Lost Farm WOW

[Bryan Izatt]

Wonder how they dealt with the huge moving desert area?  BD is in the bottom left corner up to the river.

[Patrick Kiser]

Can not wait for next year already.  Truly breathtaking...

Thanks for posting and sharing.

[Adam Lawrence]

Wonder how they dealt with the huge moving desert area?  BD is in the bottom left corner up to the river.

They haven't really. The valley that goes towards the sea to the left of the big open sandy area is where the thirteenth hole is to be found; then the '13a' par three with the scar bunker in front goes back to the west returns you to the high dunes.

[Jeffrey Stein]

I'm sold, these pictures have changed me.  When will lost farm open for play?

[Andy Gray]

I'm on the next flight to Tazmania...

Good luck with that, but if I were you I would travel to Lost Farm in Australia.
 

If you were going to nit-pick Jordan's post, you might instead point out that he misspelled Tasmania or that they probably don't offer direct flights to Launceston from Seattle (but then he never said anything about a direct flight).

The Lost Farm is on (in?) Tasmania, an island that is part of Australia.

We don't like to claim that...   

[Michael Taylor]

.... Damn that looks wonderful.

Tom,

How do you think it will rival your work, BD? 

Pup

[Niall C]

Bryan

Thanks for the link to Ians blog, interesting to read his thoughts. It does sound as though quite a lot of it was flattish even though Ian refers to C&C efforts to give variation.

What caught my eye was the transition from fairway to dune in some instances which looked fairly abrupt and un-natural and I wondered if that was the shaping but from the aerial you posted and from what Neil was saying it looks as though that might be the way the land lies.

Haven't had a look at the St Michaels thread yet but will do so.

Cheers

Niall

[Dieter Jones]

Bryan

Thanks for the link to Ians blog, interesting to read his thoughts. It does sound as though quite a lot of it was flattish even though Ian refers to C&C efforts to give variation.

What caught my eye was the transition from fairway to dune in some instances which looked fairly abrupt and un-natural and I wondered if that was the shaping but from the aerial you posted and from what Neil was saying it looks as though that might be the way the land lies.

Haven't had a look at the St Michaels thread yet but will do so.

Cheers

Niall

Niall, I doubt that alot of the transition areas you refer to have even been shaped at all. I have seen a toppo map of this land too and there are a number of significant flat areas. The main "bowl" through which C&C have placed more holes than alot of people would expect is wide and large. There are a couple of other "valleys" where the land is almost dead flat but there are significant dunes rising up on either side and from the photos it appears that several holes run along these valleys. One is the 13th that Adam referred to in post 27.

It would not be too hard to plot a course with 15 or 16 holes playing in, off or through spectacular dunes with elevation changes and undulating fairways (plus a couple of "architect holes" to link them). The test of how good the course is will ultimately be how well they have balanced this out with holes on flatter land. I admit to sitting here myself thinking gee I hope they really use the full potential of the site and give us loads of exciting holes but even my limited experience tells me that you need some "transition" holes to avoid numbness by overstimulation.

I guess this is another reason why architects like to keep photo's out of circulation until the course opens. AS much as we all wet our pants looking at eye candy holes on the internet - ultimately the balance and the way that the course unfolds through 18 (or in this case 20) holes is what really matters.

[Philippe Binette]

looks like a golf course to me... and a pretty good one.

[Jason Topp]

Will a lot of holes play in a crosswind?  My first thought from having played in extremely strong winds is that the course could be a brute no matter how wide the fairways might be.

[Adam Lawrence]

The routing is certainly more winding than that of BD, but then the depth of the property is rather greater too. So I think it's probable that one will face the wind from a greater variety of directions than on BD. Holes such as the fifth, ninth, tenth, thirteenth and fourteenth are all broadly perpendicular to the coast rather than parallel to it. But then it only needs a ten or twenty degree swing in the wind to make everything change.

[Ash Towe]

Any chance of a feature interview with Bill Coore at some stage this year?

[Niall C]

Dieter

Thanks for your comments. I guess what I was getting at was the way the flattish fairways abruptly met the steep sides of dunes and wondered whether that was poor shaping, poor in the sense that it just looked odd or unnatural but from what you are saying and from what I can see myself from the aerial I was clearly wrong.

Niall

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

How do you think it will rival your work, BD? 

Pup

Michael:

Many years ago, someone said to me, I'm confident with my course, I'm not worried about what you'll do.    So I would be the last guy to say that.

No doubt Bill's course will be terrific.  I only spent half of one day over there, early on in the construction of Barnbougle.  I had to listen to Greg Ramsay keep telling me that the other side was more spectacular, and that I should wish I had taken that job, instead ... but my job was to take the great piece of property on our side and make it hard for anyone to beat.  If Bill's course winds up ranked higher, more power to him.  We did not set the bar low.  I am only jealous because Bill and Dave and Keith got to stay in the resort and eat at our clubhouse, instead of at the Top Pub every night.

I have talked with Bill and Dave Axland about Lost Farm a couple of times now.  Bill has said several people wondered why he put so many holes on the flatter, interior portion of the ground, but as he says, if you tried to use the most spectacular parts the course would have been a disjointed ten-mile hike.  Nobody routes a course better than Bill.

