What would a Doak course look like...

[M. Shea Sweeney]

  Can minimalism work on flat uninspired land?

  Anthony

Of course...  Garden City is a perfect example.  There is nothing at all inspiring about that property yet it one of favorite places to play.

  Donnie,

  What did they to to overcome the lak interest in the land?

  Thanks

  Anthony

Anthony,

Garden City is very special. As soon as you set foot on the property you feel you have taken a step back in time. It has a look and feel I have never seen in another golf course. The greens seem as extensions of the fairways with little or no movement of earth during construction. The routing is brilliant with no holes running in the same direction. Once you are out on the course it is hard to believe you are only 30 or so minutes from NYC. I love the use of cross bunkering to create preferred angles. I am not sure of the extent of Doak's work (I know he was there back in the 90’s) maybe someone more knowledgeable can comment but whatever the case the bunkers seemed to fit perfectly. When you get a chance take a look at Ran's review and as impressive as the review is it does not do the course justice. It is much better in person.

Natural Landforms greens. Surprising how much fun simple things are.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom D - off topic, but I didn't know or hadn't remembered that you worked on Garden City, and I was wondering if you could describe what you may have learned (and later been able to put into practice on your own courses) from the unique kind of study and work involved in such a restoration/renovation project.  I'd imagine that you saw the 'nuts and bolts' of Garden City's architecture in a way you wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

Thanks
Peter

[Tim Pitner]

Just random thoughts -- that the dsitinction between naturalism and minimalism is real, and will come to the fore when the next round of courses are being designed and built; and, for some reason, Fowler at Walton Heath and Emmet at Garden City.

Peter,

Could you explain further?  How do you define "naturalism" vs "minimalism"?  Are you saying that Walton Health is naturalistic while Garden City is minimalistic? 

[Carl Rogers]

Eric:

We built a course in the Tidewater area of Virginia about 12 years ago, called Riverfront.  The highest elevation on the property is 20 feet above sea level, and we didn't cut or fill more than about four feet, apart from digging an irrigation pond.  But it's got a great set of greens and bunkers.

Unfortunately, it is now surrounded by a large built-out development ... and because the holes were mostly built in soybean fields adjacent to the marsh, there was very little mature vegetation to soften the visual impact of the homes.  Landscaping will eventually help, but that takes a long time.  Still, tee to green, it's a pretty good indication of what we could build for a Lowcountry course ... unless I decided to try something different.

Riverfront has a multitude of subtle plays on perspective and hazards just slightly over your ability to observe.  It takes a fair amount of local knowledge and good sense of your own game.  I have been trying to get some of you over to play it.  It would be interesting to see how many of you would recognize the eclectically personal nature of the green complexes.

[Philippe Binette]

The first few holes at the Renaissance Club are on a flat piece of land...

About the naturalism, minimalism issue: here's my take...

Naturalism is about try to imitate nature on a course and basically dissolve the line between the landscape and the golf course. It's more about a look. To dissolve the line between landscape and the golf course can take a lot of effort and shaping if you want to or need to. It also involves letting more nature on the course, having the 3 layers of vegetation with local plants (trees, bushes and grasses).

Minimalism is about trying to do the best course possible with the least amount of work... That means, if you need to move 15 000 cubic yard of dirt to manufacture one hole that allows the existance of 6 others... it could be called minimalism of maybe common sense.
In the detail, it is about building a hole only with stuff that are essential to the strategy of the hole. Garden City greens are a good example of that, just a tilt. It would hae been easy to put a little bump on a green here and there on some of those greens, but they didn't... Sometimes one small bunker is enough for a 400 yard hole.

Most of the minimalist courses are naturalist.. but it's not mandatory

[Kalen Braley]

To take this one step further.

I belevee its entirely possible to create a "naturalistic" course by moving butt-loads of dirt and having it be as far from "minimalism" as possible. So I don't think these two concepts are really related.

As for me, I would rather play an interesting naturalistic course, over a boring minimalist course any day.  In an ideal world though I would think a minimalist naturalistic course is the best case scenario.