Reproductions

[Don Mahaffey]

Why are reproduction design themes so popular?
The Lido in WI is almost certain to be a commercial success because of the client and builders. They have a perfect track record when they work together. But when Tom builds Sedge Valley - something unique designed to fit the ground it's on - if you have time to see one course when in that area, is it Lido or SV? 


For me it's SV because I'm way more interested in what Tom and RGD will create then what they copy, no matter how famous the course. 


Templates - Proven golf holes riffed on by just about everyone in golf design. My question for designers. Why? Because you love the holes and want to copy, or because its almost a sure commercial success and easy to sell? As a golf designer, what's your preference, freedom to design something based on the ground in front of you, or making the ground fit a template?


I understand it's a musical chairs business and there is not enough chairs for everyone - is that what drives this reproduction phase we are in, or is it really what designer want to "design"?   Not a rhetorical question - I am honestly curious.

[Tom_Doak]

Partly, I think you see so much of this because it’s the safe choice.


If you build a bunch of template greens, all the panelists and B-level golf writers will talk about your Punchbowl and how you know so much about history.


If you try to build something original, you’re relying on those same people to analyze it and appreciate it.  What are the odds of that?  Especially if you’re not a “known quantity”.[size=78%] [/size]

[Thomas Dai]

Looking at the subject from the punter/enthusiast side of the coin rather than the side of someone in the golf business I’d suggest that that are many great courses and great holes around the world that I and loads of other golfers will never get to personally see and experience either because of where they are or because of lack of time, money, contacts, exclusivity etc. To have the ability to see a reproduction of something special that you’ll never otherwise see would be nice as long as it’s truthful to the original in terms of terrain, soil, wind direction etc. It could also be educational and maybe inspirational as well. Not to be OTT or done excessively though.
Atb

[Ira Fishman]

I am way more interested in Sedge Valley than Lido 2. Tom Doak taking on Colt’s least bad course head on is the closest we may get to cross generational comparisons.


Ira

[Ronald Montesano]

I now have a life goal: to be an A-Level golf writer. Time to get to work!




Don, Sedge Valley (probably not its ultimate name...too close to the original course name on property) will take a bit of time to find its importance with the bomber set. They may not understand its nuance, strategy, and quirk (me extrapolating.) It will matter to the architecture buffs, the historians, the ones who use their entire bag of clubs.


It would be difficult to choose between the two courses. So, I would say that I would be fortunate to play either, and grateful as well.


When we are young, we connect with previous eras because of the romance they offer. As we age, we connect with them because of the achievements they demonstrate. In the case of Lido WI, it's unlike any other course I've encountered personally, as I've already played it as a video game, thanks to Peter Flory.


Great reproduction is as valuable as original work. Average reproduction is not so valuable. Tour 18 courses fit the later category. I expect Lido WI to fit the former.

[Tim Martin]

Tom’s willingness to be involved with the project along with all the plaudits it’s received both before and after it’s demise should make any architecture fan want to take a trip around the new Lido. I don’t know if it’s necessary to make it an either/or proposition between it and one of Tom’s original designs but I certainly understand the sentiment that Don is trying to convey with this thread. The type of collaboration between Tom and Peter Flory is a one off as far as I know especially in terms of the completely faithful recreation that will be delivered minus the south shore Long Island setting. Don’t get me wrong because I would love to see St. Patrick’s as well.

[Peter Pallotta]

Don, always very good posts and smart insights from you, but a question:
Compared to the fields of furniture or print making, can there actually be a 'reproduction' in gca?
Are even templates actually templates?
When the variables are so many and the canvas so large, how does one reproduce anything? If it was possible, then theoretically I could make Old MacDonald or Lido as well as Tom did/will.
You know what I think? Lido won't be Lido, it will just look that way.
Old Macdonald isn't a Macdonald, we've just all agreed to call it that.

[Tom_Doak]

You know what I think? Lido won't be Lido, it will just look that way.
Old Macdonald isn't a Macdonald, we've just all agreed to call it that.

Old Macdonald isn’t a Macdonald; I will agree with you that far.  There’s a lot of us in there; we kind of insisted on that.


I don’t know if it’s possible for Lido to be Lido, away from the ocean, but it’s Macdonald’s design, not mine.

[Tim Martin]

You know what I think? Lido won't be Lido, it will just look that way.
Old Macdonald isn't a Macdonald, we've just all agreed to call it that.

Old Macdonald isn’t a Macdonald; I will agree with you that far.  There’s a lot of us in there; we kind of insisted on that.


I don’t know if it’s possible for Lido to be Lido, away from the ocean, but it’s Macdonald’s design, not mine.

