Golf Baan Stippelberg tops Old Macdonald in Golf Inc. Awards

[Garland Bayley]

 
Garland,

I'm afraid you've lost me with your design comments?

What's to get lost on?
Philip criticized my design work for blind shots.
I criticized his work for ponds.
You criticized me for being negative. Make sure you criticize Philip for being negative too.


And I guess I'm a bit confused with the Dismal query. But to answer, yes a couple of itty bitty koi ponds there. One in front of 4 green and another back and to the right behind 16 green. Both with windmills attached. As far as blind shots - yes, several blind shots at DR.

You have expressed a liking for Dismal River. It has more blindness (my preference) than ponds (course in question designed by Philip). How about the Doak course there. How will it stack up blind shots to ponds?

Now, what does this have to do with your beef with Stippelberg winning this award??

IMO courses with significant ponds should not be given awards. It's not something I like to see encouraged.

[Joe_Tucholski]

I will be happy to answer any questions but am very busy these days dealing with the (sudden) attention the course is attracting.

Philip

Philip - Thanks for coming on here to discuss.

You mentioned that the massive quarry lake will be further excavated during the coming years to become a massive feature for the course.  Do you mean you will just connect the lakes like the design on the facebook page linked above (the aerial here http://golfshot.com/GolfCourses/NL/ALL/Golfbaan-Stippelberg-Championship-Gemert-Bakel has the ponds separated by a road to the left of 16 green and 17 tee)?

Also can you share why the client wanted an executive 9 instead of a par 3 course?  Do you think your design would have changed on the 18 hole course if you could have created a 9 hole par 3 course?

The photo's look great and like others have said congrats.

[Sam Morrow]

 
Garland,

I'm afraid you've lost me with your design comments?

What's to get lost on?
Philip criticized my design work for blind shots.
I criticized his work for ponds.
You criticized me for being negative. Make sure you criticize Philip for being negative too.


And I guess I'm a bit confused with the Dismal query. But to answer, yes a couple of itty bitty koi ponds there. One in front of 4 green and another back and to the right behind 16 green. Both with windmills attached. As far as blind shots - yes, several blind shots at DR.

You have expressed a liking for Dismal River. It has more blindness (my preference) than ponds (course in question designed by Philip). How about the Doak course there. How will it stack up blind shots to ponds?

Now, what does this have to do with your beef with Stippelberg winning this award??

IMO courses with significant ponds should not be given awards. It's not something I like to see encouraged.

That seems like a very closed minded statement, seems unfair to lump courses together. Shouldn't each be judged on an individual basis?

[Philip Spogard]

Thanks for the many greetings and interesting comments.

As I said it has been a great project to work on. Michiel (van der Vaart) was involved in the project before I joined up with him as business partners. Prior to that Gerard Jol (who works with us) did a lot of work on the project in terms of getting permissions and rights to the landuse.

We normally have a rule of thumb which says a project takes about 6-7 years from idea to completion. This is applicable to most projects I have worked on and know of in Europe.

As I understand it, the parcels of land available has changed a LOT during the early phases of the project - which means the routing has changed considerably just to work. As a result the course starts with an untraditional par 3-5-3 routing.

I don't know how well you guys know The Netherlands - but to them of you who are not familiar with the land it is extremely flat. With a clever pumping system of ditches and fields which means large parts of the country is actually BELOW waterlavel (which can be challenging when putting spot heights on design plans There are VERY strict rules for the general water flow through the country and with ditches often crossing the land almost every 100-200m there is an obvious conflict when building golf courses. The Waterschap (government body for regulating water barriers throughout the country) have quite strict rules on this.

This meant e.g. that the 'island' green was an un-negotiable must to create water flow and eco systems on that part of the course.

Except for a few par 5 which hug the huge quarry lake - we have tried to keep water out of the course as much as possible under these strict regulations. Instead we have a stream/eco-area on the executive course.

@Joe: On the link you post, imagine you remove all of the land north of hole 10 and east of hole 13 and 17 - then you have the finished lake. It will be massive - perhaps not fully in tune with the heathland courses - but nonetheless a great feature for any project. In terms of the executive course, I think everyone are quite happy with having the composition of holes which is there. It opened a year before the Champ course and allowed the 1000 members a chance to hit some golf shots.

