New/Renovated Course Pipeline

[Paul Rudovsky]

The Fescue Database https://fescue.github.io/


To our knowledge, there is no single place to see a listing of "relatively important” golf courses that are undergoing a renovation or restoration, or a listing of new golf course developments in the “pipeline.”    We (Tom Brown of Los Angeles and I) discussed this and decided to pull together a “committee” to help assemble such a list…and to keep improving the list by providing regular updates in the future.  That was less than three weeks ago, and what started as a very modest list of some 10 courses/potential courses has grown to over 150 courses/potential courses.  The input of the committee members has been fabulous. A couple of members expressed a real desire to stay anonymous…so we have decided to make the committee list anonymous (for as long as that can last in the age of the internet).
It also became very obvious that if this would be helpful to us, there were probably several hundred others like us…many of whom are members of Golf Club Atlas and visitors to GCA’s “Discussion Group”.  We toyed with the thought that such a list might have real market value but concluded that the likelihood of that was about equal to the likelihood of my beating Tom over 18 holes without strokes.  So, we have decided on the next best thing, which is to post it here on “Discussion Group” and make it available to other aficionados worldwide.
So here it is: https://fescue.github.io/
First, allow us to explain what this listing is, what it is not, and provide a few definitions to help you navigate the list:
1.  Name:  "New/Renovated Course Pipeline" (clearly, neither of us are marketing types)
2.  “Relatively Important” golf courses:  this is a tough definition.  We wanted to make the list of manageable size so in general would like to include:
—courses that might be considered candidates for the variety of Top 100 lists out there,
—prior and future hosts of major golf tournament events,
—architectural changes to courses originally designed by great architects,
—new courses and renovations led by highly respected architects,
—new courses and renovations featuring new and unusual features which may become important as the game evolves, and
—exploring the work of emerging architects in new geographies that sound like fun
Everyone is going to have their own definition of “relatively important” and we fully expect this definition to evolve over time…and absolutely want to avoid “food fights” over what is included on and excluded from this list.  The list will never be important enough for that.
3.  Renovation vs Restoration…neither of us are sure where one definition stops and the other applies…so we are using these terms interchangeably.  That should help reduce food fights.
4.  Time Limit—we quickly realized that if we included all renovations ever, the list would become unmanageable in size…so we decided to only include courses/renovations with opening dates of January 1, 2019 and later.  Furthermore, as all of us have seen how new developments can die a very slow death, we reserve the right to drop proposals that seem to show a distinct lack of activity after their initial flurry.
5.  Please look at the format of the spreadsheet (https://fescue.github.io/ ). 
            3rd column (“Location”) - Click here for link to Google Maps presenting a map of the area near the course (assuming we input the longitude and latitude correctly). 
            4th column - Click here for the Club’s/Course’s website. 
            10^th column - Click here for applicable YouTube videos, leaning toward the construction end of content
            11th column - Click here for the Club’s/Course’s website Instagram
If you have any interesting content on YouTube or Instagram from one of these golf properties, please share with us and we’ll post online.
6.  Note that we have three “stages” named in the 9th column (“Status”) which should capture the development process.  These stages flow as follows:  Drawing Boards —> Construction —> Open.  Put simply, Drawing Boards includes any Master Planning efforts, and stops when the shovels first hit the ground (“Construction”).  Finally, upon complete of grow in, the course is considered Open when it is available for regular play…typically after a “soft opening” (for example June 2020 for The Sheep Ranch at Bandon).  One trick…the date or year shown in the 5th column is the date of actual or anticipated opening for courses in the Open or Construction phase…BUT it is the date construction is scheduled to start in the Drawing Boards phase (note * and footnote at the bottom).
7.  This is NOT a new Top 100 listing.  We want to make the selection of which courses get included (and which do not) as “light handed” as possible.  It is really a "candidate list” to keep all of us informed about courses that might be worthy of an initial or return visit.
8.  MOST IMPORTANTLY, this list will be like a new golf course…unless maintained properly, it will turn to crap.  We are planning quarterly updates which will mean researching to determine the status of these projects (including some that will die in the process especially given likely economic conditions over the coming months), as well as staying on top of new projects.  That means we need input from you folks as well as our “Committee”.  The input would include corrections to current entries, suggestions for others, format and almost anything else.  We certainly do not think the list is perfect in its present form…but hope and really believe it can grow grow into an important resource for all of us.  That will take the participation of many.  Please join the effort.


