Armchair Architect Contest, Entrant 007 with Judge Philip's comments

[Garland Bayley]

Since Mike could not find where my tees were supposed to be (they were on the individual, hand drawn, hole pictures), but yet claimed he could not hit my fairways from them, and that they were too far from the greens, I used my meager sketchup drawing skills to add their locations on my routing. I did not add most of my bunkers. My very first bunker on the course was severely criticized by Tim. It is an exercise to the reader to pick some bunker locations.

I did add some bunkers to #16 and #17 to show my concepts. #16 is my multiple option hole (and my favorite). 1 Drive to the end of the fairway at the top of the hill, and hit drop shot wedge to the green. 2 Take dead aim at the green and let the big dog eat. 3. Drive to the outside edge of the fairway near the stream to get the unobstructed view of the green with no intervening bunkers. 4a. Drive to the base of the hill, avoiding flirting with the stream, but have view hindered and bunker encroaching on approach. 4b. Drive to the fairway hollow closer to the green than 4a.

HolesWithTees by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

Par is 73.
470   511   565
380   431   456
289   317   343
367   385   411
449   491   577
343   412   465
322   355   389
170   198   232
375   392   442
3165   3492   3880
231   250   304
129   145   176
425   483   547
303   352   381
287   361   395
321   338   363
331   344   375
94   121   152
467   515   591
2588   2909   3284
5753   6401   7164

[Garland Bayley]

I'll bump this once. Any and all comments welcome.

[Nick Campanelli]

Alright Garland, hopefully this will trigger some commentary for you...

The one thing I notice right off the bat is that half of your holes have uphill approaches (1,2,3,5,8,9,10,13,15), a majority of those appearing to be blind approaches (2,3,8,13,15).  I'm curious as to what your thinking is behind this?  Were you thinking drainage (i.e. keep greens at high points), or were you routing this way from a strategic standpoint?

Strong Holes:
01: Was it Tim that mentioned he too had a hole running along the northern ridge?    
09: It seems like this was a popular hole site and for good reason.
14: Strong risk / reward par 5
18: Strong finishing hole.

Hole 12
Like Alex's 8th, this hole doesn't seem to fit with the rest of your routing.  I have always thought it odd to penalize a player for "striping it down the middle."  Is the left fairway justified?  It appears there is little additional yardage to be gained by taking the left route.  What was your strategy on this hole?  It may be worth posting your enlargements for a few of these holes to clarify?    

Hole 16
The super may tighten up your 16th fairway for you after cutting it a few times    

[Garland Bayley]

I believe that approximately half the approaches should be uphill. That's nature. If you start at a point, and return to that point. Approximately half the time you should be going up hill half down hill. Plus, setting a green with a natural back to front slope would indicate it naturally be placed somewhere on a hill or upslope.

I believe 2 and 3 approaches are only blind from certain places. 3 would be blind from a horribly short or a long tee shot, but on the long tee shot the player has chosen to put himself in that position. Unfortunately, the hand drawn version of 2 shows a narrow fairway option left of the hill left of the fairway, so driving left or long right of the hill I believe should allow visible approaches.

My guess is that 8 is not all that blind given the upslope tapers off for a good ways before the green. It is not intended to be blind, and would perhaps have to be adjusted in the field.

Drive positioning on 13 and 15 should determine the degree of blindness. That was on purpose.

You only need to stripe it down the middle if a small property dictates a narrow course. Alex and I put fairway on each side of the stream wider than your fairways Nick. Alex had over 40 yards on either side, and I have more. The hand drawn version of 12 has no bunker in the landing area of the left side like is on the right side. I hope that is reason enough to choose that side for the drive landing area.

Super's that narrow fairways can be let go.

Is there any simple way to covert pdf files to jpegs? My enlargements are hand drawn and then emailed from a copy machine that converts them to pdfs.

[Garland Bayley]

#10 is a blind drive from the back and forward tees. The regular tees at 250 yards makes the green visible. Players choosing the other tees can make a short walk to the side to get their bearings. There is one fairway bunker on the left side partially to guard another hole, and the trees behind the green guard this hole from players on the other hole. As one can see, the green is on a knoll and is bunkerless. Do you try to drive it and risk a short chip/pitch to a domed green, or do you lay back and come in with a higher lofted shot?

10 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The first hole runs along the rise bordering the depression. The fairway will be cut part way down the slope on the left to make the aggressive line along the left to cut the dogleg more challenging. The fairway bunker makes taking the safer line not a sure bet. And the greenside bunker protects against the aggressive line, but still allows balls to roll in from the right.

