Armchair (AAC) 2015/2016 IV (9 Holes)

[Sam Andrews]

Adrian,

    Is there a particular scale you would like to use?

The scale does not matter just fit it to the drawing. The length of the land is about 680 yards, at its widest its about 270 yards. If people want crossing holes that's up to them.
For those wanting to give up. These are the sort of challenges you get at the lower end of designing golf courses. If you feel it would make a better par 3 course do that. It is a beautiful peace of land with fantastic views across the chanell to Wales, but it is steep.

Just asking the dumb question but does it have to be a 9 holes, could it be a 6?

[Daryn_Soldan]

Kalen,


I've played around with a par 5 running along the north or south boundaries. Unfortunately, any long hole (par 4 or 5) that plays diagonally across the property really limits how many non-par 3 holes fit into the remainder of the site. It's a very interesting and challenging exercise!


- Daryn

[Kalen Braley]

Kalen,


I've played around with a par 5 running along the north or south boundaries. Unfortunately, any long hole (par 4 or 5) that plays diagonally across the property really limits how many non-par 3 holes fit into the remainder of the site. It's a very interesting and challenging exercise!


- Daryn

Daryn,

Its such a limited site, its hard to imagine any non par 3 running diagonally on that property as it would just eat up so much space.

I may have found a par 5, but I need to keep playing with it.  A tough exercise indeed.

[Michael Felton]

It's a really small plot of land. I have one par 5 squeezed in there (495 yards along the south border), but I can only realistically do that by having holes cross over each other and then my longest par 4 is only 295 yards. It's really hard to get much in there. I was hoping that I had a par 34 out of it, but two of my par 4s wound up only being about 220 yards, so not really par 4s at all. I think I have to shorten one and lengthen the other to get to even 33. Have to get really contrived to eke any more than that out. Total yardage right now is 2,066. There is a little more room for me to expand, but I'm going to wind up with some longish walks green to tee.


I should also point out that you would need to provide helmets to get people to play this course as I have it laid out. Quite a few crossovers. But what the heck - it's all in fun.

[Kalen Braley]

It's a really small plot of land. I have one par 5 squeezed in there (495 yards along the south border), but I can only realistically do that by having holes cross over each other and then my longest par 4 is only 295 yards. It's really hard to get much in there. I was hoping that I had a par 34 out of it, but two of my par 4s wound up only being about 220 yards, so not really par 4s at all. I think I have to shorten one and lengthen the other to get to even 33. Have to get really contrived to eke any more than that out. Total yardage right now is 2,066. There is a little more room for me to expand, but I'm going to wind up with some longish walks green to tee.


I should also point out that you would need to provide helmets to get people to play this course as I have it laid out. Quite a few crossovers. But what the heck - it's all in fun.

Mike,

I too have squeezed in a par 33, but with no crossovers.  My shortest par 4 is 260, which I think works, that's ~ 290 yards and it plays slightly uphill and into a mostly hurting prevailing wind.

However, even without crossovers, I may have issues with fairways being too close to each othe, and the property lines.

P.S.  I'm guessing its OK to stick a tee box near a property line as long as the line of play is away from the property line.

[Garland Bayley]

I'm wondering if you could get par 36 with a 12 hole par three course.

[BCowan]

All,

    Adrian is the jefe.

[Kalen Braley]

Thought I would bump this to the top.

 This is proving to be a very difficult task, especially for us armchair weekend warriors. I had to scrap the best of my initial routings due to hole playing corridors being too close together. After working thru another ~10 iterations I think I may have something workable (fingers crossed).  Par 32, 2090 yards.  One walk is over 100 yards to next tee, but felt like I had to do it for safety reasons.

When are final submissions due?  And is there a good software package to use to for final routings?

Kalen

[Michael Felton]

January 15th. I've been using Paint to do something preliminary. Does anyone have any examples of finished product (not from this one obviously)? how for example do you indicate earth moving and such like? I don't need to do a great deal, but will need to level off some bits and pieces for greens and the like.

[Dieter Jones]

Michael, when we did AAC 3 the plot did not have as severe a slope in one general direction and we adjusted the scale too which flattened things out more. People just routed fairways on the existing contours without worrying about any earth moving. That was a very different exercise as the area was huge and the options almost unlimited.


A lot of us did a "close up" of the green and surrounds showing the contours for those key areas on a separate sheet.


Given how difficult this site is and limited in options I'm likely just going to try and map a routing that fits including bunker locations and the like. I might try and find a way to indicate where I've flattened out green sites but not uite sure how yet. I'm using adobe illustrator to do mine as we have a license for my business. I don't use it myself normally but I think I can bluff my way through the basic stuff.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian,

    Is there a particular scale you would like to use?

The scale does not matter just fit it to the drawing. The length of the land is about 680 yards, at its widest its about 270 yards. If people want crossing holes that's up to them.
For those wanting to give up. These are the sort of challenges you get at the lower end of designing golf courses. If you feel it would make a better par 3 course do that. It is a beautiful peace of land with fantastic views across the chanell to Wales, but it is steep.

