The Eighteen Best Courses I Never Got To Build - last 3 courses posted

[Tom_Doak]

David:

Just look up that valley to the left the next time you play the hole, and tell me if we were wrong.

[Matt Kardash]

This is a cool thread.
Tom, have you ever had any offers in Canada?

[Phil McDade]

*5.  Elm Charolais GC, Erin, WI, 1997.  In 1997, we signed a contract to design and build a golf course on the site now known as Erin Hills.  Our client spent a bunch of cash trying to pre-sell memberships for the course, but they just didn't know enough people to get the momentum to make it happen.  Eventually, their option to buy the land expired.  I looked at the project again with a second party, and was interviewed for the job by Bob Lang when he bought the ground in 2001 … but he decided to find his own design team instead.

Best holes:  my par-4 second, with a long second shot to a green perched at the edge of a steep fall-off to the right … the hole started from the present eleventh tee, but the existing hole stops short of my green site.  Also, the par-4 15th hole, a dogleg from somewhere near the current eighth tee, up the valley where Ron Whitten placed his Dell hole [the bank behind it was also part of my fairway], and then turning left to a green site in the hollow between the sixth tee and green.  I really wish they had used that hole!

A look at the green site of the current 11th -- just a guess, but would the green site be above, and to the right of, the bunker with the grassy mound in the middle of it? Two looks at it:





Here's the tee shot on the current 8th, now a dogleg left par 4 that goes up and over the ridge, down into a valley, and then back up to a green.



Here's a look at one of the areas where Whitten sited the Dell hole; you can make out the Dell hole bell, still on the course, middle-right of photo:



Here's the hollow, where players and caddies are walking, between the 6th tee and green:

[David_Elvins]

David:

Just look up that valley to the left the next time you play the hole, and tell me if we were wrong.

It might depend on how far up the dune/saddle you were going to put the green  

It would be very interesting to go out there (or any of the other courses you listed) one day with your routing plan and see how differnt architects routed the same land.  

I remember having a quick peak at an alternative routing for St Andrews Beach once.  It was very, ummm, 'interesting'. 

[Jeff_Mingay]

This is a cool thread.
Tom, have you ever had any offers in Canada?

I hope not! There's enough good native talent up here 

Bruce Hepner and the Renaissance crew actually worked at my home course, Essex G&CC (Ross, '29), in Windsor ON.

[Ronald Montesano]

I suspect that this thread might crash Ben and Ran's server...

[Matt Kardash]

This is a cool thread.
Tom, have you ever had any offers in Canada?

I hope not! There's enough good native talent up here 

Bruce Hepner and the Renaissance crew actually worked at my home course, Essex G&CC (Ross, '29), in Windsor ON.

Jeff, please come to the Montreal area and build something. Golfing here makes me sad. 

[Tom_Doak]

*5.  Elm Charolais GC, Erin, WI, 1997.  In 1997, we signed a contract to design and build a golf course on the site now known as Erin Hills.  Our client spent a bunch of cash trying to pre-sell memberships for the course, but they just didn't know enough people to get the momentum to make it happen.  Eventually, their option to buy the land expired.  I looked at the project again with a second party, and was interviewed for the job by Bob Lang when he bought the ground in 2001 … but he decided to find his own design team instead.

Best holes:  my par-4 second, with a long second shot to a green perched at the edge of a steep fall-off to the right … the hole started from the present eleventh tee, but the existing hole stops short of my green site.  Also, the par-4 15th hole, a dogleg from somewhere near the current eighth tee, up the valley where Ron Whitten placed his Dell hole [the bank behind it was also part of my fairway], and then turning left to a green site in the hollow between the sixth tee and green.  I really wish they had used that hole!

A look at the green site of the current 11th -- just a guess, but would the green site be above, and to the right of, the bunker with the grassy mound in the middle of it? Two looks at it:




Here's the hollow, where players and caddies are walking, between the 6th tee and green:

Phil:

Yes, in your first picture, that is my green site right above the back right greenside bunker.  There was a sharp drop off to the right, and a tight little swale on the left, which you can see the start of, just above the left-most scrape of that back bunker.  The hole would have been +/- 440 yards.

In your picture of the current sixth hole, I believe that's the green site I talked about in the left foreground of the picture ... not as far up as the players are.  The other pics don't help much, since the hole went off the present 8th tee or thereabouts, but a straight 90 degrees to the right of the current line of play.  In your photo of Ron's Dell, which I did not re-post, the fairway would have run from right to left across the whole picture, so that steep bank to the back of the Dell green would have been a side-slope in the fairway.

