[Pete Lavallee]

I distinctly remeber Tom saying in one of his books, can't remeber which one right now, that he always gives thought to how his Mom would plkay ant hole he is designing. Don't know if Mrs. Doak is long hitter or not.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Pete,

I couched my response to say all gca, because I don't know how much thought TD really puts in.  We all say we do, but we all fail a large percent of the time.  It is hard to focus on all players, and I just suspect that those called in to design world class courses focus on the better player more of the time.

[George Pazin]

George - if that is the case are you an advocate for a single set of tees only on a golf course? Given your position I think that makes far more sense than having a course with a set of tees for men where they hit drivers and irons (for the most part) and a set of tees for women where they drivers, woods, and irons.

Not sure if I'm an advocate, but I am a fan.

Jeff -

Note: I'm not advocating making those middle shots - or shorter tees - boring, just saying I don't see much difference between hitting a 110 yard fairway wood and a 60 yard wedge. When you are swinging that slow, you are basically bunting the ball around and I don't think it much matters what club you're hitting.

[Jeff_Brauer]

There you go again. Sadly, I don't know the answer as fully as I should, but next time I am on a golf course, I will approach a few groups of women to see if they would like the variety of hitting different clubs into the greens, or are satisfied with hitting 3 wood after 3 wood.  I guessed they would like variety as much as we do....

[George Pazin]

No, there YOU go again. I'm not advocating bland shots, period. There are plenty of holes on my home muni I can reach hitting repeats of the same club, yet the shots are not at all the same.

I am not saying there should be no variety. I am saying the variety is not simply in the different clubs. There is a huge difference between those sentences. Please do not mischaracterize my posts again.

[Jeff_Brauer]

George,

I just wonder if the ladies are enlightened as much as we are, but have read some book about "hitting every club in the bag" and consider it good architecture.  Just as long as they don't consider hitting every dub with their bag, we should be happy.......oh wait, that sounded funnier in my head than it looks in print.

[Garland Bayley]

If you guys think Tom Doak makes the middle shots for women boring, then just go look at Pacific Dunes. I doubt you will find many boring shots there for anybody.

And get this. He didn't have to use any ponds (except of course the really big one). Shots with ponds in play are boring for the average golfer. It's like "well here goes another one." ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

I still think about my mom a lot.  She only got to see one course of mine before she passed away twenty years ago, but she is still my standard for the average woman golfer.  She loved to be out on the course, even though she rarely carried the ball more than 75-80 yards ... and yet she walked and played Bethpage Black with me when she was 60!

And, of course, I got a LOT of input on the subject of forward tees from Alice Dye when I worked for Pete and for Perry.  Suffice to say that all of us who worked for Pete learned to ignore the placement of the forward tees at our own peril. 

[Steve Okula]

Tom,

Rumor has reached my ears that you are on site in Bordeaux.

Care to comment?

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

Rumor has reached my ears that you are on site in Bordeaux.

Care to comment?

Steve:

We are doing a little bit of shaping here for the next month or so, while our client figures out whether or not to move forward.  I really don't want to jinx the project by saying much about it until I'm sure it's going to happen.  My wife certainly hopes it will happen!

[Big Pete]

The topic of catering for the aging baby boomer ,and lady golfer is one that I am particularly interested in .
It most certainly is not just a matter of providing a forward tee...
When we were building Barnbougle Dunes my wife and I had conversations with TD over dinner , and she was particularly keen to point out that while she is a capable golfer , she would like to see challenges off the tee like the men get , and greens she can hit and stay on with the longer clubs/fairway woods she was likely to be using .
TD assured her that many of the greens would be approachable , and the tees would not be just popped in a convenient position , but actually relevant to the hazards
Now I am not saying that Tom was influenced at all by this conversation - but rather that the female viewpoint is something he does take into consideration
The ladies love Barnbougle....

