[Ian Larson]

I'm in Charlie. Working on it this evening. No problems so far.

[Garland Bayley]

So far 31 green sites with two or three potential holes routed to each one. I may be only half way or less through that process.

[Steve Lang]

  Charlie,

I'm in but am very disappointed that the "Design Process" thread fouls this whole thing up with open discussion of a proposed routing..

You should really think about a restart with another topo.. take an honourable / ethical position.. 

[Garland Bayley]

My personal opinion is that anything Ben Sims (aka Ron Whitten) does has no effect on me. If I can't look at the topo and do something better than Mr. Sims, then I need to stop trying to do these contests. After all, Ben is trying to put Ron Whitten's sucky dell hole into his routing. Like how bad is that?!?!

[Ben Sims]

My personal opinion is that anything Ben Sims (aka Ron Whitten) does has no effect on me. If I can't look at the topo and do something better than Mr. Sims, then I need to stop trying to do these contests. After all, Ben is trying to put Ron Whitten's sucky dell hole into his routing. Like how bad is that?!?!

The Matagordo Dunes #4 hole--like its Erin Hills predecessor--has been redesigned. 

It's now an Alps....

[Charlie Goerges]

Okay, so there is another thread dealing with this topo map that may have some sort of impact on the contest. I want to gather some opinions as to what should be done. Would it be unethical to continue the contest in it's current form? What do YOU think about the current state of things? And, What do YOU think we should do now?

A couple of points though about the structure of it.

• The judges do not get to know the identities of the competitors
• As the organizer, I do not get to participate, so as to keep things above board

Notwithstanding the previous points, the most important thing is that the contest be enjoyable and educational.


I apologize for not keeping a tighter lid on things, so I'm open to any suggestions.

[Garland Bayley]

Geez Charlie,

Maybe I haven't been keeping up. Is there a lot of money on the line that will go to those influenced by Doak and Sims? Am I shafting myself out of all the moola if I ignore their comments in my own work? If there is a yes answer to one or both of those, then I say throw in the towel! Call it off! Forget about the hours people have put into their work! Give us back 100% of our entry free! Heck, there better be a penalty beyond that. For interfering Tom, had better give us 1000% of our entry fee to compensate for the pain and suffering of having our work become useless.

I patiently await my check.

Regards,

Garland



PS Tom,

I appreciate the info you have provided. It is quite generous of you. Maybe it will work in my subconscious and make me better, but I won't explicitly try your suggestions.

[Alex Miller]

I said this already but....

What if we set the elevation change in METERS? It appeases those who wanted to start over because everything has to be thought over again, but those who are enjoying the current site can still use what they have. Everybody wins 

[Jim Colton]

Charlie,

I don't mind proceeding as planned.  That said, I rather that the other thread never existed.  But I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

I'm hoping that I learned from my mistakes last year and the result will be a better entry this time around (although I'm still miffed that Ballynsnoop didn't win).  That's the educational aspect in my mind.  With Ben's thread, others have the opportunity to learn from his and your mistakes.  It's just bringing folks up the learning curve faster.

[Ian Larson]

I didn't keep up with the other thread and now I don't want to even look which may be saying something in itself. I don't want to be tainted in my design from reading recommendations from expert architects on the contest site.

If the thread is alot of expert advice I think the contest should start over. Why would Ben not just put the same effort into the contest, submit an entry and start a thread about critiquing his entry from the experts AFTER the contest. I think all the contestants want to learn as much as Ben does, but I personally would like to learn from my mistakes with the lessons learned after the contest.

I understand what Steve is saying, because I don't want to reconsider my design based off of expert advice. So the contest is tainted IMO.

[Andy Gray]

Charlie,

I don't mind proceeding as planned.  That said, I rather that the other thread never existed.  But I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

I'm hoping that I learned from my mistakes last year and the result will be a better entry this time around (although I'm still miffed that Ballynsnoop didn't win).  That's the educational aspect in my mind.  With Ben's thread, others have the opportunity to learn from his and your mistakes.  It's just bringing folks up the learning curve faster.

I am in Charlie!

I had been reading the other thread, but personally it has not influenced my design at all. In saying that after reading Tom's comments on the other thread I began thinking "that would be a cool hole", but as soon as the thought crept into mind I would deliberately avoid designing a similar hole in the same location. Now I'm not looking at all, I would rather design a quality course on my own merit (and hopefully defend my title  ) than be influenced by other people's ideas. However, I do understand the opinion that the competition is tarnished, it is just not my own.

In regards to the meters suggestion, I think it is just as fun and challenging designing a course on relatively flat ground as it is on severe ground. I think more thought has to go toward finding green sites that are interesting, fun and challenging. Also, more variety will be yielded from the competitors when they are free to roam to whatever parts of the property they want without being inhibited by severe landforms. Too many similar routings or hole corridors would be used if meters was the scale. Again, just my opinion.