Enough second-guessing for that course, though!  Let's move on to some others!

[Ash Towe]

Tom,

The National in Australia really needed your hand.

I think St Andrews Beach is very underated as has been discussed before.

Any misses in NZ?

[Tom_Doak]

Ash:  Yes, but not until Part 4.  In fact, I've got a few photos of that particular project which I'd like to share, if anyone would be so kind as to let me email the photos and host them somewhere.

[Tom_Doak]

(part 3)

*11.  Lipoa Point Club, Kapalua, HI, 2005.  This property is just around the corner from the Plantation Course, with just enough room for 18 holes of golf between the coastal highway and the clifftops.  The idea was to do a private 18-hole course, the Cypress Point of Hawaii … and it had a few holes that would have been in that league.  There were the usual archaeology issues and local politics regarding any coastal project in Hawaii, compounded by the fact that Lipoa is a prime surfing spot … I actually watched a women's pro surf event one afternoon while we were out on the site trying to figure out our routing.   The resort thought all could be resolved working quietly behind the scenes, but the politics bubbled up in the press while the resort was trying to permit further development around the Village course.  Basically, the resort abandoned their plans for Lipoa Point to tamp down the politics for the other development project -- which they have still never built, due to the economy.

Best hole:  There was a stunning oceanfront par-3 on each nine, both of them playing downhill to greens fairly close to the surf -- one of them along the cliffs, another playing more out to sea.  But I think the best hole would have been the short par-4 13th, with a tee shot from the rocks across the edge of the ocean to a fairway surmounting a ridge, and then over another dip to a raised green overlooking the ocean.


*12.  Wicked Pony GC, Bend, OR, 2006.  As many of you know, we got 70% of the way through construction here, when the lender that had provided the construction financing went under, and there were no banks willing or able to replace them as the Bend housing market started down in the fall of 2007.  The primary investor for the project has been trying to work through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding so he can go ahead and finish the course.  The bankruptcy court decides in March whether to let them proceed or try to divide up the pieces among the creditors.  Luckily, this is the only course I've ever started to build that didn't get finished; Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw had several false starts early in their partnership.

Best hole:  For most people, it would probably be the par-3 sixth, across the edge of a rocky canyon.  I was pretty partial to the long par-4 ninth, with its tee shot up out of a deep crater to a fairway and green running along the rim.  Those two holes actually got grassed; the par-4 14th between the rocks had not yet been finished when the project stalled.


*13.  Lake Luciana GC, Aetna Springs, CA, 2006.  Also in 2006, we were paid to do the grading plans for a new course in the Napa Valley area called Lake Luciana, around a large lake two miles away from the nine-hole project we built at Aetna Springs.  There was huge money behind this one, and the 30 lots as part of the development were already platted … but the locals still managed to convince Napa County to deny zoning for the golf course, ruling that golf is an "urban activity" not suited for agricultural zoned areas, despite the fact that "outdoor recreation" is specifically permitted in agricultural zones.

Best hole:  We had planned a tiny little par-3 hole, #16, with its green site where two little streams came together as they ran down out of the hills.  At the front, the green would have been 40-45 feet wide and then dropping down both sides into the water, but you could give yourself more margin for error if you played to the back of the green, where it was quite a bit wider and there was a bank to hold the approach shots.  We actually got the approval from the environmental people to build this hole despite the proximity to water; it was zoning, not environmental issues, that stalled the project.


14.  Antigua, 2007.  In early 2007, a land planner recommended me for a very exclusive new project in Antigua.  Jack Nicklaus had done a plan for the property, but the owner was having second thoughts about using him, because he wanted his project to be uber-special and Jack was doing too many other things in the Caribbean.  We spent a couple of days down there looking at his spectacular site by helicopter and by boat and discussing the deal, although I was reluctant to do anything more until the client let Jack know he was going to go a different direction; but I could not get a clear commitment out of him.  Well, that was my "brush with fame" with Sir Allen Stanford, now in jail in Texas on multiple counts of fraud and offshore money laundering!  In hindsight, I think the reason we never set foot on the property while I was down there is that he didn't really own it, and was afraid of being shot at if we did go on the ground!  We did have a luxe dinner with [among other people] the banking minister of Antigua ... Sir Allen had the whole place wired.  But I never suspected that the whole set-up might be a fraud.  I normally trust my intuition on whether a potential client is someone we can deal with, so this one was a valuable lesson in caution.

