Tom Doak to renovate Houston's Memorial Park

[David Wuthrich]

Got a chance to go and visit with Don today and walk around the course.
There are nice changes already taking place.
I am hoping for a dry spring so that Don and his folks have a chance to work their magic!
It will be exciting!

[Matthew Rose]

Any available plans yet?

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom - off Ran's thread I realized that at roughly the same time you're working on a 6300 yard course for average golfers and a 7300 yard course for tour pros. Are you finding unexpected synergies/learnings or is it apples & oranges?
P

[David Wuthrich]

Don't think plans are public yet.
Heard it will have varied par 3's, drivable par 4's and risk/reward par 5's.
Can't wait!

[Philip Hensley]

Tom - off Ran's thread I realized that at roughly the same time you're working on a 6300 yard course for average golfers and a 7300 yard course for tour pros. Are you finding unexpected synergies/learnings or is it apples & oranges?
P

That thread made me think the same thing. In the 2014 US Open only 3 players broke par. Obviously they were not playing the course at 6300 yards. But they weren't playing it much longer than 7000 either.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom - off Ran's thread I realized that at roughly the same time you're working on a 6300 yard course for average golfers and a 7300 yard course for tour pros. Are you finding unexpected synergies/learnings or is it apples & oranges?
P

Well if we were really working on Sand Valley now that would be a good story, but they are only clearing a few trees this year.  So, I can focus on "long" for the next 3-4 months, and then go back to my own game 


We will see if what we build in Houston applies to other work down the road.  I did come up with a neat concept for approach shots the other day:  since Tour pros default to playing toward the middle of the green when in doubt, I might see how many ways we can make that uncomfortable / not the wise play. 


Lost Dunes has a lot of holes like that.  If I put those kind of contours into Memorial Park they would stop me pretty fast, but there is more than one way to accomplish a task.

[Peter Flory]

Tom - off Ran's thread I realized that at roughly the same time you're working on a 6300 yard course for average golfers and a 7300 yard course for tour pros. Are you finding unexpected synergies/learnings or is it apples & oranges?
P

Well if we were really working on Sand Valley now that would be a good story, but they are only clearing a few trees this year.  So, I can focus on "long" for the next 3-4 months, and then go back to my own game 


We will see if what we build in Houston applies to other work down the road.  I did come up with a neat concept for approach shots the other day:  since Tour pros default to playing toward the middle of the green when in doubt, I might see how many ways we can make that uncomfortable / not the wise play. 


Lost Dunes has a lot of holes like that.  If I put those kind of contours into Memorial Park they would stop me pretty fast, but there is more than one way to accomplish a task.

The 6th hole comes to mind.  I got caught on top last time I played there and immediately regretted what I had done. 


I would bet that the pros with the most talent would enjoy a style of golf where risks payoff more (or as you describe, where safety plays aren't as safe).  Just because they play methodically doesn't mean that they want to play that way, just that the courses reward it. 

[Steve Lang]

   Visited Memorial today and saw from the perimeter and learned or gleaned from one of the pro's:


- perimeter fencing in place, there have been some wanderers, some got in, couldn't  get out...
- all the greens had been dug up, many dirt and sand piles seen, so if TD likes to do 3-4 greens a visit, might he be there 4-5 visits during early work??
- ponds drained and blue stakes imply more water hazards coming, need to capture water and recycle...
- routing largely the same, it is a renovation after all, but the pro didn't know what was really planned, only what he can see so far... nothing published, sad
- new grassing throughout
- new angle into #2, par3
- new alley for #5 tee shot
- new tees where there's now trees and thus length on #6
- #8 longer par5
- #9 green to now be used as part of a par3 (YEAH!)
- wondering about #15...
- some trees definitely gotta go...
- new length for #18
- some land clawed back by Park Conservancy?
- future double deck driving range, would be neat to have trackman bays
- lot better parking for lunch at Beck's with out the golfers
- can still buy a hat for $15


Someone please set me straight... TD, MN, DM?

[MCirba]

Hi Steve,

Is the planned double-decker Driving Range in the same location as it is today?   From the aerial, it seems to have enough width but the length and abutment to the tennis courts seems limiting.   Thanks for any info.

[Kalen Braley]

Mike,


They'll have to do something about that, unless the TCs are going to be removed.  Google Earth only shows it at 250 yards.

If they take out the closest set of 8 they could get another 80-90 yards or so, which seems doable with a 30-40 net at the back.

Or they can just bifurcate, like they shoulda done years ago! 

[Steve Lang]

Hi Steve,

Is the planned double-decker Driving Range in the same location as it is today?   From the aerial, it seems to have enough width but the length and abutment to the tennis courts seems limiting.   Thanks for any info.

Mike, Yep, I believe so, and there's some trees to be taken out in NW corner to help expand also... I read in an article that moving the tennis courts is a $6 million project in its own right, but being viewed as  long-term investment to enable expanding the range and its revenue by 3 x...  Mr. Crane apparently knows what it takes to get a project done!