9. Lastly, we hope this contribution is not seen as tone deaf with the current COVID-19 crisis.  One of the great opportunities of the golfclubatlas community we have found is meeting golf architects, shapers, superintendents, and really everyone in all corners of the game.  We know that some projects won't make it over the finish line, but to each person working on these projects, we hope their project does.

Paul Rudovsky (and Thomas V. Brown)

[Ally Mcintosh]

Let the food fights begin...

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Add Sterling Grove in Surprise, AZ , a Nicklaus Design project, opening early 2021.


https://www.sterlinggroveclub.com/golf

[David_Tepper]

Regarding the Olympic Club (San Francisco), please be aware the hiring of Gil Hanse is for him to develop a master plan for the entire golf course property, not just the Lake Course. 

[Tom_Doak]

Paul:


Two questions:


1.  What qualifies a course as "relatively important," besides who the designer is? 


2.  What qualifies a renovation as "important," especially if no substantial changes are being made to the design?


It seems like you are mostly amplifying existing p.r. here.


Or worse, starting to pick winners before anything has even been done.

[Peter Flory]

I would suggest that you try to quantize the type of job/ project a little more.  Something like New Build/ Complete Renovation/ Partial Renovation/ Restoration/ Bunker Project/ or Other (for sorting purposes).  Then have additional specifics in a comments column.  Pretty useful snapshot of the coming attractions.  Thank you for putting it together and sharing it with us.  It would be great if it had every known project on it, important or not... but I can imagine that would be really difficult to accurately track. 

[Paul Rudovsky]

Paul:


Two questions:


1.  What qualifies a course as "relatively important," besides who the designer is? 


2.  What qualifies a renovation as "important," especially if no substantial changes are being made to the design?


It seems like you are mostly amplifying existing p.r. here.


Or worse, starting to pick winners before anything has even been done.

Tom--


Absolutely not trying to pick winners.  We are simply trying to generate a list people can use to "remind" themselves of what they can choose from and what is coming down the pipeline.  It was amazing how many really well know projects escaped our collective memories for a couple of days (could be a function of age w some of us).  For example, we had forgotten about Royal Dornoch until yesterday.


I think for almost everyone, having a list to visually search makes it easier to select...I certainly know that when I have been planning trips, it is always harder without such a list.  That is why my "top 100 spreadsheet" is almost always sorted geographically.


On the other hand, if we did not exert any "editorial" control regarding quality/importance/history, the list would be so long it might lose its usefulness.  I think doing anything like this requires one to figure out some appropriate "balancing point" between too long a list and too much a matter of picking favorites.  We are trying to find an appropriate middle ground to provide a useful tool for all of us...and hopefully it will get better over time.  Someone once said, being the first to walk through freshly fallen snow is tough...there are no tracks to follow".


Regarding "importance" in your first two questions, to a large degree that is from the view of the eyes of the beholder.  In retrospect I think I would change one word in our earlier post (have not discussed this w Tom...this is my view which was brought to light my your second question). I would have said in the 6 "bullet points" on our #2:


new courses and renovations featuring new and unusual features which may become important as the game evolves, OR
—exploring the work of emerging architects in new geographies that sound like fun

[Paul Rudovsky]

Add Sterling Grove in Surprise, AZ , a Nicklaus Design project, opening early 2021.


https://www.sterlinggroveclub.com/golf

thanks Steve...at present ewe plan to update quarterly

[Paul Rudovsky]

Regarding the Olympic Club (San Francisco), please be aware the hiring of Gil Hanse is for him to develop a master plan for the entire golf course property, not just the Lake Course.

