Shots Fired - Who designed Cape Wickham

[Ally Mcintosh]

It seems that with so many really, really good new courses, and so many really good restorations, the Top 100 list is getting too small in size to comfortably fit all the courses that have a claim to being truly great (and all the money and ego backing these courses).


It seems to me that a Top 200 list starts being more and more relevant, and probably within this list, there should be a ton of courses tied at T-101.

I’ve felt for sometime that you should divide the chronology of golf into 3 eras. I realize magazines dont all rate by chronological eras, but consider separate lists for:


1888-1960
1961-1994
1995 -present

The period 1995 - 2023 has produced a minuscule number of golf courses, probably only 150 to 200 from what this website would call the “2nd Golden Age”. The rest of the courses built in that timeframe (primarily before the 2008 crash) are more befitting the “type” of course for which the period 1961-1994 has been defined.


The period before 1960 probably produced over 20,000 courses, a vast number more worthy of consideration but virtually ruled out by sheer number.


So either the current period is producing far better courses than the first period. Or some of the courses are comparatively over-rated. I could make an argument for either the former or the latter. But what I’d really not like to see is a Top-100 from such a limited breadth of overall development represented by this recent period. All you are asking for is a Top-100 that includes 25 of Tom’s 45 courses and approaching a similar number for Coore.

[MClutterbuck]

An argument can be made that cheap travel, photography, the Internet, smart phones, drones, modern construction and maintenance machinery and techniques, technology in general, has made new golf courses better, pari-passu.


When I think of how we built the front 9 a few years back, versus how we are building the back 9 at El Desafio now, we are able to get images, movies, drone shots back to the designer real-time, there is a huge change.


Even a firm that has a senior associate on the ground day to day, can consult with his principle and the developer real time, provide all sorts of visuals and make quick adjustments, even risk playing around with a concept that came up during construction and have it checked out real time, approve it or revert to planned concept. Before there is no way that could happen, there was a visit scheduled by when everything had to be finalized. In that sense there is also more room for creativity.


We should not be surprised that, if good general ideas about what a golf course should be prevail, more and more good courses are built proportionally. 

[Kevin Pallier]

A recent view from the original investor


https://www.australiangolfdigest.com.au/who-really-designed-cape-wickham-links/

[Jeff Schley]

Kevin seems pretty clear the developer feels Darius should have been given co design credit.  Wonder if that was in writing or just verbal agreement, my guess is that it isn't contractual.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I am naive sometimes, but I just don't understand taking full credit when you have a partner. He would be someone to share the joy with.

[Thomas Dai]

No comment on the background to the course or who designed, built it etc, just that it’s a bloody brilliant course to play and a great place and island to visit.
Absolutely fantastic.
If you get the chance or can create the opportunity, go!

Atb

A couple of worthy course videos -


Scott Campbell - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt64uYhAoFc&pp=ygURY2FwZSB3aWNraGFtIGdvbGY%3D
and
Under the Card - [size=78%]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jC5JlTRzGjs[/size]

[Buck Wolter]

The No Laying Up guys went fairly recently. The # of snakes was a little off-putting!

https://nolayingup.com/videos/tourist-sauce/tourist-sauce-australia-season-9/tourist-sauce-return-to-australia-episode-5-king-island

[Cort Sylvester]

The No Laying Up guys went fairly recently. The # of snakes was a little off-putting!

https://nolayingup.com/videos/tourist-sauce/tourist-sauce-australia-season-9/tourist-sauce-return-to-australia-episode-5-king-island

After watching that episode, I was retroactively terrified of my round at Cape Wickham. It was a brutally windy and intermittently rainy day and I was the only person on the course.  Thankfully I didn’t see a single snake. Not sure I would have finished the round if I had, and not sure I’d go back after seeing NLU there, despite the high quality of the course. 

[Brian Finn]

A recent view from the original investor
https://www.australiangolfdigest.com.au/who-really-designed-cape-wickham-links/

Interesting article.  I was surprised by some of Duncan Andrews' comments regarding routing.
 
Who was responsible for the routing of Cape Wickham?
 
So we ended up with Mike DeVries. Mike came out to Australia from Michigan. He spent a month there on King Island looking at potential layouts. The problem with laying out an 18-hole course at Wickham was that there were at least 100 terrific golf holes. And probably 10 different routings for the golf course you could have. At least 10, maybe more.
 
