Houses

[Ira Fishman]

I have not played a lot of courses built through housing developments so my perspective is far from complete. However, we played our non-resident course twice this week--Hope Valley--which is one of the older golf housing developments in the US dating to the Golden Age. I tried to pay particular attention to the impact of the houses, and I found almost none even though a few holes have homes just off the fairway. It is a very good course such that the quality of the holes rendered the houses irrelevant.


There seems to be a sentiment here that a course in a housing development is a priori not good. Why?


Ira

[John Kavanaugh]

Because the golfer is responsible for any damage no matter how stupidly the home is placed. I say this as a home owner who gets 500 balls a year on his property. Last year over 50 balls and one club in my pool alone. No broken windows or bones. Knock on wood.


I had played the course my entire life and thought there wasn't a problem. Turns out, it's the second shot stupid.

[Tim Gavrich]

FWIW, I'd put forward St. George's Hill, Sedgefield and Mountain Lake forward as older courses I've played where the surrounding neighborhoods actually add to - or at least are a key part of - the ambiance of the place.


Modern courses where I find the presence of housing to be interesting in a positive way include Windsor, Brays Island, Creighton Farms and Turnberry Isle.


I don't give much credence to blanket (or near-blanket) dismissals of residential golf courses. That a course must feel totally isolated in order to be considered enjoyable or great doesn't make sense to me, especially in the current era, where golf is going to have to be integrated into the rest of life in order to survive and thrive.

[Peter Pallotta]

Because golf should serve as a break from domestic life, not a reminder of the lawn mowing and laundry that was left undone.

Because other people's homes are about as interesting to me as their patio furniture & backyard gazebos -- none of which I really need to see on a golf course.

Because I want neither to get grief from, nor cause grief to, some retiree whose Norman Rockwell Sunday I half-ruined with one egregiously bad duck hook.

And because if there are houses there along the fairways then there *aren't* meadows and wild flowers and stands of trees and little streams and babbling brooks -- the sights and sounds that a city dweller longs to see and hear on a golf course.

Other than that, I suppose the course architecture can be very good and the course itself a fine and playable test of golf.

In short, Ira - I don't need more from a golf course (eg seaside beauty or majestic mountains) but I do like less (eg visual clutter and man-made structures).

[Tim Gavrich]

Because golf should serve as a break from domestic life, not a reminder of the lawn mowing and laundry that was left undone.

Because other people's homes are about as interesting to me as their patio furniture & backyard gazebos -- none of which I really need to see on a golf course.

Because I want neither to get grief from, nor cause grief to, some retiree whose Norman Rockwell Sunday I half-ruined with one egregiously bad duck hook.

And because if there are houses there along the fairways then there *aren't* meadows and wild flowers and stands of trees and little streams and babbling brooks -- the sights and sounds that a city dweller longs to see and hear on a golf course.

Other than that, I suppose the course architecture can be very good and the course itself a fine and playable test of golf.

Is the closing stretch playing back into the town of St. Andrews is a strike against The Old Course? When I played it and the apartments and shops hove back into view, I have to say that lawn mowing and laundry could not possibly have been farther from my mind. Same, for that matter, at the nicer housing courses I listed.


Don't get me wrong: golf-course-as-idyll is a nice notion. But what goes on on the actual field of play should be so interesting that it's difficult for what's going on on the margins to really detract from all that.

[Peter Pallotta]

I don't disagree with your last paragraph, Tim, but as always, we can only speak from our own personal experience -- and whereas I've played a half dozen residential courses I've never had the pleasure of playing even a single one where the actual field of play was so compelling that it 'neutralized' the non-golf-related distractions. I envy your playing of such great courses as St. George's Hill and St. Andrews, but I simply have no notion of how such charming & historic backdrops impact on such high quality architecture. That combination is non existent in my world, but I imagine it's pretty rare in the world at large too, no?

[A.G._Crockett]

I have not played a lot of courses built through housing developments so my perspective is far from complete. However, we played our non-resident course twice this week--Hope Valley--which is one of the older golf housing developments in the US dating to the Golden Age. I tried to pay particular attention to the impact of the houses, and I found almost none even though a few holes have homes just off the fairway. It is a very good course such that the quality of the holes rendered the houses irrelevant.


There seems to be a sentiment here that a course in a housing development is a priori not good. Why?


Ira

Ira,
The Hope Valley subdivision has at least some level of official "historic" status in Durham, and my understanding is that it is one of the few, if not the only, course for which Ross also was involved in planning the subdivision.  If I can find more, I'll post it.

