Doak to fix Clayton?

[Hugh Griffin]

I see Tom Doak has recently been announced as the new consulting architect for Royal Adelaide with his first job to fix the 17th hole.

Extract below is from the media release which can be found here: http://www.planetgolfusa.com/index.php?id=1793

RAGC General Manager Andrew Gay said Mr Doak’s first priority was to address the course’s 17th hole, which had been identified as a concern during membership consultation and as part of the club’s long-term planning.

“Our members gave very clear feedback that the 17th hole is not in keeping with the rest of Royal Adelaide...,” Mr Gay said.

For those that don't know the 17th hole is the "newest" on the course having been changed back in 2010 by Mike Clayton as part of a full course master plan. Long story short it is very different to the rest of the course, resulting in a membership backlash and suspension of the rest of the master plan, and now it seems Doak has been brought in to "fix" it.

An excellent analysis of the saga from a while ago can be found here: http://www.planetgolf.com/index.php?id=1536

Personally I think the 17th is a good hole but agree with all the points from the link above. It is vastly different from the rest of the course (wild bunkers and a large, very undulating green) and A graders can bomb it over the bunker pretty easy (it plays predominantly down wind and markers are constantly at the front of the tee block), whilst the B & C graders have to go around. However without seeing the master plan or other changes implemented i find it hard for anyone to criticize the hole on its own merits, particularly if they used the back of the current tee block not just the front.

It will be interesting to see what plans Tom has for this hole, and indeed the rest of the course. I assume he won't be asking Mike if he can take a look at his 2010 master plan??

[Patrick_Mucci]

I see Tom Doak has recently been announced as the new consulting architect for Royal Adelaide with his first job to fix the 17th hole.

Extract below is from the media release which can be found here: http://www.planetgolfusa.com/index.php?id=1793

RAGC General Manager Andrew Gay said Mr Doak’s first priority was to address the course’s 17th hole, which had been identified as a concern during membership consultation and as part of the club’s long-term planning.

“Our members gave very clear feedback that the 17th hole is not in keeping with the rest of Royal Adelaide...,” Mr Gay said.

For those that don't know the 17th hole is the "newest" on the course having been changed back in 2010 by Mike Clayton as part of a full course master plan. Long story short it is very different to the rest of the course, resulting in a membership backlash and suspension of the rest of the master plan, and now it seems Doak has been brought in to "fix" it.

Didn't the members approve the design/project in 2010 before a spade was put into the ground.

Why did they endorse the 17th in 2010 and reject it in 2012 ?

An excellent analysis of the saga from a while ago can be found here: http://www.planetgolf.com/index.php?id=1536

Personally I think the 17th is a good hole but agree with all the points from the link above. It is vastly different from the rest of the course (wild bunkers and a large, very undulating green) and A graders can bomb it over the bunker pretty easy (it plays predominantly down wind and markers are constantly at the front of the tee block), whilst the B & C graders have to go around. However without seeing the master plan or other changes implemented i find it hard for anyone to criticize the hole on its own merits, particularly if they used the back of the current tee block not just the front.

And it took the members over two years to figure that out ?

Did anyone within the membership question the design in 2010 ?

It will be interesting to see what plans Tom has for this hole, and indeed the rest of the course. I assume he won't be asking Mike if he can take a look at his 2010 master plan??

Is that the same one that the members approved ?

This is where I go back to the concept that it's the memberships responsibility to be the stewards, the curators of the golf course.

Exactly when did it dawn on them that what they asked for and received, wasn't what they wanted ?

[Sean Walsh]

I see Tom Doak has recently been announced as the new consulting architect for Royal Adelaide with his first job to fix the 17th hole.
.....
It will be interesting to see what plans Tom has for this hole, and indeed the rest of the course. I assume he won't be asking Mike if he can take a look at his 2010 master plan??

I have never been to Royal Adelaide and have no knowledge of the inner workings of the club other than reading the links you offered and your own contribution.

Unless things have changed I think Mike and Tom get on pretty well and have a similar view of what is good golf architecture.  I'm sure Mike would be disappointed at losing what is a reasonably prestigious contract, however it appears the writing was on the wall. From what I've read about RA there's no reason it shouldn't be challenging the top 5 courses in Australia. Perhaps Mike has been pragmatic and still has enough support on the board to have had some input into his successor, a person he may believe is likely to want to open up the course in a similar manner to himself. I'd be surprised if Tom and Mike's recommendations were drastically different in style if not in the detail.

Of course I could be totally wrong.   

[Scott Warren]

"Fix" is an unfortunate word to use given the highly subjective nature of the subject.

[David_Elvins]

"Fix" is an unfortunate word to use given the highly subjective nature of the subject.

Unlike you to be calling for a more delicate use of the English language, Scott.

[Hugh Griffin]

I don't think "fix" is an unfortunate word to use, inflammatory perhaps

Whilst i don't necessarily believe the 17th needs to be fixed i think we can be reasonably certain that given the time line of events that have occurred at RA in regards to the 17th the club does beleive it needs to be fixed.

