Dornick Hills - Maxwell/Doak, photos

[Jackson C]

Lou,
Yes, I played Dornick about a year ago, pre-restoration.  I thought #17 was a challenging tee shot with the pond.


Here are a couple more photos.  One photo I think I am standing in where the pond was located.  The other photo shows where the pond was located between the 7th and 17th greens.  Two things - one, I prefer a challenging up and down situation than being in the water.  Two, the pond area and just the area around it, around the 7th and 17th, where you can look around and see the cliff, the 16th fairway, the 10th green and also 8th green is fantastic.  You feel like it is someplace intimate, special, and unique to Dornick Hills.  Bravo to Messr. Maxwell and Doak.

[Lou_Duran]

JC,


I can appreciate not having to take a penalty stroke.  For me, the pond added value to a short hole that, without it, probably does not place a premium on making solid contact.  I would rather have lost the pond on #2, which like the one which was removed, impacted two holes.  If you get Mr. Beene to drive up there, keep me in the loop.

[Chris Clouser]

Lou,


The pond on 2 was original to the course.  The pond between 7 and 17 was not original and was part of the renovations that Tom and his team removed from the course. 


On 17 the green is now a much smaller target than what was there previously, putting more emphasis on the accuracy, but also granting the chance for recovery if you are short or left that not possible with the water. 

[mike_beene]

Jackson and Lou, I am a “yes.” I have only been to Dornick 3 or 4 times, but it is one of those places that stays with you. At one point I knew which 4 holes were the original, but now not even sure if it started with four holes.

[Tom_Doak]

Jackson:


Thanks for posting the pics of Dornick Hills.  I don’t have time to stop in this week so I probably won’t see it for several months, but nice to see it coming together.  The greenkeeper Brent Waite is down at Memorial Park with us today.


Lou:


It may be challenging, but playing a drop short par-3 in 20 mph winds to a small green with a pond adjacent is too severe, in my opinion.  More importantly, it wasn’t part of Maxwell’s plan.  The pond was the perfect place to lose all of the fill from the 1990s green sites, since that’s where all that dirt came from to start!

[Craig Van Egmond]

Looks awesome! I can't wait to see Dornick again. I may even start playing golf again for that.

[Jud_T]

Played Dornick for the first time last weekend.  Place is now a stone-cold GCA riot as I imagine it was in it's original incarnation.  The club is VERY low-key and unassuming.  Till you get to the 4th tee that is and are staring at a 191 yard hole which plays easily 40 feet straight uphill.  Maxwell's signature use of the natural terrain is most evident, however, in his use of the large ridge from 14 green to 17 tee.  The 16th has to be seen to be believed (Imagine playing this course with period correct hickories? hmmm).  Maxwell's grave site hovering above the 7th hole is the stuff of GCA legend (I strongly recommend beard-pullers pack a spare pair of Jockey's in their bag).  I have to see it a few more times to codify my thoughts but it seems to me at this early juncture that perhaps the most impressive part of the restoration is how they nailed the "Maxwell" greens working with limited historical source material.  I have had the good fortune to play several of Maxwell's courses and I'd have a hard time telling you these "Maxwell rolls" weren't original if I didn't know better (close 2nd, how natural the new/old 1st hole is).  I can't imagine these greens at Crystal Downs ramming speed on Hard Course Day  .  This place is 1:30 from DFW and is once again a must play for any fan of GCA in the general vicinity.

[Jim Tang]

I spent a few day at Dornick Hills last April and I'll be there again in early June. I'm eager to revisit the course. I think it's one of the most fun driving golf courses I've played. There are a lot of cool tee shots there.

[Blake Conant]

I spent a few day at Dornick Hills last April and I'll be there again in early June. I'm eager to revisit the course. I think it's one of the most fun driving golf courses I've played. There are a lot of cool tee shots there.

Agreed, and I don't think the quality of golf architecture from 1-18 is fully appreciate out there. Tee to green it's as varied and interesting as anything in the 500 mile radius. The routing is as good as you could do on that property. Restoring the greens was the cherry on top, but a lot of the shots were always out there.

[Joe Zucker]

I played Dornick in a tournament last year and really enjoyed it.  The grass still needed some time to grow, but you could see all kinds of shots you rarely hit anywhere else (tee shot on 4 and the cliff hole obviously).  It's definitely worth the effort to get there from DFW.


All that being said, the overwhelming view from almost everyone I talked with was negative.  The Oklahoma State Golf Association guys all hated it.  The guys in the groups ahead of me and behind me hated it.  Their chief complaints were #1 was a much better hole with the green to the left by the water and way too may trees were taken out.  They all raved about how great it was in the late 90s and early 2000s.  I think the winning score was still only a couple under, so it's not like the course is easy now...


I'd chalk this up to good players not knowing what they are looking at and being too obsessed with perceived difficulty.  Nonetheless, it was a good perspective to hear on occasion.  Hopefully there are enough people with clear eyes to support the place.

[Matt_Cohn]

They all raved about how great it was in the late 90s and early 2000s.

That's when I played it a lot. It was always hard and a very good test of golf. Obviously not original Maxwell in a lot of places. But the hardest thing was that you often didn't get great lies. The wedge shot on 16 isn't really that tough, unless your ball is sitting down in the bermuda grass in the fairway or on a slightly bare spot. And that wouldn't exactly make a 3 wood easy either.


If the fairways were indeed made to the specs of this plan, and a lot of trees were taken out, then I can only imagine it's much easier, especially if the turf is better now 20 years later.


