Tommy Naccarrato says:
While I’m not a great believer in formula, especially when it comes to pristine sand hills property, your first hole is a good hole, but not as an opener. It would be open to a lot of ridicule from those overplaying either side of the fairway, and the second hole is much the same. Your relying on to many high points and losing the beauty of the land!
I really enjoyed the seriousness of the 6th, which seems like a classic reverse Redan with a very intelligent drop off towards the back, instilling the fear needed in many one-shot holes today. The 7th is a great golf hole in its simplicity, use of land and use of bunkers. You didn’t need to over do it here and you accomplished what many others haven’t on that one hole alone!
I’m not a fan of #8. Your simply getting goofy on what seems to be some really good land at your disposal., but you get back on tract with the 9th, and the once again GREAT use of terrain at your disposal, while not needing some goofy bunkers placed everywhere to decorate.
I think you blew a great “Dell” opportunity—you almost got it at the 17th.
Great job though! Some of the holes are perfect for the site!
Ron Whitten says:
First practice range I’ve seen among the entries that didn’t face east or west. This one faces south, and while that’s directly into the prevailing wind, I think most player prefer to warm up into a facing wind rather than a crosswind. Since the architect failed to provide a scale to his diagram, I am left to guess at the dimensions of the range, but it appears to me to be no more than 250 yards deep (Certainly it’s not as long as any of his tee shot-lines on the diagram) but over 200 yards wide. Perhaps he’s assuming a strong facing wind will blunt all practice tee shots all the time? My suggestion would be to length and narrow the range, and provide a crescent tee so golfers could adjust to wind conditions.
The architect provided generally three tee boxes per hole, and while it’s not overly long from the back tees (short, in fact, by today’s standards) the regular tee marker length at 6,600 yards is extremely long for average golfers. (Barney Adams’s research on “Tee it Forward” suggests a 6,400 yard course requires an average drive of 250 yards to play each hole in regulation. The average golfer does not average anywhere near that length.) I’d like to see the scorecard show one more measurement, a combination of White and Red tees, that measures around 6,100 yards for average players. Has to be designated on the scorecard – and played – for handicap purposes.
Also, while the architect tried hard to position tee boxes close to previous greens to make the course walkable, he (like most other entrants) placed the back tees closest to those previous greens, even though back tees are rarely used. My preference is to see the regular tees closest to previous greens. Position back tees off in the distance, back over one’s shoulder. To really make a course walkable for most members – and quickly played – put the regular tees close to greens.
My personal feeling is that the best golf holes are those that look and play differently from each tee box on a hole. Unfortunately, this architect basically aligned each tee box in echelon on each hole. With so much width available on this site, I would have liked to have seen some vastly different angles presented by varying the tee box locations on each hole. (I do not the architect proposed in his written report to extend the first fairway back toward the tee and adding a forward tee near the practice putting green. This would clearly change the angle of attack for forward tee players and, on occasion, would make a neat challenge for skilled players. (Would they dial back and hit iron off the tee, or crank it up and attempt to drive the green on the opening hole?)
While the designer has clearly provided for lots of ground-game shots, allowing for rolling approaches into greens, bounce banks near some greens and chipping hollows below several putting surfaces, it didn’t seem to provide as many options off the tee as I would have liked to have seen on this site. I should point out that I’m not a fan of dual fairway holes, as I’ve found that most often, one fairway or the other goes entirely unused (and is eventually abandoned) because there’s no strategic reason to use one fairway on certain days and another fairway on other days. I see that here on the par-5 third hole, where the architect splits the fairway with a bunker, posing the option of playing down the right-hand side to set up a long second shot over native ground to reach the green in two. But, as he pointed out in his written support, that’s apparently around a 200-yard carry in the air, not something most golfers at this course will likely try, particularly with a prevailing south wind. The percentages are to play up the left side, even though the axis of the green is aligned with the right-hand fairway. The architect suggests that placing a large bunker on a direct line to the green will encourage golfers to attempt to play up the right-side and go for the green in two. (This is the theory that Jim Engh does on a lot of his par 5s. A bunker well short of the green foreshortens the carry and encourages more golfers to go for it.) The question still remains, just how many golfers will really take the bait and play up the right side. (Since the forward tee is to the left, no one from that tee will intentionally play to the right.) As it stands now, it looks good on paper but probably doesn’t work as a practical matter. There needs to be something more – a different green configuration, I should think – to make golfers use one side of the hole on some days and the other side on other days. Of course, the architect is probably thinking that’s not his intention. That the right hand fairway is for gamblers and the left-hand fairway is for meek players. But he must realize that once he leaves the property, the owner will observe play, and if the right-side fairway goes unused, sooner or later, to cut costs (an important issue these days), he’ll end up not maintaining the right-hand fairway). I’ve seen it happen to courses designed by Bill Coore, among others. Theory is one thing; practice something else entirely.
An even more obvious situation is the short par-4 eighth. Why would anyone play up the left-hand fairway on this hole? The average golfer, who can’t reach the top of the hill, isn’t going to play that line and leave a longer second shot. The good player will be going for the green. That left-hand fairway would quickly be converted back to native, with a savings in irrigation and mowing costs of $10,000 or more per year. Want to save that dual fairway? Position the green in the center. Then some players will go left or right, depending upon the hole location. (And some will try to carry the bunkers and reach the green from the tee.)
Not quite sure why the architect used the dip on the ninth hole as his landing area. (He’s the second architect to do so.) It’s hard to say from this topo how deep that depression is (on the real topo, I read it at about 20 feet), but he then positions the ninth green below the plateau fairway (again, 20 feet below). So the result is a hole where your drive is blind (rolling down into a hollow) and from there it’s up over a plateau to a blind green. Not my kind of golf hole, particularly when there was plenty of room to go elsewhere.
I applaud the architect for providing a variety of green contours (as shown on his yardage guide) and especially like to see his “simple” par-4 15th, with no bunkers but, as he says, the largest and wildest green on the course. Despite the fact that two friends dubbed it a filler hole, I think it’s a marvelous hole, because it’s trying to use the natural landforms to affect strategy and protect hole locations with green contours instead of bunkers. Too many architects rely far too much on bunkers on every single hole to pose shot situations. It’s refreshing to see a bunkerless hole. Plus, it’s a good balance. Fairly benign tee shot, but an exacting second to a huge, undulating green.
CONCLUSIONS TO ENTRY 17: Actually a very good routing, positioned so that golfers face a different wind condition on nearly every hole (only 12 and 13 play consecutively in the same direction). Good variety in the par 3s, one a pitch shot, another a strong 220-yards into a quartering southwind, but two of them play in precisely the same direction. Not a good thing, especially on this site where there is so much room. Would like to have seen more variety in the par 5s. Two play east, two play west, all involve crosswinds. Don’t have a problem with back-to-back par 5s at two and three, but operators might. That’s likely to clog up play early in many rounds. If this architect were to be hired, I’d urge him to re-examine his eighth and ninth holes, and consider moving the clubhouse to the position where he placed the villas.