[David_Tepper]

Anyone aware of the Doak/Maha project?

https://golfguide.net/coming-soon/

[Adam G]

He discussed it extensively on the latest Fried Egg podcast. Seems interesting -- starting one place and ending another allows him to descend dramatically in elevation and do holes you would not do if you had to get back to a clubhouse.

[David_Tepper]

Adam G. -

Thanks for the heads up. I just listened to the podcast. I live in San Francisco and had heard nothing about this project until an hour ago.

It will be very interesting to see if the project (the entire Maha project, not just the golf course) gets built. Given the current state of the world and the concern over water supplies available in California, I have my doubts.

DT
 

[Tom_Doak]

Adam G. -

Thanks for the heads up. I just listened to the podcast. I live in San Francisco and had heard nothing about this project until an hour ago.

It will be very interesting to see if the project (the entire Maha project, not just the golf course) gets built. Given the current state of the world and the concern over water supplies available in California, I have my doubts.

The client has been laying low during the long entitlements process to avoid any hassles with permits.


But you should not doubt it for a minute.  The property has huge water rights (from ranch land and vineyards) and it is very well funded.  Whether there will be customers to buy the real estate, I cannot predict (the same is true for all of California).  But they will certainly have their chance.


Won't happen fast, though.  With construction restricted in the winter due to erosion control it will take at least two seasons to build, so I don't think they'll be playing golf until 2023.  It will be worth the wait.

[David_Tepper]

Tom D. -

Thanks for the information. Two questions:

Is this the project?  https://lotuslandinvestment.com/project/guenoc-valley/

Is this project on or near the land of the Tom Weiskopf (NLE) course that was built a number of years ago?

Good luck with it.

DT

[Ulrich Mayring]

A high end resort operation with three clubhouses over 18 holes is certainly going against the grain of the current sustainability movement. I'm wondering: would the young generation, who have been on school strike for climate change and are now taking to the streets against racism, build this? Or is it the last hurrah of the old white man project?

Perhaps there is a silent majority among the young generation, who will happily become our future leaders and keep those pesky protesters at bay, all the while ensuring the ongoing profitability of projects like those in the linked article. But historically, it's been the activist and vocal youths who became the future leaders.

Ok, we're straying a bit from golf into politics, which is always dicey. But it's hard to deny that golf is entrenched in culture. Any golf architect, who ever worked in Europe, will testify that environmental regulations are extremely tough and many courses simply can't be built. And that's certainly not because of a single old white man at the top. It's because society at large thinks it's a good idea to go tough on environmental issues. You can't win an election in most of Europe, if you ignore those issues that the young generation of several generations ago has championed.

Politics aside, does anyone think it's a bad sign that new builds are all of the high end type these days? For one super luxury high end resort you should have five upscale builds and 20 community type of projects.

[Kalen Braley]

David,

This link has quite a bit of project info around structures and land maps, with some golf related info too.

http://www.lakecountyca.gov/Assets/Departments/CDD/Planning/Docs/Guenoc/Maha+SPOD.pdf

[David_Tepper]

Kalen -

Thanks for the link. A very ambitious project for sure. Don't forget the nearby Brambles course project is still in the works as well.

https://www.jhduncan.com/brambles

DT

[Matt_Cohn]

Tom D. -

Thanks for the information. Two questions:

Is this the project?  https://lotuslandinvestment.com/project/guenoc-valley/

Is this project on or near the land of the Tom Weiskopf (NLE) course that was built a number of years ago?

Good luck with it.

DT

It’s basically across the street from the old Weiskopf course, just north of it.

[Lou_Duran]

I would be curious to know how much rope Tom Doak was given to route the course by the owners and the land planners.  I am assuming that the course will be mostly played in riding carts given the need for three clubhouses and the area's extreme heat during the summer.


Given that this site's politics-are-off-limits guideline has been breached already, one might wonder if the transfer of wealth from Asia to North America is continuing, perhaps at an accelerated pace, and what this portends.   Not unlike my Armenian friend, my ancestors have been slighted to various degrees (from existential to blatant harassment to economic and social obstruction) over a few centuries and there is no other place else where I want to live.


Money tends to flow to safety, though perhaps "safety" is relative and highly subjective.  We have neighbors who are for the first time buying guns and taking classes for licensing, though we live far away from the protests and riots.


We are not there yet, nevertheless, I am feeling the need to hedge a bit and have been thinking about New Zealand and Australia once again.  It is curious how different and more restrictive their immigration systems are, especially NZ's.  Six months in UT, two in the Highlands and the rest split between NZ and Aus.  Wishful thinking I suppose while social distancing in very hot north Texas.

[David_Tepper]

Lou D. -

Tom Doak discusses the routing of the course at length in the Fried Egg podcast:

https://thefriedegg.com/category/podcasts/

What is unique about the routing is that the course will end quite some distance from where if starts.

