[BCrosby]

     I often get asked by friends passing through ATL on business trips if there is a course near town they can play during a free afternoon while they are in the city.  I had nothing to suggest.  The better daily fee courses are an hour or more north or east of town.  Unless you had a connection with East Lake or Peachtree, you were out of luck.

      The situation has now changed.  Wolf Creek, designed by our own Mike Young, is about 5 miles from the airport and about 12 miles from downtown.  It is an interesting, affordable daily fee course that opened about 6 months ago.

      The strength of Wolf Creek is its green complexes.  Young has done a wonderful job building Ross-esque rolled faced bunkers, tucked into beautifully contoured greens.  Really eye-popping stuff.

      The course has a first rate set of par 3’s.  My particular favorite was no. 4.  About 185 yards, slightly uphill to a green set into a ridge.

      On the negative side, the property the course was built on is awful.  There is flat bottom land and very severe hills, with little transition between.

      Young did a very nice job with the “flat” holes, keeping them close to the land with well-located swales and bunkering.  These holes have an understated, Golden Age feel to them.  My favorites are nos. 9 (439, 4), 10 (457, 4), 16 (429, 4), 17 (579, 5) and 18 (569, 5).  Wide fairways, lots of options into the greens.

      The holes built on the hilly part of the property are less successful.  Too many blind drives; there are 5 or 6.  (The head pro told me that the developers were not permitted by local ordinances to shave some of the higher ridges.  I suspect a limited construction budget had something to do with it as well.)  Interesting green complexes redeem some of these holes, however.  

      Wolf Creek is worth a visit.  It has the added advantage of being very near the hotels at the airport and downtown.

      Green fees are about $40 weekdays, $50 weekends.  It is the kind of low budget, well-designed course we should encourage and support.  I hope it finds its niche in the Atlanta golf market.  Well done Mike.  

Bob

[Matt_Ward]

Bob --

Can you provide total distance from the tips with course rating and slope from those marks.

I will be in the immediate Atlanta are on business in the next 4-6 weeks.

Thanks ...

[BCrosby]

Matt -

WC is 7013 from the tips.  Rating: 72.2; Slope: 140.

I forgot to mention.  Each cart has its own GPS system and a timer that tells you how ahead or behind you are on a 4 hour round.   My 14 year old son thought it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen.

Let me know when you are in the area.  I'll buy you a beer.

Bob

[Matt_Ward]

Bob:

Thanks for the update and when my dates become solid I'll let you know. Can you provide any info on what is happening south of Atlanta -- I hear there are plans for several daily fee facilities in that area because land costs are not anywhere as high as you find in the Alpharetta area and the like.

Can you comment?

Thanks!

[BCrosby]

Matt -

Several new courses have been built in the Newnan area.  About 30 miles south of ATL on I-85.  There is Eagle's Landing (site of this week's LPGA event) closer to ATL on the southside.  Other than that, I haven't heard of much going on.  I'll check, though, and if I come up with anything I'll get back with you.

Did you have a particular project in mind?

Bob

[Joel_Stewart]

I played it last Friday and give it a 4.5 on the Doak scale.  I'll agree with BCrosby that it does have some good par 3's.  

The course has the worst cart path design I have ever seen.  No one took the time to try and conceal the cart paths thus they come in front of tees and straight down the side of fairways, its borderline crazy.

[BCrosby]

Joel -

I don't disagree with your Doak number, but I'm not sure what you mean by "crazy" cart paths.  

The path on no. 3 cuts through the landing area just over the creek.  Bad location.  No. 9 and 18 use the same path for a stretch.  Somewhat confusing.  There is little extraneous mounding on the course to hide cart paths from view.  Some are indeed are more visible than one might like, i.e.,  no. 14.  

But aren't these cart path shortcomings just a function of a course that was built on a tight budget?  I too wish they were better hidden, but for a pretty good course near town at $40 a pop, I'll live with it.

