dogg(leg)Father
11 - Drop It Like It's Hot
12 - Step Yo Game Up
13 - Sensual Seduction
14 - Freestyle Conversation
15 - That's That S***
16 - Lodi Dodi
17 - Beautiful
18 - Oh No

[John Mayhugh]

Now I need to compare the holes to the song titles.   

[Jim Colton]

Here's my commentary from the judges.  Thanks for the feedback.

A tad too strong of a golf course--too penal in certain areas. Too many green complexes that are set on a left to right/right to left nature. It's O.K. to make a golf hole go straight once in a while, so feel free to do it!  The routing had me thinking of something Fazio would have concocted, in fact the entire golf course seems to have a Fazio-like joy-die-vie. Still, a good routing utilizing the land for ground game IF the green is reachable. Not every one-shot hole has to have a Redan-like green to it.

No. 1 Likes –
Good Flow and Mix
Good, and not overdone bunkers.
No. 1 DisLikes –
For this site, I don’t like the pond use – it’s too typical, especially the Pete Dye 18th, which is too short for a modern cape hole anyway at 423 yards.  The fingers of the pond on 4 would probably be blind.
After varying wind direction all round, 15-17 play in same direction.
Would anyone play their second shot right on 14?
Fairway bunkering may be too short from tee……





1 – dyeish with some cool holes






Design 001
Design no. 001 offers a good routing for the most part, but with too many blind shots for my tastes. I like the way that holes 1, 9, 10 and 18 are located around the clubhouse site. Holes 7, 13 and 17 are my favourites for their use of the land in the case of 7 and 17, and for the shot options on 13.
GENERAL NOTES:
•   Hole no. 1. I am not a big fan of uphill holes to start a round, as they tend to slow down play because people hit short, especially if the climb is severe before the green.
•   The tees of hole no. 2 are well located near the green of hole no. 1 and the tee area is on a nice spot in general.  However, the green site will need work:  it looks like it is an afterthought to get to the third hole.
•   Hole no. 3. appears to be a transition hole that connects hole no. 2 to a more interesting section of the site.
•   Hole no. 4 presents an interesting idea, but the hole seems a bit forced onto the landscape.  Visibility of the fairway will be limited from the tee area due to the steep slope, I hope that the water looks good in its natural state....
•   I like the way this hole no. 5 climbs up the hill to what appears to be an interesting green site.  Part of the second shot might be blind, but in this case, I don’t mind it so much, since the high mound on the left side of the hole helps you align yourself by containing the hole and somewhat defining the turning point of the dogleg.
•   The back tee of hole no. 6 offers a blind shot to an undefined target.  The back tee would need to be elevated, requiring a large quantity of material to blend in the landscape.  Once you have a view of the entire hole, however, the hole becomes more interesting with the tee shot to an angled fairway. The front to back slope of the green would certainly be interesting on this hole.
•   Hole no. 7 is a great hole.  I like the way it goes right around the hill with the fairway kicking balls to the left, where the angle gets more difficult.  Simple concept but well executed.
•   I am not sure I like the semi-punchbowl green site of hole no. 8 following a steep climb on the second shot, which will be blind once again.  However, the hole reminds me of the 3rd at the National Golf Links of America.  This is not necessarily a bad thing....
•   I am not too sure about hole no. 9.  It appears to be very difficult with no clear definition or view of the shot you have to hit to this cape style green with death surrounding it.
•   Hole no. 10 offers an interesting uphill tee shot with the two bunkers on the right side of the fairway.  Not sure how well it would work on site, but interesting idea.
•   Hole no. 11 offers a nice punchbowl green site with a semi-blind tee shot.  I like the idea, but I feel the execution is not quite there for the strategic interest.
•   Hole no. 12 offers another semi-blind shot to a nice punchbowl fairway, and another semi-blind approach shot similar to hole no. 8.
•   Hole no. 13 is another great hole with an interesting tee shot challenged by the bunker on the left side of the fairway.  The bunkers around the green seem to be too deep for my taste, but I like the way the green is set up to receive the shots from the left fairway area.
•   Hole no. 14 is another interesting hole that uses the landscape well.
•   I am not sure I like hole no. 15.  I would have preferred a green on the left, near the tees of hole no. 16.  Many features of the course are blind, and this is a spot where blindness could have been avoided for, IMHO, better results.
•   Hole no. 16 is a nice par 5 that uses the side slope with good results.
•   Hole no. 17 is a great looking par 3 with what should be a nice backdrop and interesting ground features.  Looks like balls could be played on the ground on the left side of the green and feed down to the putting surface.
•   Hole no. 18 is another good hole along the lake but it feels a bit like a cliché.  However, I must admit to liking it nonetheless.  A tee shot along the water is definitely favoured here to have a good access to the green surface.  Well done.
Best Holes:    Hole no. 7 - Par 4
      Hole no. 13 - Par 4
Hole no. 17 - Par 3

[Clint Squier]

The only course whose marshals have the motto, "we don't cause trouble, we don't bother nobody".

