Routing a golf course?

[Jonathan Davison]

An architect is chosen to design a golf course. The architect finds 18 of the most natural golf holes on the site.
What factors could deter the architect from using these holes?
Exclude environmental and planning restrictions.
Should wind, hole direction, climate or soil conditions over rule a natural golf course?
Safety is also excluded.

[Brian Phillips]

If the soil conditions are so poor can the holes really be classed as natural golf holes?

If there is no water supply to irrigate and you need to damage one of these holes to create an irrigation source...

Brian

[Jonathan Davison]

Sorry Brian maybe natural is the wrong word.
What if they were beautiful - strategic and within rolling topography.
Would you spend more money and time if some kind of restriction was involved or would you choose an easier solution if it were not as good a golf hole?

[Brian Phillips]

Jonny,

I am not sure I am understanding you.  If my budget was unlimited and I could cap all the fairways for these beautiful holes then I would do it.

If the budget was limited and I would bankrupt the project sticking to my 'beautiful' holes then I would find a new routing.

If money can solve a challenge and help me produce a product that is worth it then yes i would stick by my original design if I believed it to be far superior to the cheaper holes.  You have (as you well know) a responsibility to the client to explain the plusses and minuses with what you want to do.

We have a similar problem now on a nine hole course in Norway.  It is partially located on a peat bog (again..) and they do not have the money to dig out the bog.  We are laying geotextile over the bog and filling with a sandy loam material for our fairway.  However, we are refusing to budge on greensites.  The client must dig out the green sites so as to not get settlement.  A 5 cm sinkage on a green is disastrous wheras the same happening on a fairway can be endured.

It is all about budgets in the end....one reason that I may never be able to design the dream golf course...we do not get the land or the budgets...

By the way did you get the job?

Brian.

[Jonathan Davison]

Thanks Brian
The job was not a job after all???

The question is based on a number of design competitions I am currently working on. The competitions are routing plans with little information on soil etc. If we look just at a survey without any other information or site visits can I only design what I feel is natural strategic golf holes.
I guess it is the difference between working in the industry & trying to work in the industry.

[Mike Nuzzo]

jonny,
I hope your progress is coming along.
Please post them when finished.
I've looked at several sites with only topo and aerial info first.
(see the Carthage Club in my interview)
You do your best until the first site visit, and then see what may work and won't.
Off site views are significant and vegetation too.

Depending on your ability to visualize the lands movement:
A hole that looks good in plan view may not be good in the field.
A hole can look average in plan view and be great due to the lands movement.

The following is one of my favorite quotes from this site..

Even more annoying is the practice of creating arbitrary rough lines in a lame attempt to give the fairway some shape or movement. If there is nothing to tie it in, the whole look strikes me as silly  - yet this is a common practice and does nothing to hide the lack of contour.

Better just to mow along the natural lines, even if that means the fiarway will be as straight as a string.

But your judges may like all those superflous squiggley lines too.
If you can, add a perspective view to give a better idea of what you are invisioning.

Good Luck.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Jonny,
I'm not an architect nor a judge of routing plans so weigh what I have to say as you wish.
I'm guessing a course such as Pacific Dunes with back to back par 3s and 4 par 3's in the last 9 would never have won a routing contest. Yet, what was built on that piece of ground in SW Oregon is special. To win you'll probably have to have a good mix of yardages, have each par 3 be a different yardage and point in a different diection, no back to back 3s or 5s, design something 7700 yards long, all the normal stuff.
But, I just don't know how one could ever get the best use out of a piece of land unless their sole purpose is to use the existing land to build the best course possible. I know that's naive as constraints always exist, but I encourage all designers to build what they think is best, not what they think will be judged best by others.

[Jonathan Davison]

thanks
Appreciate your thoughts.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Johnny,

Not entirely sure I comprehend your question, espcecially since they are design competitions.  I have submitted similar routings, always with the disclaimer that I need wiggle room once I study the site as much as it deserves.  In fact, I am under contract for one now, where they have added a structure since the competition, the true base information shows some property changes, and oh yes, there is a sanitary sewer line that was never properly located....

So, any unknown condition can change a routing plan.  Also in the real world, safety concerns would change it, making you bail out on some potentially great holes.  