Bob

Bob

[Mike_Young]

Well, since I am opposed to cart paths in the first place, I have never seen a cart path plan that I like.  With the budget that was given at Wolf Creek cart paths were limited.  they are only six feet wide and were poured with a machine instead of by hand.  We were also limited by what the city and corp allowed as for crossings etc.  
The good thing is that Wolf Creek will be sucessful quickly.  The price is right and people will overlook budget restrictions in order to pay less green fee.

Joel, next time in town e-mail me and I will get you on Cateechee.  I think you will find cartpaths hidden thru out that project but at considerable more cost.

[Chris_Clouser]

Bob,

What are your impressions of North Fulton in Atlanta?

Chris

[BCrosby]

Chris -

First the mystery part about North Fulton (or Chastain as everyone in Atlanta calls it).

Why did Chandler Egan design a federal works project golf course in Atlanta, Georgia 3,000 miles from his home in Oregon in the middle of the Great Depression?  For those of us that have looked into it, the mystery only gets deeper and deeper.

The course itself is wonderfully routed over a borderline piece of property.  Other than renumbering the holes, Chastain has never been changed.  It gets more play than any other course in the Atlanta metro region.  Loved by many, including me.

It is maintained horribly, however.  Just horribly.  So badly that Chastain has become a shining example of how a well designed course can overcome almost any adversity. (Chastain has not had to survive a Fazio restoration, however.  If that ever happens, all bets are off. )

If you are in the area, go play it.  With high tech clubs and balls it plays a little short these days.  But I think you'll appreciate its many strengths.

Bob

[Mike_Cirba]

Chris,

Bob stated that wonderfully well, and I heartily concur.  North Fulton has some wonderful holes, and the architecture shines through the blight, but barely.

Oh that an "East Lake" type restoration project with a sensitive restoration architect were done here, but that will never happen given the municipal status of the course.

[BCrosby]

No, no, please, anything but a Rees Jones/East Lake "sensitive" restoration.  Sheesh.  Don't get me started on East Lake.  That would be a cure worse than the disease.

Instead, how about a Doak/Forse/Hanse/Young/Weed restoration?  Let's find an architect sufficiently at peace with his own ego to let someone else's talent to burn brightly again.  

Bob

[Chris_Clouser]

Bob,

On Chastain, I talked with the club in doing my research about Maxwell.  The club was noted as a Maxwell design in some documentation (Architects of Golf?) that I have at home.  The person I talked with at the club didn't have any real knowledge of who the original architect was.  I don't know Egan's work that well other than what he did at Pebble.

If you want you can e-mail me at chris.clouser@aimco.com and we can discuss further off line.

Chris

[Mike_Cirba]

Bob,

Sheesh!  Relax!  

I was talking about an "east lake TYPE restoration" in the financial sense of bringing increased revenues to a run-down area for golf and neighborhood benefit purposes.

If you noticed, I did also say "with a sensitive restoration architect".  I would hardly call East Lake a Ross restoration.  

[BCrosby]

Chris -

If you don't mind, I'll respond here just because there may be someone out there with information/corrections.

First, Chastain has kept no historical records.  No drawings, no notes, no correspondence.  Nothing.  

The super recalls rebuilding a green after heavy rains sometime in the mid-70's.  That pretty much exhausts the confirmable architectural history of Chastain.

The manager of Chastain three years ago had never heard of Chandler Egan until I told him that Egan had designed his course.

So we aren't talking here about a rich vein of historical resources.

I have never heard of a Maxwell connection.  That doesn't mean it's impossible.  Unlikely, but not impossible.  I hedge only because I am convinced (without any concrete evidence) that the Egan connection with Chastain was through his close friendship with Bobby Jones.  He and Jones played on several Walker Cup teams together.  

Egan was one of Jones's invitees to the first Masters.  My guess is that Egan told Jones he couldn't afford the trip to Augusta.  This was 1934, the depths of the Great Depression. So Jones got Egan the design commission for Chastain to defray his travel expenses.  Again, this is more or less an informed guess.  But I can't think of any other story that puts Egan in Atlanta in 1934 designing a low-end public golf course.