Love it.

CPS

[Jim Colton]

6th Hole - Par 4, 434 Yards - "Gold Rush"

Downhill par 4 that bends left to right.

Any ideas on how I can solve this blindness problem on my 6th hole?  I painted myself into a corner w/ the 5th hole (which I like), but any subsequent next tee shot is likely to be completely blind.  It is feasible to melt down the ridge where the middle tee sits, either filling in the sharp drop towards the entrance road or making the slope down the fairway more gradual?  I think this might work because the same slope on the 5th is much more gradual.

I thought I could solve the problem by changing the routing a little bit with a short par 4 6th, adding a par 3 7th, making the old 7th the new 8th, then making the old 8 into a revised par 4 9th.  [Edit:  I also took the opportunity to tweak 2 & 3 by making 2 a short par 5 and moving #3.]  I like the new 6th hole and this revised routing in general, but it's still completely blind.  It would probably benefit from the same type of earthmoving.

Any comments or suggestions?  Did they move earth on the 10th at EH?

[Anthony Gray]

  Jim,

  Hands down the best course name. This site could use a little more Snoop Dog.

  Anthony

[Charlie Goerges]

Jim, I don't know if you need to solve the blindness. You might just need to run the fairway back and do some Fazio-style aiming/framing bunkers. If you do want to get rid of that blindness (without earthmoving) I think you could run a par 3 to that far ridge, and then tee off from on top of it. I'll try to post an image of what I mean.

[Charlie Goerges]

Here is what I meant:

[Ian_Linford]

Hi Jim, I was back in that same corner.  My solution was similar to Charlie's, except my par-3 went down the hill to the "east" of his green, by the road.  I kind of liked the hole, although it would leave a big uphill walk to the next tee.

[Jim Colton]

Hi Jim, I was back in that same corner.  My solution was similar to Charlie's, except my par-3 went down the hill to the "east" of his green, by the road.  I kind of liked the hole, although it would leave a big uphill walk to the next tee.

  I was thinking of something similar to what Charlie had posted.  I sketched it out and may have something to share tonight.  I think it's workable.  The par 3 is a little short for my tastes, but given that ridge is very narrow and any resulting par 3 is probably going to be penal in nature, a short-iron is probably appropriate.  Essentially, it's the same shot as my original 9th hole, but 165 yards instead of 210.

  Dumb question for the masses: is it ill-advised to have a reachable par 5 as your 2nd hole?  Does this bring play to a standstill?

 

[Steve Lang]

  ? reachable par 5 as second hole?  it will always hold things up.  we have one as a 4th hole on one course and it creates a tremendous backup, especially in MGA events..

i really didn't want to have any in my Foothills Trail design.. except for potentially the last hole..

[Jordan Wall]

This is cool.  The golf course is great as is the theme.  The Snoop thing is catchy.

As far as the Snoop Dogg theme goes, check out his website.  In the textilizer portion type in anything you want, as long as you want, and it translates to snoop talk.  Pretty funny.

http://gizoogle.com/index.php?translate=false

Cheers,
Jordan

[Jim Colton]

Here's an overhead view with the topo lines, a la what Dan Moore did for some of the other entries.

[Jim Colton]

Based on some feedback and additional work with the site, I have come up with a revised routing for my course.  I tried to use the natural contours in a more interesting way for both the fairways and greens.  Hopefully I've succeeded.  More to follow, but please feel free to let me know what you think.  The old routing is directly above.

[Edit: Made some additional changes and updated again on Mar 30]

[Charlie Goerges]

Jim, I'm looking forward to it. Your new 6th reminds of the two or twenty hole at Engineers. At least from what I've seen of it in images and aerials.

