[Tim Pitner]

I haven't heard much about Donald Steel's designs in the United States.  According to his website, here are the U.S. courses Steel and Co. have designed:

Carnegie Abbey, Newport, Rhode Island
Cherokee Plantation, South Carolina
Primland, Virginia 
The Vineyard Club, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Any thoughts or reviews?  What are the distinguishing characteristics? 

[George Pazin]

There was a decent amount of discussion of Carnegie Abbey and Cherokee Plantation about 7-8 years ago. I'll see if I can find it over the weekend.

[Jay Kirkpatrick]

Steel is putting the finishing touches on a complete renovation of my home course, Greensboro CC's Farm Course, in Greensboro, NC right now.  Construction began last Fall and we're scheduled to open in November.  Word has it that this will be his last project... but that might just be a rumor.

Steel has done amazing things so far... he's taken a course with great bones (an old Ellis Maples design that has a very good routing over beautiful rolling terrain) and made it much better by vastly improving the green complexes and completely re-working some of our less interesting holes.  Approximately 1/3rd of the course will be new holes, 1/3rd will be old ones with minor changes, and the remaining 1/3rd will be old corridors with pretty significant changes.  The membership is very happy with the progress and is chomping at the bit to play the final product.

I had the pleasure of walking the course with Mr. Steel on one of his visits, and I can tell you that he is as good a guy as you can imagine.  I was fortunate to soak up some nuggets of golf course design during our brief visit.  He's been in the business a long time, and you could sense the GCA wisdom oozing out of him.

I hope to have pics of the final product soon.  We sodded the fairways with zoysia and just sprigged the rough... so things should be picture worthy in the next month or so.

[hhuffines]

Jay,

I had the pleasure of playing the Farm course a few years ago.  I would love to see any photos you might have of the work going on now.  Thanks for the update on an exciting project.

Hart Huffines

[Jay Kirkpatrick]

Here are three that I took about 4 weeks ago...

Prior to renovation, this was the corridor of our worst hole... a triple dogleg par 5 with three blind shots.  Now its a really interesting fairly straight reachable par 5.  The tee sits high up on a hill.  A lake runs down the left side of the driving area with a big fairway bunker protecting the right.  This pic is taken from around 180 yards out.  The bunker directly in front of the green is about 30 yards short of it.  Anything that flies it (even barely) will kick down to the green.  The green is a long slender, biarritz-style green.



This hole is the next one... a 175 yard par 3 that plays severely downhill to the lake.  My pics don't do a good job of picking up the elevation change.  The green for the awful par 5 I mentioned above was about 30 yards short of this green and surrounded by trees.  You couldn't even see the lake behind the green.  Steel opened it up and created a very wide but slendor green.



This is the next hole... a 400 yard par 4 that plays uphill the whole way though pretty subtly.

[Ronald Montesano]

Jay,
a driveable par five?  that's funky.

[Tim Gavrich]

Of all golf course architects whose original work I've yet to see and play, Steel is number 1 on my list.  I have been intrigued by every picture of any of his courses that I have seen, especially Primland, Cherokee, and Carnegie Abbey (throw in Abaco in the Bahamas as an international curiosity too).  They all look fantastic, especially his bunker scheme.

Tim Gavrich, Bunker Fetishist

[Mike Sweeney]

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,29258.0/

Here is an old CA thread.

The Vineyard club has similar bunkering to CA but not as good of terrain. One hole is stuck out in a wetlands area. The club has some issues with maintenance restrictions on the island. The vibe of the place is typical low key Vineyard. I can't say it is worth it to make a special trip to see it in comparison to Sankaty and Nantucket but if you love the beach and want to play some golf, The Vineyard Club is way up there.

Somewhere deep in the archives, I had some good pics of VC but I cant find them.

[Jay Kirkpatrick]

Jay,
a driveable par five?  that's funky.

We're breaking all the rules of golf course architecture... driveable par 5s, dogleg par 3s, etc.   

Fixed the original to say "reachable"...

[John_Conley]

  What are the distinguishing characteristics? 

Privacy, cost.

I'm going to take a stab at the name, but I think it is Peter deSavary.  Steel designed courses for his ultra-upscale clubs.

[Jay Kirkpatrick]

As promised, more pics from our Steel renovation set to open in November...

This is the second shot into our par 5 second hole.



The 255 yard par 3 4th.  Pot bunker is 25-30 yards short of the green.



The shortish par 4 5th.  Drive plays significantly downhill and back up to the green in the distance.  By opening, the lake will be much more full of water.



190 yard par 3 8th.  hard to tell from the picture but it plays way downhill.  Lake will come up to the brown part



2nd shot into the par 4 9th.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Jay

Tim P - if you haven't seen it already, check out the profile of Steel's Redtail (in the Courses by Country - Canada section). I never get tired of looking at that golf course. To this day, it is the only golf course I've ever seen that reminds me of antique Shaker furniture (though Ballyneal looks like the Quakers might've designed it.)

Peter

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