Best hole:  I think there would have been something like ten holes with sea frontage on this course.  The housing [thirty waterfront lots for members, about 3 acres apiece] was all to be on a separate little island, so the golf course had the run of the shoreline, and there were a lot of capes and bays to be utilized.  There was a par-3 at the upper end of the course much like the setting for David Kidd's 17th hole at the Castle Course at St. Andrews … and the next hole was a par-4 on along the cliff tops, playing down hill to a green site in front of a big rocky knob.

[Phil McDade]

Tom:

Thanks for the insights into Elm Charolais (Erin Hills). One of the things that struck me walking EHills was the variety of ways one could use the glacial features there to route holes in many different ways. I like several of the present ones -- notably holes #2 and #12 -- because I think they take advantage of dramatic land features that add interest to the holes.

But I do like your proposed greensite for #11, as I thought the current one was pretty bland. And given the number of long walks between greens and tees there, the walkback from your #11 green to the current #12 tee (one of the truly terrific hole corridors out there, in my estimation) wouldn't be all that bad.

[George Freeman]

Ash:  Yes, but not until Part 4.  In fact, I've got a few photos of that particular project which I'd like to share, if anyone would be so kind as to let me email the photos and host them somewhere.

Feel free to send the pics my way, Tom.

Great thread by the way.

[Matthew Mollica]

...Norman's 2nd hole. He and Bob Harrison swung the long second shot way to the right instead of going left and up that narrow valley.
It is a pity that hole never was built - it would have been one of the best handful in the country.

I thought your comment when we drove in to look at the courses a couple of years later was really insightful.  The most exciting characteristic of the land was all of the contour, and you could see all of it clearly when it was grazed down by the cattle.  But once they "defined" the golf holes, the endless contour was interrupted by a bunch of mowing lines and golf holes, and it went away!!

I was going to say that Mike was being a bit harsh on the current second hole on the Moonah course which is one of Australia's best par 5s, but Tom has also hit on something else I have been thinking which is: How do you get a hole on that property looking so flat? Interesting observation.
 

Easy David - some fairways, when photographed from elevated spots, look flatter in an image than they actually are.
Walking Moonah #2 tells you it's not flat.

Also - sometimes small tracts of land within unduating blocks can actually be relatively very flat.
Lost Farm for example.

Hole 13 pre-construction


Hole 13 post-construction


I'm led to believe segments of The European may also possess such topography 

MM

MM

[PCCraig]

Tom:

What strikes me about your list is 1) there are so many international projects and 2) very few, if any, are obvious residential developments. I find that interesting because from ~1995-2005 many GCA's were taking business from developers from any angle and essentially printing money. Were you offered many chances at these projects? Or do you have a reputation in the business in not being interested in them?

Or I suppose it's like any other business, you've found your niche and now you're playing in it?

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

What strikes me about your list is 1) there are so many international projects and 2) very few, if any, are obvious residential developments. I find that interesting because from ~1995-2005 many GCA's were taking business from developers from any angle and essentially printing money. Were you offered many chances at these projects? Or do you have a reputation in the business in not being interested in them?

Or I suppose it's like any other business, you've found your niche and now you're playing in it?

Pat:

Like every business, you get typecast pretty fast, and you'd better learn to live with it.  It's not so hard to live with when your assigned role is "the guy to call when you've got an oceanfront site."

You'll see in Part IV that right around 2005, I started getting calls from developers, too.  But, like everyone else born right at the end of the baby boom, I am always getting to the party right as it's breaking up.  I don't believe that my name adds value to development lots, so I could not argue the injustice of being overlooked for all of those other jobs ... then again, I don't believe that other architects' names have added anything to the value of development lots in the long term, either.  Developers care deeply about short-term sales, though, and there were a lot of people willing to overpay for real estate a few short years ago.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

I had high hopes for the Harmony Club. With Cuscowilla and Longshadow neaby, it would have been a great trifecta.     

Is there any reason to think the Reynolds folks will restart the project?