There is a really good aerial guide to the course on either
http://golfclub-stippelberg.nl/de-baan/baanlayout/
or on our Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.225530487517909.49663.103653309705628&type=1

There are also some photos on the Facebook page - until I figure out how to post them here.

[Doug Ralston]

I've been to the Netherlands half a dozen times to look at lots of different golf courses and I've barely seen a group riding carts. Stippelberg is quite a long walk, because the property is a bit spread out. But the Dutch, generally speaking, don't take carts.

My point is that with designs incorporating island greens, they will be encouraged to start riding carts. Now, you tell me it is quite a long walk! Oh my goodness, more encouragement. 

If I am playing a match, and my opponent hits his shot onto the green while I hit mine into the water, I concede the hole and any walking there is useless. Might as well hop on a cart and head to the next tee, because I am no longer playing golf on that hole. I don't mind walking over mountains if I'm still competing on a golf hole. It's the walking while not playing that is a drag. That is why my walkability ratings on the walking golfer website only rate the walks between green and next tee with respect to walkability of a course.

Garland, all your opponents must be great putters. I have held many a hole where I hit water but my opponent 3-putt. Yours must be very good because you assume they NEVER 3-putt. Play on!

Doug

PS: Long time no see. Hello GCA.

[Eric Smith]

Garland,

I'm afraid you've lost me with your design comments?

What's to get lost on? Philip criticized my design work for blind shots. I didn't realize you had designed a course. This must be Armchair stuff you're talking about and I'm assuming Philip was a judge? If so, then okay, I follow.
I criticized his work for ponds.
You criticized me for being negative. You called Golf Inc 'a bunch of idiots'. Make sure you criticize Philip for being negative too.  I wouldn't call you (or Philip) that no matter the debate.


And I guess I'm a bit confused with the Dismal query. But to answer, yes a couple of itty bitty koi ponds there. One in front of 4 green and another back and to the right behind 16 green. Both with windmills attached. As far as blind shots - yes, several blind shots at DR.

You have expressed a liking for Dismal River. It has more blindness (my preference) than ponds (course in question designed by Philip). How about the Doak course there. How will it stack up blind shots to ponds? No ponds, but if you get to duck hooking your driver coming down the stretch you might find your ball in the (Dismal) river!

Now, what does this have to do with your beef with Stippelberg winning this award??

IMO courses with significant ponds should not be given awards. It's not something I like to see encouraged. Fair enough. If you had written with this degree of temperance initially, I'd never have gone on about it.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Fellas

The article lists the names of the 2 judges - who are friends of mine
I would guess Kemper Sports submitted Old Mac to Golf inc. - I don't think Mike or Tom are loosing sleep over the results.
The voting is not based on architecture first - it is based on meeting client goals - the routing does count however

I would have voted differently

[George Pazin]

There is a really good aerial guide to the course on either
http://golfclub-stippelberg.nl/de-baan/baanlayout/
or on our Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.225530487517909.49663.103653309705628&type=1

There are also some photos on the Facebook page - until I figure out how to post them here.

Many thanks for sharing, Philip. Anyone interested should check out the facebook link, it has detailed hole diagrams like:

[RJ_Daley]

I think it is wonderful to see this GCA firm get the recognition they have received, and to consider the challenges they have met with the engineering of the water course and environmental mitigation they have completed.  It seems that the regulatory environment there in Holland is as strict as anyplace in the world (for good reason) and this GCA firm negotiated the challenges very successfully, ending up with a great golf course.

Maybe the financials are too private and we'll never know the particulars; but if possible, it would be interesting to see what the total investment is in the golf course, separate from the club house facility cost.  And, it would be interesting to know what sort of financial budget and model the membership dues and fees structure is to recover the investment and allow this course to be a viable on-going enterprise.  Is it their version of 'not for profit' structure, or for profit, and how is the ownership related to membership?  To know these things would be an interesting comparison to how projects get capitalized and modeled here in the U.S.  How does the system work regarding taxes, wages and benefits of this high end project there? 

[Steve_ Shaffer]

I repeat my request in Reply #3 above:

What is the joining fee for this club?

Also, what are the annual fees?

Since the website is in Dutch, it's not easily discoverable. I'd like to compare these numbers to newer US private courses.

[William_G]

the value of land is high in the Netheralnds as much if not most of the land is reclaimed...water is a way of life and the it's dominance was once the reason for the country being the center of the universe for trade and commerce

interesting that they had a sandy site!

