AAC III- Final Results Posted

[Alex Miller]

I'm going to post just the routings. Contestants, please refrain from giving away which is yours for now (the time will come).


#4



#7



#13



#16



#17



#19



#21



#22

[Garland Bayley]

#4 Care to add up the green to tee walking distance to the standard tees?

Subtitle: low greens and high tees. High tea is good if you're British and get hungry in the afternoon. High tee is not good if you are playing golf.

[Alex Miller]

#4 Care to add up the green to tee walking distance to the standard tees?

Subtitle: low greens and high tees. High tea is good if you're British and get hungry in the afternoon. High tee is not good if you are playing golf.

I'll be a little critical: I think #4 and #21 are weaker than the rest in green to tee transition. Given the nature of the site, I don't think anything >50 yards should really be seen from the edge of the green to at least one of the next tees.


Also of interest, #17 was the only one of the finalists to not have their routing use the land in the bottom center-right of the property.

[Chris Johnston]

Hey, they all finish where they start?  Everyone knows that's so yesterday.  Give me a lariat!

On a serious note...nice work guys.

[Alex Miller]

Hey, they all finish where they start?  Everyone knows that's so yesterday.  Give me a lariat!

On a serious note...nice work guys.

Interestingly only 4/8 have returning 9's...

[Brett_Morrissy]

I think the 4/8 returning nines has some basis in one of the key criteria - to provide the sunset golf in a meaningful way.

[Brett_Morrissy]

I for one, spent way too long on this little project, but I loved it and this is why I spent the time I did. I taught myself some new skills on the computer at the same time - so I used some graphics, but it was very intentional as I really struggled to 'explain' my design and routing as a routing map only. This is not a criticism, but if we had have been able to submit the whole proposal in the first round of voting, then I could have got away with far less 'graphics and fancy stuff', as I could explain it more in descriptions, but of course this may have proved too much information - so the one pager it was.

I also, consciously, put my preceived "head of the firm" - architect's hat on - what I mean by this is, I wanted to win this 'job', so in the real world, all things being equal, I assume, most firms will do whatever they can to get the job - if they really want. I really wanted it! 

So, I dont think the amount of work put into some of the proposals should be criticised becuase they did not keep it basic - this was not part of the critieria or brief. It is also meant to be a fun competition, a bit like I hoped my golf layout would be. Entry #18 made my top 5, but almost missed out becuase it did not adhere to one of the strict critieria - entry NOT from the West - and certainly would have been more appealing if not on the brown background, making it a little harder to decipher contours and FW, green and tee lines, etc I am sure the ones with grey pencil only, have a green and yellow pencil in the house or office. Would you seriously present something like that to a client (which was the brief) and expect to win the job?

Of the top 8 - The most votes went to the one drawn in pencil. The least to the strong "on steriods" graphics one. So that either tells you of a bias or anti-bias? - but I think all the routings are good, #4 lost points with me becuase of the transitions - but it had some great holes.

Jim mentioned the ALL STAR snub - I think the one I liked the most but didnt vote for was #23 - but with no yardage, no pars, no acc &and I didnt like the range in the centre (and many of the tee shots looked to be 300 yards - that didnt compute for me) - knocked it out of contention for me.... but 5/5 for the drawing, tee box design and a great stick routing. also really liked the set of p3's. 

[Jim Colton]

#4 Care to add up the green to tee walking distance to the standard tees?

Subtitle: low greens and high tees. High tea is good if you're British and get hungry in the afternoon. High tee is not good if you are playing golf.

I'll be a little critical: I think #4 and #21 are weaker than the rest in green to tee transition. Given the nature of the site, I don't think anything >50 yards should really be seen from the edge of the green to at least one of the next tees.


Also of interest, #17 was the only one of the finalists to not have their routing use the land in the bottom center-right of the property.

Alex,
 
 I think 50 yards is a little harsh. I don't mind walking over 50 yards to the next tee...if it's worth it when I get there (and you have an idea of where you're supposed to hit it). Quality of the golf holes has to be the main consideration.

