Exclusivity & The Freedom Associated With Intent

[Andrew Harvie]

I've been writing a lot about Canadian golf for an upcoming Top 100 on Beyond The Contour, and one thing really began to stick out: the very exclusive golf courses in the country (Memphremagog, Oviinbyrd, Redtail, Goodwood, etc) are usually among the more interesting golf courses in the country from a pure design standpoint and the features they seemingly built or designed. This doesn't have anything to do with the vibe or the experience or whatever, but simply the architecture presented. Of course, there are ~better golf courses in the country than these four, but very few are modern examples. Rod Whitman builds better golf than those four, and the classic stuff from Stanley Thompson or Colt ranks higher, but they didn't have the same restrictions or rules made up for them when designing golf. They simply tried to build the best golf possible, and I'm wondering if at those very exclusive/elite courses, the mandate was the same, rather than having to consider other outside agencies like pace of play, safety, budget, crossovers in the routing, etc.


At Goodwood, Martin Ebert & Tom Mackenzie took a Donald Steel routing and designed some insane greens with some of the most severe slope of any golf course I've seen, Canada or elsewhere. They are pretty interesting, but I imagine they were able to push the envelope a bit more than a public golf course or even a resort, where concerns about pace of play or "fairness" would be a considered topic in designing the golf course. Secondly, Goodwood is largely a "golfers club," with some of the smarter golf minds in Canada being a member there. There are obviously average guests who know a member and they get out, but generally, those who are going there know what they're looking for given the club's intent to be a true golf club. The way BTC's top 100 comes together is people check off a Top 200 list and their placement for the courses submitted is weighted against that for those who have seen the most in the country to have more input, and I don't think it's any surprise Goodwood only has ballots from the eight panellists who have seen the most + the 11th and 13th most travelled (of 27, for context). With an exclusive golf course, you can largely control your demographic, and in the instance of Goodwood, I imagine those who like the Cog Hill's and TPC's of the world would probably complain about the greens being too severe... but because the clientele is selective, that's rarely a criticism heard because those who have played Goodwood are usually the well-travelled, or better understanding in the country (not always of course).


Memphremagog, Redtail, Oviinbyrd, etc are all the same. At Magog, the greens are by far the most severe of Thomas McBroom's career, and I would argue the most interesting, too. Redtail, the size of the greens is in stark contrast to Goodwood or really any other modern golf course in Canada, and Oviinbyrd has some pretty wild green locations against rocks that maybe wouldn't fly elsewhere (Muskoka Bay is public and has some of this too, but not nearly as frequent as Oviinbyrd). I doubt any of these features would fly at public golf courses in the country, and in McBroom's example, if he could have built these greens elsewhere, I imagine he would've (he was pretty busy up here around Magog's opening).


The point is, the pattern jumped out when compiling the list and I'm happy to open up the floor to see if there is any merit to what I'm seeing, or if it's just a Canadian trend? I would assume there would be some flexibility in being Tom Doak or Gil Hanse or Bill Coore in the same way Kendrick Lamar can take five years off and go against music-industry standards, in that hiring Doak/Hanse/Coore comes with a certain level of golf architecture IQ or understanding of what you're getting into. Maybe it's just for the second-tier of architects, those who don't have their name on a Dream Golf property or credit on a World Top 100 list, but I coud be wrong.


Part of why I respect Bandon Dunes or Cabot is because they're not afraid to really maintain or explain the features to the general public: on a walk around Shorty's last year with Keith Cutten and Ken Nice, Ken said their philosophy has always been "you build what you want and we'll figure out a way to mantain it." Cabot Highlands' 2nd course has some crossing holes, and Karoo's greens are among the most intense/large anywhere, even bigger and more dramatic than Old Macdonald I think.


After all that, my question is: does exclusivity allow architect's to freely build what they want and simply forget about other things, essentially freeing their minds in a way the golden age architects were simply only worried about building the best quality golf? They wrote a bit about returning nines or other things in an "ideal course," but they all broke their own rules (Jasper Park Lodge doesn't return to the clubhouse after nine, neither does Cypress, and CPC features back to back 3's and 5's!).


I'm not sure if I need to say this but I'm not vouching for exclusivity, but this is the internet so I should clarify.

[Tim_Weiman]

Drew,


Tom Doak would certainly have a view on this topic but I think he already expressed that Robert Dedman was happy to endorse the Matterhorn feature on Pinehurst #10, a course that will be open to the public.


Not sure that exclusivity is the explanation for variations in course design.

[John Foley]

Maybe the question to ask is why hasn't highly engaging public golf development not kept pace w/ the 'new' course designs which you say are?