I agree with Sean too. Whilst I don't know Tom or Mike or how they get along i would be surprised if their architecture ideas, at least at a core, were vastly different, so the basic direction of what they see as being needed at Royal Adelaide would also be similar.

I am not a member, nor am i privy to any of the clubs inner workings but it does strike me that the membership and committee should be taking most of the blame for these events. It seems someone had the "balls" to agree to the major reworks initially only to find out they don't posses said balls after all...

[David_Elvins]

Whilst i don't necessarily believe the 17th needs to be fixed i think we can be reasonably certain that given the time line of events that have occurred at RA in regards to the 17th the club does beleive it needs to be fixed.

I will go out on a limb and say that the 17th needs to be fixed.  It is not a bad hole but to me Royal Adelaide is all about intimacy -it is a wonderfully intimate course and whilst it isn't cramped, the way the routing moves around the clubhouse and keeps the course feeling small is fantastic and relatively unique.  The grand scale of the hole is out of place with the rest of the course.

Whilst I really like a lot of Clayton's work, my personal opinion would be that their Masterplan at Royal Adelaide was far too big in scope.  Whilst making the course more like the one MacKenzie designed is a wonderful theory, in the 85 years since MacKenzie visited, the course has taken on a unique feel of it's own.  It is unlike any other place in Australian (or world) golf and I think that should never be lost.  Whilst the Clayton masterplan would have made the course more like a MacKenzie course, which is a noble ambition, it probably also would have made it more like some of Clayton's other courses. 

Green complexes like 7, 8 and 12 are simple but wonderfully so and have their place in golf, IMO. 

If, after having a go at 17, Doak moved on to removing the fairly awful influence of TWP on the course, it would be a great benefit to the course, again IMO. 

[Connor Dougherty]

My recollection from when I was there was that the 17th was built as a "test hole" to give the membership a sense of the work Clayton suggested if they decided to go through with it. I think the hole was close to being good, but the bunker was far too big. When me and my father played there, my father found himself picking between a 15 yard wide alley on the left and a 10 yard alley on the far right (these are estimates). I managed to blast a driver to the wide fairway making it a pretty simple drive.

I loved the green complex, but the tee shot was far too polarizing. Had there been 20 more yards of room on the left, or if the bunker had been set at more of an angle to the tee shot, I think the hole may still be there and membership may be going through with the rest of Clayton's plans.

[Tim_Weiman]

David,

I was very interested to read your comments about Royal Adelaide. "Intimacy" seems like a comment nobody talks about these days. Perhaps it is a casualty of the golf technology arms race, at least that is what I have suspected.

Sounds like the issues the club has struggled with would be an interesting case study. Wish I could see it for myself.

[Tom_Doak]

I was contacted by Royal Adelaide via Royal Melbourne, and asked if I would come and give a second opinion on the 17th hole, because the change had been so controversial that the club was at an impasse on how to proceed.  I had hoped that I might offer some suggestions that would smooth things over and get them back on track, but did not realize until after I was there how polarized the club had become ... I was too late to help in that regard.  I refused to take on the assignment last summer, but they re-approached us again three months ago and Brian Slawnik volunteered that he would be happy to help them out, and he will be the perfect guy to help them.

I agree with most all of what David Elvins said about the hole and about the course in general.  In hindsight, I think that the club did not have a clear mission statement when they engaged Michael for the work, but the goal they communicated [to make it the best course in Australia!] would have required major changes that they really weren't prepared to make.  The course really does have a character of its own, and I think this can be strengthened and a lot of the details [mowing lines, tees, bunker shapes] improved without the total makeover that their master plan called for.  But, as Hugh suggests, it's hard to understand why they approved the Master Plan in the first place when they never seemed to want to make changes on such a large scale.  That's the sort of situation that is created when committees keep changing.

[Sean Leary]

Whilst i don't necessarily believe the 17th needs to be fixed i think we can be reasonably certain that given the time line of events that have occurred at RA in regards to the 17th the club does beleive it needs to be fixed.

I will go out on a limb and say that the 17th needs to be fixed.  It is not a bad hole but to me Royal Adelaide is all about intimacy -it is a wonderfully intimate course and whilst it isn't cramped, the way the routing moves around the clubhouse and keeps the course feeling small is fantastic and relatively unique.  The grand scale of the hole is out of place with the rest of the course.

Whilst I really like a lot of Clayton's work, my personal opinion would be that their Masterplan at Royal Adelaide was far too big in scope.  Whilst making the course more like the one MacKenzie designed is a wonderful theory, in the 85 years since MacKenzie visited, the course has taken on a unique feel of it's own.  It is unlike any other place in Australian (or world) golf and I think that should never be lost.  Whilst the Clayton masterplan would have made the course more like a MacKenzie course, which is a noble ambition, it probably also would have made it more like some of Clayton's other courses. 