It was always a finicky golf course, where you could make a lot of bogeys without feeling like you did a lot wrong.

[Matt_Cohn]

Are there any overhead images yet? Google Maps and Apple Maps have not yet been updated.

[Jim Tang]

I spent a few day at Dornick Hills last April and I'll be there again in early June. I'm eager to revisit the course. I think it's one of the most fun driving golf courses I've played. There are a lot of cool tee shots there.

Agreed, and I don't think the quality of golf architecture from 1-18 is fully appreciate out there. Tee to green it's as varied and interesting as anything in the 500 mile radius. The routing is as good as you could do on that property. Restoring the greens was the cherry on top, but a lot of the shots were always out there.

Completely agree regarding the routing.  The holes are perfectly draped over the land and provide a ton of variety of golf holes. It's a fun place to play golf, which is the main reason I play. Golf should be fun.

[Jake Marvin]

Their chief complaints were #1 was a much better hole with the green to the left by the water and way too may trees were taken out.  They all raved about how great it was in the late 90s and early 2000s.  I think the winning score was still only a couple under, so it's not like the course is easy now...

Had a great time at Dornick recently, playing a match with the OP by complete coincidence.


With the caveat that I never saw the pre-restoration course, I thought the tree removal was impressively restrained and something a lot of courses could learn from. I suspect the criticism comes from a few holes where the lack of instruction from the trees makes a player think he can hit it anywhere. Seven, for instance, looks like it provides a football field to hit at, but when a hypothetical golfer misses left in two consecutive rounds, the green is basically impossible to access from a rough lie. I imagine plenty of people see short grass and imagine that the long fifteenth doesn't have to play as a dogleg.


Also, at the risk of trotting out the phrase used about any course where match play occurs, it was a really fun match play course. Slapping massive cuts off the fifth tee to try and roll down to the green, watching a long iron bounce off the cliff on sixteen, et cetera.

[Tom_Doak]

I played Dornick in a tournament last year and really enjoyed it.  The grass still needed some time to grow, but you could see all kinds of shots you rarely hit anywhere else (tee shot on 4 and the cliff hole obviously).  It's definitely worth the effort to get there from DFW.

All that being said, the overwhelming view from almost everyone I talked with was negative.  The Oklahoma State Golf Association guys all hated it.  The guys in the groups ahead of me and behind me hated it.  Their chief complaints were #1 was a much better hole with the green to the left by the water and way too may trees were taken out.  They all raved about how great it was in the late 90s and early 2000s.  I think the winning score was still only a couple under, so it's not like the course is easy now...

I'd chalk this up to good players not knowing what they are looking at and being too obsessed with perceived difficulty.  Nonetheless, it was a good perspective to hear on occasion.  Hopefully there are enough people with clear eyes to support the place.

Well, I guess they don't really like Perry Maxwell's style all that much.


Our donor for the project was sure to send me updates from the NCAA women's tournament held there a couple of months ago.  The host North Texas University team [for which he is the major donor] used their local knowledge to beat a bunch of bigger programs.  The out-of-town favorites made a pair of 9's at sixteen on the last day!


I don't know if it's easier than it was twenty years ago.  I mean, everything is easier because guys hit it so far now, but I think this style holds up to that pretty well, if they keep it firm.  There are places around a lot of those greens you cannot afford to miss even if you have a great short game . . . so it's a matter of whether they are keeping it to where the balls will roll off to those spots.  If they do, it can make you look foolish, and of course good players don't really like that.

[Daryl David]

Well said, Tom. I don’t take a lot stock in what the elite players say. I have often found their knowledge of GCA could be engraved on the edge of a dime.

[Tom_Doak]

Also worth saying that the perspective of setting up a course for a tournament is just different than what normal club members would enjoy.  Brutal rough being a sign of quality is the tipping point.  Oak Hill looked great for the PGA and tested the best players in the world, but if I had to play it in that sort of setup as my home club, I'd quit golf.


By contrast, the setup at Dornick Hills is to mow everything that gets enough irrigation as fairway, and let the rough bleed out to nothing in the unirrigated areas at the margins.  That works just great for the members, but it's the opposite of what a tournament committee thinks is ideal.

[Joe Zucker]

If I had to infer what it was that the good players didn't like about the new version of Dornick, it was more about the trees than the rough.  A few players noted that the course was less visually appealing to them with fewer trees.  The trees frame the hole and make it obvious on where you're supposed to hit it.  Jake makes the point on 7 that it looks like you can hit it anywhere, when that is not the case at all. 


Good players are all supremely skilled at executing golf shots.  Tell them to execute a certain shot and many can do it on command. I'm guessing the new version of Dornick is less clear on what it asks of the player (I never saw it before).  I and most of the people on this forum think this is a good thing.  It's disappointing, but not surprising, that golfers who have a skill for execution want to see that disproportionately rewarded. 

[Tom_Doak]

If I had to infer what it was that the good players didn't like about the new version of Dornick, it was more about the trees than the rough.  A few players noted that the course was less visually appealing to them with fewer trees.  The trees frame the hole and make it obvious on where you're supposed to hit it.  Jake makes the point on 7 that it looks like you can hit it anywhere, when that is not the case at all. 

We did take out a lot of trees on #3 [to make it more playable] and on 9 and 10 and 16 to open up sightlines.  The rest of the holes, not so many.  I'm particularly curious about all the comments on #7 because it really didn't have many trees "before", just a couple of insignificant trees on the left that we removed.  But, I suspect they don't like that hole because the green makes it very difficult to get anywhere close from the left, which is where the good players are egged on to hit it.