A question about green designs

[Jay Flemma]

I find this nugget fascinating - Jim Engh and Mike Strantz designed the same very strangely shaped green within a year of each other, neither of them knowing about or seeing the other's design...why and how?

Here's the facts-Engh's green at #5 at Redlands Mesa (Grand Junction, CO) and Strantz's green at #5 at Tot Hill Farm (North carolina) are virtually identical, although seemingly unique.  Both holes are par-5s and the green has two parts...one is a small pod in the front.  The back of this has a narrow but steep uphill "ramp" to a larger circular shaped green.

Now Engh never saw Tot Hill and Strantz never saw Redlands, yet the design is too similar AND too unique in golfdom (is that a word?) so I deduce the following:

Both of them LOVE the UK and Ireland and frequently import design elements.  I wonder if they played the same course there and brought the idea back.  Does anybody know of a green shaped this way in the UK that they both might have played?  My best guess would be Ireland or Scotland...

ALso, I think the terrain may have made them realize a two tired green would work...its just I think the similar shapes are too close for coincidence.

[Norbert P]

 
5th @ Redlands Mesa


 #5 @ Tot Hill

[SPDB]

Jay -
Interesting observation. You've come up with some neat topics in your brief time at GCA.com. Congrats, and thanks!

Quick question - Is the pin ever cut on the small front "pod." The answer is most assuredly no, but doesn't hurt to ask.

[cary lichtenstein]

Engh did 3 more, and I like all of them:

#7 Lakota Canyon
a green a Blackrock
another at his disasour course in Golden, Colo

[Jay Flemma]

Actually yes, the pin is FREQUENTLY cut on the front pod...BOTH times at Redlands and the one time at tot hill I had the front pin placement...hadda aim WAY right to "one bounce and on" that green What a slope!

Norbert, thanks for the really good pix...so now that everyone can see what I described so poorly before...does anybody recognize that shape?

[Norbert P]

Here's one of my favorite  golf holes -Rick Phelps's Devil's Thumb in Delta, Colorado. It's a wicked upper tier to park a ball on but it's teasingly memorable.

http://www.golfexperience.com/devilsthumb/dt13.htm

(Sorry, they have some copywrite crap that won't let me be free to SHARE!)

[Jeff_Brauer]

I find this nugget fascinating - Jim Engh and Mike Strantz designed the same very strangely shaped green within a year of each other, neither of them knowing about or seeing the other's design...why and how?

.....ALso, I think the terrain may have made them realize a two tired green would work...its just I think the similar shapes are too close for coincidence.

How do you know one gca didn't see the other under construction and copy it on a similar site?  Trust me, it happens!

[Jay Flemma]

Good question Jeff.  I know because I have interviewed Jim, Mike 2x and Fuzzy Fezler.  Jim told me he'd never seen anything about tot hill and fuzzy told me Mike never got to see Redlands.

When I asked Jim about this he couldn't remember if he'd seen the shape before, but told me the design had functional attributes regarding balls coming in at low trajectories...we got off track and I didnt press the point home at that time...