Best Land For An Existing Golf Course

[Tim_Weiman]

Tim,

So, what makes for the ideal woman?  Redhead or Blond?

There can be more than one right answer here.....

Jeff,

Of course. I wasn't expecting folks to agree on this question any more than asking people which is the best golf course. But, I was expecting more responses. Pat Mucci did mention the one I thought was obvious: Sand Hills, but almost no other response as Tom Doak quite interestly predicted.

For me the answer is still Royal Melbourne, but I am surprised this group hasn't offered more responses. Maybe I didn't word my question correctly.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Also worth considering whether you mean now, or 80 years ago.

Perth for example is pure sand but with a Mediterranean climate of hot dry summers.  Without bores and modern retic, it would simply not be possible to keep a course grassed during the harsh summers, whilst the Melbourne Sandbelt has more evenly spread rainfall.

Would the Nebraska sandhills have been possible 80 years ago without modern machinery and reticulation.

Yes

What modern machinery ?

Are you familiar with the actual construction of Sand Hills ?

[Tim_Weiman]

Michael,

As far as undeveloped the land, probably the most famous great piece of land I've seen is the Inch Peninsula in Dingle Bay right across from Dooks, one of my favorite places in golf.

There are some big time developers who are well aware of the property, e.g., Herb Kohler, but getting planning permission has been damn near impossible.

Dr. Arthur Spring, whose brother was once prime minister, is the person who introduced me to the property.


Tony,

Thanks. To be fair, the error is mine. Arthur himself never said that to me and was very gracious years ago showing me around Inch. FYI, I did later return the favor for Rupert O'Neil prior to the building of Ballyneal in Colorado. Rupert was as amazed as I was about Inch.

Tim someone has promoted him!
His most successful political relative is his uncle Dick, who I recall playing Rugby for Ireland. But he was a minority party leader and never likely to be Taoiseach (Prime Minister of Ireland).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Spring


Seems like Arthur has now entered politics?  Maybe that will help with permits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Spring


(It's possible there are tow Arthur Spring's in which case Dick would likely be his Cousin or Brother.)

[mike_malone]

 In our area look for a creek and you are likely to find good land for golf.

[Tim_Weiman]

FYI, I modified the title of this thread from "best land for a golf course" to "best land for an existing golf course" because the threat seems to have gone in a different direction than my original OP question with the exception of Pat Mucci's reference to Bill Coore's comment about Sand Hills.

[jim_lewis]

Any area whose name incorporates the words "sand" or "dunes" is likely to contain some great sites for golf courses. Sandhills of NC, Sand Belt of Australia, the dunes of central Kansas are homes or some of the great courses in the world and lots of very good courses. I'll take sand based courses over extreme elevation changes any day.

Spectacular sites can make for great views and unique designs, but can be extremely difficult to route without including a few mediocre holes.

[David_Elvins]

Tim,

I think one thing that gets massively overlooked is that IMO the best land for golf should have a variety of terrain (including flat areas).

If you take Royal Melbourne as an example, it has a couple of decent hills that provide drama on 4,5,6 and 7-10 but also a lot of gentle slopes and flat areas.  This allows a great variety of of green complexes to be built with bold and subtle features, depending on the boldness or subtleness of the surrounding ground.  

I haven't been to the sand hills but I often wonder if it has enough of this variety to make something like sand hills the perfect land for golf.  How can you build a great green like 3 at RM west at Sand Hills?  Surely the scale of the site discourages architectures building small intricate features such as the ground short or RMW3?  And if the endless rolling hills are so perfect, why do Coore and Crenshaw search out flat ground to build green sites on as part of almost every routing they have done in the last 10-15 years (eg. Lost Farm, Friars Head, Hidden Creek, Bandon Dunes etc etc).  

Some of the best sites for golf IMO include: RMW, Royal Adelaide, Kooyonga, but their are regional courses wthin a few hundred miles such as Lake Albert or Mllicent with $400 memberships that have sites that are their equal.

[Tom_Doak]

Tim,

I think one thing that gets massively overlooked is that IMO the best land for golf should have a variety of terrain (including flat areas).

If you take Royal Melbourne as an example, it has a couple of decent hills that provide drama on 4,5,6 and 7-10 but also a lot of gentle slopes and flat areas.  This allows a great variety of of green complexes to be built with bold and subtle features, depending on the boldness or subtleness of the surrounding ground.  

