[Jason Thurman]

I've got a few:

1. Cart paths down the middle of the fairway - We don't talk about them much on here, but there are some really boring courses out there with untraditional clienteles where 95% of rounds or more are played in carts. I'm talking about places with crabgrass fairways that cost under $30 to ride, don't require shirts, and have basically zero architectural merit but keep plenty of beer stocked in their pro shop. I'd love to see one of these courses just put the cart path right down the middle of the fairway. Not only would it potentially speed up play by making the drive to the ball more direct, but it'd also be a really fun turbo-boost for balls hit right down the middle. Moe Norman would've loved it.

2. Hogan's Dream Course - Instead of designing 18 holes, how about just one really long one? A cross-country golf trail where you tee off from one location and play shots to traverse about 7000 yards until you reach the lone green on the course at the end and putt out. I think it would work best on a swampy site, as lots of little islands could present targets of different distances so that it's not just a parade of 3 woods, and it would also introduce some risk/reward as you could try to bypass certain targets by taking on a longer and riskier shot.

3. Skyline Golf Club - In a highly urbanized area like Manhattan, there's no green space for golf courses on the ground. But up in the air? With a gigantic engineering budget and a complex system of nets to ensure pedestrian safety, wouldn't it be cool to play a synthetic course routed from one skyscraper roof to another? This has the potential to completely redefine the Doak 0 and also be the ugliest eyesore from the ground in the history of western civilization - just a hideous network of sun-blocking fake fairways that become exhilarating when playing golf across them.

This is a judgment free zone. The ideas don't have to be practical, or even good (obviously). This is simply a place to share your wildest ideas that have truly never been seen before.

[Mark McKeever]

The floating golf course. 

[DMoriarty]

How about a walking course where you have to take a cart to the first tee and where the 18th tee is nowhere near either the first tee or the clubhouse?


EDIT:  Whoops.  Should read where the 18th green is nowhere near either the first tee or the clubhouse.

[Pete_Pittock]

How about a walking course where you have to take a cart to the first tee and where the 18th tee is nowhere near either the first tee or the clubhouse?

Doak's Black Forest at Wilderness Valley near Gaylord, MI?

[Bill Seitz]

How about a walking course where you have to take a cart to the first tee and where the 18th tee is nowhere near either the first tee or the clubhouse?

Greywalls?  Though I suppose the 18th green isn't that far from the first tee, at least horizontally.

[Adrian_Stiff]

How about a hole that plays over the corner of a hotel...thats totally ridiculous and definetly stupid!!!

[Joe Bausch]

A course where teeing grounds are not level or nearly level.

(why do we expect a flat lie on our first shot but not on others??)

[Steve Lang]

How about a walking course where you have to take a cart to the first tee and where the 18th tee is nowhere near either the first tee or the clubhouse?

Doak's Black Forest at Wilderness Valley near Gaylord, MI?

Pete,

The Black Forest is walkable, done it a couple of times,… but its not really a walking course in any good sense, other than walking back to clubhouse from 18 via the Valley Course holes  

Happy New Year

[DMoriarty]

The leader in the clubhouse for at least the past decade has to be the Shivas Flyer Strip.   If I recall correctly the concept was to strategically place strips or patches of rough in the ideal landing areas. Not deep rough, but flyer rough, so that the better longer hitter who found the "flyer strip" would be unable to control the spin and thus would have trouble controlling his/her approach and keeping the ball on a firm green.

It was only my second favorite Shivas outside-the-box idea of all time.  But my favorite didn't directly involve architecture.

[Carl Johnson]

The leader in the clubhouse for at least the past decade has to be the Shivas Flyer Strip.   If I recall correctly the concept was to strategically place strips or patches of rough in the ideal landing areas. Not deep rough, but flyer rough, so that the better longer hitter who found the "flyer strip" would be unable to control the spin and thus would have trouble controlling his/her approach and keeping the ball on a firm green.

