next »

[Dan Moore]

Here is a shot of EH #11.  Hole #7 from the contest used this corridor in reverse so this shows the landing zone in the foreground.  The tee would have been a little right of the green. 



Found this shot of the entire hole corridor.  Would have been hole #1 of Tom's routing of Erin Hills

[Tom_Doak]

Charlie:

A lot of the sketchup views were pretty good, I thought.  #5, in particular, looks like I remember that hole, both back and front views.  The view of #8 was also very good.

If anything, the hills don't show up as strong as they should.  That landing area on #3 was pretty wild, and the green on #4 was on a sharp little hill -- something like the 11th at High Pointe, or even the 5th at Gleneagles (King's).  It doesn't look nearly that dramatic in the view above.

[Charlie Goerges]

Tom, I'm glad to hear that they were reasonable representations. I really couldn't hope for more than that because of the inaccuracies of the topo that I had. The flattening out of hills is likely the result of the topo being a watered-down version of reality and the tendency to want to get up in the "air" a bit to show the entire hole. Once you get up a bit higher, you start to lose perspective. Sort of like being in an airplane and looking down. most everything looks pretty flat from up high.

[Dan Moore]

Tom Doak was kind enough to contribute part of his original Erin Hills routing to Charlie for the Armchair Architect contest.  The routing as sketched up by Charlie was presented at the beginning of this thread and included Charlie's hole by hole drawings.  I added a copy of the routing over the topo map that was posted. 

I'm on record as a fan of Erin Hills, no doubt in part because I grew up about 30 minutes from there, but also because I have walked the course and played it several times.  It is an incredible property that could have yielded any number of top notch routings. 

I've had some fun locating Tom's routing on some of my photos from Erin Hills.  I thought I'd share some of those photos, not to criticize EH, but as a fascinating look at the routing process and the variety of possibilities inherent in the glacial undulations at Erin Hills.  Hopefully, I got most of it right. 



Tom's holes are indicated in red on the routing topo map.  Hole #1 was presented above. 

Here are Holes 2-8.  Holes 9, 10 and 11 circle the water feature and are not part of the current course.  I'll add the back nine soon. 

Routing Contour Map of Holes 1-3



Hole #2

This hole starts near the 11th tee of EH and moves SE toward the 13th green.  This photo of EH 13th shows the tee in the background, a major drop off in the fairway lz and the approximate green location.  (Note Tom Doak correction indicating green is located in the high ground to the right in the photo.)     



Contour routing map of Holes 3-5




Hole #3  This par 3 hole has the tee on the mounds to the right on the crest of the hill of the 12th hole with the green located beyond the 12th green.



This should say 3rd green




Hole #4  This hole moves through the corridor the 17th hole.  The tee is behind the 17th green, the fairway bends around the esker to a green located in the rough to the left of the start of the 17th fairway.  Note how the esker is used as a feature in the landing area.






Hole #5  A par 3 from near the 17th tee to a greensite behind the 16th green





Contour Routing map 6-8




Hole #6  This hole begins near the 16th green behind the current 4th green, proceeds down the 4th hole corridor (in the opposite direction) with the green tucked to the left in what would have been the rough at the beginning of the 4th fairway. 



 


Hole #7 Looks like a par 5.  Tee located in the rough of the 4th fairway, hole proceeds over small hill into the corridor of the 3rd hole, then jogs right around some broken ground with the green located behind a shoulder of a hill. 




Hole # 8  This very short par 4 starts in the 3rd fairway and proceeds over the controversial 2nd green into a area that is very undulating.  The green of this short par 4 appears to be terraced into a rather large glacial mound.

[Tom_Doak]

Dan:

I don't mind your doing this, but I'm curious if it is helpful to others.

Personally, I understand the contours better than the photos of the land with fairways and greens and tees in different places.

Also, I think you got my second hole wrong.  The green site was on high ground (to the player's left of where you are showing), not down anywhere by the 13th green as you seem to be showing.

[Charlie Goerges]

.