Tom-Old Mac was always you and others tribute using Macdonald’s concepts as opposed to the Lido which is an attempt to replicate it on a different piece of land. I don’t recall anyone referring to Old Mac as a Macdonald but rather a Doak, Urbina et al course, no?

[Tom_Doak]

Tim:  it seems pretty obvious they use Macdonald’s name to market the course, instead of mine.  I made that easy for them; I was just happy to do the work.

[Sean_A]

I don't think of it as an either/or. I would like to play any course Doak was involved with. From where I sit, nobody alive comes close to touching the guy in terms of design variety. My only wish is that Doak more often lends his talents toward the affordable end of golf. Tough ask I know, but worth asking.

Ciao

[Don Mahaffey]

I don't think of it as an either/or. I would like to play any course Doak was involved with. From where I sit, nobody alive comes close to touching the guy in terms of design variety. My only wish is that Doak more often lends his talents toward the affordable end of golf. Tough ask I know, but worth asking.

Ciao

Sean, i agree completely. But it's for that reason that I want to see more Doak unplugged - I realize constraints are always there - but the fewer the better.


There is no question The Lido will be spectacular as all the construction photos show. And we know it'll be well built and well maintained. So my comment on wanting to see Sedge Valley if i had a choice is grounded in two personal feelings - one, I think Sedge Valley will be more interesting and - two, I'm not enamored with the process used to create the Lido. All involved are pros, and all involved are excellent at their work, but Tom and Kaiser are trend setters and I hate to think what could happen when I can get a LIDAR map of almost every golf course in America.


This is where Tom will probably set me straight because I may be overstepping on my assumptions- but I guess I'm looking for golf courses created by naturally inspired design, not necessarily just the professionally creative that either copy or borrow complete ideas from the past.  Stealing bits and pieces and then organizing them into your own...I want to see that. Building new holes you name after old famous holes...I'm not seeking that out.

[Sean_A]

I don't think of it as an either/or. I would like to play any course Doak was involved with. From where I sit, nobody alive comes close to touching the guy in terms of design variety. My only wish is that Doak more often lends his talents toward the affordable end of golf. Tough ask I know, but worth asking.

Ciao

Sean, i agree completely. But it's for that reason that I want to see more Doak unplugged - I realize constraints are always there - but the fewer the better.


There is no question The Lido will be spectacular as all the construction photos show. And we know it'll be well built and well maintained. So my comment on wanting to see Sedge Valley if i had a choice is grounded in two personal feelings - one, I think Sedge Valley will be more interesting and - two, I'm not enamored with the process used to create the Lido. All involved are pros, and all involved are excellent at their work, but Tom and Kaiser are trend setters and I hate to think what could happen when I can get a LIDAR map of almost every golf course in America.


This is where Tom will probably set me straight because I may be overstepping on my assumptions- but I guess I'm looking for golf courses created by naturally inspired design, not necessarily just the professionally creative that either copy or borrow complete ideas from the past.  Stealing bits and pieces and then organizing them into your own...I want to see that. Building new holes you name after old famous holes...I'm not seeking that out.

I don't see Lido WI as lost or not optimally used Doak time. I see the course as another addition to his diverse CV. It doesn't matter much to me if Doak or anybody is recreating or relying upon previous concepts even if they have to be a bit shoe horned into the landscape. I am not that precious about this stuff. In any case, Doak's instincts have been pretty good to date. Sure, he may come up with something that is out of this world if given a total free hand...maybe that will come in the future....I look forward to it.

Ciao

[Sean_A]

Delete.

[Don Mahaffey]

Sean,
I never wrote "lost time" or "out of this world" or anything like that. I'm perfectly fine with opinions different than mine, but let's not twist my words. And yes, Tom knows what he's doing when it comes to choosing where to work.


I'm just expressing a long held belief that our generations greatest architects produce their best work when free to create. But I don't control the marketplace and I can't afford to hire one.

[jeffwarne]

In fairness, The Lido is a course none of us got to see.
Kind've a museum piece and history lesson, and I've never been much of a template guy.


It's not as if they copied Pine Valley. ANGC or an existing course.


I'm interested to see both.
Of course the midwest is increasingly becoming a gaping hole in my GCA resume as I visited the area pre Sand Valley.

[Tim Gavrich]

In general, I'm about equally eager to see Lido WI and Sedge Valley mostly because between the site and the people involved with both, I'm betting both will be compelling in unique ways.


I'm interested in seeing Lido because I want to see if it succeeds in being the first new golf course I've seen that actually does look and feel as though it's a century old. I've heard and read variations of the line - "[X new course] looks like it's been there for 100 years! - more times than I can count and never has it rung true of a new course I've seen. Not that that's a bad thing, but there's a patina that real old courses have that no new course has ever replicated, in my experience.