Noted...thanks David

[Tom_Doak]

Paul:


Thanks fof the response.


I just remember the days when nobody paid attention to what I was doing because they were so busy following the 100 new Nicklaus and Fazio projects in the pipeline.  I also remember when Ballyneal was the sixth Best New Private Course of 1997 - though I can't quite recall what those other five were. 😉


I have been on both sides of it now, and I can say with conviction that rater bias is a big part of the rankings process.  If you need a list of courses you want to see, that's fine, but a bunch of panelists deciding what's exciting before it is even built is how bias gets done.

[Paul Rudovsky]

Paul:


Thanks fof the response.


I just remember the days when nobody paid attention to what I was doing because they were so busy following the 100 new Nicklaus and Fazio projects in the pipeline.  I also remember when Ballyneal was the sixth Best New Private Course of 1997 - though I can't quite recall what those other five were. 😉





I have been on both sides of it now, and I can say with conviction that rater bias is a big part of the rankings process.  If you need a list of courses you want to see, that's fine, but a bunch of panelists deciding what's exciting before it is even built is how bias gets done.

Tom--My strong feeling is that raters do not have any more bias than any other group of random people...yes raters is not a random category but there are wide differences of opinion between raters.  Also, I would suggest that the collection of 152 courses on the current list presents a very large variety of architectural styles and avenues for the game of golf.  This is not a list of renovations to top 100 courses.  I would also point out that the Architects Survey Top 100 published by Golf Course Architecture about 10-15 years ago was not materially different from the selections made by "raters" at that time.  We all have biases (sometimes called differences of opinion...some even say that is what makes the world go round).


Regarding you comments about Ballyneal...not many had been to Sand Hills by then so if they saw Ballyneal first, many didn't know what they were looking at.  Yes, architecturally similar to links golf...but for most human minds when presented in an out of context environment, sometimes it takes a while to "sink in".  And if I wanted to blame any one or any group for the "critical " views of around 1997, I would blame the magazines and their staffs.  I distinctly recall in the 1990's all of the major media players hailing the courses by Fazio and JWN because when you stood on the tee, there were no surprises, no mental games, no blind shots, just a very obvious one way to play the hole...which was challenging the player to go play the hole that one way.  They said essentially that in print over and over again. 


My my how the world has changed and IMHO a large part of the credit goes to two guys named Youngscap and Keiser (not to mention some guys named Doak, Coore, Crenshaw and more recently Hanse)...but without the availability of land that was not easy to travel to...me thinks we'd still be in the dark ages.


In any case, I think the key point I am trying to make is that we tried to put variety into the list...and variety takes one in different different directions...including toward some tracks that do not reflect what most of us on this site love (such as Oak Hill, Muirfield Village, etc.).  I sincerely doubt we hit the nail on the head w this first pass, but am very hopeful that contributions from you and dozens and dozens of other will improve the list in the future.  It almost has to be better than no references source at all.


Enjoying the exchange of thoughts...


Paul

[Tom_Doak]

Regarding you comments about Ballyneal...not many had been to Sand Hills by then so if they saw Ballyneal first, many didn't know what they were looking at.  Yes, architecturally similar to links golf...but for most human minds when presented in an out of context environment, sometimes it takes a while to "sink in".  And if I wanted to blame any one or any group for the "critical " views of around 1997, I would blame the magazines and their staffs.  I distinctly recall in the 1990's all of the major media players hailing the courses by Fazio and JWN because when you stood on the tee, there were no surprises, no mental games, no blind shots, just a very obvious one way to play the hole...which was challenging the player to go play the hole that one way.  They said essentially that in print over and over again. 

Your memory is pretty faulty on these points.  By 2007 Sand Hills was firmly established and if anything Ballyneal's low rating was affected negatively because it wasn't as fair as Sand Hills, and the greens were quite sliw those first couple of years.  But it still lost out to a bunch of Fazio and Nicklaus courses.


