Zac Blair/Buck Club Near Aiken, SC

[Tom_Doak]

Zac,


How about the 18th green and practice green share similar space (ie. Garden City Men's Club). Also, always a good feel when the practice green is also the first tee....
I realize these aren't ground breaking ideas but might fit into your vision.


Best of luck!!
Scott

Actually he already sent me a drawing that looked like that.


It reminded me that Pete Dye did the same thing on the 18th holes at Crooked Stick and The Golf Club, in their original form.  I often forget that Garden City does it, too -- I tend to remember it about the 9th at Oakmont first.

[Tom_Doak]

Ive never built a course so im not sure exactly when those decisions get set in stone, I would assume some decisions are made in the field as well (maybe you shift a tee or green site to make the hole or transition better etc.)

It isn't set in stone until you put the irrigation in the ground.  That is less comfortable for you at this stage, because you're still in the mode of doodling ideas, which is fine, but at some point it will switch to 3-D and the doodles are less useful then!

[Zac Blair]

Ive never built a course so im not sure exactly when those decisions get set in stone, I would assume some decisions are made in the field as well (maybe you shift a tee or green site to make the hole or transition better etc.)

It isn't set in stone until you put the irrigation in the ground.  That is less comfortable for you at this stage, because you're still in the mode of doodling ideas, which is fine, but at some point it will switch to 3-D and the doodles are less useful then!

see you're teaching me new stuff everyday    im sure you're getting sick of all my doodles that are sent your way. you'll be relieved when the irrigation is in the ground!

[Brett Wiesley]

Taconic GC in Mass also has the shared 18/practice green.


Zac,


Where will the entrance road be?
Lodging?

[Kalen Braley]

While i'm a little bummed this isn't happening in Utah, very cool to see this gaining traction!  I've driven by the location a few times and its a good spot, (at least in context to Northern Utah)

Good luck Zac!

[Peter Flory]

Peter,

Are you seeing this from the routing posted in The Fried Egg interview, or other?

https://thefriedegg.com/zac-blair-the-buck-club-hires-tom-doak-kye-goalby-to-design-the-tree-farm/

I just laid that routing over the terrain to see it in 3D.  Here is #1 and #2 in Google Earth.  GE isn't always perfect, but it gives you the gist of what is happening, especially with the topo lines showing as well. 


Just zooming around the routing like this and looking at all the banks and ridges, it looks like a great "found" golf course.  It really minimizes the amt of earth moving that they would have to do.

[Jay Mickle]

Glad that you are getting the golf experience that most of us can only dream of. Looking forward to following the progress.

[Paul Jones]

Zac,


What is the timeline?  When do you hope to have following finished:


Golf Course
Clubhouse
Cottages
Practice Area


Do you plan on having everything complete for opening day?


Congrats to everyone involved !!!

[David_Elvins]

I just laid that routing over the terrain to see it in 3D.

Pretty amazing how far technology has come since this message board started.

[Tom_Doak]

I just laid that routing over the terrain to see it in 3D.

Pretty amazing how far technology has come since this message board started.

I still can't do it, but luckily I can visualize without the tech.  However, the tech is going to make it easier for other people to try their hands at design.


Last night someone on Instagram wanted me to post the blank topo so that everyone could try their own version of the routing, but I declined.  I want to see those as much as Zac wants guys to send him videos of their golf swings. 

[Ben Hollerbach]

I have to imagine this is a unique opportunity to compare publicly released routings from 2 different architects on the same plot of land.

[Tom_Doak]

Ben:


Sorry, but I'm not going to participate in your proposed comparison, and I hope it does not become a "thing" here.  Which of them is better is strictly a matter of opinion, and the only opinion that matters is the client's.


I had not seen the other plan previously but I am glad to see that it was very different than mine, so nobody can accuse me of stealing their ideas       But, this was not an open competition.  Zac hired the other guys, then dropped them, then contacted me a few months later.  We did not even discuss the project until the week before Christmas.  [I work fast.]




Also, are you sure you've overlaid the plans correctly?  If those blue blobs were supposed to be ponds, I don't understand them as one is on the side of a hill, and the other on top of the ridge but just hanging over the edge.  Also the pond you've drawn on my plan is not really like what I've recommended.

[Ben Hollerbach]

Tom,


I was/am not expecting you to participate, that would be greatly unfair to you at this time. Nor do I desire people to directly nit pick a perspective plan and rule some level of verdict, especially since so few people have actually seen the land in question. That exercise would fall more on one's ability to read a topo than anything else.

But...with so much conversation on this site directed at routings of golf courses I still felt it valuable to showcase how one piece of property can generate greatly different routings when viewed from two different perspectives. This is not something we can see all that often and could be a valuable peek behind the curtain.

The overlays were created by adjusting the scale and orientation of each routing to match each other and the source 5' contour map. The feature locations and shapes were traced to match and are correct based upon the original drawings. I believe the pond on your routing may look strange to you due to a discrepancy between the 5' contour map I sourced from Aiken County and the 1' contour map you used. I noticed that the fidelity of your map is of a higher degree and in certain locations deviates from the 5' contour map.

