The Best Courses That Were Created

[Brett Wiesley]

Shooting Star, Shadow Creek & The Madison Club both made from land flat as a pancake which now both include rivers and lakes/ponds.  Shows what Mr. Fazio can do with the funds needed.  I've not played, but the Rawls course by Tom fits the mold as well.  Wonder what the difference in construction budget was though.

[DMoriarty]

In the case of the Lido, CBM was drawn to the opportunity to play "creator" but he ultimately had to admit that he fell short.

"One will always see however that it is the creation of man and not the creation of Nature, for it has, as most holes on this course have, the technical design of an architect rather than the inimitable design of nature."

To paraphrase the creator of this thread, all world class golf courses start with a world class site.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Winged Foot West may be a deserved candidate. So many greens and tees were pushed up on an otherwise mostly flattish property.

QR also?

Nope, totally different and way better property even though you could hit a pw from 1 to the other on the 15th holes

[Shane Wright]

What is the easiest way to define "created from scratch?"  

Does taking a forest and completely clearing it for a golf course to be shaped count as this?  

[Bart Bradley]

Tom:

Despite my criticisms in the past of some of the design elements, the entirely faux Fancourt Links is an immersive experience.  It is a course that I remember more fondly with time.   I think that it is clearly the most successful product of Gary Players design firm and falls squarely in the "Created" category.  It is a great walk and as I recall much of the land was a dead flat airstrip prior to the golf course construction.



Bart

[Jim Colton]

Tom,

 Can you talk a bit about your project on the island in China. If I recall, there was a bunch of sand shipped in. Did that provide more of an open sandbox type opportunity?

 Can you also compare and contrast the routing differences when trying to find the best natural features vs having more of a blank canvas. Does one bring more enjoyment than the other?

[John McCarthy]

What about Tour 18? 

[Mike_Young]

Indian Creek
Harbortown
TPC
Chechessee
Loblolly Pines

[Garland Bayley]

Sagebrush? I think Whitman just found the routing that would work on the landscape. The didn't have enough money to create a course in my understanding.

That's not the case - I toured the course with Dick Zokol and I know for a fact that a LOT of work was done to work the landscape, especially on hole #8. 

Dick's quote, if I remember correctly, was "Rod moved a mountain to make that hole".

Sometimes a minimalist has to move a bunch in certain places to make a routing work. If you classify Sagebrush as minimalist, then I'm guessing it wasn't what Tom had in mind when he started the thread. My impression was that Sagebrush should be classified as minimalist.

[Mike_Trenham]

Caledonia should be in the mix.

[Jay Mickle]

Tobacco Road. Any question, just recall the tee shot on #1.

[Tim Leahy]

How about the Olympic Club Lake? From the pictures I have seen the sight was treeless when it was constructed.

[Kye Goalby]

If the information  I received about the original contour of the site ( minimal) is accurate, the public course at Santa Anita has to be one of the best there is at making something from nothing.  What's almost  more amazing than some of the created landforms and holes is  that it was built by someone in the 1930's who never built a golf course before - or after.

[Sean_A]

There seems to be a theme that natural looking shaping equates to best.  Why exactly is natural lookng and best assumed to mean the same thing? 

I am not sure what "scratch" means.  Some folks are taking it to mean flat, featureless sites.  Tom, is that what you mean?

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

There seems to be a theme that natural looking shaping equates to best.  Why exactly is natural lookng and best assumed to mean the same thing? 

I am not sure what "scratch" means.  Some folks are taking it to mean flat, featureless sites.  Tom, is that what you mean?

Sean:

Not necessarily.  My definition of "created from scratch" would be that the interest of the golf course is derived from man-made things rather than natural features.  So, a really good undulating piece of ground isn't going to qualify, but it doesn't have to be totally flat.  Chicago Golf Club is one example -- gently rolling, but the green sites don't really use natural features per se.  The side-of-the-mountain courses in Japan and Korea would qualify, too, but most of those suck precisely because they didn't take anything from their setting.  Huntercombe might be another -- I guess there are a few holes where the terrain adds to the design, like #2, but most of the features are man-made and, to your point, not natural-looking.

Anyway, it doesn't have to be a huge earthmoving project, as some assumed from the beginning.

[archie_struthers]

 

It seems pretty obvious that most great landforms evolved over time . Whether it was by seismic shifts or erosion , wind or water , they were manufactured  over time.  Did I say manufactured ?  Hard edges are removed over time , and that's what sets the really good man made designs from the bad ones . At least aesthetically.  The land moves , but it appears to have happened without the bulldozers.

It's much easier to dig down and create the natural roll of the land than build up . That's one of the reasons I was so impressed by Bayonne. Knowing Eric Bergstol and his crew had to build up the dredge spoils , let them settle out and then shape. Pretty neat stuff.  I'm guessing it is the greatest man made feat in design ever, given the obstacles .

[Richard Hetzel]

So what would Arcadia Bluffs be on the Doak Scale? I am not saying it's great, but I liked it.

[Dan Smoot]

On another thread, Adrian Stiff described Le Golf National in Paris as one of the best "faux" golf courses in Europe.

People are always speculating that there is no reason a great course can't be created from scratch, and certainly many have tried.  How many have truly succeeded?  I'd like to see this thread answer the question:  what are the best courses that were created?