Green complexes like 7, 8 and 12 are simple but wonderfully so and have their place in golf, IMO. 

If, after having a go at 17, Doak moved on to removing the fairly awful influence of TWP on the course, it would be a great benefit to the course, again IMO. 

A really good post David....

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak,

Agree about the dilemma created by changing committees.

Two, three or four years from now a changed committee could undo your work.

Do you ever consider inserting an "artistic license" clause in your contracts, indicating that your design work can't be altered for X years ?

Do you know of anyone who uses an "artistic license" clause ?

[Rich Goodale]

Isn't fixing a bit harsh?  I know that my childhood pet golden retriever didn't like it one bit....

[David_Elvins]

David,

I was very interested to read your comments about Royal Adelaide. "Intimacy" seems like a comment nobody talks about these days. Perhaps it is a casualty of the golf technology arms race, at least that is what I have suspected.

Sounds like the issues the club has struggled with would be an interesting case study. Wish I could see it for myself.

Tim,  

The club has had some issue with technology.  In preparation for Australian Opens in the 80s and 90s incredibly bad changes were made to the course - tees in terrible places, poorly constructed bunkers where the ground did not suit bunkers, and awful looking mounds.

However I think the lack of intimacy in courses these days has as much to do with the Golf Architecture arms race as the technology arms race.  To have an intimate course, you need a site that is relatively flat.  The more golf courses I play, the more I think that the ideal site for a golf course is a lot flatter than everyone thinks it is.  Once you start building in big dunes or on a site with a lot of features, it is hard to have intimacy and a lot of significant golf courses these days start off with a dramatic 'all world' site.  

The routing at Royal Adelaide is pretty amazing IMO.  The clubhouse is in the middle of the site, the furthest point on the site from the clubhouse -the 10th tee - is only 680 yards away.  A few hundred metres west of the clubhouse is a large dune and the course routing plays to and from the clubhouse and dune repeatedly.  

1 plays away from the clubhouse and 2 plays back to it, then 3 skirts the dune, then 4 plays out of the dune and 5 continues away, then 6 plays back to the dune, then 7 is a par 3 in the dune then 8 plays out of the dune and 9 and 10 skirt around the dune before 11 plays up into the heart of the dune, 12 plays out of the dune and 13 plays to the clubhouse, 14 plays past the clubhouse and then 15-18 loops back to the clubhouse.  

Australian courses do not do old world charm the way the older American courses do.  Royal Adelaide comes closest.  

[Mike_Clayton]

We made it very clear that the hole would be somewhat 'out of character' because the plan was in part about recapturing the spirit of the MacKenzie map he drew for the club when he was there.

The bunker style he drew was much different from the many pot bunkers that had infested the course over time.

We had a good plan to 'fix' the hole and it addressed the issue of not so much room left off the tee and too short a carry for the long hitters.

If Tom does something like that it should be one of the best holes on the course.

It was a great example of why you should not do a 'test hole' or at least not one that is going to be remotely controversial.
We will not fall into that trap again.

[JC Urbina]

Mike,

Isn't better to be up front with the club even as you say the hole is a "bit out of character"  It appears that the overall Master Plan was in the spirit of Mackenzie, did they not embrace the history of the club?

[Mike_Clayton]

Jim

They had paid no attention to the look and feel of MacKenzie's drawing- in fact they had gone off in a completely different direction.

[Bart Bradley]

I have more mixed feelings than most on this issue.

First, for those who have not seen it, the 17th hole as a stand alone is not a bad hole.  It has a wonderful and interesting green (one of the best currently found on the course).  The aesthetics are quite cool too.

Second, the hole does not fit with the rest of the course as currently exists...something which was made quite clear to the members before the hole was built.  The "controversial" tee shot is only so for a certain group of players from certain tee boxes.  I agree that the "problems" of the tee shot could be remedied fairly easily with small tweaks described by Mike.

The more troublesome point, however, is that the club must decide (and perhaps now they have) whether they wish to embrace the style found in the Mackenzie drawings or to stay with the current grassing and bunkering style which exists on the other 17 holes.  The current 17th is the most disharmonious hole I have ever seen...but please understand that I'd probably love an 18 hole course with the features found on that hole.

I didn't take lots of pictures but here goes, check out the difference in bunker styles


The 17th as I saw it in March:



The bunkering style found elsewhere:



Anyway, I wanted to chime in and say that while I agree that the club must make a choice, it isn't as though the 17th, in and of itself, is so bad.

Bart

[Patrick_Mucci]

They had paid no attention to the look and feel of MacKenzie's drawing- in fact they had gone off in a completely different direction.

Bradley, et., al.,

Doesn't this say it all ?

I wonder what the next committee's tastes will be ?

[David_Elvins]

Bradley, et., al.,
Doesn't this say it all ?
I wonder what the next committee's tastes will be ?

Can you expand on this Pat, I am not sure what you are trying to say.