This was the feedback from Ron Whitten and Tommy Naccarato. Note: Ron had me #5 and Tommy had me #1. I'd love to hear Mike's feedback as well if he gets a chance. Thanks.
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Whitten- ENTRY 22
Practice range is aligned to the south, avoiding any sun issues in morning or evening, but posing some concern about practicing into the prevailing south wind. That can be easily remedied by creating a crescent-shaped tee for the range.
Locating the clubhouse on the far west is a bit of a concern. While the architect wisely starts the opening holes to the south – avoiding the situation where early morning golfers play into the rising sun – the 17th and 18th holes play to the northwest, precisely in the direction of a setting sun for evening summer players. Even worse, the architect incorporates that 18th hole into four of his “sunset loops” and 17 and 18 into three of them.
This designer clearly let the land dictate his routing, with no effort to provide returning nines, which I applaud, but I would like to have seen a halfway house somewhere. I presume that little building by the seventh and 15th greens is the halfway house, but it would have been nice if the architect had clearly pointed that out. I’m okay with only one par 3 on the front nine and three on the back, but since two play north and two play south, I question if a little more variety in their directions couldn’t have been achieved.
My biggest concern with this design is that it concentrates on just two sets of tees, 6,982 yards and 6,546 yards, both far too long for average members who will be playing this course the most. I assume there are forward tees intended, but I cannot find them in this routing, other than the occasional extra red dot. This design also commits the same “error” I’ve found on most other entries. While keeping tee boxes close to previous greens to help make the course walkable and brisk in pace, the architect positions the back tee closest to each previous green. To me, this is wrong, since the back tees are rarely used. The members tee should be the closest tee to each previous green, but I can’t find a single instance on this routing where it is.
In some instances, the architect is using that now-popular method of simply using closely mown turf around a green as the teeing area for the next hole. While I should hope that he/she is providing some flat areas within those closely mown areas for tees, it’s not enough to simply encourage golfer to tee it up where they wish. For handicap purposes (and to comply with the rules of golf), golfers must play from between sets of markers, so regardless of how natural the architect may have intended his teeing areas, the owner/operator will have to clutter it up with markers. And if there’s no clear indication of where the architect intends those markers to be, his design may be at the mercy of a lowly-paid, part-time maintenance worker who goes out early in the morning and tosses down markers willy nilly.
While I admire the cluster concept of the holes closest to the clubhouse (4,5,6 and 18 all sharing a common “fairway”), the lawyer in me does have a bit of concern about how close some of those holes are to one another. The 18th green, for example, is in the shank zone from the fifth tee, and I can envision how golfers – given the nature of the crosswinds on the south – might aim for the 18th fairway from the sixth tee, hoping to ride the wind, and end up hitting someone on 18. Or a tee shot from 18 tee sweeping with the wind well into the sixth fairway and striking a golfer on that hole. Safety has to be the first concern of any golf architect, which is part of the reason why very few architects these days place tee boxes close to previous greens.
Another red flag are the 15th tee directly behind the 14th green and the 17th tee directly behind the 16th green. Both clearly are risks to golfers not paying attention to the group behind them.
Plus, there’s simply the question of congestion. With the eighth and 16th tees so close to one another, and both so close to the seventh and 15th greens, one wonders if this was truly necessary. Seems like it carries the potential of being loud and disruptive to play. Especially if that is indeed the halfway house in the same location.
While I admire the apparent variety in the size and shapes of greens (I say apparent since the plan isn’t that well detailed, even when I zoomed in), I’m not sure that some, like one, two, 12 and 17, aren’t too small, given the windy nature of this site. (I’m sure the architect will contend that the tightly mown surrounds around these greens provide adequate buffer, but I’m not sure members ever buy that.)
Certainly a grand variety in the bunkering. Not sure about the forced carry bunker on nine; makes it hard for high-handicappers to finish the hole. And while I love the idea of a bunker in the center of the 14th green, I’m not sure the long bunker to the left of the green is really necessary. In the sandhills terrain, replacing native rough with sand is sometimes counterproductive. Winter winds will blow that sand away, sometimes covering the green or, worse yet, eroding into the green itself.
I’m not a big fan of alternate fairway holes, because most times one fairway or the other never gets used and is eventually abandoned. On the par-5 sixth, I don’t see the advantage to playing down the left fairway, unless perhaps the closely mown area to the left of the green cants down toward the green and thus serves as a backboard for second shots played from the left. But if that’s the case, the green is just as easily accessible in two from the right-hand fairway. This is one of many that I think looks great on paper, but as a practical matter doesn’t work, and eventually the owner would quit maintaining the left-hand fairway to save money.
CONCLUSIONS TO ENTRY 22: Graphics look great, and the routing clearly attempts to draw the best out of the land. But there are serious safety issues that give me pause, and the architect does not seem a bit concerned with accommodating the average high-handicapper, who will make up the majority of the play on this course. If this architect were hired, I’d urge him to relocate tee boxes to eliminate potential dangers and lawsuits and add more forward tees, ideally at different angles, to make the course more playable for high handicappers.
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Naccarrato
ACC22
A well thought out routing with lot of creativity and shared fairways—a big plus!
While there is an over-abundance of sand in use, in a lot of places its shared and they’re HUGE and that for me works! With your routing, it is the best of the lot and I think its ultimately the best sand hills course of the contestants. It reminds me of something Gil Hanse would design!
Congratulations!