Back to Maxwell.  It is just possible that while Maxwell was working at ANGC in 1938/39, Jones had him do some work at Chastain.  Remember, Egan died in 1935 and never saw Chastain completed.  In 1938 Chastain was still growing in. There may have been finish work that needed an architect's attention.  Again, all of this is rank speculation, but both Egan and Maxwell had a Bobby Jones connection.  And in Atlanta, Jones was the guy who called the shots when it came to golf.

Take the foregoing for what it is worth.  If you (or anyone else reading this) have information that either supports or precludes the above scenarios, I would love to hear from you.

Bob
 

  

[Chris_Clouser]

I also just received in the mail today a copy of a listing of courses done by Perry Maxwell that was written out by his son, Press, in a letter.  I got this from a relative of Maxwell, so the letter is authentic, I just wonder how accurate the list might be as he has some other courses listed that I would question.  Press was on every job that Perry did from Southern Hills on.  So I would say that the likelihood is pretty good.  The gentleman I did talk with at the club said that he had seen a document a few years ago that made reference to the architect being someone who had done work at Augusta as well.  So based on that evidence I would be led to believe that he may have done some work at Chastain, but as you said, after the original construction on the course.

[Joel_Stewart]

Bob: You brought up a few of the misplaced cart paths and I understand what Mike is saying in budget constraints.  My biggest complaint was the 16th, coming off the 15th green you have to drive directly in front of the 16th tee is down right dangerous.  Furthermore the 17th green is in firing range of the 16th tee and we had one person watch the tee as a spotter just in case.

Mike:  I'll take you up on your offer but know the value of strategic cart path positioning.  I just played Boca Rio in Florida and they took great steps to conceal the cart paths with mounding.  I was wondering why you didn't use more mounding on the right side of the 1st hole to hide the cart paths from the view off the tee?

  

[BCrosby]

Chris -

It would be wonderful if you can confirm that Maxwell worked on the course.

It would mean that raggedy, rundown Chastain/North Fulton has the best architectural pedigree of any course in the Atlanta area.

What sweet irony that would be for the old girl.

Bob  

[Mike_Cirba]

Bob/Chris,

The funny thing is, in looking at the wonderful holes there, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised, even in it's present pauper's clothing.  

[Chris_Clouser]

Bob or Mike,

Do either of you know a good way to get some more information/material on the course?  I talked with the club and they didn't have much they could send me.  Being in Indy, it is hard for me to do any research on a course in the Atlanta area.  I'm going to see if my local library can get me some old copies of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on fiche.  I think I've only seen one photo of the course also.  

Chris

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Bob's speculation make a lot of sense to me. Especially when you consider MacKenzie moonlighting at Palmetto while constructing ANGC and Trent Jones involvement at ANGC and Peachtree.

When the Ohio State GC wrote Jones for his opinion of Maxwell in 1936 he claimed he had no knowledge of him - so that would probably preclude him from being the original architect of Chastain. But clearly he new of him in 1937. It also makes sense that after MacKenzie's death, Jones would recommend his former partner Egan to Chastain and that following Egan's death (and Wendell Miller's death - MacKenzie and Maxwell's construction foreman) he would turn to Maxwell. It would be interesting to find out why he then turned to Trent Jones.

[BCrosby]

Chris -

As mentioned, Chastain hasn't retained many historical materials.  I've checked other possible sources in Atlanta as well.  Nobody seems to have much.  But if you come up with promising leads, let me me know.  I'd be happy to help.

Email me with specifics.

Bob

[Mike_Cirba]

Chris,

After having done a LOT of research on a lot of courses, I'll say this.

The good news is that it's a public course, so there should be a record somewhere in the governmental archives.  This differs from the privately held course whose records are sometimes destroyed or lost.

The bad news is that it's a public course, because those very same records are part of a VAST collection...the old needle in the haystack.  Conversely, in the case of a privately held course, if the records exist, you can usually get your hands on them pretty easily.

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