I am sure he has more changes of direction in his course ... our property was so narrow and the dunes so steep that there was really no opportunity to play crosswind.  As Jason says, I wonder how crosswind holes will work there; I've hit balls in a 50-mph crosswind before and it was darn near impossible to keep the ball in play.  I remember playing with Jim Urbina one time on the sixth hole at Ballybunion, watching him aim left of the fairway toward the cliff on #7, and having his shot wind up at least 100 yards to the right of that line.

The most interesting thing about the course is that they have built 20 holes instead of 18 ... there are a couple of extras along the way because Mike Keiser and somebody else fell in love with a site for a par-3, and they just went ahead and built that, too.  I don't know exactly how you take that into account in deciding how great the course is, though.

[Kyle Henderson]

The most interesting thing about the course is that they have built 20 holes instead of 18 ... there are a couple of extras along the way because Mike Keiser and somebody else fell in love with a site for a par-3, and they just went ahead and built that, too.  I don't know exactly how you take that into account in deciding how great the course is, though.

Do the 20 holes comprise one contiguous routing?

If so, and the extra holes are up to par, and the flow of the course is not disrupted, I say make it a 20-hole course. Likewise, if a few pretty holes are shoe-horned in there just for the heck of it, take them out of play and make a 16-hole course, or whatever. I'd love to see a course built that truly breaks the mold (not just a 19th hole by the clubhouse) to fit the land and not as a gimmick.

[Adam Lawrence]

Yes, they do. There's the 13a par three, which is the one Tom references (Mike apparently didn't like the uphilll par three seventeenth) and then there is another, the 18a hole, which will bring you back to the clubhouse from the actual eighteenth green, which is by the water.

[Scott Warren]

What is Mike Keiser's actual role at BD/TLF?

There have been a few mentions of him helping with the design of both.

[Tom_Doak]

Scott:

Mike was a minor investor / advisor in the first course, and a more prominent investor in the second course.

He only gets down there once or twice a year, as opposed to every month or two in Bandon, so he has had very little influence on the details of individual holes.  [That's why I could build the 13th green at Barnbougle Dunes ... Mike never would have allowed me to!]  But, Bill and I both value Mike's feedback in the routing process, and he's never shy about giving it, and in both cases we were influenced as noted in the two active threads.

In the case of Barnbougle [since it's buried in 7 pages of hole-by-hole accounts], I noted that Mike was the instigator in me changing the routing of the back nine from counter-clockwise [tenth hole along the beach] to clockwise [current routing].  The only individual hole he had any say over was in putting the 16th tee way up on top of the dune.  Bill Coore likes to tease me about that one, because he knows whose idea it was ... and all I tell him is that I was making sure to provide a good view of his future course.

[RJ_Daley]

What is Mr. Rhebb's position on the C&C team?  Is he a one-time independent shaper-contractor, or a full time shaper for C&C?  Anotherwords, is he like some of the other gents who drift in and out of work with various circles of architects like a few others have gone in between Coore to Doak to Liddy, etc?  Not that it matters.  It is just interesting how the circle remains intact and the genre or stylings and sensibilities of GCA and construction techniques stay homogeneous within this modern group of dunesland, sand hills, "special" site architects and constructors.  I would have to think that after these special site architects, and construction people have now done several that are in the category of 'the last mailbox' on the road to nowhere, they have developed their own 'tricks of the trade' and methods of how to set up a remote work site, and work more efficiently while coping with scarcities of goods and services that might be more readily available near more urbanized areas.   

[Adam Lawrence]

Keith has been working with C&C for a few years. He did some work at Wekopa, spent quite a lot of time at Sugarloaf Mountain, and has been in Tas for the last year and a bit.

[Bryan Izatt]

Scott:

...................................

...    The only individual hole he had any say over was in putting the 16th tee way up on top of the dune.  Bill Coore likes to tease me about that one, because he knows whose idea it was ... and all I tell him is that I was making sure to provide a good view of his future course.

And, a hell of a view it is.  But only available to those who are playing the forward tees.  Now, how cool is that;  to provide the best view on the course to the ladies, but only after a nice little climb?  So, who's idea was it to make it the ladies tee? 

[Nick Church]

Man, oh man, oh man.

Gorgeous.

[Garland Bayley]

I'm on the next flight to Tazmania...

Good luck with that, but if I were you I would travel to Lost Farm in Australia.
 

If you were going to nit-pick Jordan's post, you might instead point out that he misspelled Tasmania or that they probably don't offer direct flights to Launceston from Seattle (but then he never said anything about a direct flight).

The Lost Farm is on (in?) Tasmania, an island that is part of Australia.

John,

It may be your style to be confrontational and tell people they can't spell, but that's not my style. How else could I be friends with Anthony?






 

[George Pazin]

Bill has said several people wondered why he put so many holes on the flatter, interior portion of the ground, but as he says, if you tried to use the most spectacular parts the course would have been a disjointed ten-mile hike.

But Tom, that's what carts are for!! 18 signature holes!!!

 

It's interesting to learn Greg showed you the other site. I don't recall reading anything about it in the Founders prospectus many moons ago, but that could just be my age showing.

Just another reason I often tell people if I go missing someday, just check Tasmania...

[Mark McKeever]

Stunning!  Thanks for sharing!!

Mark

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