As for the magazines, well, I was the architecture editor at GOLF Magazine from the mid-1980's to the mid-1990's, and I was not writing anything you said above!  One of the things I've been working on for my new web site is to collect ALL of my old writings in one place.  In particular, be sure to read the articles I wrote to accompany the top 100 lists in the early 1990's, when they are up - stressing that the underlying property was just as important as the designer.  Luckily, one of my readers became a very influential developer!

[Paul Rudovsky]

Regarding you comments about Ballyneal...not many had been to Sand Hills by then so if they saw Ballyneal first, many didn't know what they were looking at.  Yes, architecturally similar to links golf...but for most human minds when presented in an out of context environment, sometimes it takes a while to "sink in".  And if I wanted to blame any one or any group for the "critical " views of around 1997, I would blame the magazines and their staffs.  I distinctly recall in the 1990's all of the major media players hailing the courses by Fazio and JWN because when you stood on the tee, there were no surprises, no mental games, no blind shots, just a very obvious one way to play the hole...which was challenging the player to go play the hole that one way.  They said essentially that in print over and over again. 

Your memory is pretty faulty on these points.  By 2007 Sand Hills was firmly established and if anything Ballyneal's low rating was affected negatively because it wasn't as fair as Sand Hills, and the greens were quite sliw those first couple of years.  But it still lost out to a bunch of Fazio and Nicklaus courses.


As for the magazines, well, I was the architecture editor at GOLF Magazine from the mid-1980's to the mid-1990's, and I was not writing anything you said above!  One of the things I've been working on for my new web site is to collect ALL of my old writings in one place.  In particular, be sure to read the articles I wrote to accompany the top 100 lists in the early 1990's, when they are up - stressing that the underlying property was just as important as the designer.  Luckily, one of my readers became a very influential developer!

Tom--


My 1997 reference was based your citation of BN being 6th best private course in 1997...there was no reference to 2007 in either your emails or mine.  Yes by 2007 SH was firmly established but not so in 1997 IMO.


I think I have a good number of the early GM articles that accompanied GM's Top 100 listings.  If you are in search of some I would be happy to look to see and shoot you a copy if I have it.


Best
Paul

[Mike_Young]

Paul,With respect for what you are trying to do, I don't really get it.  I briefly read the list.  For example, in GA what is mentioned is finished and does not begin to accurately portray what is going on with renovations, etc in the state.  I think the exercise would require much more digging than what I see presently.  And as I have become older and grumpier, I have quit putting forth effort to announce work or even promote it.  I think most of us have realized most courses'golf markets are no larger than 20 mile radius.  Good luck keep plugging.

[Paul Rudovsky]

We have posted an update to the New/Renovated Course Pipeline...adding 10 courses (bringing total to 162).  Our plans have been to update the list on quarterly basis, but with the initial publication earlier this week we received the additions, plus a few corrections.  Link to the listing is https://fescue.github.io


The new added listings are:
USA-AZ   Sterling Grove            JWN New Course
USA-KY   Park Mammoth GC      Ross & Craig Rebuild
USA-DE   Links at St. Anne's      Liddicoat/Horne/Furyk New Course
USA-TN   Troubadour                 Fazio New Course
USA-NC   High Hampton            Fazio New Course
USA-FL    Jupiter Hills (Hills)      Fazio Renovation
USA-LA   Metairie                      Silva Renovation
USA-MD  US Naval Academy      Green Renovation
USA-PA   Fox Chapel                 Fazio/Marzolf Renovation
Germany Hamburger Golf Club   Pont Renovation


Corrections have been made to:
USA-CA   Brambles
USA-CA   Olympic
Mexico    Cabo del Sol


Next update in about three months...keep additional items coming!!