[Adam Lawrence]

Steve, I think, though I'm not sure, that it's about a thousand euros a year

Adam

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Adam,

Thanks.

Is there an initiation/joining fee that's non-refundable?

[Adam Lawrence]

I'll have to defer to Phil on that one.

[Frank Pont]

Philip, you and Michiel congrats, I am sure you guys are thrilled with the award!

Adam, the membership number is not so strange in Holland for a 27 holes course with no other 18 holes courses of any quality near by. On average a Dutch club with 18 holes has 800-1000 members, and only in some areas near the borders do these numbers slide below 700. So 1200 members for 27 holes is good but nothing exceptional. Not all clubs strive for maximum membership numbers; some courses keep a limit on the number of members, because they feel they can earn more from keeping the extra capacity free for greenfeeplayers. Turfvaert is a good example of that with only 600 members allowed, but making very good returns, even in these bad economic times, from the greenfee players.

As far as I know the situation is quite unique financially in that a lot of the rough GPS work was paid for by the company who is dredging the lake, which allowed the club to build for an amount which is a lot lower than it would normally cost. This allowed the membership and joining fees to be fairly low (adam I think the annual fee is even lower than 1000 euros). This was a good deal for both the golf club and the dredging company, unfortunately there aren't that many places where you can replicate this strategy. At Swinkelsche we follow a slightly different tactic in that we will be selling quite a lot of sand that we are excavating from some lakes, which significantly improves the economics and allows us to do quite bold things. Here the annual fee will be 950 euros with NO initiation fee!

For all of you visiting Stippelberg in 2012, if you come late in summer you will be able to have a preview play at Swinkelsche which is about 20 miles from Stippelberg, would be interesting to compare these two new classic style heathland courses, maybe Adam can chip on that since he is one of the few who has seen both.

[jeffwarne]

I've been to the Netherlands half a dozen times to look at lots of different golf courses and I've barely seen a group riding carts. Stippelberg is quite a long walk, because the property is a bit spread out. But the Dutch, generally speaking, don't take carts.

My point is that with designs incorporating island greens, they will be encouraged to start riding carts. Now, you tell me it is quite a long walk! Oh my goodness, more encouragement. 

If I am playing a match, and my opponent hits his shot onto the green while I hit mine into the water, I concede the hole and any walking there is useless. Might as well hop on a cart and head to the next tee, because I am no longer playing golf on that hole. I don't mind walking over mountains if I'm still competing on a golf hole. It's the walking while not playing that is a drag. That is why my walkability ratings on the walking golfer website only rate the walks between green and next tee with respect to walkability of a course.

Why is it that people that wax poetically on and on that walking is the ONLY way to enjoy golf, bitch so much when asked to go a few more steps of an activity they love so much.

[Frank Pont]

Jeff, I think people enjoy walking on golf holes, not on paths between golf holes. Some statistics, the average course in The Netherlands is 5900 m from the yellow mens tees, and next to that covers a distance of almost 1400 m between greens and tees. At most classic Dutch courses this distance is much less, eg at De Pan it is only 650 m. At Stippelberg I've been told the distance is significantly more than that average 1400 m, maybe someone with lots of time at hand can work it out, or even easier maybe Philip knows the exact number off hand.

[David_Tepper]

"My point is that with designs incorporating island greens, they will be encouraged to start riding carts."

Garland -

Tillinghast was designing island greens 80 years ago. What's the big deal?
I fail to see how island greens encourage (or discourage) riding in carts.

DT 

[Sam Morrow]

"My point is that with designs incorporating island greens, they will be encouraged to start riding carts."

Garland -

Tillinghast was designing island greens 80 years ago. What's the big deal?
I fail to see how island greens encourage (or discourage) riding in carts.

DT 

I don't think Garland knows either.

[Philip Spogard]

@RJ and Steve:
Thank you for the comments.
The great thing about the club and project is that it was build on a modest budget (compared to especially most other higher profiled courses in the Golf Inc. competition). Somewhere between €3.5-4.0mill. for 27 holes. This is in great deal down to the great soil of the site and the passion of the team behind the project who all rose to the occasion. The thing is - the project is really a 'normal' course (and as such I am so pleased to see it get the recognition it does). For a long time we have tried to prove that you can (also) do great things on a smaller budget if you make the most of what you got - and to actually showcase it in this way is very gratifying for us as architects. It is also very nice for us to officialy help to put modern GCA in the Netherlands on the international map (and for me being a Dane, and Michiel van der Vaart as a Dutchman, it is special as well being the first to receive such an honor).