 As this was being discussed, I was working on calculating some green-to-tee distances via this nifty tool called Google Earth. I also tried to consider the gradient between the edge of the green and the start of the next tee box. For the first and last hole, I averaged the walk to and from the clubhouse and counted it as one data point. Call it the Colton Green-To-Tee Index.

 I found myself using Sand Hills and Ballyneal as benchmarks in the design process, so it seems like a good starting point. Both are considered good walking courses.

 What follows is the average adjusted (for slope) walking distance, first without clubhouse, then with clubhouse. This is followed by a distribution of holes by adj distance (0-25 yards, 25-50, 50-75, 75-100, 100-150, 150+)

Sand Hills:   55/71* :  3, 7, 3, 1, 3, 1 (* to and from Ben's Porch)
Ballyneal:    66/76 :  1, 4, 7, 5, 1, 0

 Obviously the site has a lot to do with it, but that should give us some context (I'll probably do DR1 & 2 eventually).

UPDATE:
DR1: 81/91* : 2, 4, 1, 5, 3, 3 (* to and from starter hut)

 
 Now let's look at the finalists:

4 - 95/95 : 0, 3, 5, 5, 2, 3
7 - 46/53: 4, 7, 2, 4, 1, 0
13- 32/36: 9, 5, 3, 1, 0, 0
16- 60/68: 2, 5, 6, 2, 2, 1 (I adjusted for what seemed to be a slightly larger scale. He'd be 66/75 w/o this adjustment)
17- 59/65: 0, 9, 4, 3, 2, 0
19- 44/44: 1, 12, 4, 1, 0, 0
21- 84/98: 1, 3, 6, 2, 5, 1
22 - 28/44: 7, 9, 0, 1, 0, 1

It appears that 13 & 22 rank best in this criteria, while most of the others are in the right ballpark. As Alex pointed out, 4 & 21 are outliers on the high end.


  

[Alex Miller]

Jim,

You're right, 50 yds is a bit harsh. Thanks to the Colton Green-To-Tee Index (TM) I can see that now!

I think 50 yds average is what I've heard as a solid mark, and most of the routings would seem to fall around there.

I will say that as I went through my routing I found dealing with transitions to multiple sets of tees quite challenging. Very hard to appease the masses!

[Brett_Morrissy]

I think Garland said in one of the early posts on the original thread that somewhere between 50-75 yards was ok - further than that was a lot.

[Andy Gray]

Being the creator of entry #18 I was rather embarrassed when I realised I misread the original rules as 'the driveway MUST come from the west' only after submitting my course. Another thing that was disappointing was the appearance of the drawing, it did come out very brown, very much darker than I hoped. But it was too late and I hoped my design would get through either way.

I found I was also drawn to the 'pretty' displays, which probably made me concentrate harder on the more basic drawings to really understand what they were trying to do (rightly or wrongly).

Tee to green walks - I have always remembered the long ones being criticised in this group. I concentrated on making mine as short as possible. The very good courses that I have played in Australia have had short green to tee walks, so these were my bench marks (Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Metropolitan). I did find myself criticising the designs with longer walks at first, but on further consideration I realised I don't actually mind how far I have to walk to the next hole within reason (reason = 100 yds approx) so it became less of a factor in my top 5.

Another important factor to me was balance between the 9's. I found myself more fond of balanced 9's in terms of length, difficulty, originality and creativity. Again, this is an opinion (or even bias?), as this concept of balance has been proven wrong by courses such as Pacific Dunes, which is a spectacularly great course with very unbalanced 9's. I'm not sure, but perhaps balanced 9's would matter less at a resort course compared with a members course?

All in all, this is a great top 8, and I think 4 of my picks made it. I'm very much looking forward to discussing each one in more depth. Well done everyone who entered!

Andy

I for one, spent way too long on this little project, but I loved it and this is why I spent the time I did. I taught myself some new skills on the computer at the same time - so I used some graphics, but it was very intentional as I really struggled to 'explain' my design and routing as a routing map only. This is not a criticism, but if we had have been able to submit the whole proposal in the first round of voting, then I could have got away with far less 'graphics and fancy stuff', as I could explain it more in descriptions, but of course this may have proved too much information - so the one pager it was.

