Is Coore/Crenshaw the modern day version of Raynor

[Jason Topp]

Watching the PGA Senior tournament, I had the strong impression that I had seen many of the holes before:

Boomerang green around a front center bunker?  (8 CGC, 8 Sand Hills)
Split fairway par five ( 14 We Ko Pa Saguaro, 16 CGC)
Driveable par four (every course of theirs I have played)
Long par three (12 Bandon Trails, 15 We Ko Pa Saguaro, 6 CGC)
Redan type par three (3 Sand Hills, 17 CGC)
"Short" par three  to a small green (17 Sand Hills, 9 We Ko Pa Saguaro, 2 CGC)
Tough finishing par four-  (18 Sand Hills, 18 Bandon Trails, 18 We Ko Pa Saguaro, 18 CGC)
Angled Fairway spine on par four (4 Bandon Trails, 13 CGC)

I have no problem with architects using templates and all of these seem like fine holes.  Nonetheless, the similarities between the courses seem striking.

Is my perception wrong?  Is the repeated use of particular hole types a good or bad thing?

[Garland Bayley]

The repeated use of good holes is a good thing. E.g., Redan

The repeated use of bad holes is a bad thing. E.g., the repeated use of holes with greens that will only accept a high fade.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Jason
Can anyone design a course without any of the above?
I've designed one course and am batting .625 on your list.
Cheers

[Gary Slatter]

The repeated use of good hole concepts is very popular at this time in the evolution of golf course design.  However the challenge seems to be finding some new hole concepts to mix in  -  as Mike said his design was batting .625 which is a probably a very good thing.

In watching the Senior PGA I thought the designers did not quite get the correct irrigation system into the hole design at all times.  I'm not sure if this is because the modern greens mix varies so much from the fairway and approach mix or not.

[Steve_Roths]

They do get repetitive with those large waste areas that they used at Friars, Trails, and it appears Lost Farm.

[Matthew Petersen]

I played WeKoPa Saguaro yesterday and noticed several holes felt quite similar to Colorado GC, which I had just been watching for the sr. PGA.

10 (Saguaro) and 14 (CGC) are both driveable par 4s with horseshoe greens.

14 (S) and 16 (CGC) are split fairway par 5s where the right gives a more direct route but seems almost impossible to hit (from there the holes play differently).

Each course has a very long par 3 where the preferred shot is a running draw, as well.

I see no issue with it. All of the mentioned holes fit the land and seem natural, no matter where they are. For some archies, the "go-to" feature is a waterfall at the 18th green so C&C could do worse!

[Ron Farris]

It does seem like there is a bit of a the same green complexes on CC courses, from what I have seen.  If it works why not.  How many Pete Dye golf holes look the same on different courses.  Owners what what works and what sells. 
As for myself I have designed a few courses and not one hole looks like another.

[Kevin Pallier]

Jason

Some of the features you mention aren't all that unique eg: long P3, driveable P4, tough finishing P4 etc and with quite a few courses under their belt now it would be expected that some C&C holes would have a similar feel.

Friar's Head has a boomerang P4 5th that is driveable and doesn't have a front centre bunker ?

[TEPaul]

While I'm very confident Bill Coore (and probably Ben too) has great respect for NGLA and Macdonald and perhaps Raynor too, I frankly can't think of a style less like Raynor than C&C. But who really knows? I do know that in their own unique way Bill and Ben do feel on some of their projects they try to pay tribute to the type of architecture and architects they respect from the past, particularly when a site sort of reminds them of something in architecture or from an architect of the past. It's no secret that Hidden Creek was something of a tribute in New Jersey to the original great English Heathland architecture.

Of course, that is certainly not to say they don't understand the fundamental principles of architecture as well as anyone working today.

I believe when I first met Bill Coore he had spent either none or precious little time looking over carefully the architecture abroad but that is not the case now---he has seen a lot over there at this point, I believe.

And I just love the oft-told story about Ben Crenshaw when he first came out of Texas as a good very young player and went to Brookline it just changed him completely.

[TEPaul]

"They do get repetitive with those large waste areas that they used at Friars, Trails, and it appears Lost Farm."


SteveR:

I don't know about what you call those large waste areas at Trails and Lost Farm but I do know those so-called waste areas at Friars were all just there before anything was done. They basically just preserved them and used them for golf. It was probably the very same way on the original linksland before golf.  

By the way, who knows how the original swards (the original fairways in linksland golf) got there before golf and before golf course architecture?  


As we have heard recently on another thread on Coore and Crenshaw---eg Colorado GC and the way Coore went looking for natural animal trails in his routing, it is interesting to hear and know some of the things Coore thinks in that vein. One of the last times I spoke to him on the phone he was going on about getting back to the way architects once cleared sites for a golf course-----apparently a whole lot more minimally than many to most do today!

[PThomas]

.
And I just love the oft-told story about Ben Crenshaw when he first came out of Texas as a good very young player and went to Brookline it just changed him completely.

talk about completing the circle:  Brookline of course is where Ben was captain of the biggest Ryder Cup deficit

[TEPaul]

Paul:

Crenshaw's words on the evening before the final day of that Ryder Cup ("I have a feeling") are frankly almost otherworldly. And not just that, but the fact that the denoument came on the 17th hole with that dramatic Leonard putt as it did with Quimet in 1913 on the hole he lived just across the street from.

If some fictional Hollywood script tried to do that nobody would believe it. A perfect example of when truth is sometimes stranger than fiction!

[PThomas]

Paul:

Crenshaw's words on the evening before the final day of that Ryder Cup ("I have a feeling") are frankly almost otherworldly. And not just that, but the fact that the denoument came on the 17th hole with that dramatic Leonard putt as it did with Quimet in 1913 on the hole he lived just across the street from.

If some fictional Hollywood script tried to do that nobody would believe it. A perfect example of when truth is sometimes stranger than fiction!

absolutely correct my friend!

[Steve Lang]

  or a 50:50 chance came true!

i believe all those things north of ~ 35-40° lat came by way of the ice age glaciers, coming and going..