[Jim Colton]

Also, of 30 clients that I've had, there are less than ten of them who could really judge the merits of different designs by looking at various plans (as in this contest) -- so even if I was confident that I could come up with the best plan, I'm not confident that the client would choose it.  Mr. Lang looked closely at my plan for Erin Hills and interviewed me, but he chose to work with Hurdzan/Fry/Whitten because he hit it off with Mike Hurdzan personally.  He also implied that the success of Pacific Dunes might have meant that I didn't need to try so hard on his project, which was a misjudgment on his part.

Tom,

  I'm interested whether 'build a course that could host a US Open' and 'move as little dirt as possible' were at the top of the client's wish list back when you first interviewed w/ Mr. Lang, or is that something that evolved later once HFW got involved and the USGA started popping in.

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:

I do remember distinctly during the interview with Mr. Lang that he mentioned wanting to have the course 8,000 yards long so he could host a U.S. Open ... and my body language alone probably cost me the job right there. 

As for the "move as little dirt as possible" mantra, I think he picked that up from my previous design ... several people had recommended me to him and pointed that out as one of the features of my work, and it seemed to appeal to him.  But, it was the kind of site where a lot of architects would probably have said the same thing.

[Dan Moore]

Tom,  Would the drives on either 6 or 7 have been blind?  The tees are located behind hills but I can't tell from the photos if they were avenues of visibility that would have been used so that the landing areas would be visible from the tee.  Thanks. 

[Tom_Doak]

Dan:

I assume you're speaking of my routing in the order I had originally. 

I seem to recall there was a little shoulder on the east side of the wetland on #6 that would have made that shot blind, if you didn't build up the tee or remove part of the hill.  I probably would have opted to do the latter.  Hadn't thought about that hill for 10+ years, so my memory is not 100%.

On #7 the tee shot would have had to be cleared through a belt of trees running down the right side of the fairway and then crossing over to the left side of the second shot.  A long hitter would have had to hit a left-to-right tee shot, and if he was long enough it would have cleared the crest of a hill and rolled down and to the right.  That's not what I would call a blind tee shot, but a fair number of golfers wouldn't have seen where their ball wound up from the tee, as you suggest.

[Jim Colton]

Jim:

I do remember distinctly during the interview with Mr. Lang that he mentioned wanting to have the course 8,000 yards long so he could host a U.S. Open ... and my body language alone probably cost me the job right there. 

As for the "move as little dirt as possible" mantra, I think he picked that up from my previous design ... several people had recommended me to him and pointed that out as one of the features of my work, and it seemed to appeal to him.  But, it was the kind of site where a lot of architects would probably have said the same thing.

Tom,

 Do you think that your original routing done for a previous owner might have worked against you, because it likely wasn't 8,000 yards and perhaps more playable/less demanding than something you might design with a US Open in mind?

[Tom_Doak]

Actually, Jim, I think the main reason I lost that job is because Mr. Lang hired a guy to help guide his selection process who was a GOLF DIGEST panelist [and a USGA committeeman  too].  And if they'd just chosen me, then his "golf consultant" would not have made any difference, and that guy CLEARLY wanted to make a difference.  [That's often the way it works ... every time there is a "consultant" around, he winds up steering the job to somebody else, and I'm never sure if it's on the level or not.] 

And so they decided to sign up Hurdzan / Fry, with Ron Whitten [who coincidentally was the head of GOLF DIGEST panelists] as a co-designer.  I wasn't very happy about that at the time, even though Ron has been a friend of mine for 25 years.  But, I guess I learned that all's fair in love and business.  And to be very wary of consultants.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Tom,
It would seem like the consultants rates went up this year as he looks like a genius to many.
There is no end in sight...


Who should get the most credit?
The one who bought the land?

Did you have the same boundary lines as H&F?
I thought there was a whole lot more land and a similar footprint is surprising.
Or did they use your footprint?

Cheers

[Charlie Goerges]

HFW had more land available than TD. If you go to page 1, one of my posts attempted to explain it.


Regarding consultants, don't they often act as though they feel they need to justify their existence? From what I've heard about feasibility studies there's never a non-feasible project if a consultant is involved.

[George Pazin]

I was hoping that this contest (in contrast to most GCA photo discussions) would be judged on  how the holes fit the land, and not on the basis of bunkering, graphics, or narrative ... but I think that's hard to do.  I know the site pretty well, and even so, it's hard for me to look at the other plans in Sketchup and really judge them based on the contours alone.  Drawing a bunch of bunkers makes the strategies more obvious; that's why everyone builds too many bunkers.

