I have to respond in all seriousness about how fortunate I am to have this opportunity. There's very few new courses being built in the USA right now, and I get to be Todd Eckenrode's guy in the field as well as being the shaper doing his work? There's more experienced guys out there who would love to be in my shoes, and I understand how special this position is. So, thank you to Todd for the chance and the confidence he has shown throughout. He has been nothing but a pleasure to work with. And, I'm sure Todd will allow me to thank Mike D. here for all the teaching over the years!
It's interesting to look back at the history of this project, as it has involved a lot of entities and changes. It was first batted around in 2006, and it took several ownership changes and a lot of engineering to get this going.
They started to move and import dirt late last year. The site was utilized as a dump site for channel dredging, so there was a little elevation in the middle of the property, but not much. There is somewhere around 1 million cu. yards of soil(clay) being imported to get the minimum level of the property at 4 feet above sea level, and higher. The highest point, once the course is finished, will be around 14 feet above sea level.
Todd, and his Associate, Andy Frank, did an admirable job of getting the dirt in place via a good plan. This is a huge job with lots of equipment and people. There is a lot of constraints because of the proximity to water. One of the things we have been mandated to do is make the minimum elevation of every green no less than 9 feet above sea level. That is based on a 100 year flood event(storm surge or rainfall). The challenge for me is to make that 9 feet level look different around the course. Sometimes it looks like an at-grade green, sometimes it looks like a perched green, and sometimes it looks like a green benched into a landform. Variety isn't what we had in the property, but we can create the illusion.
There's an area of the property with some mature pines and live oaks that Todd utilized to route many holes in and out of. It creates a very intimate feeling in that area.
I will try to get an electronic version of the routing from Todd, and then we'll get some pictures posted.Taking pictures of dirt during the rough shaping phase is brutally difficult to get it to show anything, but we'll see what we have. I may take JC up on his implicit offer to put the pictures up!
If you want to look at the property via Google maps, it's just northeast of the I-210 bridge on the west side of Lake Charles. There is an existing casino(L'auberge) w/ a Fazio course immediately to the east. This property is basically a peninsula, and the golf course is being shaped very closely to the water in places.
Thanks for the interest, and I hope that, once done, there will be nothing quite so fun to play anywhere in Louisiana!
Joe