In terms of membership fees it is close to what Adam and Frank posts. I can find out what the fees are but there are no excessive joining fees or shares.

@Frank:
I appreciate your comments but you of all people should know that you can not compare De Pan to a course like Stippelberg or most other modern Dutch courses. The challenge with the Netherlands is that the parcels of land are often quite geometrical and defined by roads and ditches (to move the water around) which creates quite a few restrictions laying out golf courses on an area of 60-100ha. With courses like De Pan or Noordwijk you don't have those restrictions as the land is all adjacent. We are also working to the EIGCA standards for safety which means we can't 'get away' with the things you see on e.g. De Pan and most other historical courses. At Stippelberg the shape of the land is hourglass shaped and to make things worse, roads are crossing on the narrowest parts. This will create longer walks. We as a company are not fond of long walks on golf courses either and will always try and position walks in such a way that it has the least negative influence on the overall golf experience. I don't know exactly how long the walks are at Stippelberg but the thought we put into it was that it was about creating the best holes there - not necessarily the shortest walks. I have not heard anyone complain about it at Stippelberg so I hope we succeeded.

I spoke with Michiel and we will be happy to help organize a trip to the Stippelberg sometime in May or June next year if someone will take the lead and try to organize a group, dates, etc. Michiel and I will try and do what we can to be able to both be there.

Phil

[Mac Plumart]

Phil...awesome offer.  

FYI, the latest addition of GCA magazine has a big section on  Stippelberg.  The place really looks great.  Also, on Sept. 8th GCA the mag put out this piece on the course...http://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/Article/Rapid-success-for-new-Dutch-course/2232/Default.aspx

[Frank Pont]

Philip: I think that is a bit too easy, even with EIGCA safety standards you can design a well routed golf course with only 18 x 40 m = 720 meters between holes. I agree that De Pan is very short and borders on unsafe in some areas, but most modern Dutch courses have long walks between holes simply because they were poorly routed. And it does not have to be that way, at both Turfvaert (on a difficult piece of property like Stippelberg) and Swinkelsche are comfortably under 900 meters between holes. Sorry to focus on this, but it is the one thing viryually everybody who has played Stippelberg, including Dutch and International press, has commented on to me (they all did really like the individual holes though). But I think your conclusion is right that this is the best you could get out of such a difficult piece of property.

Steve:  Its possible to build relatively cheaply on sand in the Netherlands, for comparisson Turfvaert (18 holes0 costed less than 1.5 million euro including irrigation (75 k m3 soil movement), and Swinkelsche (18 holes plus 9 holes par3) will come in below 3.0 million with a state of the art irrigation system (450 k m3 soil movement). Not sure what the 27 holes renovation at Heelsumsche (another sandy site) with Steve Marnoch has costed, maybe Adam knows that?

[Garland Bayley]

I've been to the Netherlands half a dozen times to look at lots of different golf courses and I've barely seen a group riding carts. Stippelberg is quite a long walk, because the property is a bit spread out. But the Dutch, generally speaking, don't take carts.

My point is that with designs incorporating island greens, they will be encouraged to start riding carts. Now, you tell me it is quite a long walk! Oh my goodness, more encouragement. 

If I am playing a match, and my opponent hits his shot onto the green while I hit mine into the water, I concede the hole and any walking there is useless. Might as well hop on a cart and head to the next tee, because I am no longer playing golf on that hole. I don't mind walking over mountains if I'm still competing on a golf hole. It's the walking while not playing that is a drag. That is why my walkability ratings on the walking golfer website only rate the walks between green and next tee with respect to walkability of a course.

Why is it that people that wax poetically on and on that walking is the ONLY way to enjoy golf, bitch so much when asked to go a few more steps of an activity they love so much.

I can step out my front door and go for a walk in a beautiful natural environment for free when I have time to do so. Why should I pay money to spend time and money on it on a golf course? Furthermore, in the States, when the walks are long enough you have carballers riding up on your tail, and waiting on tees behind you, because they can traverse the distances between green and tee faster.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Congratulations Philip... Well done!

[Philip Spogard]

Thanks Ally.

Hope to see you soon - perhaps on the Stippelberg?