ING Honors - Golf Course Design

[Matt Frey, PGA]

The International Network of Golf has announced its final ballot for their 22nd Annual ING Industry Honors, among the categories is Golf Course Design and includes the following nominations:

<sup>NOTAH BEGAY III & TY BUTLER for Swailo Golf Club, Tucson, Arizona
Built by the Pascua Yaqui Tribal Council, Sewailo Golf Club is carved from flat desert, with deep dips, high hills, tumbling waterscapes, re-circulating streams and opulent floral displays. They hired fellow Native American, Notah Begay, a Navajo and Pueblo, PGA Tour Champion, Golf Channel and NBC commentator, and golf course designer, to help carve the course from the high Sonoran Desert just south of the resort. Sewailo, meaning "flower world" in the Pascua Yaqui language, blends the native landscape with picturesque lakes and streams.

TOM DOAK for Dismal River - Red Course, Mullen Nebraska
Doak's first course in the Nebraska Sandhills, 23,000 square miles of natural dunes and prairie vegetation, and what Ben Crenshaw once called "the Promised Land" for golf course architects. The Red Course features fairways playing atop plateaus between gulches and much of the back nine along a valley formed by the narrow, serpentine, artesian-fed Dismal River. The finish is particularly strong including the 420-yard 18th with two sets of tees offering different perspectives and a promontory green by the river that Doak calls "one of the best finishing holes I'll ever get to build."

DAVID KIDD for Gamble Sands, Brewster, Washington
Situated on a sandy plateau high above the Columbia River, in North Central Washington, Gamble Sands is an authentic Links course with traditional fine fescue grasses, wide fairways, massive greens ranging from 6,200 up to 16,200 square feet, and menacing bunkers covering 16 acres. Kidd designed Gamble Sands to be visually stunning, yet not intimidating. The fairways are huge ensuring the average player will have fun while three drivable par 4s will entice the better player. Gamble Sands is easy to walk and there are no homes, no roads, and no cart paths.</sup>

You can read the full press release here: http://www.thegolfwire.com/story/320359

[Joel_Stewart]

Who or what is the International Network of Golf?

Secondly, who or why would Swailo be nominated?

[jeffwarne]

Who or what is the International Network of Golf?

Secondly, who or why would Swailo be nominated?

This may answer your question on the other thread about the flower lovers

[Matt Frey, PGA]

Winners were honored last week at the PGA Merchandise Show:

_{GOLF COURSE DESIGN
Winner: Notah Begay/Ty Butler for Sewailo Golf Club
Also Nominated: Tom Doak for Dismal River GC; David MacLay Kidd for Gable Sands}

[Tom_Doak]

I guess I'd better go see Sewallo ?

Or, perhaps its designers agreed to show up to accept the award if it was given to them.  I was asked to attend but couldn't be there, as I had to get to a meeting about a new project.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Tom,

Here's a prior thread. My comments mirror the Yelp comment from Jon V.

Our foursome played on a windy day for the first time. all of us are 10 hdcp or less and had high expectations. the experience was not good at all. we played from the jade tees and on every par four and five it was ridiculous how screwed up the layouts were. we thought we hit good tee shots only to find out we were in the desert, a lake, or a sand trap in the middle of the fairway. the carts have a nice GPS but are of little help with windy conditions, AND SLOPING FAIRWAYS.  on the 18th hole, a short par four, we hit our best tee shots of the day, over the fairway bunker on the left to avoid the lake on the left.....we only found two balls, both in the lake, the other two probably also in the lake, the fairway marker was 30 yards right of where we hit, so if we aimed at the marker we would have been 50 yards deep into the lake.  it also was impossible to distinguish the greens form the fairways, making depth perception non existent. the course will have a problem getting people to come back after playing the GOOFY layout.  Sorry Notah, hope your recovery is going well, and I especially like your golf analysis, but the design of SEWAILO is the worst I've ever seen, and to put it mildly a JOKE!



 If they could guarantee no wind, I'd return. It was a torture chamber on the day I played.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,53993.0.html

[Scott Macpherson]

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