[Ken Moum]

This is an honest question, not trying to be a smart-ass:

Would it really make a difference to her? The times I've played with shorter hitters such as you describe - be they women, older gentlemen, or the occasional male who just doesn't seem to get anything out of his swing - their 110 yard club pretty much flew like my wedges. It wouldn't be like a wedge struck by a really good player - loads of spin, etc - but it generally flew short and landed soft.

So would it really be gratifying or even enjoyable to play a 250 yard par 4 so you can go driver-wedge?

I play more than half my golf sith my wife, who is (or was) close to Steve's mom in terms of golfing skill.  And I can tell you it makes huge difference to her. The question was raised by my aunt, now 80 years old, who was once a hell of a player. When you suggest playing a course, her first question is, "How long are the forward tees?"  If they are over 4,800, she's not much interested.

Because my wife has played a fair bit of golf on courses with forward tees in the 4,800-yard range  (thanks in large part to Alice Dye, IMHO), she got a taste of hitting similar clubs into the greens as me and her thought process about the game changed dramatically.

In my experience, the folks you are talking about have never once experienced this, so it's a classic case of not knowing what they are missing.  At my home course, a few of the guys I play with started playing the "senior" tees, which are listed on the card @ 5950 yards, but are actually about 5550.  They enjoy them  much more, but catch a certain amount of ribbing for it and they have trouble getting anyone under 75 to play those tees.

K

[George Pazin]

Thanks for those posts, Peter and Ken.

[Dan Kelly]

... she walked and played Bethpage Black with me when she was 60!

Give yourself a few years, and you won't be thinking 60 is any sort of age at all -- certainly undeserving of an exclamation point!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ken,

Then your wife should enjoy Firekeeper.  They say the tees are 4700 yards, but they have not officially measured the course and I am pretty sure we shortened it in the process. I know we shortened 4 to the top of the hill and 10 to over the creek, just to name 2.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks gents, this has turned into an interesting thread. Made me think again about the true essence and beauty and uniqueness of the game, i.e. that a teenage son and his mother and a grandfather and an Uncle Buck can play and enjoy and compete against eachother on the golf course...literally.  And it made me think that perhaps it is thus true to say that an architecture/design that most manifests and allows for this uniqueness is, by definition, the best kind of architecture for the game.

Peter

[Mark Bourgeois]

... my golf sith my wife ...

Excellent tyop, "golf sith" (Golf Sith?). Now replaces "game warden" as term for wife.

[Tom_Doak]

... she walked and played Bethpage Black with me when she was 60!

Give yourself a few years, and you won't be thinking 60 is any sort of age at all -- certainly undeserving of an exclamation point!

Dan:

If you can find another 60-year-old woman who's walked 18 holes at Bethpage Black, get back to me on that.  Until then I will continue to think that was a special day. 

[Troy Alderson]

Hi Tom,

You would teach me much more than I could teach you, but...

Remember that more heads are better than one.  You may miss something that I see and I may miss something that you see.  I have always thought that the superintendent should be included in the design/layout process directly, since he or she may have spent more time on the site already or is the one who will be maintaining the design/layout for years to come.

Question for you.  How often do you think trees should come into play on any given hole?  I like the idea of no trees within 15+/- yards from the tee/fairway/collar edge (given a 30 yard wide fairway).  I accept trees as a deterent on doglegs if needed or in groups to hide something unsightly.  Thought?

[Tom_Doak]

Hi Tom,

You would teach me much more than I could teach you, but...

Remember that more heads are better than one.  You may miss something that I see and I may miss something that you see.  I have always thought that the superintendent should be included in the design/layout process directly, since he or she may have spent more time on the site already or is the one who will be maintaining the design/layout for years to come.

Question for you.  How often do you think trees should come into play on any given hole?  I like the idea of no trees within 15+/- yards from the tee/fairway/collar edge (given a 30 yard wide fairway).  I accept trees as a deterent on doglegs if needed or in groups to hide something unsightly.  Thought?