It was only my second favorite Shivas outside-the-box idea of all time.  But my favorite didn't directly involve architecture.

DMoriarty: O.K, what was it?  Please.  The fact that it did not directly involve architecture is irrelevant, which you as a super senior member well know.

[Joe Leenheer]

Cart paths down middle?  How many golfers hit the ball down the middle?  

I like the Cross Country Golf Course….maybe 3 or 4 holes instead of just one.  Couple Double Greens….let me know when you get the funding and land and I will volunteer my Architectural services.  

Roof Top Golf….don't they have that already….didn't Phil Mickelson or Tommy Two-Gloves design a course somewhere?  I think Callaway was involved somehow as well.  

How about sub-terranium lighting that allows courses to be played at night.  Or light posts that rise out of the ground at night so that they are not an eye soar during the day.  If I owned Pebble Beach (or any other place with a full tee sheet and hight greens fees) I would seriously consider this as just lighting the last few holes would allow for more tee times and more $$$.  Definite ROI.

[Pete_Pittock]

Don't build greens. Define a green as within 10 yards of the hole. Mow that defined green area daily, but on a day by day basis, move the 10 yard diameter green area around within a set of with haphazard hazards.

It would likely save more than #1 in construction costs.
Lower maintenance costs because you're mowing a much smaller acreage.
Takes away the premium on putting, also with lowering green speeds.
Speeds up play because the longest putt would be about 25 feet long.

[David Harshbarger]

Golf course with representations of Mayans, the Great Wall, and Noodles? Check

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/21/sport/golf/golf-china-crazy-golf-mission-hills/

[David_Elvins]

Owner engages architect and lets him build the course without interference.

[DMoriarty]

DMoriarty: O.K, what was it?  Please.  The fact that it did not directly involve architecture is irrelevant, which you as a super senior member well know.

My friend Shivas isn't here to defend himself and his posts have gone with him. Since I may have my facts wrong I think I'll have to decline to get into it.  I will say that Shivas is certainly one who wasn't afraid to think out of the box.  Other than that, sorry for bringing it up.

[BCrosby]

On courses in industrial areas, place rolls of barbed wire or scrap metal at the sides of fw's. Think of it as the American Rustbelt answer to gorse.

Route holes so that maintenance sheds are in play. They currently waste a lot of land.

Place cartpaths at greensides or near ideal LZ's. (Cartpaths are a huge investment. Someday an architect is going to figure out a non-ironical way to use them in his designs and make himself rich and famous in the process. You heard it hear first. )  

Short par 4 where the strategic play is to hit your drive over the green.

Use soils native to an area in bunkers, such as clay in the SE, loamy soil in the NE. If it bakes out in the summer or puddles up in the winter, play it as you find it. It's a hazard, no?

Instead of man-made ponds in the SE, grow kudzu, or the equivalent nasty vine native to other areas.

Build a 8200 yard course if it will host a PGA event. The pros will be forced to hit mid-irons into par 4's. Hold the phone. That's too radical. Forget I mentioned it.

Bob

[Peter Pallotta]

A par 4 that's wider than it is long, with a 1920s green running 8 on the stimp. Width until you're sick of it; so much width that it becomes target golf, the vast majority of width no more than eye candy as there is only one angle in that results in a birdie putt.

Peter

[Garland Bayley]

30ft high parallel dunes with 12 paces width at the bottom between them. Mow the bottom and call it fairway. Build the smallest greens imaginable at the end of holes in the trough. Make two holes. One ball buster long par 4, the other a drivable (assuming of course anyone can land a drive in that trough with the wind coming off the ocean) par 4.

[Will Lozier]

A course where teeing grounds are not level or nearly level.

(why do we expect a flat lie on our first shot but not on others??)

Joe,

I think Chambers Bay is where Jones decided he'd try this (not aware of other intentional efforts) - free form in overhead shape and in humps and bumps in the topography to give the player options in using uneven lies to their advantage.  Brilliant I think.