Andy

[Jim Colton]

For the record, I'd be exponentially more ticked off if the contest disbanded or started on a different topo, as I've poured way too many hours into it already.

[Garland Bayley]

For the record, I'd be exponentially more ticked off if the contest disbanded or started on a different topo, as I've poured way too many hours into it already.

If it starts over again, I'm out.

[Scott Warren]

I haven't looked at Ben's thread so as not to have some kind of advantage.

If everyone in the contest does the same, we have no issue. We're golfers, right?, and a golfer would never cheat, surely!!

I agree with Garland and Jim.

[Ian Larson]

I've put the work in too and wouldn't be happy to see it start over. But regardless it's tainted. By the mere fact that guys will consciously NOT put a green at a certain greensite due to the other thread makes it tainted. That discussion has steered contestants to do or not to do certain things. We are not getting everyones unadulterated creativeness.

[Charlie Goerges]

I've taken all opinions under advisement. Given the nature of the contest and its purpose, we will forge ahead.

I should have been more prescient when the other thread was started. But I didn't think terribly hard about it, and went along. Ben was well within his rights to post since I said nothing about keeping things confidential until the end of the contest. Plus my own vanity caused me to post my lame-duck routing as well. The blame rests squarely with me and I apologize.


That said, on with the show. We've got a contest to conduct and about 3+ weeks left before I hope to start seeing some submissions.

There will be another tutorial for getting your "presentations" set up for the judges in a week or so.


Best of luck and Thanks!

[Kalen Braley]

Charlie,

I think thats right call, so I got your back!

If there is one thing these pre-submission commentaries have shown me...it doesn't really matter what you submit because its so subjective that pretty much everyone else will think their design is better.  If you go bold with your routing and try to do something way out of the box, you get bashed for being over the top.  Try to play it conservative and more conventional, and you get bashed for being boring.

[Matthew Petersen]

I am brand new here, but very interested in getting started. This isn't too far under way, but since I haven't started yet then going with a new topo map wouldn't bother me at all.

[Tim Nugent]

Kalen, welcome to  our world

As for the other thread, who cares what someone else did or didn't do.  There is sooo much land and most all of it buildable, if you are influenced one way or the other, you may not have enough conviction in your abilities.  Even if you somehow managed to end up with a hole in a similar position, there are many other factors that would differentiate the 2 of them, not the least being where in the routing they occur (a great #16 may be a poor choice for #1), what holes come before and after (a hole that changes the pace of the routing may be boring if it repeats predicessors), if the characteristics/strategy of the hole are unique to the routing or overused repeatedly), etc.
How many times have you played a hole and remarked, "this hole would be better if..."?

Many tmes, GCA's are given predetermined corridors and have to design within them.  This happens with mainly housing developments where a landplanner is trying to squeeze as many houses in as possible. But that's another thread, maybe another contest???

[Emil Weber]

I'm doin pretty good so far, got an 18 hole routing and details on most of the holes. I initially wanted to work with sketchup but I'm just to dumb for that... So now I do the holes with paint.net but will do the details drawn by hand.

Its a really cool expierience "creating" and routing a golf course, so many different ways to do it but you cant get it perfect. I started with the "search for great holes" method but it didn't get me far and I soon had to find compromises. Its really fun, thanks for organizing this Charlie!.

PS: I'd prefer the topo lines in metres or yards too but Im guessing its too late

[Garland Bayley]

...
PS: I'd prefer the topo lines in metres or yards too but Im guessing its too late

All these requests for "topo lines in metres"? Are they really asking for the tape measure to measure in metres? Charlie, can they redefine the distance on the tape measure so it measures in metres? Whatever, metres are.


EDIT: It occurs to me that the topo lines are in yards. Each line shows 2/3 of a yard in elevation change.

[Charlie Goerges]

No, they're asking for a more severe site. If the contour interval was 3 feet instead of 2 feet the land would be more exciting. Unfortunately it's too late for that.

[Garland Bayley]

No, they're asking for a more severe site. If the contour interval was 3 feet instead of 2 feet the land would be more exciting. Unfortunately it's too late for that.

Yes! Where were they last year when the site was more severe?

[Alex Miller]

I was not on this website last year! 

But seriously, I would say there is NO unusable land, which is fine except I bet any archie on here would tell you that working around landforms which aren't perfect for the golf course is part of the job.

There certainly won't be a lack of variety in this year's contest, but maybe a lack of excitement in the courses? 

Well, not in mine, but everyone else's I'm sure. 

[Charlie Goerges]

That's the spirit Alex!

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