What defines a natural feature?

[John Kavanaugh]

On another thread this hole has been theorized to be both a 10 year old borrow pit or a meteor strike.  Or maybe it is just a result of the many types of erosion.  What defines if it is natural or not?  What is your theory on how it may have been created?

[RJ_Daley]

I can't believe it would be a borrow pit, in terms of a sand mine or area to haul sand from.  Heck, you can get the same quality of sand anyplace next to the road.  It seems to far away from the DR to be creek related.  That isn't a bad idea, of maybe a meteor.  Since they are grubbing out and cleaning the native out in the bottom, why not take a hoe and dig 5-6ft deeper and see if there are any bones in there, or Native Am artifacts?  Since it is pure sand, it doesn't seem like an explortory trench down there would hurt after you fill the bottom back in.  Or, maybe that would be a project killer, if they found some serious Native Am artifacts from pre white man or French explorer-settlement days.  Maybe the military dropped a block buster in the early 20th century there as a test?  It is an interesting question of natural or created.  As a natural thing, if you subscribe to the sand hill creation as a massive wash out from the caldera of yellowstone 600K years ago, could it be some sort of sink hole where waters drained into an old cave?  What do the old cattlemen ranchers say it might be?

Would you like to be buried at the bottom, 20 ft below the sand bunker surface in a hermetically or water proof sealed vault when you go?   

[Tom_Doak]

Makes no sense to me for it to be man-made, though the blowout could have resulted from a much smaller scrape started by man.  I would guess that it's just in a very exposed spot and that the hole kept getting deeper and the green side of it was built up higher over many years by the wind.

[John_Cullum]

I have observed that given time, and left to their own devices, cows make great landforms in pastures. Are these natural?

[RJ_Daley]

I believe the direction of that hole is into the SE.  If that is the case, then the far side of the crater, is the S and higher side of the crater.  So, the cattle (or bison 100 years or more ago) could have huddled into that higher ridge and gradually trampled it down and 50 years of more of winter winds could have blown it out deeper, and then a few good rain years, and cattle tramping seed head in the bottom, could have started the grassy regrowth cover. 

[Adam Clayman]

If anyone can find a similarly shaped, in both depth and steepness, on the entire 2800 acres, that isn't a borrow pit, I'd be shocked.

Only one way to find out, ask the original landowner.

[Bill_McBride]

When in doubt, follow the sheep.

[Randy Thompson]

I once again agree with Adam. The feature is to strong for a site that reveals mother nature in a fairly calm status. Does it matter if it was a metorite, someobdy harvesting sand or a dinosaur creating a depression to lay down to keep cool. Some unnatural event occured at some point in time and mother nature could have intervined but its not her original work IMO, Just out of character for the rest of the gentle rolling terrain. Here are some pictures of what I consider to be natural features and there are hundreds of them throughout the property and it shows mother nature unleashed and WILD.

[RJ_Daley]

Adam, maybe this guy knows what was in the great hole in the prairie?


Slow Bull, a Chief of the Ogalala tribe.

Randy, is that Patagonia or southern Chile?  It looks very golfy! 

[RJ_Daley]

When I visited with Chris last fall, and we looked at that hole closely, I don't remember him telling me it had a potential feature or hole name.  Maybe we should have a name the feature contest; Chris and some members be the judges?

I'm thinking along the lines of a name that harks back to the asteroid that ended the dinosauers.  The actual name of that one was "Chicxulub".  That is a bit of a tongue twister.  Chicxu's Crater?

[David Schofield]

Might it be a sinkhole (or "Karst Feature" to some)?

[Rich Goodale]

What exactly is "unnatural" about a "borrow pit?"  Are human beings "unnatural?"

[Scott Warren]

I reckon any feature that pre-dates a golf course on the property is "natural" for the purposes of golf, regardless of how it came to be.

[Rich Goodale]

That's a good start for a definition, Scott, but why stop there?  Is man a part of nature or not?  If he is, isn't even the crappiest bunker built by the most clueless golf club committee as "natural" as, say, the Valley of Sin?