I will start by saying that two of the best jobs of natural-looking earthmoving I've seen are at Kingsbarns and Castle Stuart.  However, I think both of those [along with Whistling Straits] should be disqualified from this list, because their waterfront settings are such an integral part of the design.  They hardly started with nothing!  If we're going to list them, they should be a separate list, really.

I'll take my own courses out of consideration, as well.  The Rawls Course is the most "created" course I've done, and it's well regarded, but it finished way down the list of my own courses when you all ranked them.  

So what is there that's really outstanding?  

I can understand why you would want to take the Rawls course out of consideration.  However, when you drive around the periphery of the course and look at the terrain then get inside ... one feels like they have been taken to another place.  It really is an amazing feeling.   I really like the course.  That part of Texas doesn't offer much to even compete with it.  I guess Shadow Creek in Vegas is the most well known course that provides a similar level of creation ... both in very arid climates.

[BCowan]

Mr Doak

    I was interested if you could explain more about Huntercombe, as I have only looked at pictures and am really interested in playing it.  Are the green complex's what you consider the most man made about the site?  The original course only had 25 bunkers on it.  Many of the depressions and grass bunkers on the course do look man made or just have a lot of definition in them.  I wish there were more of what i see at in photos of Huntercombe in parkland courses in the US.  Can Huntercombe have some man made features and still be minimalist in design?  In other designs i thought Willie Park was great at using gulley's and ravines and other natural ''hazards'' in his designs to create strategy for the player.    

[Matt MacIver]

The first course I thought of was Seminole - the only Great course in flat Florida so those greens must really be something.

[Michael Whitaker]

3 in South Carolina that were basically 100% manufactured:

The Ocean Course at Kiawah
Yeamans Hall
Bulls Bay

[Tom_Doak]

The first course I thought of was Seminole - the only Great course in flat Florida so those greens must really be something.

Matt:  Haven't been to Seminole, I take it?  It's not flat.  There are two good-sized ridges, one down by the ocean and another in the back of the property, and about 12 of the 18 holes take advantage of one or the other.  The greens are good, too, but it's a great piece of property, and it's not manufactured.

[Joel_Stewart]

Anyway, it doesn't have to be a huge earthmoving project, as some assumed from the beginning.

This changes everything?  It seems to contradict the original intent of the thread.

My picks are:

Shadow Creek
TPC Sawgrass
Medalist
Lido
Whistling Straits

I'm adding Mauna Kea as well.

[Sean_A]

There seems to be a theme that natural looking shaping equates to best.  Why exactly is natural lookng and best assumed to mean the same thing? 

I am not sure what "scratch" means.  Some folks are taking it to mean flat, featureless sites.  Tom, is that what you mean?

Sean:

Not necessarily.  My definition of "created from scratch" would be that the interest of the golf course is derived from man-made things rather than natural features.  So, a really good undulating piece of ground isn't going to qualify, but it doesn't have to be totally flat.  Chicago Golf Club is one example -- gently rolling, but the green sites don't really use natural features per se.  The side-of-the-mountain courses in Japan and Korea would qualify, too, but most of those suck precisely because they didn't take anything from their setting.  Huntercombe might be another -- I guess there are a few holes where the terrain adds to the design, like #2, but most of the features are man-made and, to your point, not natural-looking.

Anyway, it doesn't have to be a huge earthmoving project, as some assumed from the beginning.

Tom

I'm not really sure about a lot of construction because it doesn't really matter much to me.  But of the ones I think are obviously mainly constructed, yet without the benefit of a wonderfully beautiful site (ie Trump Aberdeen, Kiawah), I am not familiar with a great example. A couple really impress me though:

Kington
Tobacco Road
Beau Desert
Huntercombe
Yelverton

But all the above benefit from good draining soil and land movement, with Huntercombe being the most flat if we look at all the holes separately.  

Ciao

 

[Jeff_Mingay]

Sagebrush? I think Whitman just found the routing that would work on the landscape. The didn't have enough money to create a course in my understanding.

That's not the case - I toured the course with Dick Zokol and I know for a fact that a LOT of work was done to work the landscape, especially on hole #8.  

Dick's quote, if I remember correctly, was "Rod moved a mountain to make that hole".

Matt,

I ran the day-to-day construction at Sagebrush and can tell you, for a fact, that we moved about half as much earth as I originally thought was going to be required to create the course.

Dick's right, we did move a lot of material (including a lot of blasting of rock) to create the fairway at the 8th hole (the tees were elevated, the green site was pretty much there… with some shaping). #5 fairway also required some significant fill, and #11 was a big construction job. But 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 didn't take much other than filling tee and greens sites, and digging bunkers.

Cabot Links (where I was also heavily involved with planning and construction work) took as much artificial construction work. Rod is a genius at contouring the ground (personally, with a 'dozer), really. His work at Cabot Links will 'trick' many golfers, forever, into thinking those holes were 'found' on natural links-type-land, there. No the case at all, Cabot is more comparable to a Kingsbarns type project than any of the courses at Bandon, for example. There's way more artificial contouring in the fairways at Cabot than Sagebrush.

And, what's it matter… it's just good