01 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The second hole can be shortened by taking the line between the bunker left of the fairway, and the bunkered hill left of center in the fairway. Again a greenside bunker challenges the aggressive line.

02 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The shortest line on the third hole is blind to the depression below the green, while taking a safe line to visible fairway also opens up the green.

03 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The fourth hole allows for an aggressive line off the tee to get bounces towards the center and an opening up of the approach. The ball also can be run in from the right side of the green. There will be markers on the hill to the right of the green moved each day to direct the player to the tee markers on the other side of the hill.

04 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The fifth hole has a long ribbon tee to allow great flexibility in placing the tee markers. Therefore, from day to day a player will have different results in accessing the turbo boost of the down slope into the depression. Center greenside bunker, but the ball can be worked on the ground on either side of the green to bring it more towards the center.

05 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The side slope on the sixth hole will always take the ball towards the stream including on the green also as it will have some slope following the terrain it sits in towards the water.

06 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

Since the seventh green sits in front of the water, the slope will be slightly front to back to match the slope of the land leading to the water.

07 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The eighth is long enough that some golfers will have to choose their lay up spot depending on the pin position. The bunker should be deep enough to discourage laying up in the bunker.

08 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The ninth has a fully visible greenside bunker which may make some approach shot choose to play blind to the hillside on the left to bounce the ball in. The player playing safe off the tee is menaced by the center bunker.

09 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The tenth is drivable, and it utilizes gravity to protect the green from drives and short pitches. There are trees behind the left side of the green to protect from drives on the fifteenth.

10 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The eleventh has the left side of the green partially obscured by the mound and is protected by a bunker on the visible side.

11 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

Hole twelve forces the player to deal with the stream the length of the hole, and has bunkers placed to prevent overzealous use of the safe route. The green is across the stream and so it slants towards the line of play as the land there does.

I decided to move the green across the creek after printing the section of the topo, so that is why it looks so squished.

12 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The thirteenth provide more danger on the approach from the visible driving side than from the blind landing area.

13 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The fourteenth green being across the stream also slopes towards the line of play. There is a bunker to the right side of the green to prevent a safe shot there.

14 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The fifteenth guards against going towards the tenth with trees and a long bunker on the left side. However, an aggressive line off the tee will still get the ball in position for an approach unhindered by the greenside bunker.

15 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The sixteenth offers options to keep the tee ball on top of the hill, and have a short approach guarded by a string of bunkers; to bomb the ball straight at the green, and take ones chances with the bunkers on that line, to drive towards the stream to give the most open line for the approach; or to lay well back from the stream and have hindered visibility, but still open approach to the green.

16 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The seventeenth green slopes away from the line of play, and has some characteristics of a reverse redan.

17 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

The eighteenth offers play right followed by facing the steepest uphill second, or play left and hope to hold the high ground for the second. Hopefully with the selection of tees offered it will play as a three shot hole for most players where the approach is taken from the high point above the green, with the opportunity of placing that short iron/wedge shot close enough for a birdie.

18 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

[Garland Bayley]

I want to thank Nick for encouraging me to put up the pictures of my holes and for converting my pdf to jpeg for me. Also, for instructions on how to attach the pictures to a post.

Nick is certainly a most gracious winner, especially since I have been the most vocal critic of his entry.

Thanks again Nick.

[Garland Bayley]

Philip was kind enough to invite us to ask for his comments. I asked and he provided them. If some of the other entrants asked, it would be informative to see them.

Here are his comments on my design:

1.Uses most of the interesting areas on the site.
This is perhaps the most important aspect of the design and the main reason why it scored relatively well. Your routing manages to encompass most areas of natural interest which gives you the best chance of designing a fun and naturally interesting golf course.
2. Some holes do not work naturally with the existing contours.
I do feel that several holes will either be (too) blind or need considerable earthworks to work. These could be holes such as # 5 and 18. I feel these holes will be more awkward than interesting and require a lot of earthworks to be both visually and strategically interesting. I know some golfers prefer many blind or semiblind shots – I like them as well – but they must be extremely well chosen, and in these cases I don’t feel they are necessary. The site is so vast that it would be fairly easy to ‘route your way out of this’.
3. Returning nines
This is not something which matters a lot to me, but it could very easily have been accomplished since you are so close to the CH with hole 6. This has not directly detracted.
4. Lack of variation.
With only 3 par 3s, holes 11 and 17 are somewhat similar (style and direction) Could easily have been angled a bit more for maximum diversity.

As said above, I thought it was a good proposal and had a lot of interesting holes. I would love to play hole 16.