[Adam Clayman]

Rihc, I knew all those Fazio bunkers were natural.

RJ, The Dismal Abyss.

I've seen lots of blowouts and lots of sand pits. Everyday I see where the turf slides away and creates cracks that turn into just awesome looking features.

The above, is similar to none of them.

JK, in the final analysis, it doesn't matter how something was created, but rather, how it's used, and made to look, by the designer. Similar to how Fazio used the piles of dredge, on the left side of that par 5 on the front at Victoria.

[John Kavanaugh]

Adam,

The piles at Victoria sat untouched for 17 years which in my mind makes them more natural than a course built on top of a sanitation dump.  I don't agree that just because it was there before the architect it is natural.  I also would separate those things created by animal or God from those created by man.  I much prefer a meteorite to an excavator.

[Tom_Doak]

I don't understand why it matters whether the crater is natural or not.  The only thing that matters is what we decide to do with it.

None of the features at Streamsong were truly natural, but neither Bill Coore nor I lost any sleep over that.  We just utilized them as best we could to make the golf interesting.  In fact, I was excited to use those features because they were really different than anything I've found on more "natural" property.

[John Kavanaugh]

I don't understand why it matters whether the crater is natural or not.  The only thing that matters is what we decide to do with it.

None of the features at Streamsong were truly natural, but neither Bill Coore nor I lost any sleep over that.  We just utilized them as best we could to make the golf interesting.  In fact, I was excited to use those features because they were really different than anything I've found on more "natural" property.

The reason it makes a difference is because golf would be boring without lies to tell.  The story I like best is that a meteorite formed that bunker and it is believed that some magnetic resonance remains that disrupts the electronics in range finders.  You just never know when a false reading will pop up.

Of course another possibility is that during the ICBM testing in Nebraska during the Cold War a piece of space junk fell off a rocket.  This story also works on the minds of the laser using crowd.

Many of us who don't care about "architecture" are still interested in the history of a property.

[John Kavanaugh]

Speaking of lies, I just read this quote from a young bride.  "I'm from Nebraska so I don't see tornadoes. That's the first tornado I've ever seen," Candra told KAKE.  Cool wedding photos though.

http://tinyurl.com/cc3nk2e

[Rich Goodale]

Since it was a wedding, I suspect that "tornadoes" is a tyop for "tournedos."

[Mark Steffey]

I would define a natural feature as the 7th hole at Ekwanok

[Kalen Braley]

Even though some my find it shocking....sink holes do actually occur in nature.    The one on #3 at Doak Dismal looks completely natural to me.  Remember, the entire area used to be covered in water which would easy facilitate this type of land form.

Some other examples of naturally occuring sink holes:

[Tim Martin]

Speaking of lies, I just read this quote from a young bride.  "I'm from Nebraska so I don't see tornadoes. That's the first tornado I've ever seen," Candra told KAKE.  Cool wedding photos though.

http://tinyurl.com/cc3nk2e

If you believe in omens that can`t bode well for the young couple. Sort of like seeing 100 black cats in the distance.

[Kyle Harris]

I have observed that given time, and left to their own devices, cows make great landforms in pastures. Are these natural?

I love the world aboriginal.

Are you talking about some of the stuff on Bellamy Brothers Road?

[Peter Pallotta]

I think we tend to use as a measuring stick for naturalness too narrow a point of view, in this sense: since none of us are magic, we can't just appear on the first tee, we have to get there, get to the golf course - and usually we get there by driving for many miles. Well, on that drive, we pass landscapes and landforms and natural features and vegetation etc.  And if, when we get to the course, we sense or see or feel that it is cut from the same cloth and expresses the same kinds of landscapes and landforms and natural features and vegetation as that which we have experienced for the last 30 miles, I think we're much more likely to feel/experience the golf course as somehow pleasingly natural, regardless of how much subtle manipulation a good architect has employed to make the site fit for golf.

Peter