Ballyhack photos, 5th set for 2009 added 22MAY

[Tony Ristola]

2. Do the participants on here understand at all what that topography actually looked like in its preconstruction natural state?

Here's my quick guesses as to what the land looked like before.



















.

[Bill Kubly]

Although Ballyhack was a fairly severe site in various areas, Lester used the existing grade to his advantage and actually moved very little dirt other than dozer pushes.  The only real earthmoving equipment used on the site was for the pond excavation at the end of the driving range.  All the rest of the work was done by cuts and fills done with 850 and 750 sized dozers.   #10 is a great example where the hole fits very well on the existing topo with minor shaping changes to make it more playable.  Also the bunkers help turn the golfer and this hole is very comfortable until you have that third shot into the green.  This will be a very tough par 5 to get on the green in 2.  You definitely want a wedge in your hand on that third shot....

Not every course can be built by routing it naturally, but my guess is that most of these holes used the natural terrain very well with shaping embellishments on many holes.  A site like this offers a lot of drama when playing the course and the long-mountain views to the west are spectacular.   I do agree that the course might be difficult for the 20+ handicap player, but they would enjoy the shapes and the great views.  The bunker detailing and grow-in is still in progress.

As for the massive number of bunkers between #18 and #12, Lester has turned the 7-8 lower ones into grass hollows.  The sand was not installed in them and they have been grassed. The ones closer to hole #12 will remain sand.

[Lester George]

Kirk,

The alternate landing area that appears on the rendering for the 15th hole was eliminated during construction.  The massive oak tree at the end of the inside path dictated that.  I wasn't going to sacrifice that particular tree.  Instead, there is a "short porch" left behind for the golfer that wants to try to hit it.  From the short porch you can avoid the left side of the hole and play towards the green. 

As I type this I realize that there really isn't a way to adequately describe it.  I think Tom Paul saw it as we toured the course.  You really need to see it to understand.

To all,

For the most part, I like to give the widest variety of players a lot of different ways to play a course.  This particular course does that.  I will say however, Ballyhack is not for the wimpy/whiney sort.  It is (and always has been) a private national venue built with the more adventurous and thrill seeking type of player.  It is fair but will bite you.  It is a HUGE golf course, so if you're not in play, you only have yourself to blame.  It has 56 acres of fairways, 4 acres of greens and probably 175 acres of rough.  It has MANY tees and can be set up according to daily conditions.  Seniors, juniors and women can play it all the way down to 4700 yards. 

It differs from anything in the region which Bill Kubly and I set out to do. 

Ballyhack's most endearing features are the raw beauty and the subtle nuances of the shots that can be played.  Like all new courses, it needs to be played and learned to be totally appreciated.

I hope all of you will make plans to come see it after it opens.  I will GUARANTEE each of you that you will not be able to fully judge or appreciate this course UNTIL you see it.  It is not possible to understand this site and its SCALE until you actually stand on it.

Lester

 

[Tony Ristola]

Any numbers on how much dirt was moved?

It looks like a lot of hill sides were cut with the fill pushed to create/flatten fairways.
 
I do like the manner the drop-offs from cuts were camouflaged without overdoing the earth work/overshaping and with bunkers also used for the same purpose.

.

[Lester George]

Tony,

Your assessment is correct.  Many holes were "flattened".  If I had to guess, I would say overall dirt was less than 500,000 c.u.

Bill Kubly would have a better grip on it.  Since he was a partner in the project, we really didn't do the preliminary dirt calculations we would normally do. 

My guys in the office also estimate somewhere around 500,000 c.u.

As Bill said, not really any major hauling around but more pushing to balance.

Lester

[Bill Kubly]

Lester,
We moved much less than your 500,000 cy on the golf portion of this project.  My guess would be much closer to 200,000-250,000 cy, although you had us push around a lot of dirt.  It is hard to count yardage that is really just cutting greens and tees into the hillsides.  The great thing about dozer dirt is that it is very inexpensive compared to scraper dirt or top-loaded dirt.  You are really killing two birds with one stone when it is dozer dirt as the rough shaping is done at the same time and therefore reduces the cost of one of those two line-items. 

 When you look at the during construction pictures, it appears that most of the golf course site was disturbed somewhat, which makes it look like a lot of dirt was moved when actually  that was done to make sure all the grades tied in well.  Lester will tell you that it was due to my cousin "Squeak" who was one of our lead shapers on this project (20+ years shaping).  Squeak is pretty stubborn (as some shapers can be) and he won't quit until it is perfect.  Squeak is one of those talented shapers that takes it from rough grade with an 850 dozer, works it down with a 550 dozer and finishes it off with a box blade.  Great box blade guys are hard to find anymore, especially the ones that can run the big stuff too. 