[Tim Gavrich]

I don't disagree with your last paragraph, Tim, but as always, we can only speak from our own personal experience -- and whereas I've played a half dozen residential courses I've never had the pleasure of playing even a single one where the actual field of play was so compelling that it 'neutralized' the non-golf-related distractions. I envy your playing of such great courses as St. George's Hill and St. Andrews, but I simply have no notion of how such charming & historic backdrops impact on such high quality architecture. That combination is non existent in my world, but I imagine it's pretty rare in the world at large too, no?

Peter--


I've played plenty of courses in more run-of-the-mill residential developments that were plenty enjoyable, because the houses were set back enough from the corridors of play as to not really factor into the playing of the course, except on truly terrible shots. When houses do encroach on the course, I'm more with you, but in a lot of cases I find the aversion to houses to be overstated. It's a very easy criticism to make, and while that doesn't make it illegitimate, I think there are a lot of contexts in which a good or even great golf course can exist, and that a residential community can be one of them.


I've had a few rounds here in Florida where I've gotten too distracted by the presence of the houses and been psyched out when I've been on the tee. In pretty much every case, that's been more my fault than someone else's.

[John Kavanaugh]

A perfect example, that I'm sure Peter has also failed to play, is the car park off the right at North Berwick. The idea of losing between $500 - $1000 on one swing can be oft putting. Risk, risk, risk with little reward.

[Greg Smith]

The architecture of the houses is actually important.   There's a nice, unassuming 1924 Donald Ross in the medium-sized city where I live (Hagerstown, MD -- Fountainhead CC).  Judging by the early aerials/topo maps and the narratives I hear about the club, it was built on the 1920s outskirts of town with the intention of housing development.  The routing of the two nines was placed in such a way that the roads and neighborhoods would fit in nicely.  Part of this development was completed during the 1920s, and the rest was filled in before 1950.

So there's a nice mix of actual "Golden Age" houses mixed with some other 1940s architecture that's still pretty old -- the well to do and not contrived type.  They didn't really do McMansions back then.  These are cottages, bungalows, some one-story stone or brick ranchers.  So the relatively intimate scale of the buildings and their surrounds really fits the intimate scale of the golf course.

[Paul Carey]

I typically do not like courses in developments but would Yeaman's Hall be as revered if it was part of a housing development until 1929 happened?

[James Brown]

It seems different when it is a ‘town’ versus a ‘housing development.’ 

[Kevin_Reilly]

Close to me, two older courses do fine worthing their way through and among houses.  Burlingame (fun to try to guess the routing from an aerial) and Diablo never feel constrained by the surrounding homes (which are $$$$$ at both). 

[Greg Hohman]

The houses lining the "retro" publics in the Palm Springs area which I can afford don't have to be pricey Mid-Century Modern to convey the sense of place, add to the experience.

[MKrohn]

Just like an ocean, I have some difficulty separating the GCA aspect from the overall aesthetic.


I can't stand wending my way through housing estates, nor do I enjoy the visual and aural assault that playing at The Lakes or to a lesser extent The Australian out here presents. Whilst I enjoyed my round at Pasatiempo, the closeness of the housing on the front nine (regardless of the former resident) grated on me.



Ideally my golf needs to be in a peaceful environment.

[Matt MacIver]

Old courses with houses aren’t the problem. Courses built from 1980- on are; they were built to sell houses so you could see a pretty golf hole from your deck.  Quality, routing, OoB and safety were secondary concerns.

[Tom_Doak]

A perfect example, that I'm sure Peter has also failed to play, is the car park off the right at North Berwick. The idea of losing between $500 - $1000 on one swing can be oft putting. Risk, risk, risk with little reward.

You used to get insurance as part of the green fee so you wouldn't have to worry so much about that risk.

[Tom_Doak]

Bel Air is a housing development, and a pretty impressive one at that.  The homes don't get in the way of the course at all.  I suppose you could demand that no one should have built any homes in the Bel Air hills . . .


The bottom line here is that golfers [and especially raters] are just ridiculously spoiled.  There is certainly a point at which housing overwhelms the landscape and makes it impossible to enjoy the course, but I've heard raters say that even minimal housing detracted from their experience.


Somehow, they forget to bring that up as a factor when visiting Pebble Beach, Cypress Point, Winged Foot, or Pine Valley [or St. Andrews or North Berwick], all of which have some houses adjacent to fairways.  So, I think they are really just using the housing as a way to mark down a course when they want to keep it in its place.