[Cliff Walston]

I have looked but can't seem to find any published plans.  Has anyone seen any?  As a Houstonian that drives through the park every day staring at the giant mounds of dirt, I am anxious to see what the plan is.

[Don Mahaffey]

Cliff,
I’ve been asked this a lot...the giant mound of dirt you see is not on the golf course, it’s part of the Memorial Park Conservancy land bridge project.  We’ve move a little dirt for the rain water capture and storage component, but not much more than that. 

[Amol Yajnik]

I have looked but can't seem to find any published plans.  Has anyone seen any?  As a Houstonian that drives through the park every day staring at the giant mounds of dirt, I am anxious to see what the plan is.

From Golf Course Architecture magazine in the April 2019 issue:
Only the par 3 2nd and the tee for the 3rd hole are from the original corridor.  Par 5 8th has been lengthened, 9th will be converted into a par 3. Par 5 13th will be changed to a drivable par 4, and the 14th will turn into a par 5.  Irrigation pond expanded on back nine so that water is in front and on both sides of green on par 5 16th, and water wraps around back of 17th green.  Number of bunkers on the course will be significant reduced; no bunkers on 13, 15, 16 and 17.

[Tim_Weiman]

Tom Doak was kind enough to show me a good portion of the course recently (mostly the back nine).


Significant change to the feel of the place. I think Houston golfers will be happy.

[David Restrepo]

Saw this link posted on NLU - it is the twitter feed for the Houston Open.


https://twitter.com/HouOpenGolf



In the lead up to the tournament, they feature a hole each week. So far, they have profiled #12 and #13.


Enjoy!

[Steve Lang]

   Two days to go...  can't wait to be able to venture over and walk on at lunch again... 


From what I saw of the front 9 a couple weeks ago, with a little detour scoping out the new 15th, touring with Tom D and Mike N, who were flagging fairway edges, it will be very nice indeed!

[Peter Pallotta]

Steve - very glad you and Ms Sheila will get to enjoy it soon, and often.

David - thanks much for the link. The most recently profiled hole was #9. TD turned the short 4 into an 182 yard Par 3; and, maybe my imagination, but the green there has more than a little Augusta going on, especially because players are now coming into it with a mid iron instead of a wedge -- a very fine thing. 

[MCirba]

Very exciting stuff. Thanks for sharing everyone.

[Tom_Doak]

I missed the opening of Memorial today to play in the opening of the new Gunnamatta course at The National in Australia on Sunday - got to play 18 holes with Michael Clayton and Lukas Michel and three members as an alternate -shot three-ball.


It used to make me very uncomfortable to receive compliments on my work, but it's a good thing I have gotten better at that recently.  Even so, I have never played in an opening where so many people were so happy.

[Ben Stephens]

https://twitter.com/renaissancegol2/status/1191421585967763457/photo/1


Click on link which shows new layout

[PCCraig]

https://twitter.com/renaissancegol2/status/1191421585967763457/photo/1


Click on link which shows new layout

I saw that. It makes the fairways look really narrow? Or maybe the site is just that big?

[Ben Stephens]

https://twitter.com/renaissancegol2/status/1191421585967763457/photo/1


Click on link which shows new layout

I saw that. It makes the fairways look really narrow? Or maybe the site is just that big?

Thats what my initial thought was - this is very unlike Doak course maybe it was Brooks' input to narrow the fairways who knows. Mike Nuzzo to me seems to draw accurately to scale. Plus there is only 18 bunkers
 

[Don Mahaffey]

The “old” MPGC had fwys from 23-28yds wide.
The fwys now are 29-40 yds wide.
The site is huge, over 250 acres.

[Tom_Doak]

The fairway width is my idea - or really an idea from Mr Dye being recycled.


We felt if we built wide fairways the Tour would want to narrow them way down for the event, and it would be a giant PITA for the greenkeeper to try and make that transition back and forth every year.  You can change the height of rough pretty quickly, but getting it all the way down to fairway and back is another story, especially right when the growing season for bermuda grass is coming to an end.


Also - the fairways are sand capped, but we had to stop before we got to the trees, so it made sense to make the sand cap and the fairways about the same width, which here is typically 30-35 yards.


Thus, the idea from Mr Dye - that average golfers are better out of one-inch rough than out of the fairway.  (He asked me why I had the 10th fairway at Riverdale Dunes flagged so wide; I told him I was trying to emulate the 10th at Riviera - I was ahead of my time in 1984 - and he said fine, but the average guy was better from rough, so the fairway could be much narrower to the left!)


So, we will have a wide belt of short rough on either side of the fairway.  They will let that start to grow taller 4-6 weeks before the tournament (when the bermuda is thriving), and then cut it back the week after the event, so the 60,000 golfers can get around again.


It's a bit of a compromise - many elements of this course are, as the daily usage makes many of the things impractical that I might otherwise have done to challenge the pros.