DT

[Niall C]

For some reason none of the links seem to be working but judging from the posts on this thread am I right in saying the first tee is in Havana, the halfway house San Francisco and the 18th green in Wellington ? Sounds like a hell of a course.


Niall

[Mike Nuzzo]

A golf course that ends somewhere other than where it begins sounds so much better than the traditional route, at least for a change.

[Garland Bayley]

A golf course that ends somewhere other than where it begins sounds so much better than the traditional route, at least for a change.

Used to be you started in Leven, and 18 holes later you finished in Lundin, or vica versa. I suppose you could have a nice pub meal, and then play back to your start point.

I guess with modern pace of play, the pub meal takes place after 9 holes, thereby necessitating the need for a halfway house. After all, now we have motorized vehicles to take you back to your start point.

[Lou_Duran]

A golf course that ends somewhere other than where it begins sounds so much better than the traditional route, at least for a change.

Didn't TD do that at Dismal River and his mentor at Harbour Town?  But maybe you're going for sarcasm.  Or are you evolving?


Me, I like the Wolf Point approach.  Step out of Al's house and play 18 holes in different configurations and end near where it started.


Niall,


You understated the routing.  It starts near Lugo, Spain and ends some place yet TBD via Havana, Cuba with a detour or two to South America.  The time period is now approaching 100 years, a rather slow round I suppose.  The episodes of privations, extremely hard work, successes, and personal tragedies are far too many to entertain lightly.  Suffice it to say that I much prefer a tight routing on calmer land.  However, I don't mind a couple of comfort stations along the way.   

[Garland Bayley]

A golf course that ends somewhere other than where it begins sounds so much better than the traditional route, at least for a change.

Didn't TD do that at Dismal River and his mentor at Harbour Town? 
...

And, at Black Forest!

That Tom! Always recycling ideas!

[Tom_Doak]

Tom D. -

Thanks for the information. Two questions:

Is this the project?  https://lotuslandinvestment.com/project/guenoc-valley/

Is this project on or near the land of the Tom Weiskopf (NLE) course that was built a number of years ago?

Good luck with it.

DT

David:


Yes, that's the project.


The property for the Weiskopf course was bought as part of the project, too.  All in all they own more than 25,000 acres in Lake County and Napa County.  So, our golf course is "across the street", but it's also maybe 4 or 5 miles further east, up in the hills.

[Tom_Doak]

A high end resort operation with three clubhouses over 18 holes is certainly going against the grain of the current sustainability movement. I'm wondering: would the young generation, who have been on school strike for climate change and are now taking to the streets against racism, build this? Or is it the last hurrah of the old white man project?

Perhaps there is a silent majority among the young generation, who will happily become our future leaders and keep those pesky protesters at bay, all the while ensuring the ongoing profitability of projects like those in the linked article. But historically, it's been the activist and vocal youths who became the future leaders.

Ok, we're straying a bit from golf into politics, which is always dicey. But it's hard to deny that golf is entrenched in culture. Any golf architect, who ever worked in Europe, will testify that environmental regulations are extremely tough and many courses simply can't be built. And that's certainly not because of a single old white man at the top. It's because society at large thinks it's a good idea to go tough on environmental issues. You can't win an election in most of Europe, if you ignore those issues that the young generation of several generations ago has championed.

Politics aside, does anyone think it's a bad sign that new builds are all of the high end type these days? For one super luxury high end resort you should have five upscale builds and 20 community type of projects.

Ulrich:


Why, exactly, is a single golf course on 29,000 acres unsustainable?  You should see some of the stuff these developers have built before you make generalized judgments.  And I don't know what anything about this project has to do with racism. 


New builds are all of the high end type because they are trying to make the money back that it costs to build a new project.  Only an older golf course with no debt can afford to charge $20 or $30 for golf.  And, with rare exceptions, most golf courses wherever they are charge as much as they can get away with . . . the same as most other businesses.

[Tom_Doak]

A golf course that ends somewhere other than where it begins sounds so much better than the traditional route, at least for a change.

Used to be you started in Leven, and 18 holes later you finished in Lundin, or vica versa. I suppose you could have a nice pub meal, and then play back to your start point.

I guess with modern pace of play, the pub meal takes place after 9 holes, thereby necessitating the need for a halfway house. After all, now we have motorized vehicles to take you back to your start point.
 

Actually, Garland, you made it from Lundin to Leven in nine holes, had a snack if you wanted, and then played nine holes back to where you came from.


I actually did a routing something like that for a course just recently, citing Innerleven as a model.  If it's built, I doubt the client will use the two distinct starting points, but it's possible, for reasons I cannot disclose just yet.


For the Maha project, nine holes are up on a hill, and nine in the valley far below, although the 10th and 11th are on the side of the hill to get you down there.  Because of the nature of the resort [pricing, clientele, etc.] and how hot it gets in the summer, I think it's possible that a lot of the guests will choose to play only nine holes a day and then move on to other activities, and go tackle the other nine the next day.