Just asking the dumb question but does it have to be a 9 holes, could it be a 6?

If you feel that is the best solution, then yes.

[Adam Lawrence]

Adrian, how are you going to make these guys factor in all the issues with the council and the protesting neighbours?

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian, how are you going to make these guys factor in all the issues with the council and the protesting neighbours?

I was just thinking about going back to the point where I considered what was the best routing and submitted that to council. Maybe there will be a better one than mine.

[Kalen Braley]

Adrian,

Do you have some freeware you can recommend to get this in a file somewhere?

Or my other alternative is to just hand draw it up and scan it in.

P.S.  I too wasn't going to worry about where the "cuts" need to be.  Given the severity of the site, its seems fairly obvious there will need to be some leveling to make fairways and greens less severe. For this exercise I've been  focusing on a routing that will work in addition to green and bunker placement... with safety in mind of course 

[Bob Brightly]

P.S.  I too wasn't going to worry about where the "cuts" need to be.  Given the severity of the site, its seems fairly obvious there will need to be some leveling to make fairways and greens less severe. For this exercise I've been  focusing on a routing that will work in addition to green and bunker placement... with safety in mind of course


I was also looking to only go with the routing, greens and bunker basics, which seems to be the fun/challenge here..

[Don Mahaffey]

Adrian,

Do you have some freeware you can recommend to get this in a file somewhere?

Or my other alternative is to just hand draw it up and scan it in.

P.S.  I too wasn't going to worry about where the "cuts" need to be.  Given the severity of the site, its seems fairly obvious there will need to be some leveling to make fairways and greens less severe. For this exercise I've been  focusing on a routing that will work in addition to green and bunker placement... with safety in mind of course 

 And while I understand this approach as a hobbyist, it is the fundamental problem with these sorts of contests and why they are not taken seriously.  Golf or Landscape Architecture is about working WITH the site to create something functional and beautiful. When you treat the site as a flat 2D piece of paper and remove functionality as a part of the exercise, you remove the basic facet of architecture, and take most of the real fun out of it as well, IMO.
 

[Kalen Braley]

Adrian,

Do you have some freeware you can recommend to get this in a file somewhere?

Or my other alternative is to just hand draw it up and scan it in.

P.S.  I too wasn't going to worry about where the "cuts" need to be.  Given the severity of the site, its seems fairly obvious there will need to be some leveling to make fairways and greens less severe. For this exercise I've been  focusing on a routing that will work in addition to green and bunker placement... with safety in mind of course 

 And while I understand this approach as a hobbyist, it is the fundamental problem with these sorts of contests and why they are not taken seriously.  Golf or Landscape Architecture is about working WITH the site to create something functional and beautiful. When you treat the site as a flat 2D piece of paper and remove functionality as a part of the exercise, you remove the basic facet of architecture, and take most of the real fun out of it as well, IMO.

Don,

The context I meant that last statement was in terms of how I draw up my routing.  I certainly took the slope and downhill/uphill when coming up with the routing, hole distances,  and safety aspects.

[Adrian_Stiff]

This is a routing exercise rather than a detailed design.


To disregard the contours is just a waste of time.


This piece of land is real and it is the sort of problems golf course architects get at the lower end.


I could do with the finished work as a jpeg or pdf.


Just try and solve the routing if you can.

[BCowan]

Gents,

   We have a few more days left.  Jan 15th 11:59pm to submit your entry.  Adrian Stiff, Mike Nuzzo, and Ian Andrew will be judging.  Have fun. 

[Andy Gray]

Hi Ben,


Just wondering how you want these submitted? Is there any sort of guide to what we should submit, i.e. written intended strategies, a summary as to how we got to the routing we did, green diagrams + hole diagrams etc.


Cheers,


Andy

[Adrian_Stiff]

Andy - The most important thing is if it works with the land. I have had 3 entries so far one has ignored the contours and the road safety, property safety and even the land boundary.


It is a real parcel of land. The most important thing to show is the routing.

[Drew Groeger]

To clarify, do we PM our entries to Adrian? Or? Apologies if this was posted in the thread and I missed it.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Drew - Submit them to Ben.

[Ian Andrew]

Just bumping this to the top for my own convenience ...

[Dan Delaney 🐮]

I'm out.


After wrapping my head around this for close to 2 weeks and 2 continents, the best routing I come up with has 2 dreadful holes.  Awful actually.  So bad, I can't even bring myself to submit.  No one would play!


I'm stuck on the eastern block.  Sacrificed way too much to get 7 solid(ish) holes in the West.  I'm actually reasonably happy with those 7.  A double green solved some spacing issues.  Found a nice little redan too.


Trying to find a anything resembling a reasonable opener doesn't work for me.  I'm Irish (stubborn) and just can't bring myself to start with a 3.  The second is a finishing 9th along the north border, with trees blocking the direct line, and a blind tee shot with a death slope short/left.


I tried everything from my armchair, and still can't make it work.  For the Archie's on board, you guys are good!
Looking forward to seeing everyone's work.  Good luck!