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Garland Bayley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How raw do you dare?
« Reply #75 on: January 10, 2020, 06:06:39 PM »
... And it’s not ‘raw’ in maintenance terms either, in fact it’s pretty much perfect.
Atb

Could use some sheep.
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

Michael Goldstein

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How raw do you dare?
« Reply #76 on: January 10, 2020, 07:05:48 PM »
OK, so my tolerance here is well beyond the norm.  For example Askernish sits amongst my favourite courses without even needing an asterisk for conditioning.


Last week I 'played' golf at a whole new level...


We turned up at a family run course in the Hawkes Bay called Wairunga.  It's near Cape Kidnappers and the story goes that, from time to time, guests come out to play Wairunga and are taken around on 4x4s.  I think some of the Renaissance guys discovered it a few years ago and I've been meaning to visit for ages.   It's the ultimate country course, volunteer run on land owned by some local farmers.  The land has some great shapes and the nine holes have some clever designed mixed with phenomenal coastal views.


We turned up and things looked a little concerning, even given expectations.   The owner popped out and told us that 'they don't do golf' anymore and that the grass hadn't been cut for months.  The fairways were a feet high, the holes hadn't been cut and whilst the odd flag was still standing the only way of discerning the green was the white stakes that held up the old electric fences.  The greens had a mixture of green speeds with grass heights ranging from 5cm to around 75cm high (2.5 feet high).  On one (particularly stunning par three) we lost two balls on the green in waist high grass.  By the fifth hole, our bags becoming lighter with a worrying lack of golf balls,  we were faced with a 500+ yard monster.  Competitive juices kicked in and we resorted to pitching the ball criss-cross across the terrain so that we could complete the hold - deploying a completely new mode of 'strategy'. 


A raw form of golf that isn't necessarily recommended but, with good mates and the right attitude, it was a hell of a lot of fun!!   



@Pure_Golf

Thomas Dai

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How raw do you dare?
« Reply #77 on: January 11, 2020, 04:36:07 AM »
... And it’s not ‘raw’ in maintenance terms either, in fact it’s pretty much perfect.
Atb
Could use some sheep.
Most courses could, and not just sheep but goats too .... provided the climate is appropriate and there are are no big hungry critters around that want to eat them.
atb
« Last Edit: January 11, 2020, 05:31:28 AM by Thomas Dai »

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re: How raw do you dare?
« Reply #78 on: January 11, 2020, 10:30:59 AM »

We turned up and things looked a little concerning, even given expectations.   The owner popped out and told us that 'they don't do golf' anymore and that the grass hadn't been cut for months.   


My crew will be very disappointed to hear that Wairunga doesn't do golf anymore.


One of my all time favorite rounds of golf was playing Cape Kidnappers with Bruce, Eric and Brian Slawnik, two weeks into construction.  The fairways were just grazed down by the sheep and cattle, and they were as firm and fast as anything I've ever played.  We couldn't play 7-8-9 because we hadn't done the earthwork yet and they were pretty much impassable, but we hit it around the other 15 holes, and climbed down through the canyons to get from 6 and 14 tees to the fairways on the other side.

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re: How raw do you dare?
« Reply #79 on: January 11, 2020, 03:58:28 PM »


 perhaps you can relate to this, Tom: When I used to dream of working as a GCA, I’d look at all these natural fields as I was walking or driving and imagine greens and holes on them. Whilst they looked right to the eye in virgin state, they were invariably too small. When I actually started designing, I’d realise that all these landforms I’d dreamt about as a kid just didn’t work in the way I had envisioned them. They needed to be bigger / wider / longer. Even now, I occasionally have to remind myself when looking at a site / location.



Absolutely.  To this day, on raw ground, everything looks farther to me than it really is, and I just try to make a mental correction.  I have told lots of people that go out on construction sites with me that the most common question I get is, "Is this a par five?"  No, actually it's 380 yards, it just looks like a par 5 without some golfers out there to give it scale.


That's why I try to start with the maps, instead of going out on site before I have them.  If I just go out on site I won't really see the scale right, and I might latch onto something that winds up not working very well.  If I've played with the maps a bit first, I have a sense of scale, and I won't trip over what my eyes see.

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