Lastly, I have always struggled with using a natural  hole that is a bit too far a walk/or ride from green  to next tee.  I have a lot of courses where I chose the natural hole, but also some where I spend more money in grading to put the tee near the previous green, even if slightly less natural.

[Forrest Richardson]

Well, "18 of the most natural golf holes on the site" may not constitute a viable routing at all. I've often found loads of great holes, but as Yoda would say, "A course they do not always make."

What factors could deter the architect from using these holes? — There may be several, including some never before encountered. We are about to begin construction on a course with a mushroom farm on the downwind edge. Ever smelled a mushroom farm? It is not on my top list. There were several holes along this edge, but we chose the range...where no one hangs around except at one spot, the tee. We managed to position the tee as far away as possible. I suppose this is an environmental condition.

Should wind, hole direction, climate or soil conditions over rule a natural golf course? In some cases, I suppose. In many cases, you bet.

The trick in routing is to balance — and even unbalance — a scale of multiple arms. There are simply too many rules, all of which are just as easy to follow as to forget.

Good luck.

[Tom_Doak]

Jonny:

I will relate a story that Bill Coore told me about the routing of Sand Hills.

He said he and Ben were pretty much set on a routing at one point which had the same first hole, but turned a different way at #2.  Ben had to leave, and Bill went out the next morning to walk it one last time, and discovered that their proposed holes 2 & 3 played dead into the rising sun, and that without any shade out there it was just completely blinding.

Fortunately, they had a lot of other options, and eventually found a routing without those holes.  Now whether the new 2 & 3 are "better holes" than the previous version, none of us know, but clearly the environmental conditions made the present routing a better choice.

If they'd had to move 50,000 cubic yards of earth to make the current holes happen, though, I'd guess that they would have preferred to build the holes into the sun and moved the clubhouse or something, rather than move the earth.  The conception of Sand Hills was as pure of a minimalist ideal as anything since 1900.

[TEPaul]

Tom Doak said:

"Jonny:

I will relate a story that Bill Coore told me about the routing of Sand Hills.

He said he and Ben were pretty much set on a routing at one point which had the same first hole, but turned a different way at #2.  Ben had to leave, and Bill went out the next morning to walk it one last time, and discovered that their proposed holes 2 & 3 played dead into the rising sun, and that without any shade out there it was just completely blinding.

Fortunately, they had a lot of other options, and eventually found a routing without those holes.  Now whether the new 2 & 3 are "better holes" than the previous version, none of us know, but clearly the environmental conditions made the present routing a better choice."

Tom D:

That's very interesting and what you just said Bill Coore told you is completely borne out on the so-called "Constellation Map".

On one itereation, hole #2 had a tee to the right of the present first green and played to a green very close to the present 6th green (it was a par 3). From there the 3rd hole (a par 4) turned dead east (and into the risng sun) to a green to the east of where the present 7th green now is.

[TEPaul]

TomD:

According to Dick Youngscap and as the "Constellation Map" clearly shows, the original area of the Sand Hills golf course started about 500-700 yards east of where it now is. It got shifted to the west when Ben Crenshaw apparently came upon the landforms of holes #12, #13, #14, #15.

Before that the property line ended at right around the present 16th tee to the west.

According to Dick Youngscap, he bought around 1,000 acres and a partner (or angel) bought the remaining 7,000 or so acres that surround the course. (Dick mentioned that without that guy this whole thing never would've happened)

As Ben and Bill kept finding new and different holes Dick and this "angel" had to keep deeding land back and forth. This happened about six times while Ben and Bill did their thing, prompting that "angel" to ask Dick; "How many times are we going to have to go through this deeding land back and forth?"

[Jonathan Davison]

Thank again for your comments.
The design competition was for Faldo Golf Design, on a site with rolling topography.
The brief was split into two  1, A nine hole routing & Nine natural golf holes which would require little cut & fill.
Why I asked the question - we had to identify a location and climate. I am not sure if I would change my design thoughts because of location or climate?
The site is a project by Faldo design and information regarding the design can be found on
www.ledreborgpalacegolf.dk
If I ever figure out how to post my plans I will do so, it is interesting to see the difference when you do not make site visits.