I'm interested in seeing Sedge Valley because I have high hopes for it helping to do away with par 72 (or 71, or even 70) as the default for a compelling "championship" golf course. With land and water scarcity considerations, it seems like 68 should be the new 72 as we move forward.


There's this sense that we're experiencing some sort of "Template Fever" in GCA these days and while I understand the sentiment, I'm not sure we're there yet. Don, I agree in principle about raw creativity being more potentially exciting than adapting template holes into a new build or redesign job, but I also have to come back to the practical side and remember that most people don't get to play very much beyond their own town/city/county.


IMO, there is so much inherent intrigue in the templates that a hypothetical future where there's one affordable primarily template-based golf course within reach of, say, half of the country's golfers would be a colossal win for those of us who root for brighter light to be shone on good GCA.

[Tom_Doak]

I'm interested in seeing Lido because I want to see if it succeeds in being the first new golf course I've seen that actually does look and feel as though it's a century old. I've heard and read variations of the line - "[X new course] looks like it's been there for 100 years! - more times than I can count and never has it rung true of a new course I've seen. Not that that's a bad thing, but there's a patina that real old courses have that no new course has ever replicated, in my experience.


I'm interested in seeing Sedge Valley because I have high hopes for it helping to do away with par 72 (or 71, or even 70) as the default for a compelling "championship" golf course. With land and water scarcity considerations, it seems like 68 should be the new 72 as we move forward.

There's this sense that we're experiencing some sort of "Template Fever" in GCA these days and while I understand the sentiment, I'm not sure we're there yet. Don, I agree in principle about raw creativity being more potentially exciting than adapting template holes into a new build or redesign job, but I also have to come back to the practical side and remember that most people don't get to play very much beyond their own town/city/county.

IMO, there is so much inherent intrigue in the templates that a hypothetical future where there's one affordable primarily template-based golf course within reach of, say, half of the country's golfers would be a colossal win for those of us who root for brighter light to be shone on good GCA.

Tim:


Sorry to say, it's impossible for Lido to have the "patina" you speak of when the whole site has been subject to flip-flopping and 10-foot cuts and fills.  For that matter, the original course would not have had that, either, as it was all built from dredge material and it took years to develop a stable landscape in the areas between holes [although the original course was so tightly packed that there weren't so many "out of play areas"].


As to the template thing, your last statement is exactly what I was complaining about earlier with the "panelists and B-level golf writers" [with apologies to whomever was offended by this].  You seem to dismiss the idea that there could be an affordable course within driving distance that featured good design WITHOUT relying on the templates, and that's only because there are so few people who would recognize good design without name tags attached.  I think that's what the OP was complaining about, too.

[Kalen Braley]

In fairness, The Lido is a course none of us got to see.
Kind've a museum piece and history lesson, and I've never been much of a template guy.

It's not as if they copied Pine Valley. ANGC or an existing course.

Jeff,

This is where I think the case to build one of those would be even more compelling (assuming they could find a site to approximate PV or ANGC and make it pretty close).  Given how difficult both of those courses are to access for 99.999% of folks, they could build a resort replica, charge a hefty price tag, and it'd be a Field of Dreams kind of situation...they would show up and hand over their money sight unseen.

P.S. I do wonder how well the Lido would work on its own merits...its not exactly a household name even among most golfers.  But certainly given its location and the TD brand name, pretty sure it'll do just fine.

[Kalen Braley]

P.S.

Found this statement in the following article...

"The Keisers enlisted Tom Doak and Brian Schneider to build the course to exact specifications, using GPS-guided tractors that can grade down to the millimeter."

https://www.si.com/golf/news/the-story-behind-the-lido-golf-club

[Tom_Doak]

P.S. I do wonder how well the Lido would work on its own merits...its not exactly a household name even among most golfers.  But certainly given its location and the TD brand name, pretty sure it'll do just fine.

Kalen:


It's a private course [that will host some resort play], and they sold out their memberships.  So what are you wondering?


Also, if all that tech equipment [and the grading plan it's working to] was really as good as advertised, they wouldn't need me or Brian to build the golf course.  But they did need us.  There is exactly one green out of the 13 completed so far where we just left exactly what the GPS bulldozers gave us . . . and I left that one because they never would have let me build anything that wild on my own. 

[Kalen Braley]

Tom,

That's a good point yes, but I was assuming a strictly resort course version where you and Mike weren't on the Playbill.  At this point I don't doubt you two could build a 9 hole par 3 private course in the worst part of Detroit and still sell it out in 24 hours. 

P.S.  I thought that might be the case with the high tech dozers, I was mostly a bit dumbfounded that they're supposedly configurable to within a few millimeters.