How does an Eagles Nest or even the courses at Mount Tremblant fare in comparison on where they should be? Cabot appears to be a huge winner but outside of that where is the state of the new developments at?

[Peter Sayegh]

Pinehurst #10, a course that will be open to the public.

Tim, your use of "public" is very loose here.
Mid Pines, Pine Needles, Southern Pines, Tobacco Road and PCC's #1,#3,#5 are public without mandated lodging/resort status.



Sorry for the diversion.

Drew, I love this thread. I do not have the proper pedigree or experience to offer my opinion (a strong one) but look forward to responses from this board especially regarding the US.

[Tom_Doak]

Drew:


You are seeing it exactly right, and Bill Coore and I have no exemptions here.


The bottom line is that you can get away with lots of things on a super private course than on a course that hosts a normal number of golfers.


Of your examples, I’ve only played Redtail, and no one else here has, so let’s use an example the DG is more familiar with — Wolf Point.  It’s got 4-5 greens with more slope than anything I’ve ever built.  That makes it cool and different.  But you are much more willing to accept greens at 8 on the Stimpmeter (or three impossible putts if they were at 11) when you are playing with the architect or the owner, which were the only ways you were there. 


If I’d built any of those greens in Bandon, we’d have had to re-do them long ago, because a high end resort crowd would complain.


Wolf Point is the rare good example of this in the USA, IMO.  Places like Rich Harvest Farms and Maridoe (though I’ve never been to either) did not take advantage of their advantage as well as you think Goodwood did.  In the end, you’ve got to have a client who gets it, or who totally trusts you.

[Wayne_Kozun]

Interesting thread.  Was Goodwood meant to be ultra-private?  It was built around 2007 just when the market was falling out for golf clubs.  And then owner Gord Stollery died unexpectedly in 2011.

[Matt Schoolfield]

This thread has me thinking quite a bit... and I understand the premise, but I'm worried we have things backwards.

The premise, as far as I can follow, is that "private golf leads to more freedom for the architect, which leads to more interesting golf," which I generally follow and would agree with to some extent. However, it seems the thought process continues to say, "the more private, the more freedom, the more interesting" and this is where I think my brain pushes back.

Argument for confirmation bias:

It seems to me this may be confirmation bias, but I might be wrong. On the one hand, a non-exclusive club that takes a big risk and designs a really wild course, well, if it's a success, then the club would suddenly become exclusive because folks would be banging down the door to play. It would look like exclusivity creates great courses, but the great course creates the exclusivity.

Argument that Drew's idea is just correct:

Super rich people can just take more chances building courses, and they also tend to be in more exclusive clubs. Bigger risks will lead to much more interesting art when it's successful, and more cash just seems like a way to take more risk.

The obvious pushback to this is Keiser, but hearing him praise Kidd's return accessible golf with Gamble Sands really makes me think he just prefers more accessible experimentation when it comes to interesting golf architecture (and I think it's perfectly reasonable to prefer, say, the more accessible works by Matisse to the bizarre art from Duchamp).

It's a conundrum.

Now, I don't want to talk out of turn here, and I don't want my preferences for public golf to cloud my judgement, but I think there is a huge audience for weird and interesting architecture in the public sphere, I'm just not sure business model (high-end customers tend to care much more about conditioning than architecture) supports it. Here in the Bay Area, we have Lake Chabot GC, which is... just a very weird and interesting course, yet, it's quite popular with the locals. Still, I have yet to even find something like an unrated match play course that is not associated with a club... so maybe I'm just wrong about that, or maybe the developers are leaving a lot of money on the table.

[Tom_Doak]

Matt:


I understand what you are saying and I’m with you.  I have never done the “ultra private course for a billionaire “ because it takes a lot of work to build one of these things (as opposed to a tree falling in the forest), and the reward is being able to share them with the world of golf.


But, the last time I spoke to a client who didn’t want to spend $$$ to chase the moniker of greatness was probably at CommonGround, which is fifteen years ago now.  The consensus view is if you don’t spend $15m to build a project you will lose your ass.  (The corollary is, if you spend more than that, you will never make the $ back, but obviously you must be able to afford that.)


So, I would love to be able to create lower budget indie film type courses, but they have gone the way of lower budget indie films.  There aren’t any.  At least Wolf Point actually happened.

[Ira Fishman]

Tom,


Are you saying that there no longer is room in the market for a Strantz or an Engh?


Ira

[Tim Gavrich]

The bottom line is that you can get away with lots of things on a super private course than on a course that hosts a normal number of golfers.