This is the delicious thing about a course like this: there’s no right answer. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. If you put in that hole because it’s gorgeous, you can’t fit in the other equally gorgeous hole. We wanted to make a course that was walkable and one hole that fed into another. We weren’t going to have 500-metre walks between tees and greens.
 
Anyway, Mike put together a routing that was good, but it changed considerably in the end with input from Darius and me… There’s always in these things, an element of disagreement. Routing a course, architects would say it’s their skill, but I don’t entirely agree with that. Darius and I are as competent for routing a golf course as somebody else. Once you’ve set your rules – let’s say, for example, where is the first hole going to be or will there be returning nines – it becomes easier. Cape Wickham was hard because there were so many choices and that meant compromises all the way along.

[Tom_Doak]

Kevin seems pretty clear the developer feels Darius should have been given co design credit.  Wonder if that was in writing or just verbal agreement, my guess is that it isn't contractual.

Often there is a clause in the contract how the design credit for the course is to be specified.  Mine don't have that, because I always thought it was a sign of weakness to include such a clause . . . I'm pretty confident that when we're finished, my clients are going to respect the work I've done, and want to be associated with my name.  But other "signature" firms will be very clear about it . . . some of them used to sell different levels of service [and different branding] at different prices, so you couldn't say your course was a "Jack Nicklaus Signature Design" unless you'd paid him more.


At the end of the day, the course is the owner's, and he has a lot of influence with what he says.  A prime example:  Mike Keiser's contract for the first course at Bandon Dunes was with the Gleneagles Golf Group, and that was how the design was supposed to be credited.  David Kidd was just an employee or junior partner in the firm.  But Mike appreciated David's work, and thought using his name was much more marketable than using the Gleneagles tag, so near the end of the job he told them what he intended to do, and they didn't make a big fuss over it because that would look unseemly.  [Imagine the old director of golf at Gleneagles trying to take credit for Bandon Dunes now.]


I have no idea what was in Mike's contract for Cape Wickham and whether it said he would receive solo design credit and if that was something the two sides negotiated.  But it's weird that they spent a few years marketing it that way and then changed their tune -- and most of it happened after Duncan Andrews sold the course to the Vietnamese group, no less.  If he's on record at the opening talking about Darius having had a big influence on the routing, etc., that's one thing, and again, I don't know about that. 


But the idea that editing someone's routing is the same as being able to do one yourself, is pretty rich.  There is a huge difference between finding a hole or two, and finding holes that fit together.  And the client's role in having a say at how he wants them to fit together, is in no way the same as having been able to find the holes and put them together.  If they were so confident they could do that, they wouldn't have hired Mike at all.


When Ally came out to St. Patrick's, he showed me a par-3 hole he'd wanted to include in his routings for the property that played down into my 14th fairway.  It was a spectacular hole that I'd never considered, and didn't find with my process.  And maybe a lot of people on this board could do a routing for that site and find a hole they thought was great that I missed.  But you won't wind up with a great course unless the hole before it and the hole after it come out great, too.

[Ally Mcintosh]

For clarity Tom, that hole playing down from 15 green was part of a cohesive whole. But the way out was the one truly up ‘n’ over blind shot, a par-5 coming back along the coast, playing reverse down your 5th towards your 4th green. Whether that hole would have turned out great may have been dependent on whether one embraced a Lahinch style tee-shot…. And the par-3 you mentioned did block off the opportunity to use the same tee-shot that you did for your 14th… As we’ve said here before, routing is all a matter of positives over negatives. Every decision has a knock-on effect.


But that is digression…


It’s clear to see that Duncan Andrews is in Darius’s camp. Still, I’m sure the co-design credit is the correct one given the time and effort that Darius clearly put in to the project.


I did find his comments about routing to be strange for all the same reasons Tom states. They showed a lack of understanding of the overall process of fitting the best jigsaw together.

[Tim_Weiman]

I think Tom Doak is obviously correct. Pretty much any golf architecture junkie could identify a hole or two.


That is hardly the same thing as routing and designing an entire course.