Bob

[Jim Colton]

Tom:

Thanks for the insights into Elm Charolais (Erin Hills). One of the things that struck me walking EHills was the variety of ways one could use the glacial features there to route holes in many different ways. I like several of the present ones -- notably holes #2 and #12 -- because I think they take advantage of dramatic land features that add interest to the holes.

But I do like your proposed greensite for #11, as I thought the current one was pretty bland. And given the number of long walks between greens and tees there, the walkback from your #11 green to the current #12 tee (one of the truly terrific hole corridors out there, in my estimation) wouldn't be all that bad.

Phil,
 
 If you want to see something close to Doak's routing at EH, see the first armchair contest.

 http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,39001.0.html

  Awesome thread, Tom.  I remember this one of the few questions I got to ask you when Dell Sims wasn't monopolizing the conversation.

[Phil McDade]

Jim:

Thanks very much for the link; I noticed Tom mentioned it, but hadn't gotten around to searching for that.

EHills is a fascinating piece of property; whether they got the best 18 holes out of it is, to me, one of the more interesting things about the course's development.

[Bruce Katona]

Tom D: I looked very hard at that Elk Neck, MD parcel for golf and housing.Your potential client must have been the winner in the bidding war.  the site was very unique - one of the best I've seen.  Not quite Sebonac, but very nice.

[Keith OHalloran]

Mr. Doak,
Could you educate me a bit on the process of getting hired?  Do you always know which other firms are in the running? Do you know what their routing is? And at what point do you feel (like in Antigua) that the process has progressed so far that you do not feel comfortable talking with the owner until another guy is out?
Thanks

[Tom_Doak]

Mr. Doak,
Could you educate me a bit on the process of getting hired?  Do you always know which other firms are in the running? Do you know what their routing is? And at what point do you feel (like in Antigua) that the process has progressed so far that you do not feel comfortable talking with the owner until another guy is out?
Thanks

Keith:

It is always different with each new client, because personalities are different; and for that matter, I'm sure it is a different chemistry between the same owner and different architects.

You are trying to feel each other out and figure out if it's a good fit.  From the architect's perspective, you want to show enthusiasm for the site and a sense of what you're thinking, without giving away all your ideas for free ... at least until you are certain the client takes you seriously. ( I used to worry about that a lot more ten or fifteen years ago, when I thought it was possible that the client might really think I was the right guy, but would eventually decide to hire a bigger name instead, because of perceived marketing need.) 

You also want to get a sense of whether the client is going to be the nervous type who calls you in the evening at home over some detail that could easily wait until the next time you're there, because stuff like that is going to get in the way of the creative process.  Personally, I need clients who can be comfortable when I'm away, because they know I've got good people on site, and they know that I will be 100% focused on their job when I get back to it.

Even if you are on the same page, it's often hard to close the deal.  A client with a great site is rarely in a hurry to commit to you, any more than a beautiful woman is.  There is often haggling over the fee, because golf projects are rarely guaranteed to be profitable, and most clients are better at business than the architects they are negotiating with!  [That's why they have the money to pay you.]  How you structure the contract may make it easier for the client to sign up, but if you give away the fort in the contract, that commitment isn't really worth much anyway.

The Antigua negotiation (what little of it there was) was awkward because the guy would not tell me straight out if he really had Nicklaus under contract or not.  If he did, then I shouldn't even have been looking at the job; but there are many cases, such as Sebonack, where another architect will do some advance work for free in order to stake a claim, even though they have no commitment from the owner yet.  Though I couldn't get a real answer, I figured out pretty quickly that I wasn't going to get a commitment until the client needed some work from me, so I just backed off for a bit, and then I saw him on the nightly news!


To answer your other questions:

Sometimes I'll ask the client who else they are talking to, and sometimes I won't.  Depends on the individual.

I've never asked to see anyone else's routing plan, except after I've been hired and the owner wants to show me something in particular that they liked.  I don't like to see a different plan before I've looked at the maps for a while; when you see something you like on another plan, you tend to get into a rut about that part of the ground, and potential solutions diminish.

[Ronald Montesano]

When do we get the closing four holes?

[Tom_Doak]

This evening, probably, after my photo editor does his work.

[JNC Lyon]

This is a really fascinating thread, but in some ways it is a little bit painful to the courses that either weren't built at all or were built by lesser architects.  The most painful one for me is Olde Kinderhook.  Although I've heard some good reviews of the Rees layout, it is tough to think that we could have a Doak course in Upstate New York.  Alas, it wasn't to be.