This is worthy of its own thread, imho.

[Garland Bayley]

I was hoping that this contest (in contrast to most GCA photo discussions) would be judged on  how the holes fit the land, and not on the basis of bunkering, graphics, or narrative ... but I think that's hard to do.  I know the site pretty well, and even so, it's hard for me to look at the other plans in Sketchup and really judge them based on the contours alone.  Drawing a bunch of bunkers makes the strategies more obvious; that's why everyone builds too many bunkers.

This is worthy of its own thread, imho.

I'll second that.

[George Pazin]

-- so even if I was confident that I could come up with the best plan, I'm not confident that the client would choose it. 

Any thoughts as to why many, maybe most, don't necessarily choose the best plan? Perhaps your earlier comment about the bunkers?

Any hints about getting a more accurate read? Does it require knowledge of the land?

Also, apologies if you mentioned this before and I missed it in my quick read, but was this routing done primarily from the topo or from a walking of the land?

Thanks in advance.

[Charlie Goerges]

I was hoping that this contest (in contrast to most GCA photo discussions) would be judged on  how the holes fit the land, and not on the basis of bunkering, graphics, or narrative ... but I think that's hard to do.  I know the site pretty well, and even so, it's hard for me to look at the other plans in Sketchup and really judge them based on the contours alone.  Drawing a bunch of bunkers makes the strategies more obvious; that's why everyone builds too many bunkers.

This is worthy of its own thread, imho.

I'll second that.

We're trying to get that type of discussion going on the main thread, at least the "how the holes fit the land" part. I think the judges did a good job of judging based on that criteria, but the discussion hasn't taken off.

I'm open to suggestions for how to facilitate this. Whether it's a separate thread or something else, I'd love to hear it. We've got a great field-study here on how different archies might use the same land. (and I'm not only talking about HFW and Tom D, the contestants have done a great job and brought up interesting possibilities)

[Tom_Doak]

George / Garland:

I'll be happy to participate on the alternative thread you've suggested, if you start it, and explain what more you want me to talk about.

The fundamental problem is that not many people are good at visualizing and thinking in 3-D, so they tend to reduce everything to 2-D.  And in 2-D the greens will all be flat, so they need to be defended by bunkers (or water).

I did not pore through all the various contest entries, because I just don't enjoy looking at computer graphics that much.  But here's a simple test:  how many times did someone just lay a green on a sideslope, so that it would be easier to approach from the low side of the hole?  Did anyone even mention such a thing?

[Dan Moore]

In an effort to tie together the hole photos with the contour maps I added the entire map and individual hole maps to the thread above.  Hopefully we can visualize the the holes and the use of contours better this way. 

Tom,

How long a hole would #8 have been and where exactly would the green have been located.  Were you planning to flatten out the top of the kame (I think that is a kame) or would it have been terraced into the side. 

[Charlie Goerges]

Dan, the last picture you provided looking down the Erin Hills second toward the TD 8th greensite really nicely shows what the hole would have looked like. You can see very easily where you could have used the back of the hill/mound on the left of the photo as a turbo-boost to drive the ball onto the green. But the player would really have to commit to that line because it is totally blind.



I'll repost my images from the previous page to illustrate the point. The flight path represents a carry of about 250 yards.

Aerial:





From Ground Level:

[Tom_Doak]

Dan:

Actually, I was amused that Yannick picked this out as his favorite hole on my layout, because I only remembered it as a "connector" hole ... a way to get over to the other side of the property.  I didn't think it was that special, but I hadn't spent much time trying to figure out the bunkering or green configuration yet.

I certainly wasn't thinking about a blind tee shot over the side of the hill getting a turbo boost.  But, that was 10+ years ago, and not so many golfers went for a 265-yard carry back then.

[Dan Moore]

The Back Nine

Holes 9, 10 and 11 circled the wetlands on the southeast corner of the property and were not included in the mystery golf architect's design.  Here we pick up the remainder of Tom's routing with Holes 12-18.  Tom has previously noted he was very happy with Holes 15-18 which form the interior holes on the routing plan with the 15th tee adjacent to the 18th green.  The four finishing holes move in a clockwise direction encountering the wind from all directions at the conclusion of the round. 