Tim

[Ally Mcintosh]

Yes Tim,


But if Darius did have significant involvement in “editing” the routing, that is still a considerably harder task than identifying a hole or two in a vacuum. It all depends on what that editing entailed. And I’m not sure the way Duncan Andrews described it indicates that he has a base understanding of what is involved in the process.

[Kalen Braley]

The irony of this thread is as it relates to the other one on Top Pros who are considered "designers".

I'm guessing Darius contributed far more to the actual end product at CW than the vast majority of the pros on the other list did for their courses but still received recognition for such.

P.S.  At least when I buy a bottle of cologne or pair of shoes I don't delude myself into thinking the celebrity had a meaningful role in creating the product.

[Joe Hancock]

I have suggested routing changes that have then been implemented. I have changed the direction of shaping on many projects. I have been blessed to be allowed to be an *architect* without all the liabilities and obligations.


Having said that, if I publicly tried to clarify my inputs on every project, I would quickly be unemployed….and deservedly so.

[Tim_Weiman]

I have suggested routing changes that have then been implemented. I have changed the direction of shaping on many projects. I have been blessed to be allowed to be an *architect* without all the liabilities and obligations.


Having said that, if I publicly tried to clarify my inputs on every project, I would quickly be unemployed….and deservedly so.

Joe,


There does seem to be something either missing or not quite right with this whole story.


I am trying to think of a project that was comparable and the only one that comes to mind is Rustic Canyon. If I remember correctly Gil Hanse shared credit with not only Jim Wagner but also Geoff Shackelford, who was and is an accomplished golf architecture writer but not a practicing architect.


Again, if I remember correctly, that was the understanding from the very beginning. Geoff didn’t after course completion claim to have “edited” the course and was, therefore deserving of design credit.


Tim

[Ally Mcintosh]

I’m not sure Tom is recalling this correctly (or perhaps it’s me!). I think Darius was co-designer from the beginning and then started to get erased I.e. the other way round.


Regardless, with this one it seems - if Duncan Andrews is recalling correctly - that the working relationship changed halfway through the project.


I’m not batting for either side here - I am usually very dubious about “consultants” being given any design credit. But routing isn’t everything… so it does depend quite considerably on how much of the final course was down to the long hours that it sounds like Darius may have put in.


For those in the know - how has Darius’s follow-on projects gone? He has done a course on his “own”, hasn’t he?

[Thomas Dai]

Curious as to who will ultimately get the job to fix the 18th fairway and green that is rapidly being eroded. Or who will get the blame for it happening?
Not unusual to try and grab credit and glory. Not unusual to hide when things goes awry.
Atb

[Mike_Clayton]

Curious as to who will ultimately get the job to fix the 18th fairway and green that is rapidly being eroded. Or who will get the blame for it happening?
Not unusual to try and grab credit and glory. Not unusual to hide when things goes awry.
Atb

Mike and I were down there in March looking at solutions for the owner.  The fairway isn't so much a problem as the green -  which isn't going to be as it is now for too much longer.


Mike will do the work.

[Thomas Dai]

Thanks Mike.
Wonderful course. Wish it every success as I also do to down-the-road Ocean Dunes and King Island in general.
Atb

[Mike_Clayton]

Thanks Mike.
Wonderful course. Wish it every success as I also do to down-the-road Ocean Dunes and King Island in general.
Atb

It is a terrific course - and also a tough place to run a successful business. The success of Barnbougle is return visitors.

[Scott Warren]

Ally,

In terms of courses of consequence, no — Darius hasn’t built anything since Cape Wickham.

He has a course in development on Kangaroo Island near Adelaide (in partnership with Duncan Andrews, worth noting that as context for Duncan to be pumping Darius’s tyres and helping him rewrite the story of Cape Wickham).

If it’s world-class, I think Darius will have a lot more people willing to accept that he made a meaningful contribution to the success of the course at Cape Wickham.

[Daryl David]

Ally,

In terms of courses of consequence, no — Darius hasn’t built anything since Cape Wickham.

Not sure about a “course of consequence” but Darius did design The Farm, a short course at The Hills (NZ) in 2019.

[Thomas Dai]

Cape Wickham and Ocean Dunes.
Some cracking video footage and some words about the origin of both courses - [size=78%]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tg22Od_v_-E[/size]
Amazing place KI.
Atb