For Reference, here is your routing overlaid on the 5' Contour map, with my line tracing on top:

[Tom_Doak]

The overlays were created by adjusting the scale and orientation of each routing to match each other and the source 5' contour map. The feature locations and shapes were traced to match and are correct based upon the original drawings. I believe the pond on your routing may look strange to you due to a discrepancy between the 5' contour map I sourced from Aiken County and the 1' contour map you used. I noticed that the fidelity of your map is of a higher degree and in certain locations deviates from the 5' contour map.

For Reference, here is your routing overlaid on the 5' Contour map, with my line tracing on top:

Ben:


Okay, but if you're going to overlay the two maps here and start discussing them on a forum where I'm an active participant, it's hard for me to participate and hard for me NOT to participate when others misinterpret something I've suggested [such as my last paragraph below].  So personally I'd prefer you compared designs on Twitter, or some other forum I don't care about.


I still don't understand the two ponds on the other design and how they hit the topo, so I'm guessing something is lined up incorrectly, but that's none of my business.


As to my pond, I was thinking actually of two ponds:  A higher one that comes into play back left of 8 green and right up to the edge of the fairway on #9, feeding a lower one that goes across #3 as on the 5th at Pine Valley, which Zac had mentioned he admired.  Maybe with a small waterfall in between them.   

[John Kavanaugh]

Doak’s Achilles are ponds. Thank God for Goalby.

[Tom_Doak]

Doak’s Achilles are ponds. Thank God for Goalby.

That one would be pretty good -- it even goes around the corner and out of sight, as Jeff B. taught me on this forum.


Plus copying the one at Pine Valley would be pretty easy to get right.

[John Kavanaugh]

Fine template to copy.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,


Good memory, LOL.


I took a quick look, and being able to read topo, and having no horse in this race, it seems pretty clear to me Tom's is better. The other one has a few pretty awkward holes.


I do have to ask if this is really conceptual, or specifically, in that third hole, the green is20+ feet above the back tee, and more above any forward tee, when the entire hole could have been shifted toward the bottom/bottom right of the page and had the green and tee at similar levels.

[Ben Hollerbach]

Tom,

Based on your last paragraph it sounds like you did not create the routing document that was posted on The Fried Egg?

It's a given that the routing ideas today will inevitably evolve and change as the course begins construction. So these documents really on capture the thoughts in a moment in time. As this drawing is being promoted as your routing,  I'm then curious what level of accuracy it still holds today? Is the spit pond idea a new one, or was it misinterpreted in the creation of the Merry Land Timber plan?

[JESII]

Tom,


GCA is a golf architecture site that generally discusses a bunch of far off stuff. Here is an opportunity for many folks to really see something take shape and you want it to go to twitter?


I have no dog in this either, other than a sincere hope that it works out great for everyone involved...so for my $0.02 you just might have to figure out how to let people misinterpret something for a change. If this thread goes anywhere, it could become required reading for anyone with a vague interest in the subject.

[Jim Sherma]

I for one think a Doak designed waterfall would be absolutely great. The expected post-build entertainment value alone should far outweigh any reason for not having it.

[Tom_Doak]

I took a quick look, and being able to read topo, and having no horse in this race, it seems pretty clear to me Tom's is better. The other one has a few pretty awkward holes.

I do have to ask if this is really conceptual, or specifically, in that third hole, the green is20+ feet above the back tee, and more above any forward tee, when the entire hole could have been shifted toward the bottom/bottom right of the page and had the green and tee at similar levels.

Jeff:


When I looked at the topo and saw that site, I thought it was too steep and we'd probably have to cut it down to make it work.  But then I checked with my friend Jeff Bezos Google Earth [duh, Jeff Bezos does not own Google yet], and pulled off these elevations for the 5th hole at Pine Valley:


Tee - 107 feet
Pond - 95
Top of cross bunker - 122 feet
Back of green - 135


It's 65 yards from the cross bunker to the back of the green, so that's 6.5%, but of course they've built up the front of the green so it's only 3-4% to there.

[Tom_Doak]

Fine template to copy.

Thank you!  I've never seen an attempt to build that hole somewhere else.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

Based on your last paragraph it sounds like you did not create the routing document that was posted on The Fried Egg?

It's a given that the routing ideas today will inevitably evolve and change as the course begins construction. So these documents really on capture the thoughts in a moment in time. As this drawing is being promoted as your routing,  I'm then curious what level of accuracy it still holds today? Is the spit pond idea a new one, or was it misinterpreted in the creation of the Merry Land Timber plan?

Ben:  It's my routing, but I think Zac is actually the one to put it onto that base map.  The only version I've sent to him is the one I posted on my Instagram last night, which was drawn straight on the topo and texted to him in pieces over Christmas, to build suspense.     I didn't draw the pond onto it, so he probably just didn't quite understand what I had described, or maybe he's decided to do it differently.

[Ben Hollerbach]

That makes sense, thank you for clearing that up.