If you add the pond on the earthwork, we probably would get to 300,000 cy moved and if we counted the roadway construction, maybe a total of 390,000 but that dirt is not on the golf course.  Lester might have that dirt counted in as well.

[Scott_Burroughs]

4 more, 3 of which are close-up bunker shots:





An Architect's Moment: All that work and planning, coming to fruition.

[TEPaul]

Tony Ristola:

My God, man, you are driving me crazy today with what you put on here with Reply #25. I'm way to untrained or just stupid to completely analyze shit like that. 

Lester told me he'd teach me contour line reading but I told him that'll be harder than that uber professional teacher trying to teach Barkley to play golf properly.

Am I understanding this right that the grid or grade lines on those photos in #25 are what you THINK the land looked like BEFORE construction?

If so I think you got #18 backwards or upside down because I think I recall recall Lester told me he came up quite a bit with that fairway and didn't cut down. If that's the case that landform was a whole lot more radically topographical than you thought it was. The thing must've been like a really steep sharp V.

#17 though may be pretty close as he cut down something like 18 feet I think to level that green in there but I don't know that the land in there had that kind of top roll along it.

Lester jump in here any time unless you are over in Afganistan blowing up mountains and caves and shit looking for that Obama bin.....Oh sorry, I mean Osama bin Laden.

Did you see Obama's press conference last night? Pretty damn good, I'd say. I liked how Bob Scheiffer said he didn't go into that much detail but if you wanted to see a real clinic on how to give a press conference that one was it. 

[Tony Ristola]

Tony Ristola:

My God, man, you are driving me crazy today with what you put on here with Reply #25. I'm way to untrained or just stupid to completely analyze shit like that. 

Lester told me he'd teach me contour line reading but I told him that'll be harder than that uber professional teacher trying to teach Barkley to play golf properly.

Am I understanding this right that the grid or grade lines on those photos in #25 are what you THINK the land looked like BEFORE construction?

If so I think you got #18 backwards or upside down because I think I recall recall Lester told me he came up quite a bit with that fairway and didn't cut down. If that's the case that landform was a whole lot more radically topographical than you thought it was. The thing must've been like a really steep sharp V.

#17 though may be pretty close as he cut down something like 18 feet I think to level that green in there but I don't know that the land in there had that kind of top roll along it.

Lester jump in here any time unless you are over in Afganistan blowing up mountains and caves and shit looking for that Obama bin.....Oh sorry, I mean Osama bin Laden.

Did you see Obama's press conference last night? Pretty damn good, I'd say. I liked how Bob Scheiffer said he didn't go into that much detail but if you wanted to see a real clinic on how to give a press conference that one was it. 

The cuts in the hillsides give it away, as does the clearing lines for the trees. From there it's connect-the-dots.

I like the transition work. Too often these cuts are the worst accomplished; either overdone, or looking like a road construction crew hacked it out for a road. Hats off for getting it just right; at least I think so. I think they are in harmony with land.

As for 18, I could see the fairway being a trough Large ditch, ravine, arroyo... and he filled the low area to create the fairway.

.

[Lester George]

Tony,

Just to be sure, the Ravine in front of 17 green is about 70 feet deep and was there.  Your overlay implies that it wasn't. 

We only cleared about 40 out of 200 hundred acres so I'm not sure which clearing lines you are talking about "giving it away". 

The 18th fairway was a "v" and has about 20 feet of fill on the low end but the green site is natural.  Tom Paul is right on that. 

Lester

[Mike Tanner]

Very cool thread. This is why I'm on the DG.

Being able to see before, during (thanks for the link to earlier thread) and after photos combined with Lester's generosity in explaining his thought process make this a very illuminating read.

I just hope I get an opportunity to play the course.

[TEPaul]

Tony Ristola:

Look carefully at the shot of #17 and the way Lester treated the cut above and to the left of the green. Then cast your eyes up to the mountains behind the green and just look how cool it is that those areas in darkness on those mountains are mimiced in the concave rounded up shape Lester got on that cut (too bad the photo isn't as clear with this as the day I was there).  Even look how interesting in a random sense the angle of Lester's concave formation is against the angle of those backdrop formations up there.

To me this is some pretty neat MACRO stuff (on site/off site) aesthetically.

I told that to Lester when out there and his eyebrows shot up and his eyes got wide and he proclaimed loudly; "Don't even go there because I don't have time to get into all that right now!"