I also, consciously, put my preceived "head of the firm" - architect's hat on - what I mean by this is, I wanted to win this 'job', so in the real world, all things being equal, I assume, most firms will do whatever they can to get the job - if they really want. I really wanted it! 

So, I dont think the amount of work put into some of the proposals should be criticised becuase they did not keep it basic - this was not part of the critieria or brief. It is also meant to be a fun competition, a bit like I hoped my golf layout would be. Entry #18 made my top 5, but almost missed out becuase it did not adhere to one of the strict critieria - entry NOT from the West - and certainly would have been more appealing if not on the brown background, making it a little harder to decipher contours and FW, green and tee lines, etc I am sure the ones with grey pencil only, have a green and yellow pencil in the house or office. Would you seriously present something like that to a client (which was the brief) and expect to win the job?

Of the top 8 - The most votes went to the one drawn in pencil. The least to the strong "on steriods" graphics one. So that either tells you of a bias or anti-bias? - but I think all the routings are good, #4 lost points with me becuase of the transitions - but it had some great holes.

Jim mentioned the ALL STAR snub - I think the one I liked the most but didnt vote for was #23 - but with no yardage, no pars, no acc &and I didnt like the range in the centre (and many of the tee shots looked to be 300 yards - that didnt compute for me) - knocked it out of contention for me.... but 5/5 for the drawing, tee box design and a great stick routing. also really liked the set of p3's. 

[V. Kmetz]

I'm only going to speak to the one I like best for now:

Entry # 19: 

Love the "shoelace/figure 8" routing and the fact that the early holes go W/SW..with the sun at your back.  the tee-to-green walks (an important concern imo) are reasonable (except from 2 to 3) and the layout scrawls around and over the best ground with optimum use of possible wind directions.  The two and three-shot holes are generous in terms of fairway width.  Though the contour lines are covered with the coloring, the presentation is one of the cleanest of these 8 finalists and hole features were pleasantly seen.  There's good balance and differentiation between holes of different sizes as they occur (have "some" concern about the 8, 9, 10 stretch in this regard) My three (3) favorite holes in this design are #7, #13, and #16.  I think this course would be fun to play and I can "see" it in my mind's eye.  the facility is good too, it seems like it makes balanced use of the property and doesn't ramble needlessly to adavantge "every" fine contour.

#s 4 and 21 would be next on my list.

cheers

vk

[Charlie Gallagher]

I want to compliment all of the contestants with routings displayed here. I found all of them imaginative and I loved the variety displayed in problem solving. I find wrestling within the rules of a contest such as this particularly trying because of the extrapolation required from a two dimensional map.

What would be fascinating would be a program that would allow architects in the contest to display finished shaping in a three dimensional perspective.
My compliments again to all who took the time to reason out a design.

[Steve Lang]

  Last AAC folks could use the 3-d Google Sketchup files and tutorials that Charlie Goerges made up, and he graciously took the effort to capture some holes for folks ...

[Garland Bayley]

I think Garland said in one of the early posts on the original thread that somewhere between 50-75 yards was ok - further than that was a lot.

I don't know what you recall. However, Jeff Brauer has said the ASGA "guidelines?" suggest 50 yards as I recall.

[Bill Brightly]

Green-to-tee transitions is a GREAT topic for us to discuss. I've been a member of GCA long enough to know that the treehouse loves nothing more than taking a few steps off a green and teeing it up. I LOVE that about my favorite Tillinghast and MacRaynor courses. This was a point that I stressed with my design partner, an engineer by trade. He worried about safety (the wimp...)

Jeff Brauer probably would agree with this statement: you can't sue an Old Dead Guy but current working architects have to be concerned about liability lawsuits. Sad but true, any time you place a tee inside the suggested ASGA guidelines, the architect probably opens himself up to a potential problem down the road. One of the instructive lessons of this exercise might be if we all envisioned being on the stand answering this question posed by plaintiff's attorney: "So Mr. Armchair Architect, why did you chose to disregard the ASGA guidelines when you built this tee where my client was maimed?"