I haven't been to the sand hills but I often wonder if it has enough of this variety to make something like sand hills the perfect land for golf.  How can you build a great green like 3 at RM west at Sand Hills?  Surely the scale of the site discourages architectures building small intricate features such as the ground short or RMW3?  And if the endless rolling hills are so perfect, why do Coore and Crenshaw search out flat ground to build green sites on as part of almost every routing they have done in the last 10-15 years (eg. Lost Farm, Friars Head, Hidden Creek, Bandon Dunes etc etc).  

Some of the best sites for golf IMO include: RMW, Royal Adelaide, Kooyonga, but their are regional courses wthin a few hundred miles such as Lake Albert or Mllicent with $400 memberships that have sites that are their equal.

Kooyonga is an interesting choice ... I didn't think much of the course the one time I visited, and it never really dawned on me whether it was actually a good site.

As for sites in the Sand Hills, you might find a small deep swale just like the 3rd at Royal Melbourne already out there, if you tried hard enough.  But most architects would probably look for other things first and then big the swale if they wanted to.

[Tom_Doak]

Would the Nebraska sandhills have been possible 80 years ago without modern machinery and reticulation.

Yes

What modern machinery ?

Are you familiar with the actual construction of Sand Hills ?

Patrick:

Without a good modern excavator, they would have had a hard time installing the frost free irrigation line that ensured the project would survive.

[Garland Bayley]

Best I've seen is at Bandon.

[Rees Milikin]

There are some amazing pieces of land in north/central Florida.  Florida gets ragged on (and most of it duly deserved), but there are also some places that would make for amazing golf courses.

[David Kelly]

If you take a left out of the driveway at Prairie Dunes and drive for about 5 miles you'll see some of the best land in the United States for golf courses.  Too bad the Faldo course they finally ended up building at Cottonwood Hills was such a botch job.

[David_Elvins]

Kooyonga is an interesting choice ... I didn't think much of the course the one time I visited, and it never really dawned on me whether it was actually a good site.

On second thoughts, I might have over sold it a bit.  Whilst there is some fantastic land on the site, parts of 3-4 holes were swamp land.

There are some good photos on this thread of the early course, looking a lot sandier.


http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?topic=52826.0

[Ben Malach]

As said earlier in this thread the existence of a golf course normally obfuscates a lot of what the site was before it was built. I find it is easier to find a great site on a mediocer or not so great golf course than on a golf course that uses its site well even if it is not on the best site. If you really want your answer go to answer fo to any top100 list and start looking at websites the ones that offer nothing of intrest probably have great views.This leads me to the two that I would have loved to see a great architect handle and put his mark on from the start the first is Kananaskis and the second is the Riverside course at Fairmont both sites could have created something special but both sites were used to create pedestrian golf course. Sadly Canada is home to a lot of such situations.

[Michael Felton]

A couple of things I think make for some pretty special courses are lots and lots of small undulation on an otherwise flat piece of land. The Old Course would be my example here. It's basically pretty flat overall, but has undulation all over the place. That makes for some very special stuff (if well thought out and put together). The other is more of a dunescape and the two examples that I think of for this are Royal St George's and Ballybunion. RSG has a little of both - out around 13, 14, 15 is quite flat although undulating, while around 2 through 10 are very dunesy.

Pine Valley is on a pretty decent piece of land as well. That has larger undulations (hole sized basically) that allow playing across and down and up and along the slopes.

[Josh Stevens]

Also worth considering whether you mean now, or 80 years ago.

Perth for example is pure sand but with a Mediterranean climate of hot dry summers.  Without bores and modern retic, it would simply not be possible to keep a course grassed during the harsh summers, whilst the Melbourne Sandbelt has more evenly spread rainfall.

Would the Nebraska sandhills have been possible 80 years ago without modern machinery and reticulation.

Yes

What modern machinery ?

Are you familiar with the actual construction of Sand Hills ?

I was referring to maintenance, not construction.  Nebraska is a tough climate

[Jaeger Kovich]

Infinitely wrinkly: The Old Course

Some Bigger Sporty Dunes: Royal St George's and Cruden Bay

Inland: Sand Hills, Sunningdale, West Sussex

Beauty: Cypress Point and Cape Kidnappers, both from pictures

[JC Urbina]

Tim,

Each designer has a preferred landscape.  For all of the reasons I like Prairie Dunes and the subtle counters the dunes offered I could honestly say the larger sand dunes of the Sand Hills gave Bill and Ben the ultimate canvas.