PS:
William Flynn did something like that on a hole at the Cascades. He built a most prominent bunker right in the middle of the fairway on hole #12 and its remarkably radical topline noticeably mimiced the topline on the mountains about a mile behind it. How many would even notice something like that? Who really knows but if someone does and is turned on by it, that's pretty much the point, isn't it?

[Thomas Patterson]

Looks incredible Lester..the grow in is coming along nicely.  I can only imagine the scale of the course in person.  Those new bunker pictures are very cool!

Cheers

[Chip Gaskins]

When is the official opening at Ballyhack?

[Matt Varney]

Lester,

I can wait to see Ballyhack in person this year for the first time.  Those bunkers look great and if your plan as you mentioned to me before and in your videos is to make them narly and nasty then they will add a perfect compliment to the nice rolling contours of the fairways.

I love the little uphill valley fairway on #18 with the tee boxes elevated so you can play up to that huge green complex up on the hill.  The silos and huge oak trees just make the setting perfect.  Looking forward to seeing the course once everything is all green, the sand is in the bunkers, the trees all have leaves and the native grasses start growing tall.

Keep up the good work!   

[Tim Gavrich]

I read in the Roanoke times yesterday that the 18th green is slated to be 20,000 square feet .  That will be quite a thing to behold.

Also, the article indicated that the course won't be open for play (and only then by members) until late June if I remember correctly.  Is this in spite of the soft opening of June 1?

[Scott_Burroughs]

A new set of pics:

EDIT: I modified these so no scrollbar is needed, but it doesn't mean I'm not pi$$ed off about it.  I'm still leaving in my rant below about 'nice-sized' pics.

 (don't forget, that with the new GCA, you have to first look at a picture, which is only the left-half of the pic, then go down to the bottom of the post, pull the scrollbar the right, then go back to the same picture, just to view the right-half of the pic.  Repeat for all pics.  This is a TERRIBLE feature.    Forcing everyone who posts pics to have to shrink every single one of them, while losing quality and details, will discourage people from posting pics in the first place  ):

#1:


#2 (neat-looking hole, with a great view!)


#3:


#5:


#6:


#7:


#8:

[Scott_Burroughs]

I modified the above post and the original post so no scrollbar is needed to view the pics.  (I said grumbling  )

[Mike Hendren]

While popular, I find the bunker style incongruent with the environment. 

Lester, since the site appears to be heavily engineered, was any thought given to a more Raynoresque bunker style?

Congratulations and good luck with the imminent opening.

Mike

[Lester George]

Michael,

I am not sure what you mean by "heavily engineered" but no, there was no thought to doing the CBM/Raynor thing here. 

I am doing that on another course that is nearing construction so even though I am a big fan of the Raynor style, I was saving it for the new project.

I am not sure I agree that the Raynor style would have been more "congruent" or not.  But, I wasn't really looking for "congruent" to begin with.  I would say that until you see the entire site, "congruency" would be difficult to determine.

Thanks for the comments.  Course opens for guest play on June 26th.

Lester

[Jim Colton]

Lester,

  Great pics.  Love the 2nd hole.

[Wade Whitehead]

Firsthand, the bunkers look far from manufactured or engineered.  They fit astoundingly well with the surrounds.  They mirror nearby hillsides and, thanks at least in part to the darker sand choice, look almost as if they grew in their spots.  The entire property is unique in so many ways; Lester's bunker design compliments (and, in my view, amplifies and enhances) this.

Note that a few of the photos show the bunkers up close.  Once they're seen in context they fit perfectly.

As many have said, the Ballyhack's scale must be seen firsthand.  Eventually, I expect that we'll see a Ballyhack thread that says something like "No one could have created or constructed a better golf course on this piece of property."  A "Best Bunkers?" thread will likely pop up as well, if for no other reason than for my intention to start one.

WW

[Matt Varney]

Lester,

Ballyhack looks great nice progress images - How do I schedule a tee time for late June?

Can you fly single engine planes into the local Roanoke airport nearby and park for a day?

Matt

[TEPaul]

Guys:

Go back and very carefully analyze those cool jigsaw like bunkers around and above the 4th green. Did you know that Lester is actually sort of a world renowned macro jigsaw puzzler and if you put all those bunkers together into one piece the right way what you will see is an almost prefect replication of Lester's head (face, hair, eyes, nose, ears, smile and all)? Lester told me that concept and application cost him a total of 7 3/8th nights of sleep.

[Lester George]

Gentlemen,

I have some very good new photography taken by my daughter and will send them to Scott Burroughs to post.  Two weeks away from Coach Beamers first invitational outing and the place is looking strong.  Greens are at .135 going to .125 and very smooth.

Tom, you need to bring your clubs and play after June 15th.

Lester