[Jim Colton]

Here's my new layout with an overlay of the old layout.  A lot of holes were only tweaked slightly, widen fairways, moved greens, etc., but there were some significant changes.  I still struggled with getting out of the top corner of the property (6th tee) and finding a workable solution to 1,9,10,18 around the clubhouse.  It was like a puzzle that I couldn't solve.  This is the best I could do.


Some of the changes include:
1 - Same basic hole, but changed the orientation, namely to make room for a new 9th hole
2 - Lengthen the hole to hopefully a more interesting greensite
3 - Old 3rd was my least favorite hole.  The new 3rd is my favorite new hole and possibly favorite hole overall.  I wish I had thought of it before. (see below)
4 - I liked my old risk/reward 4th but scrapped it for the new 3rd.  Same basic concept with the pond coming into play, but as a downhill par 3.
5 - Shortened the hole, moved the tees up and moved the green in closer to the large drop-off left.
6 - Added a short par 3.  No margin for error, but with a short iron in hand.
7 - Added downhill, potentially drivable par 4.  I widened the fairway a little and removed the far left of the middle three bunkers from what's shown above.  More of a transition hole but should be a good chance for birdie.
8 - Since I was no longer teeing off from the top of the mound on my old 4th, I could make this hole go around this hill and dare the golfer to go over it.
9 - Changed the old 8th into a reachable par 5 9th.  If the golfer can carry the deep bunker the bisects the right half of the fairway, the right side offers a elevated and level lie and better angle into the hole.
10 - Instead of a long, dogleg left up the hill, I moved this hole up the left side of the mound, mostly to make more room for 1 & 9.  I like the bunkers down the left side, similar to Doak's hole in this same area.
11 - Moved the tees right slightly and lengthen the green, both to make more green visible.
12 - Widened the fairway to the left...a big drive down the left offers a better view and more level lie for the 2nd shot.
13 - Added (a lot) more fairway, both down the left side around the esker and up on the plateau short and to the right of the green.  (see below)
14 - Changed the fairway orientation slightly to make room for the added fairway on 13.  Added an alternative tee box right next to the 13th green to shorten the walk.  Moved the middle bunker on the 2nd shot to make the right side landing area more inviting as originally intended.
15 - Change the fairway and middle bunker slightly
16 & 17 - No change
18 - Moved the green further up the pond.

I toyed with the idea of adding some extra holes just for kicks, utilizing the far west corner of the property.  I thought about adding a green to the right of my 14th (essentially where the real EH 14th green is), that a golfer could play as an alternative
par 4 from the 14th tee.  Then an extra hole that mirrors the real 15th, then a par 4 that goes over the pond and back to the original 14th green.  Are there any real course with this type of alternative set-up?  I think Cog Hill had some kind of alternative holes but I've never seen them.  Unfortunately, I don't see another two holes that could be 'swapped out' to get back to 18 holes, but why not throw in a little variety?  Probably not smart from a maintenance perspective, but fun to at least think about.

Two holes in more detail -

3rd Hole - Par 4

I really like this new hole, probably because it reminds me of a poor man's Ballyneal.  Wide fairway up the hill and in between two mounds.  250 to the flat spot at the top of the hill which offers a clear view of the green.  Hit it weak left and you're still in the fairway but face a blind approach shot.  The right side shortens the hole and offers a better view, but the deep bunker on the right comes into play.





13th Hole - Par 4

Similar to my old 13th but with an added twist.  I added the right finger of the fairway on the plateau that's essentially level with the green.  This hole is best from the third tee box up as it offers three different options from the tee with different pros and cons based on the hole location.  The right side is a longer carry (the line is 280) but offers a view to the green and would be particularly advantageous if the pin is back right.  The other two options are essentially the same as before: carry the cluster of bunkers left and have more green to work with on the approach.  Play it safe down the middle with no forced carry and be left with an uphill approach to a narrow green.  Too crazy?

[Charlie Goerges]

Jim, I like the changes (despite the fact that you caved to the USGA already) as the routing seems to "flow" better. The new 3rd looks terrific and the new fairway on 13 looks like a viable option for the back pin. I also think your 1, 9, 10, 18 work just fine. You solved that riddle more efficiently than the real thing. It required 19 holes to do it.

I must say that as I work on my own routing for the fun of it, my problem is fitting 18 holes on the property. It's hard to make compromises in order to fit the required number of holes sometimes (nevermind cramming an extra hole on the property). You've done some pretty efficent work to so effortlessly fit in so many good holes. And I know you didn't have much time when working on it originally, so kudos.