I use to be enamored with large dunes like Prestwick and Cruden Bay, but I have since lost interest in the gigantic dunes some people continue to search out.  I am in my shuffle feet mode now and my eyes are now trained on the more subtle land forms.

Yeamans Hall is a perfect example of Shuffle Feet topography.

I know of some land between Denver and Ballyneal that are the perfect size I am looking for.  After many excursions to Holyoke during the first phase of discovery I would take different routes from Denver to Holyoke.  I came upon these dunes that I think make the perfect landscape.  I just need to find someone who would be willing to fund it and give it a go. 

Subtle, Simple ,Sublime.  That is my mantra

[Bill_McBride]

Tim,

Each designer has a preferred landscape.  For all of the reasons I like Prairie Dunes and the subtle counters the dunes offered I could honestly say the larger sand dunes of the Sand Hills gave Bill and Ben the ultimate canvas.

I use to be enamored with large dunes like Prestwick and Cruden Bay, but I have since lost interest in the gigantic dunes some people continue to search out.  I am in my shuffle feet mode now and my eyes are now trained on the more subtle land forms.

Yeamans Hall is a perfect example of Shuffle Feet topography.

I know of some land between Denver and Ballyneal that are the perfect size I am looking for.  After many excursions to Holyoke during the first phase of discovery I would take different routes from Denver to Holyoke.  I came upon these dunes that I think make the perfect landscape.  I just need to find someone who would be willing to fund it and give it a go. 

Subtle, Simple ,Sublime.  That is my mantra

Hopefully you'll find some close to Denver.  Location location location.   

[Tim_Weiman]

Tim,

Each designer has a preferred landscape.  For all of the reasons I like Prairie Dunes and the subtle counters the dunes offered I could honestly say the larger sand dunes of the Sand Hills gave Bill and Ben the ultimate canvas.

I use to be enamored with large dunes like Prestwick and Cruden Bay, but I have since lost interest in the gigantic dunes some people continue to search out.  I am in my shuffle feet mode now and my eyes are now trained on the more subtle land forms.

Yeamans Hall is a perfect example of Shuffle Feet topography.

I know of some land between Denver and Ballyneal that are the perfect size I am looking for.  After many excursions to Holyoke during the first phase of discovery I would take different routes from Denver to Holyoke.  I came upon these dunes that I think make the perfect landscape.  I just need to find someone who would be willing to fund it and give it a go. 

Subtle, Simple ,Sublime.  That is my mantra

Jim,

Thx. Good luck on your search.

[Sean_A]

There have been many lists of the "best" or "greatest" golf courses, but I don't recall ever seeing any list of the best land an architect had to work with to build what became a well known course.

If I had to pick the single best property I've seen to build a course and play golf, it would probably be Royal Melbourne. The rolling nature of the land, just enough elevation change to create interesting holes while maintaining high marks for walk ability really stands out for me. The soil conditions and vegetation also stand out. What also makes the property cool, IMO, is the location not really that for from Melbourne city centre.

Sure, Royal Melbourne is a great course. But, I found the property itself to be a star.

Just wondered what others thought. What properties are really special in their own right?

Well, this seems rather obvious - TOC.  Its perfect, humpty bumpty, low rolling land with sandy soil.  Deal too comes to mind, but it doesn't drain nearly as well as TOC.  Though I wonder what TOC could have been built if the other land was included in the design.  I spose The Old Course wouldn't have been so old if that were the case.

Cruden Bay is lovely land for golf.   Moving away from the very pbvious links sites, as far as inland golf, Swinley Forest is a majestic property, same for Sunningdale.  One that few know, Enville, however, I can't help but wonder if only 18 holes were developed on the heathland bit and the other 18 abondoned.  I remain convinced there is a far better course to be built if thr 36 hole concept were dropped.  Walton Heath is land which is visually fairly non-descript.  But it does demonstrate that if a heathland is looked after properly than it will be a superior playing surface to all but links.  The site is nowhere near as good as most other heathland courses, but because of good greenkeeping it is the king of heathlands.  Notts is an excellent property for golf, same for Alwoodley.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

Not sure why folk focus on the dunes at Cruden Bay. Look closely and the bigger dunes that lie from Port Errol extending south inside the beach line are not actually used that much, most of the holes being in the valleys on the flatter land. Focus on big dune golf in GB&I would IMO, for example, and there are others, include the front-9 at Portstewart and the newer holes at Enniscrone. Big machine created golf, not just created by God and cut by a man with a mower, as the two different courses at Ballyliffin were once described to me by a member.

