Examples of very good courses on somewhat marginal sites

[Carl Rogers]

As many have stated or implied on other threads, the land is the most important item in creating a very good course.

What examples are out there where the course surpasses the site?  Shadow Creek (ultra high budget)?
TD, Riverfront??

[Don_Mahaffey]

http://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/Article/Wolf-Point-Club/1465/Default.aspx

[Tom_Doak]

Carl:

I thought Riverfront was a really good site, except for the houses.

The first example which comes right to mind is Royal Worlington & Newmarket, the "Sacred Nine" in Cambridge, which was featured here a week or two back.  You could drive right through that golf course and think nothing of it, and every single hole is terrific.

If you go to the top 100 lists, you would have to say that Oakmont is the overachiever of the top ten -- a pretty stark landscape, a bit too steep in spots, and clay soils to boot.  Pinehurst No. 2 is more commonly cited, but the property does have some nice, gentle rolls, and it's sandy which makes everything much easier.

I would also guess that few architects would have drooled over the property for Chicago Golf Club, Garden City, Carnoustie, Olympic, or Kingston Heath in their original form.  Heck, there are some who wouldn't have picked up on the merits of the Old Course at St. Andrews!

But, that leaves about 40 of the top 50 courses in the world that were on EXCELLENT sites.

[Jamie Barber]

What about Kingsbarns? I was reading an interview with Kyle Phillips who said the site was little more than horse fields before they started.

[Emil Weber]

Guys it must be Mike Clayton's Royal Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Absolutely zero elevation change but a really fun, strategic test of golf with fabolous bunkering and great green complexes. Makes you think on every shot!

[Tom_Doak]

What about Kingsbarns? I was reading an interview with Kyle Phillips who said the site was little more than horse fields before they started.

Well, horse fields and a mile of coastline ... most architects would take that.  Although I'm on record as saying that I think Kyle and team did as good a job with what they had as any big-earthmoving project I can think of.

[Wade Whitehead]

It's not popular here, but what about Whistling Straits?

WW

[Duncan Betts]

Royal Queensland is certainly the best course in Australia relative to the site, but I haven't encountered many foreign courses on bad sites!

[Sean_A]

I think Woodhall Spa is an over-achiever, but it does have a well drained property.  New Zealand is am over-achiever as well, but it too is well drained, perhaps the best drained heathland course near London.  Is it any wonder these two are very well bunkered courses?  I think Woking was on a very marginal site originally.  I was told it was even a bit swampy and never was a true heathland course.  If this is the case, I gotta give it props. 

Ciao 

[Matthew Petersen]

Both of the Talking Stick courses were built on a dead-flat piece of desert. More plant life in the Arizona desert than in the Las Vegas area, but otherwise not a very different property from Shadow Creek. Hard to imagine three more different courses, too, given how similar the starting conditions.

[John Moore II]

Tom Doak: Interesting you say Riverfront was a good site. I kind of thought you may say otherwise. Sure, its on the river, but I would have figured the marshlands gave you fits as far as how to fit the course in. Same with drainage as I assume its not exactly a sandy base in that area being in the tide water area. Oh well, sometimes I just don't think the same as others. Either way, I think Riverfront turned out pretty good (and in an outstanding location for me, right on the way home from work).

[Mike_Clayton]

Royal Queensland wasn't that bad a site. There was some sandy parts and some small crumpled undulation in parts. There are some amazing old trees that help and the river is nice down at the bottom end of the course - not that it is a part of the design.
Mind you it was a lot worse than Kingston Heath.

[Jud_T]

Was Lost Dunes a marginal site? Or was it a good sandy site albeit with a highway running through it and some environmental roadblocks?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Winged Foot West?

Royal Antwerp?

[Tom_Doak]

Was Lost Dunes a marginal site? Or was it a good sandy site albeit with a highway running through it and some environmental roadblocks?

Lost Dunes was a COMPLICATED site ... so complicated that the environmental engineers declined to put all of the restrictions onto a map for me, for fear they'd miss something.  But it was a nice piece of ground, and yielded a nice course for a small construction budget.

It would be hard to think of a sandy golf course site that was only marginal ... the surroundings would have to be really awful.

[Jaeger Kovich]

I jsut played Riverfront for the first time on saturday. I wouldn't call it a bad site at all for 18 golf holes... It clearly wasn't ideal for a great walking course with the housing and marshes, but the land for the most part was great for golf, minus maybe #9 and #1... One of the best #18's I've seen as well.

[Guy Nicholson]

TPC Sawgrass

[Jaeger Kovich]

Good call on Sawgrass. Bayonne clearly should be on this list. And for hidden gems, Ill throw out Mark Twain in Elmira NY (Ross).

Would Yale be considered a marginal site? It has pretty extreme topography, dense woods and less than ideal soils.

[Ronald Montesano]

Jaeger,

I'll disagree on Mark Twain...it's a good course on a very good piece of property.  I wouldn't call it "somewhat marginal" in the least.

[Philippe Binette]

In Canada,

Montebello was a tough steep rocky forest before they started... same for Capilano

Oakmont is not a good site, but a least you could see something when you startt building the course!!!

[BCyrgalis]

I think it's quite tough to say Bayonne was built on a "marginal site."  Although it took a lot to get the soil to be usable, the location is one of the more outstanding for a golf course anywhere.  The juxtaposition of the great golf with the New York City skyline as a backdrop is breathtaking.  Yet, they did have to move a lot of earth to make the land interesting -- and sometimes it's clear how much land actually was moved.  Odd example, as location is great but land was sub-par (pun not intended).

[Matthew Runde]

What about Riviera?  Thomas didn't think much of it when he began the project.

[Mark Molyneux]

"But there are some God-forsaken expanses where man decides golf must be, and it is then that the golf architect starts with nothing; yea, even less than nothing, for if there happened to be solid ground it would be something. Ground has to be made." (AWT, 1928 in Golf Illustrated)

I guess the struggle here is to grasp what you mean by "marginal sites". Tillinghast groused a bit about the site at Alpine because of the need to work with or remove so much rock. Winged Foot has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread... not the most inspiring tract but from it arose two splendid courses. Shawnee invariably spends a week or so each decade disguised as a river bottom. All those sites might be regarded as "marginal" but all the courses are very good... maybe even very, very good.

I've been impressed with the Glen Riddle Club in Ocean City Maryland, home to both War Admiral and Man O' War. These are good courses... perhaps not VERY good but good solid, entertaining courses built on what I first thought of as "marginal", i.e. uninspring / featureless / not even located near something of visual interest. However, from land which might more easily have been transformed into a remote parking lot for a NASCAR event, the designer created golf courses. A very good golf course that comes to mind is Tom Doak's Rawls Course at Texas Tech. As the locals explained to me, "This links used to be cotton patch. When Mr. Doak called and asked me for a description of the site before he come down here to build the course, I asked him, "Where you sitting?" So he says, "At my desk." and I say, "See that desk top in front of you... it's like that... a lot like that."

[Jaeger Kovich]

Ron - Next time you go to Mark Twain you should check out some of the original/alternative routings for the course. I think they kinda prove how difficult is was to navigate the mountain, especially where the first uphill par-3 is now. I'd love to find out the total elevation change on the site.