Cheers

[Ken Moum]

I've got a few:

1. Cart paths down the middle of the fairway - We don't talk about them much on here, but there are some really boring courses out there with untraditional clienteles where 95% of rounds or more are played in carts. I'm talking about places with crabgrass fairways that cost under $30 to ride, don't require shirts, and have basically zero architectural merit but keep plenty of beer stocked in their pro shop. I'd love to see one of these courses just put the cart path right down the middle of the fairway. Not only would it potentially speed up play by making the drive to the ball more direct, but it'd also be a really fun turbo-boost for balls hit right down the middle. Moe Norman would've loved it.

Look up Medicine Creek Golf Course in Presho, SD on Google Earth or Maps satellite view.

The locals who built it did exactly that.  The paths are (or were last time I was there) gravel, so it's not a total turbo boost.  And most of the greens have so much crown--to provide good drainage--that on most of them the landing spot is about as big as a volleyball.  Miss it and the ball goes off sideways, bounces over, or comes back.

Quite a track.  Last time I played was in a tournament a week or two after one of the massive thunderstorms the prairie can generate and they'd been hit with golf ball-size hail.

Every green was completely covered in "ball marks" which despite an effort by the member to repair were still pretty rough.  Of course that was nothing to the devastation in town with broken windows on homes, businesses and vehicles, siding shredded on buiidings and roofs destroyed.

K

[Sean Leary]

How about a walking course where you have to take a cart to the first tee and where the 18th tee is nowhere near either the first tee or the clubhouse?

Doak's Black Forest at Wilderness Valley near Gaylord, MI?

Right architect, wrong course.

[Jason Thurman]

Cart paths down middle?  How many golfers hit the ball down the middle? 

That's the whole point though. Shots right down the middle don't happen all that often, and the anticipation of watching a ball that's close to the line in the air and knowing that you'll get an extra forty yards if it hits the path would be pretty fun. Yet, you also wouldn't give a ridiculous advantage to a straight hitter, since even they would be lucky to hit the path once every few rounds or so. As for reducing the commute from cart to ball, there'd be plenty of slicers who wouldn't really be able to take advantage but I still think it's statistically the best spot.

How about sub-terranium lighting that allows courses to be played at night.  Or light posts that rise out of the ground at night so that they are not an eye soar during the day.  If I owned Pebble Beach (or any other place with a full tee sheet and hight greens fees) I would seriously consider this as just lighting the last few holes would allow for more tee times and more $$$.  Definite ROI.

I really like this idea. I think it makes sense not just for a place like Pebble to squeeze in a few extra rounds, but also for a destination club that could light a loop of 3-5 holes for nighttime play. The maintenance crew would just need to remember to check for sleeping drunks before they turn on the mowers the next morning, as there would inevitably be late night booze-fueled matches that become wars of attrition.

[BCowan]

Jason

   Like the ideas, and a course in Ohio was the first to purchase Hovercraft golf carts, I think you should lead the charge for pop up lights in Cinci, I would play after work when i am down there!  There was a lighted par 3 i never played in Florida, but a genius idea.  Curious of the cost.  Pop up lights would be stellar!

[Jim Sherma]

A course where teeing grounds are not level or nearly level.

(why do we expect a flat lie on our first shot but not on others??)

I've played a lot of public courses where this is already being tried out.

[Ian Andrew]

Hard Geometric Lines

I think the idea has some potential for something really out of the box and could potentially be very interesting if handled brilliantly.
The complication is where or how to draw the line between hard geometry and nature.
Think something far more stark or aggressive than Raynor...

I played an 1890's course east of Syracuse and the stark steeple jump approach and rectilinear forms were fun.
I had seen nothing like it and enjoyed the experience.


I'm not fan of either below, but I use the example to give a picture to the thought...

Cupp's Palmetto - Autocadd Golf


Robert Berthet's Golf de Dunkerque - combining art and golf

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