New Golf Courses

[Bill Rocco]

What is more important for a new course:

Great terrain/location or great architect in developing a quality golf course? Some say great architects can move enough earth to make any golf course something special, while others see golf courses on the coast/the mountains/other scenic areas, where less material is needs to be moved, to be the best in the world. There is a lot of great architects out there, and plenty of land (if you have enough money) to build a course, what is more important?

[John Moore II]

How many courses are outstanding that were built on sites where mountains of earth had to be moved? At least outstanding when compared to courses like CPC, Shinnecock, etc. So, if you want to sell houses, it doesn't matter what the original site is, just get someone who will move enough dirt to create a good/very good course. If you want truly great golf, then you'd probably better start with a good/very good site and work it a little bit.

[Bill Rocco]

One example: Pine Valley, mountains of earth were not moved, but thousands of trees were taken down, and marshlands were drained.

[Randy Thompson]

If another pine valley terrain were to be built today, >I doubt you would be draining the marsh land!

[Bill Rocco]

At Bayonne they brought in 7.5 million cubic yards of material to build the course.

[John Moore II]

Bill, what are you trying to prove with your responses? You've pretty much contradicted yourself with your two responses. I just don't get it. What are you looking for here?

Bayonne was built on a HazMat site from what I remember reading, so thats why they brought in the soil.

But again, what are you getting at here?

[Tom_Doak]

Bill:

Both the property and the architect are very important, but the land is more important, if by "great" you mean "top 100 courses in the world" instead of just "top 10% of courses in the world".

Look at it this way ... in the current top 100 list, you'd have to say there are between 20 and 40 sites that would rank among the best of all time.  So, your odds of success by this route are 20-40%.

What architect who's built ten courses can say that 20-40% of his work reaches that level?

Of course, once you have the piece of land in hand, then you still have to pick an architect, and I think it's still important to pick somebody great.  There are lots of architects who might succeed on a great piece of land, but how many times does the combination of great land and a great architect really fail?

[Tim Johnson]

Eddie Hackett believed moving the least amount of soil is the best. Let nature dictate the routing of the course. granted, he has a beautiful place like Carne that allowed him not to move earth.

I like a course that is suited to its terrain as opposed to making a course fit.

[cary lichtenstein]

start with great terrain, you will end with great terrain,  in between, employ a great architect and the result will be terrific

[Bill Rocco]

John,

How am I contradicting myself? I named Pine Valley and Bayonne as examples of golf courses that are considered top quality, but started as a very rough site. My original post was posing a question (showing no bias), and the two posts after were simply naming courses that needed a lot of work. I do not see the contradictions. Mr. Doak nailed it with his post. I was trying to illustrate how golf courses need a great golf site and a great architect, some believe a great site alone can produce a quality golf course. Actually Mr. Doak noted to me later on that there is a third variable....great client.

[John Moore II]

 Bill-I don't consider cutting down trees to be a lot of work. That will happen on nearly any site. I am sure they had to cut down trees on nearly every site built on the ocean (you know, those little scabby pines and oaks). Sure, Sand Hills didn't have many (if any) trees, but thats a little different. I would say that just about every course around Pinehurst had to take out thousands of trees in order to construct the course. Moving in the dirt at Bayonne (and Liberty National) was certainly a large operation.

And I agree with what you are saying now that its clear. Yeah, pretty much, you have to have a good site and a good architect for stuff to turn out well, and yeah, a good client to let the architect do his thing.

Then again, I recall someone on here once saying (perhaps jokingly) that Cypress Point was the biggest disappointment of a golf course ever built because his grandmother course have designed a world class course on that site, so why didn't a professional designer do better. 

[Tim Nugent]

First, you should take housing out of the question.  Housing will truncate the viewlines and (unless they are large estate lots with only the immediate location of the house disturbed) the lot grading will eleimate any natural outer terrain. For ex., I did a course that fit nicely into the terrain but then along came the housing and destroyed everything outside the course.  The 10th was a long 4 that played down a narrow valley that opened to a plain about 50yds from the green.  The housing lopped of 40' of the valley sideslopes to flatten the ridges into lots.  It doesn't even look like the same course, let alone the same hole.
So, a great course site is one where, by virtue of the terrain, one can fit the course in without the necessity of moving dirt.  Most archtects I know deplore having to move dirt and only do it out of necessity.  Take Whistling Straits, Great setting, terrible site in that a majority was flat.  Dye moved a tremendious amount to create a topography that he felt was needed to make the course what he thought it should be.  Unfortunately, the earthworks abrupty end at the property line, which is a bit jarring.  Kyle Phillips also moved a bunch at KB but was able to mask the transition better (but if you climb up the slope right of #4(?) tee, you see the sheep grazing on some pretty flat terrain.

I refer to this as "terra-forming" because the terrain is reshape on a macro leel, not a micro, hole only, level.  Sure, if one is blessed with a great setting AND great terrain then it can be said it's a great site.  It depends, at this point, how the architect handles the great site that will determine the outcome.  It is my feeling that the less "taming" of the site that the architect does, the better the final product will be.  But it is a fine line. and some find it hard to restrain themselves because they have machinery at their disposal that can modify any terrain drastically in just a matter of hours.  When I see a rugged outer area and a tamed course within it, it is to jarring for my tastes. And I find that the opposite is true.