Troy:

Ask anybody who's visited one of our job sites ... there are more smart and talented people out there on a daily basis than on 99% of construction sites.  Kelly Blake Moran came out to visit us at Stonewall one day while we were building the second course, and I introduced him to Don Placek, Eric Iverson, Brian Schneider, Kye Goalby, Kyle Franz, and Dan Proctor, who were all working on it at the time.  That's a lot of input.

We try to get the superintendent on board as early as we can, so they can comment on everything we are building ... most recently, we lured Rusty Mercer away from Cuscowilla to work on the big project in Florida we are doing with Bill Coore, and guys like Ken Nice in Bandon and Dave Hensley at Ballyneal were there with our crews from day 1.  But, the superintendent is almost never around during the routing stage, unless he's part of the ownership group, and I don't know many who would add much to that process; in fact, I usually only bring one associate along to help me with that part, not the whole crew.  Otherwise, you get too many divergent ideas and it makes it harder to sort through the good ones.


As for your question about trees in play, I don't ever try to reduce things to a formula like that, whereas Jeff Brauer likes to.  A 30 yard wide fairway is never a given for us -- ours are almost always wider than that and sometimes more than twice as wide, and under those circumstances I think it's okay for trees to be fairly close to the fairway and in play from one side or the other, on a site which has lots of trees.  But if you do anything too much, it becomes repetitive and boring.  Really, you just need to find the balance between having the trees come into play too much, and clearing too many big trees.

[Bradley Anderson]

Tom,

I still haven't been able to play one of your courses. The closest I have come to your work is touring Country Club of Detroit during and after your remodeling of the greens and tees.

What you did with the tees at CCD is very cool.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I tend to doubt any of us could teach you anything. You already do one of the things I would have said. I think some of us could give a different view which might stimulate thought on your part. You did just that with me during Pac Dunes construction.

[Ulrich Mayring]

There must be something we could teach Tom Doak. After all, he's a busy man and has been for years and still makes a point to come here and participate in the discussions. Why would he do that if not for hoping he could learn something? "Because it's fun" begs the question why exactly is it fun? And for what other reason than possible enlightenment would he open a somewhat suspicious thread like this?

Ulrich

[Troy Alderson]

As for your question about trees in play, I don't ever try to reduce things to a formula like that, whereas Jeff Brauer likes to.  A 30 yard wide fairway is never a given for us -- ours are almost always wider than that and sometimes more than twice as wide, and under those circumstances I think it's okay for trees to be fairly close to the fairway and in play from one side or the other, on a site which has lots of trees.  But if you do anything too much, it becomes repetitive and boring.  Really, you just need to find the balance between having the trees come into play too much, and clearing too many big trees.

I agree with you on trees.  I do feel that the playing corridor should have a minimum width with no maximum.  Golfers I know still think trees need to be a part of the golf course.  I try to remind them that if I took every tree out at Reames they would not score significantly better.  Golfers I know look at courses on TV and do not realize the trees are farther out from the playing corridor and not lining the fairway edge.  I just like the general rule of thumb of 15 yards or so.  Of course I like courses that are all fairway cut anyways.  At Reames you can see trees planted in 3s throughout the course, boring.  Thank you for the feedback.

[Jamie Van Gisbergen]

Well, perhaps I can't teach anything, but I would ask why there is generally not more variety in your par 5's and par 3's. I've played 4 of your courses, 2 early ones (Riverfront and Charlotte) and two elite ones (Pacific and Old Mac). Old Macdonald had little variety in the par 3's in the summer wind (I hit 3 iron, 8 iron, 6 iron and 4 iron) although I do think these would have better variety in the winter (although few people see them then). Pacific is somewhat the same, the par 3's do have good variety in the summer (which is I suppose what you want) but far less variety in the winter, yet the par 5's have very little variety, all are reachable in the summer wind, unless you are playing 3 and 12 into a 30 mph wind, in which case 15 and 18 are easily reachable. However, in the winter, those become very good variety.

I don't know, I am kind of rambling here, but I see that even at your elite designs, there seems to be a slight lack of variety in playable length on the holes. I suppose I just wonder why that happened and if it is different elsewhere...

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