They are not visualizing that golfers will take their golf cart back up to the starting point - they'll have staff for that.      These are not my normal clients but they are a lot of fun to work with.

[Kalen Braley]

I may be wrong, but isn't California one of the most difficult places in the country to get approval for a new course?  Would think it'd be top 5 at least.  Not sure how it stacks up to European regulations, but I'm pretty sure Cali is not gonna let em get away with any shortcuts...


P.S.  I'm also not seeing the racial/political component to this project either...

[Tom_Doak]

I would be curious to know how much rope Tom Doak was given to route the course by the owners and the land planners.  I am assuming that the course will be mostly played in riding carts given the need for three clubhouses and the area's extreme heat during the summer.

It was the land planners' concept originally to have the separate resort hotels connected by equestrian trails and walking trails.


The lead hotel developer is pretty famous for his boutique hotels, none of which (at 20-30 rooms) were big enough to support a golf course.  They are known for being the pinnacle of sustainability.  When I asked him if there was anything about golf he didn't like, he said yes, he did not like that a golf course seemed like a big green blob that wasn't natural.


So, I put two and two together and suggested stretching out the course from point to point, to make the green blob vanish.  If you are looking across the course from a distance, you may not even realize it is a golf course . . . especially if we try to eliminate bunkers as a feature, as we are thinking.  The client loved that idea and so our mantra is to try and make the golf course look as little like a golf course as possible.




The land planners have often pushed back on my plan hard at times, but from day one the clients have always said that I could go wherever I needed to make it a great golf course, and once they bought into the concept of it, they have completely backed me up and made the planning fit around our routing.  It's a huge piece of ground, so there is no reason to fight over acreage.  The environmental permitting for it is another story -- very very complicated, but at the end of the day, it looks like we will have 3-4 green sites quite close to the stream that flows through the back nine, which will be amazing in California in 2020.


One of the goals in stretching out the course as we have was to try and make it walkable, although in the summer months I do not imagine very many of the resort's guests doing that, or at least walking all 18 holes at once.  There was no way we could have gone down into the valley if we'd had to play back up or walk back up.




You're welcome to your preferences, though you'll be missing out on something that I think is going to be really special.  And it's not part of some sinister plot to change golf -- I really think it's just the best solution for this client and this piece of ground.  The Weiskopf course that was on property was more in line with what you like, but it was a total fail in attracting golfers -- you probably never even heard of it.  The business model for this project is way different.

[Tom_Doak]

I may be wrong, but isn't California one of the most difficult places in the country to get approval for a new course?  Would think it'd be top 5 at least.  Not sure how it stacks up to European regulations, but I'm pretty sure Cali is not gonna let em get away with any shortcuts...


P.S.  I'm also not seeing the racial/political component to this project either...

We have been working on the permits for three years, hopefully to be signed off on soon.  It is very complicated due to the soils and topography in the valley -- every little swale is an intermittent stream that has to be bridged over or mitigated.  And five of the greens on the back nine get quite close to the stream that eventually collects all that runoff!  At the beginning, I assumed we wouldn't be able do that -- none of the other designers who had looked at the project ever suggested going down into that valley at all.  But after a lot of discussions with the environmental engineers they believed we weren't asking for anything that would be impossible.

[David_Tepper]

The Weiskopf course that was on property was more in line with what you like, but it was a total fail in attracting golfers -- you probably never even heard of it.

Tom D. -

If the owners/operators of the Weiskopf course were trying to attract public/daily fee golfers, they sure did a lousy job of promoting it. It was never clear, to me at least living in San Francisco, whether the course was built just to entertain clients of the adjacent winery or to be a true venue welcoming public play.

DT
 

[Tim Leahy]

The Weiskopf course was called Langtry Farms and there was no public play. At first you had to join the winery club to play with wine starting at $50 a bottle, case purchase minimum then they added a boutique hotel stay requirement at $500 a night. I tried to play there but my income and the flat treeless course kept me away. I also think the course may have been damaged by the big fire there and that may have contributed to its closure.

[Tom_Doak]

The Weiskopf course was called Langtry Farms and there was no public play. At first you had to join the winery club to play with wine starting at $50 a bottle, case purchase minimum then they added a boutique hotel stay requirement at $500 a night. I tried to play there but my income and the flat treeless course kept me away. I also think the course may have been damaged by the big fire there and that may have contributed to its closure.

I hadn't ever heard the business plan.


Yes, the fire a few years ago burned the hills around the course, plus all of the wooden cart bridges over wetlands crossings, so you couldn't get around it.  To top that off, the welds on the HDPE irrigation pipes started failing left and right because it was done by someone ill trained for it. 


They were trying to settle a lawsuit about that to get the $ to fix the bridges, when our client came along with an offer for the whole place.

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