Contour Routing Map of Holes 12 and 13



Hole 12 occupies the corridor of the controversial 1st hole.  However, instead of a par 5 this par 4  locates the green on top of the ridge  which is the landing area for the second shot of the exisiting course.  As this is one of the areas where significant earth was moved to create a landing area atop the ridge the photo may be misleading.  The tee here would have been farther back and to the left and I think the fairway would have played up on the side slope right of the exisitng fairway. 



Hole 13, a par 5, turns back to the north.  Starting near the teeing area for the Dell Hole it crosses what is now the 18th fairway proceeding directly through to uneven ground of the Bye Hole in route to a green that would be located in the fairway of the 10th hole.  I seem to recall Eric Terhorst pointing out a hole this direction as holding promise, but I think he had the tee starting closer to the current 1st green. 



Contour and Routing Map of Hole 14



This dramatically uphill par 3 has a tee near the ninth tee and proceeds to a green located on the rise of current 12th fairway.  The angle of approach in the photo is wrong as the tee would be farther left but In think it gives the general idea.  This portion of the course is one of the most dramatic Hurdzan Fry and Whitten fashioned a very neat par 4, the 12th from it while Tom chose to use it for two par 3's the 3rd and 14th.  Tom can confirm but it looks to me like the green would have been in the little hollow where the three hawthorne trees are located. 



Contour and Routing Map of Holes 15-18



Hole 15 is a slight dogleg left par 4 starting from an elevated tee located on the rise in the fairway of the current 9th fairway and  is routed across the 18th and 8th fairways and through the narrow valley used as the greensite of the Dell Hole.  The green would have been ltucked back on the narrow ledge at the foot of the hill on which the current 6th green is located.  The use of the Dell Hole valley creates a very cool looking hole. 





Hole 16 is a shorter par 3 from a hill top tee to a green located on another hilltop across the valley.  This moves in the opposite direction of Erin Hills 6th hole, a hole I really like from the 235 yard tee.  Tom's would have been much shorter.  I'm really not sure about the location of the green in the photo maybe between the palyers and the path, but it should be good enough to show the basic idea. 



Hole 17 would have been a par 5 moving from the high ground behind the 5th green to a greensite located on the hillside to the left of the 8th green.  The hole uses some interesting ups and downs particularly as you get closer to the green.  I'm not sure the angles of these photos do the hole justice, but a close look at the topo map should help.   





Note the cart is next to the tee shown in the photo above. 



Hole 18 is longer par 4 from a tee near the 8th green seen the last photo cutting on an angle across the 18th fairway to a green located on the rise of the 9th fairway.  The angle of the approach is on a diagonal to the slope the green is on and I suspect this green located on the hillside may have had some serious movement to it.   The 15th tee would have been located near the large tree probably a little left and frather backtree

[Charlie Goerges]

Dan, I don't know if it's because of the nature of the ground, or if you had better photo coverage, but I had a much easier time following and imagining TDs holes on this last section of the course. Nice job.

[Dan Moore]

Charlie, I actually thought the back nine was harder to put together.  Perhaps the front is harder to visualize because the tees on 6 and 7 are behind trees and hills and I didn't have a good shot of the 5th.  Having played the course several times I can visualize all of it pretty well.  Where I had problems was interpreting the topo map to find the correct feature where tees and greens were located.  Not having worked with topo maps before this took some effort, but I've learned something in the process. 

In any event I'm waiting for some comments on use of the Dell Hole Valley for the 15th hole. 

For Tom and the other architects, where would you normally start the routing process?  With the topo map or an on the ground survey? 

[Tom_Doak]

Dan:

I always start working on the map first, if there's one available.  It's far easier to visualize how the holes are going to fit together, than by trying to walk your way around one shot at a time.  Generally I'll locate a few sites for possible cool holes, and then go to those spots the first time I'm on the property for a reality check.

You have to go back and forth between the map and the land, because there are features that don't show up on the map -- mostly views and trees, because even a lot of little movements show up on a two-foot topo if you know how to read it.