[Tim Gavrich]

Tim:

Sorry to say, it's impossible for Lido to have the "patina" you speak of when the whole site has been subject to flip-flopping and 10-foot cuts and fills.  For that matter, the original course would not have had that, either, as it was all built from dredge material and it took years to develop a stable landscape in the areas between holes [although the original course was so tightly packed that there weren't so many "out of play areas"].


As to the template thing, your last statement is exactly what I was complaining about earlier with the "panelists and B-level golf writers" [with apologies to whomever was offended by this].  You seem to dismiss the idea that there could be an affordable course within driving distance that featured good design WITHOUT relying on the templates, and that's only because there are so few people who would recognize good design without name tags attached.  I think that's what the OP was complaining about, too.

Tom--


Maybe the "patina" has more to do with the equipment and methods used to build the courses, then, plus natural processes of settling and weathering that only time can create.


If I came across as dismissive of the potential for good and even great course design of the non-template variety, that was my error because I feel quite the opposite.


I'll use my own home area as an example. I can state pretty confidently that template pastiche would elevate the quality of golf design around here. Does that mean I would rather have that than what some of the brightest current original talents in GCA could come up with? Not at all. But I'd take what I can get over the current courses at hand: a) a couple mostly standard late-80s/early-90s Ron Garl courses (Sandridge), b) a botched early 2000s renovation of a course on great land originally laid out by Herbert Strong (Indian Hills) and c) a Jim Fazio landfill course that is okay but not a world-beater by any stretch (Fairwinds).


Good original design is wonderful, of course, but that doesn't mean templates are inherently inferior, or that they cannot be integrated with an architect's own originality, or that of his team (7 at Memorial Park is a Redan hole, but it also has its own identity). This is a both/and situation, not either/or.

[Tom_Doak]

P.S.  I thought that might be the case with the high tech dozers, I was mostly a bit dumbfounded that they're supposedly configurable to within a few millimeters.

We have been very happy with the results of letting the GPS dozers put back the greens we have shaped and surveyed, to restore them after wind erosion between my approval and getting them ready to grass.  They can change by a couple of inches over the month or two that the rest of the hole is still in construction.  The challenge is for anyone to try to draw them from scratch in such perfect detail.

[Peter Flory]

My general thoughts on the matter-

With the Lido, one of the greatest architects (CBM in this case) had 100% free reign in a new build with a completely blank canvass.  His only limitations were the outer boundaries and a Shadow Creek level budget.  Raynor and a crew of 400+ men just tried to carry out CBM's plans at the original site in the same way that Tom, Brian, and their team are trying to carry out CBM's plans on the new site. 

So I really view this as restoring one of the most original and daring examples of golf architecture that has ever existed.  The CBM course may have had hole names, but it is so far from a template course.  And as an additional point of differentiation, the crowd sourcing element with the original Lido is fascinating and made the course unique.  The 6th hole, the 15th hole, and Mackenzie's 18th hole were all designed purely around strategy and were the best of a wide selection of entries.  The 18th hole alone will be worth the price of admission- I don't know of any hole since that is as ambitious as that one. 



When the Lido was sold to the Navy during the war, the plan was to rebuild it after the war, which would have involved reshaping most of the contours from scratch.  They prepped for that by photographing it from every angle and then when the property was re-purchased, they seriously studied the rebuild before finally deciding that it was impractical due to the logistical difficulties, mainly involving all of the crossings of the busy road.  They considered tunnels, bridges, etc, but ultimately, RTJ was eager to do his own design and the new site next door was more practical for many reasons.  But rebuilding at that point would have been almost identical to the current process at SV. 

So, at the time, the thought was sort of what some are thinking now, i.e. does it make sense for a great architect like RTJ to waste his time with a recreation when he could bring an original design into the world instead.  It's sort of strange, but the Lido will have spawned the full range of offspring: 1) RTJ electing to build an original design instead of recreating it- with just one hole reserved as an homage, 2) Doak building a course on better ground where he used his own imagination while trying to channel CBMs spirit and template concepts, 3) Hanse building a course inspired by the specific holes at the Lido, just modified to fit the constraints of the site, and 4) the recreation at SV (original layout, orientation, and on pure sand). 

And just one point of clarification as I think that some are misunderstanding the role of technology in the SV project and they have a bit of a Frankenstein fear.  The original Lido site was scraped and housing sits upon it.  So no lidar was used to copy it in any way.  The starting canvas for this was 100% flat.  The draft of the recreation was built in a digital environment, but it just as well could have been molded in clay or plastacine.  The only way that lidar has been used in this project is to take a 3D snapshot of the sculpting after it has occurred so that it can be rebuilt later if the wind alters the sculpting.  The technology has been around for a long time and it is usually utilized in restorations where they scan greens before doing surgery on them.  So yes, any course in the world COULD be recreated using lidar information, but that has been the case for almost 2 decades now and it hasn't happened.