[jeffwarne]

IF the golf course was built as an amenity to sell real estate, there's a good chance the below could happen..
which describes most of the drivel built since 1980(easily spotted by the now abandoned guard house and $29 GOLFNOW green fee-cart included of course)



1.the golf course is routed in all the low points and or flood plains to provide views from higher ground for homes(Atlanta-the bastion of bad development golf)
2.the golf course is spread out and unwalkable between holes because getting 22 lots on one hole is better than 14
3. houses are located on both sides, equidistant from the center lines of the fairway
4. the best land and interesting contours are not considered for the golf, but rather the golf is put where the most and best homesites can't be built
5. the architect then takes what the land planner has left him and puts in the obligatory bunker left-bunker right
6.Average Joe comments on GOLFNOW how smooth and fast the greens are, and that the "traps" are "consistent


There are many courses (North Berwick,TOC , Bude , Prestwick St. Nicholas , Riviera etc.) where the housing enhances the holes because the course/routing was not compromised to build them. Some housing and yes even tight OB can enhance, influene strategy and be really cool in small doses, but a course routed with OB houses down both sides every hole(no matter how wide the corridors) sucks both aesthetically and strategically

[Wade Whitehead]

Ira:

I don't feel that housing detracts from the experience at Harbour Town, even though they're present on pretty much every hole.

WW

[Sean_A]

I think we all can agree that in most cases houses/buildings overlooking golf courses isn't ideal.  The issue becomes one of does the housing subtantially detract from the course design or aesthetics.  In the case of Hope Valley the land plan is very good...same for St Georges Hill, Little Aston and Yeamans Hall...though YH was not fully built out.  In my experience its very rare that a high a quality course has been significantly hindered by housing.  Praia del Rey may be the only one I can think of.

Its pretty simple, if ya don't like to see building when playing golf don't play courses with buidling in sight.  I like the connection to town found at many places in the UK so I am less bothered by it all.

Ciao 

[jeffwarne]

Ira:

I don't feel that housing detracts from the experience at Harbour Town, even though they're present on pretty much every hole.

WW

That was my feeling in general at Long Cove when I worked there for 3 years(and some of the houses were great looking)
Harbor Town-not so much, but I never had any love for Harbour Town as it was o tight and one dimensiional.
Long Cove had some of those cool HT tree features, but also had the marsh holes as well as some wide open holes.
Harbour Town was just 17 holes in a bowling ally followed by hole 18.(and was always in shite condition other than tournament week due to shade and heavy overseed)

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Jeff - good post #18.
I understand it's a 'dialectic', ie opinion on a topic becomes a fixed consensus, and then some feel the need/duty to (rightly) rebalance or shift that opinion in the opposite direction.
Just like 'quirk', which some seem to love on very old courses where it was a 'necessity' but don't like on new courses, where it can feel forced and man-made.
So sure, winding your way along the ancient town of St. Andrews is better than winding your way through an ugly housing-first course from the 1980s. Of course.
But there must be a reason that Bandon can charge an arm and a leg to play -- yes, the quality of the courses, but also (I think) the absolute quiet and unspoiled beauty of golf in a natural setting, which is (increasingly) a real want and need for harried and harassed city dwellers in Chicago and LA and Atlanta etc etc.

[Ira Fishman]

I think we all can agree that in most cases houses/buildings overlooking golf courses isn't ideal.  The issue becomes one of does the housing subtantially detract from the course design or aesthetics.  In the case of Hope Valley the land plan is very good...same for St Georges Hill, Little Aston and Yeamans Hall...though YH was not fully built out.  In my experience its very rare that a high a quality course has been significantly hindered by housing.  Praia del Rey may be the only one I can think of.

Its pretty simple, if ya don't like to see building when playing golf don't play courses with buidling in sight.  I like the connection to town found at many places in the UK so I am less bothered by it all.

Ciao

St. George’s Hill is such a wonderful course that I do not remember even noticing the houses when we played last year. Hope Valley is not at the same level of quality, but as A.G. noted, Ross was involved from the beginning before the plan was developed. The comments several have made about golf taking priority when doing the planning resonates with me. Good land helps too of course.


Ira

[John Kavanaugh]

So you weren't told which house was Putin's daughters? The homes at St. George's are a plus.


In all seriousness what kind of selfish prick is going to be bothered by an estate laden course? Damn horse, don't whinny on my dime.