Enville!

Now there's somewhere worth a visit. Two 18-hole courses on sandy terrain. If Enville were located just west of London instead of just west of Birmingham it would (deservedly) receive significantly more visits, praise and publicity.

As to Enville's founding and development, the club advises that it was formed in 1935 and was originally 9-holes extended to 18-holes in 1940. 9-more holes were added in 1972 and a further 9-holes added in 1983.

I was told that the original 9-holes are now the first couple and last few holes on the Lodge course. The second 9-holes built were the front-9 of the Highgate, the third-9 built is now the back nine on the Highgate and the fourth 9-holes built are the newer holes 'over the road' on the Lodge.

The first two nines built are on more open heathland. The latter two built are much more tree-lined. On enquiring I was advised that the soil is the same everywhere. I was also advised that the whole area was, once upon a time, much more open and 'heathy'. This was because in times gone by people grazed their animals over a much bigger area and also that trees or brush were cut down to aid grazing and to provide firewood and fencing etc. As time moved on, less grazing occurred and less tree/brush cutting for firewood and fencing etc occurred, so areas of previously open heath became more tree invested and thus to extend the courses the club needed to use the by now tree infested land.

One other aspect worth mentioning about Enville is the practice facilities. Top notch by GB&I standards. A huge range and three large pitching/chipping greens. I only wish more clubs had such facilities.

Top place Enville. Worth a visit.

atb

[Sean_A]

Not sure why folk focus on the dunes at Cruden Bay. Look closely and the bigger dunes that lie from Port Errol extending south inside the beach line are not actually used that much, most of the holes being in the valleys on the flatter land. Focus on big dune golf in GB&I would IMO, for example, and there are others, include the front-9 at Portstewart and the newer holes at Enniscrone. Big machine created golf, not just created by God and cut by a man with a mower, as the two different courses at Ballyliffin were once described to me by a member.

ATB

For me anyway, big dunes are often not what best golf is about.  Big dunes are a great addition to mkost designs, but once they dominant a design then there will undoubtably be a struggle to route a good walking course and to generate variety - especially if its a new design because invariably holes will run down valleys.  In the old days archies weren't afraid to say bugger it and go over the top (see Alps, Klondyke, #6 St Enodoc etc). With lower lying land it is far easier to be more creative in how the dune ridges are attacked and thus the variety is often greater.  Besides, the question was about existing courses, not dream courses near existing courses   

Ciao

[Tony_Muldoon]

I’m sure I’ve said it before but I love playing in and across big dunes, the experience has something special that only golf offers me.  We’ve talked about a round of golf being a special walk in many ways, but a journey through the sand hills is where I’m most excited. Perhaps it goes back to spending every childhood summer at Portstewart and playing in the dunes that later became the new front 9. Whatever, the movement through secret hidden places and long coastal views is heavenly to me. That’s why I disliked Birkdale so much, what a wasted opportunity.  I agree it must be harder to get it right when working in the Dunes, but when it’s pulled off it’s pure magic.  Dornoch and Lahinch are just subime, and the front 10 of RSG, back 9 of Tralee parts of Walllasey and Cruden Bay hold a special attraction for me. So in some ways it may not be the 'best' land for a golf course, except where the results mean that the 'best' golf experience has been created.


(I do have to wonder whether I'd feel the same if playing such hilly courses on a daily basis? I'll reconsider after consecutive days of 36 at Perranporth followed by 36 and then 18 at St Enedoc at this years Buda!)


Tim there is a Golfweek report (linked on Shackleford today) saying Keiser is sending a son to look at land on the Inch peninsular.  Intriguingly it says the parcel of land is owned by one family but there is room for only one course. This contradicts all we’ve previously known of the area?

[Phil Lipper]

I would think Old Head in Cork would be the classic case of this. If it wasnt for the piece of property that the golf course sits on no one would ever talk about it.