Of course, that is not much fun to talk about, but it is life in the real world. Although I have not played Ballyneal, it makes me wonder if that is one reason why Tom D. did not build specific tee boxes. Could a possible answer be: "I didn't tell the members where to tee it up, I let them make that decision?" Is that an ingenius way to get around suggested ASGA guidelines?

As a player, I absolutely love the nine 0-25 yard walks on entry #13. But it begs the queston: would a working architect build that many in the US today?

The other thing I learned from this exercise is that when routing a course the architect may be naturally drawn to certain areas/greensites where he absolutely wants to build golf holes. However, when you draw the holes you almost can get locked into certian hole lengths and green-to-tee walks. It is not a simple matter of just going back and adjusting the walks... When we attempted to do this is led us to the conclusion that a significantly different routing would be required and some cool holes would have to be abandoned. As I said on an earlier thread, this has given me a far greater appreciation for modern courses with short walks. It is FAR easier to build a series of really good golf holes if you don't have to worry about the transitions.

[Bruce Katona]

In my quick look, initial reaction is:

13 offers multiple lines of attack on each hole

17 is very copact and nice for walking.

I have no idea where north is or the prevailing wind comes from, so no opinion is offerd on playing into, down cross wind or into the rising or stting sun.

[Steve Lang]

  Bruce,

North is top of page,  one of the entries (#15) had a wind rose on its page, go to thread at

 http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,55174.msg1278109.html#msg1278109


some of those east-west dominant aligned courses are going to be hard slogs in the strong NW or SE winds and bears with crosswinds from the south...   # 7, 16, & 22 might be more like Masochistic Dunes play?  

[Jim Colton]

Steve,

 I thought the operating assumption was similar to Sand Hills...no prevailing wind? If that's the case, then a N-S orientation would suffer just as much.

[Alex Miller]

Steve,

 I thought the operating assumption was similar to Sand Hills...no prevailing wind? If that's the case, then a N-S orientation would suffer just as much.

That was the assumption and I did state that in the original thread. Even so, the wind rose Steve mentions does not completely contradict that as wind comes from a variety of directions. Even if you take some of the largest groupings there still is not what one would call a predominant wind, although from the S and NW are more common than others.

[Steve Lang]

  Here's the subject windrose in a little clearer presentation



Clearly there are prevailing winds, evidenced dramatically by the historic North Platte Airport layout (the fried chicken there is very good)





p.s. thank you voter 13, whomever you are!

[Jim Colton]

So does this debunk the myth that there's no prevailing wind at Sand Hills?

Kyle Franz and I started tracking the wind last summer when we were building the Prairie Club, but soon quit as we rarely had more than two days in a row from the same direction. It can blow from about any direction in this part of Nebrgaska and blow hard. That is why width is so important on these courses. The strongest winds we got were from the west and they were really strong 35-40 mph with gusts higher. It would not be fun to travel all that way and play in a wind like that if the course was narrow.

Thank you, Will. Thank you.

Ten darn years on this website (and its forebearers) trying to explain this to anyone who might listen and now we have actual field research to verify what I've said all along:
            
                                                       There is no prevailing wind in this part of this world...

....and that is why one needs to build wider fairways - to accomodate all wind directions and speeds.... and still make the course playable...

                                 ....and that is the genius of The Sand Hills Golf Club!!!                     




          

[Alex Miller]

Last AAC folks could use the 3-d Google Sketchup files and tutorials that Charlie Goerges made up, and he graciously took the effort to capture some holes for folks ...

And this time Jim Colton expended HOURS putting together video tours. There was even push back from some contestants because video tours were not anticipated when they submitted the entry.


You can't appease everyone, but PLEASE be aware of what has actually been posted before you write things like this. The map is oriented north, but the wind rose could say anything and still be irrelevant for the purposes of this contest.


So to clear it up:

Jim put together video tours of every entry. You can see the 3D aspects there (despite push-back).

While Hooker, NE is a real place, the AAC kickoff thread explicitly stated that there would be no prevailing wind for this site, which has had its scale modified in many ways so that it does not exist in reality as it does for this contest.

[V. Kmetz]

where is the fly-by tour located...

how does one access

(sorry I haven't been able to pay fine attention for the last few weeks)

cheers

vk

[V. Kmetz]

Buehler...anyone?