Tom,


Where would you put 15 at Memorial Park on your own spectrum of design audacity? I guess some locals probably grumble about it, but there is absolutely a place for audacious greens like that one on courses that the general public can enjoy.


Part of the reason why I think Keney Park in CT and Charleston Muni in SC are two of the most important golf courses (re)built in recent years is that they fight against the notion that the masses are simply not sophisticated enough to appreciate occasionally funky or audacious design features. I would put some of the greens on both courses up against the eccentric putting surfaces at some of the more exclusive courses out there. Perhaps they - and Mem Park, for that matter - sit on the periphery of this discussion because they are renovations, rather than 100% new builds, but part of what I admire about all three courses is that their architecture does not imply one bit that the golfing masses need things to be dumbed down.

[Charlie Goerges]

When you see some of the boring junk people are playing, you'd think that something creative and out-there would be welcomed. Even by average golfers. Or maybe I'm just projecting.

[Ian Andrew]

Interesting thread.  Was Goodwood meant to be ultra-private?  It was built around 2007 just when the market was falling out for golf clubs.  And then owner Gord Stollery died unexpectedly in 2011.

I knew Gord well. We talked about that project. He sent me up to see it before it was ever played. It was in the middle of grow-in.


He built it but was not certain what he was going to do with it. It's why the clubhouse wasn't built with the courses. He wasn't sure about going super private or becoming a third high-end public course. He was also working on projects in Calgary and Montreal around this time too. He wanted to take his time in deciding what to do with the course.


Btw, he wasn't an owner that told you what to do or not to do.
He was a very nice man, good player and a good owner to work with.
 

[Ian Andrew]

Oviinbyrd has some pretty wild green locations against rocks that maybe wouldn't fly elsewhere (Muskoka Bay is public and has some of this too, but not nearly as frequent as Oviinbyrd).

Rocks ... there's plenty of examples of this up there.
Rocky Crest has more than Oviinbyrd. All the Muskoka Courses all have it. It's common even in smaller courses


I had lunch with Peter Schwartz, founder of Oviinbyrd, his mandate for Tom was more width than normal.
He wanted it to be more playable off the tee. It was intended as a high-end private club with an emphasis on great food.
He thought the food options in the area were disappointing.

[Matt Schoolfield]

When you see some of the boring junk people are playing, you'd think that something creative and out-there would be welcomed. Even by average golfers. Or maybe I'm just projecting.

Ehh... I don't know. I keep coming back to the 501c7 system itself. It makes a ton of sense to me for clubs to be formed around a core audience. An audience that likes niche (especially avant-garde) architecture. A private club allows players to mostly self-select for that, and that seems like the best way to maintain that while minimizing financial risk. However, because of the American tax-code, they can't advertise to people to come and experience their unique course.

It's like having an avant-garde art museum that's only really open to members... I mean sure, but also, if we are seeing golf course architecture through that lens, it makes so much more sense to be able to advertise and allow curious people to come in at see it before they know they like it.

Pasatiempo is the only club in my area that allows this type of access, I guess that you could add the Dunes Club to that, but that relies on the high-profile of Keiser telling people to ask to play. Beyond that we are left with the occasional invite-event, all with high price tags that would dissuade your average player from cultural exploration. So, again, I think that unless the tax-code changes to something akin to the UK, that we are in an equilibrium that generally dissuades publicly-accessible courses from targeting a niche audience.

But, you know, if there were some third-party, say a publicly editable database, that could advertise which private clubs will generally allow access to the public, specifically to circumvent these legal restrictions... maybe that could change things. But what do I know...

[Ben Malach]

Matt:


There are access/reciprocals lists and there are also third-party platforms that members can join to share access.


Yes, I would prefer the model of the UK and Australia. Where a well-timed phone call and the offer of paying for lunch can get you a guest spot.


All that being said it its more knowing how to write a letter and having a reason to be there in North America.


Now this is not a thread purely on access but what ownership models allow.


From my experience of only having a month on an ultra-private build that has stalled. Was that they were much more concerned with the look and how it would rank than the pure quality of the golf. That being said there are things on that golf course that would get people killed at public facilities with 8-minute tee times. I think the greens at the end of the day have to fit the site.


All this being said the most on-edge greens, I have played were at a little 9-hole in southeastern Tennessee and they seem to do a great job at turning what to me was a miss into a selling point. As, when greens get that severe you lose the variety in the putting surface as you will inevitably end up with limited pin positions.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

Are you saying that there no longer is room in the market for a Strantz or an Engh?

I wasn’t trying to say that, but to your point, how busy is Jim Engh these days?