Siting of the Maintenance Building at Sand Hills

[Tyler Kearns]

RJ,

Thanks for the info, a good lesson on building golf courses in the sandhills.

TK

[Dan Herrmann]

I've had my one bucket list round at Sand Hills, and I couldn't have cared less about such mundane things.

The entire club is just so damn great that I wouldn't have even noticed the building.

(By club, I mean people (staff), facilities, golf course, wow factor, etc)

[Josh_Mahar]

The tee that provides the view of the maintenance shed was an add-on tee later in the construction.  I don't believe the building can be seen from the "original" intended teeing areas.  Is it an oversight? I guess it depends on how picky you are but C&C must have thought that tee was worth "viewing" the maintenance shed.  You have to remember there was nothing out there- so they had to start somewhere with a "place" to get the project off the ground.   Also the maintenance shed houses two huge generators that power the irrigation system and provide standby power to the cabins/ clubhouse.  So it needed to be a large, tall building. Guess they missed the roof height by a couple of feet which I will give them a pass on that early in the project.

[Tyler Kearns]

Josh,

Thanks for the explanation, I had no idea the very back tee at #4 was a later addition to the course.  Obviously, the maintenance building was already in place and nothing could be done to shield it from view. 

Case closed.

TK

[Carl Rogers]

The roof color is part of the problem...
The building height is part of the problem ...

The building probably could have been sunk into the ground a few feet to lower its impact w/ a native grass roof.  You could probably make it disappear.

I see it as an unfortunate oversight probably executed by course management w/o professional help.  If you own a world class facility there are no "irrelevant details".  That is very harsh, but Sand Hills is not $35 golf.

[RJ_Daley]

Carl, do you think the sand hill soil is conducive to sinking a commercial facility foundation and essentially a basement very deep in order to hide it?  Wasn't the whole idea of Sand Hills GC project to find, route and construct a course with minimal cost and disturbance?  I'll bet Josh could tell us basically if the electric generation infrastructure, building construction and such was more expensive than routing and seeding the whole darn golf course.  No it isn't a $35 golf course, but would it have even commenced as a project with extra costs just to bury a facility or hide it so well as to never distress the virgin eye with a glimpse of man-made structures? 

A sod roofed facility, in deed!   

[Carl Rogers]

Carl, do you think the sand hill soil is conducive to sinking a commercial facility foundation and essentially a basement very deep in order to hide it?  Wasn't the whole idea of Sand Hills GC project to find, route and construct a course with minimal cost and disturbance?  I'll bet Josh could tell us basically if the electric generation infrastructure, building construction and such was more expensive than routing and seeding the whole darn golf course.  No it isn't a $35 golf course, but would it have even commenced as a project with extra costs just to bury a facility or hide it so well as to never distress the virgin eye with a glimpse of man-made structures? 

A sod roofed facility, in deed!   

If Sand Hills is what name implies then sand is easy to sink a building ....
Being an Architect as in buildings, everything I said is quite reasonable.  I am suprised that the approach I outlined isn't executed more often.  It would be easier to hide a building that to create an object (a building) in such a pristine landscape would compromise or blight the landscape.

[RJ_Daley]

Yeah, well I guess in consideration of your points, they did -back in the day- manage to dig a few holes in the sand out there for ICBM silos... 

[Dan Herrmann]

Carl,
But from what I saw, Sand Hills isn't "Augusta" either - nor do I think they want to be that way.