[Steve_ Shaffer]

@ Paul


Sterling Grove is a Nicklaus Design , one of 3 levels of design options. JN is no longer active in design so his JN Signature Courses are a thing of the past:


http://104.130.176.183/design-services/three-levels-of-design/

[Paul Rudovsky]

Steve--


My bad...we will correct inn next couple of days


Thanks


Best
Paul

[Paul Rudovsky]

List updated earlier today...now includes total of 190 courses  go to: https://fescue.github.io

[Dave Givnish]

I played Sterling Grove this past weekend. Go try it if you’re coming out for Spring Training on the west side of Phoenix. It’s priced well for this time of year.


The course is relatively flat from tee to green. It’s a traditional design with wide fairways. I thought that the fairway bunkers were reasonable for mid handicappers. There’s a good deal of wind so the width was welcome.  Some of the fairways are 60-70 yards across. It is walkable and they have pushcarts. Some of the green to tee distances get a bit long though. It is a real estate course after all.


The greens, on the other hand, have a LOT of contour. The pins were at the edges of the greens all day so I’ll reserve judgment until I play it again. It’s a 2nd shot course where you need to be in the right quadrant to have a chance. They may have to soften up a number of the greens over time to sell memberships.


I would have liked to see a few more openings in the green approaches. There were about 4 holes where a bunker blocked a good way for a high handicapper rope to run the ball onto a green.


It was in very good shape for being open only 10 days to the public. Take a cart as I was told the GPS gives good strategic hints. All in all, it’s a pleasant course if you don’t get a windy day.

[Jeff Schley]

Paul thank you for this monumental legwork and project. As an aside it would be interesting to estimate the $ amount of each project if known or estimable. It probably falls under none of our business, but would give some interesting data for the appetite of clubs around the world to invest in their courses and graph that total spend over time. Not the number of projects, but the dollar amount.
I assume there is no accurate way to gather this, thus it might be an impossible exercise.

[Tim_Weiman]

@ Paul


Sterling Grove is a Nicklaus Design , one of 3 levels of design options. JN is no longer active in design so his JN Signature Courses are a thing of the past:


http://104.130.176.183/design-services/three-levels-of-design/

Steve,


I don’t want to hijack the thread, but I was struck by your comment JN is no longer active in design.


Can you explain exactly what this means?


Thanks!

[Tom_Doak]

Jack announced a year ago that he was retiring from active involvement in his design company, although I was surprised to see his name all over the new project they have planned in Saudi Arabia.  I guess they paid him to make an exception ?

[Paul Rudovsky]

Paul thank you for this monumental legwork and project. As an aside it would be interesting to estimate the $ amount of each project if known or estimable. It probably falls under none of our business, but would give some interesting data for the appetite of clubs around the world to invest in their courses and graph that total spend over time. Not the number of projects, but the dollar amount.
I assume there is no accurate way to gather this, thus it might be an impossible exercise.

Jeff--

Yes you are right...interesting but impossible to learn or estimate without a huge team of folks or a whole bunch of architects wanting to destroy their careers and livelihoods by violating what I assume are strong confidentiality clauses in most contracts.  Even getting estimates of totals for all jobs would be tough as it would require is to "categorize" projects by scope and size (especially for restoration and renovation projects which can range from 1 hole such as #7 at R Dornoch to all 18 w new bunkers, re-grassed greens, tree removal, and even re-routing due to purchase of new land or loss of some of the original land)...not to mention issues related to difficultly or working in terrain etc.

However...we could summarize the projects simply in terms of numbers...geographically, by project type (new, total rebuild, restoration/renovation...note that I don't want to get into battles with every involved regarding which projects are restorations and which are renovations), year of projected completion.  That would give a broad picture of the industries scope and the architects might want to assign average numbers to each project type to get a round ball estimate.  But even without $$ numbers that might prove interesting...after all there are now 520 projects listed starting with 2020 calendar year openings (and another 66 projects listed as 2019 openings...probably understated as we didn't even start this thing until about a year ago).  Listing projects by architect might also be interesting.

Any thoughts or reactions?