Punta Brava Golf and Surf Club

[Brett Wiesley]

Is this place happening?  There were winds of talk in 2008, Tiger Woods to lead design.... Then nothing.  I just came across this promotional video made by Harris Kalinka.  It is a cgi produced flyover promo video.  The Punta Banda Peninsula is about 2.5 hours south of San Diego and the land-meets-sea is very cool.


www.puntabrava.com


www.harriskalinka.com/work/punta-brava-golf-and-surf-club/

[Scott Weersing]

Tom Doak mentioned in a Fried Egg podcast that they will be working on this course in 2023 and it will take 12 to 16 months to build.


So will Tiger Woods Design ever have a third course (after Payne's Valley and Bluejack National?). Peter Hay is a renovation.

[Kyle Casella]

There was a routing done by Tiger's group way back when. I am sure Tom will come up with something quite different but am curious how much will be dictated by the severe site.


https://web.archive.org/web/20110106103412/http://web.tigerwoods.com/design/img/punta_brava_rendering.pdf

[Tom_Doak]

There was a routing done by Tiger's group way back when. I am sure Tom will come up with something quite different but am curious how much will be dictated by the severe site.


https://web.archive.org/web/20110106103412/http://web.tigerwoods.com/design/img/punta_brava_rendering.pdf

Tiger's [or Beau Welling's] routing was pretty good, and they sorted through a lot of other options, I'm told.  As you mention, it is a severe site, and since there is a housing component, too, the options for changing the routing were somewhat limited.  The circulation is still pretty much the same as before, but


1) a bunch of the green sites are different [1, 3, 5, 8, 11, 14, 15, 18 on this plan]


2) the 10th hole was sacrificed to accommodations and a beach club, replaced by a new hole after what is #12 on this map


3) the sequence of the back nine changes, so the new 10-15 are 11, 14, 15, 12, the new par-3 hole, and 13 as shown on the old map [with some greens and tees moved], which improves the walk.  It's just going to be a cart ride or shuttle from 9 to 10, otherwise very walkable.


The finishing stretch from 14 winds up being par 3-5-3-3-5.   


It's a spectacular project -- I saw the site years ago and fell in love with it -- but it came back around kind of last minute, after some of our other projects had been pushed back due to permitting issues. 

[Michael Chadwick]

The finishing stretch from 14 winds up being par 3-5-3-3-5.   

Thanks for summarizing your intended changes, Tom, and for Kyle linking to the original plan. 


I already look forward to the Point Hardy and Punta Brava comparisons that will undoubtedly occur on this site. A Coore/Crenshaw and Doak tale of the tape on Atlantic and Pacific tropics, with approximately 6 coastal holes a piece, both with 16th and 17th par 3s. 


MacKenzie would be proud. Although Tom already has a back to back pair on the Pacific!

[Tom_Doak]

I already look forward to the Point Hardy and Punta Brava comparisons that will undoubtedly occur on this site. A Coore/Crenshaw and Doak tale of the tape on Atlantic and Pacific tropics, with approximately 6 coastal holes a piece, both with 16th and 17th par 3s.

I hadn’t even thought of that, but I won’t bother making comparisons before anybody has seen either course.


However Punta Brava does have eight holes where you can hit a ball in the ocean (2, 4, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18) and on some of them you’ll have multiple opportunities.

[Ben Stephens]

Tom




Wondering couldn't 16th be a risk and reward short par 4 and 17th a short par 3? they look too similar in terms of distance on the TW/Beau plans.


16th green could be where the 17th tees are on TW/Beau plans.




Cheers
Ben

[Tom_Doak]

Wondering couldn't 16th be a risk and reward short par 4 and 17th a short par 3? they look too similar in terms of distance on the TW/Beau plans.

16th green could be where the 17th tees are on TW/Beau plans.

17 tee is on an island; that would make a pretty difficult target for the second shot, especially off a downhill lie.


I think 16 will wind up being quite a bit shorter than 17 when we are through.  The other three “short” holes are pretty long.

[Michael Chadwick]

It seems as though there is promising development occurring at Punta Brava. I saw an overhead image that appears to show construction underway with cleared outlines of some holes.

An updated rendering can be found here: https://harriskalinka.com/work/punta-brava/ 

[Keith Phillips]

Yet another place to add to the bucket list!  The site looks gorgeous, Tom and team will likely do their typical stellar job...and those video creations by Harris Kalinka are very impressive!

[Tom_Doak]

I do recoil a bit from the kind of work Harris Kalinka is doing . . . as if there weren't a hundred metic tons of work to do before we have one golf hole built at Punta Brava, much less one that looks as perfect as their rendering.  They make it seem like there is nothing to building those golf holes, when in fact it will be the hardest construction job we have ever done.


I understand why clients love to put out this sort of stuff, but to me it denigrates the process.  Construction isn't as easy as computer-assisted rendering.

[Michael Chadwick]

I do recoil a bit from the kind of work Harris Kalinka is doing . . . as if there weren't a hundred metic tons of work to do before we have one golf hole built at Punta Brava, much less one that looks as perfect as their rendering.  They make it seem like there is nothing to building those golf holes, when in fact it will be the hardest construction job we have ever done.


I understand why clients love to put out this sort of stuff, but to me it denigrates the process.  Construction isn't as easy as computer-assisted rendering.

While I'd much rather pore over a Placek drawn routing plan, I have to imagine the renderings hold greater appeal to the target audience for memberships 

[Tom_Doak]

While I'd much rather pore over a Placek drawn routing plan, I have to imagine the renderings hold greater appeal to the target audience for memberships 

I guess, if they are really selling memberships to people sight unseen (and maybe they have to do some of that to pay for it all).  But I can’t imagine that anyone who went to see the site would walk away unconvinced that it was going to be one of the great courses of the world.