Continues to impress me..

[Jonathan Cummings]

Jack that is.  His modern designs continue to be a vast improvement over his early designs.

I just went around The Concession yesterday and admit the Digest folks are right in their recent 'Best New' award.  The bunkering and green complexes at Concession are simply brilliant.  JN took a basically flat piece of rural Florida landscape and molded a layout of 18 well-varied holes that can play easy or murderously hard but will always fascinate.  The approach values at TC are as rich in range as it gets.  Another big plus is there will never be any houses around the course - just nature.

Esthetically Mayacama and Sebonak are far more beautiful but from a pure player's standpoint, Concession will both please and challenge you round after round.

JC  

[cary lichtenstein]

Who was the lead architect at Concession?

That is the person to give credit to.

[Doug Wright]

Who was the lead architect at Concession?

That is the person to give credit to.

Cary,

I respectfully disagree. We diss Nicklaus himself plenty when we see something with his name on it we don't like. He's the leader of his band. If it works he deserves the credit. I know I get a lot more credit for things that my associates are crucial to, but when things go bad I know where the buck stops too.

[Phil McDade]

Isn't the Concession a joint project of Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin, with the name based on Jack's famous conceded putt to Jacklin in the '69 Ryder Cup? Shouldn't they share the credit, similar to Jack and Doak out on LI?

[Tom_Doak]

Doug:  You are right on.  When my courses are successful, nobody insists on knowing whether Bruce or Jim or Eric or Brian or Don was the lead associate, although I usually share that info freely.  Jim gets the most ink here, but for the record, here are the "lead associates" of what most people would consider my top ten courses:

High Pointe and Lost Dunes - Tom Mead
Stonewall Old - Gil Hanse
Pacific Dunes and Sebonack - Jim Urbina
Cape Kidnappers and Ballyneal - Bruce Hepner
Barnbougle Dunes - Brian Schneider
St. Andrews Beach - Brian Slawnik
Stone Eagle - Eric Iverson

Not to take anything away from Don Placek, whose work at The Sheep Ranch and Stonewall New just doesn't get much ink.


Phil McDade:  Strangely enough, about four years ago (prior to getting involved at Sebonack), I got a call from Tony Jacklin who was interested in having me help out on The Concession ... he was afraid he wouldn't have much to say with Nicklaus and associates.  I declined because I didn't think I would have much influence, either.  I guess he did just fine, though.

[Jim Nugent]

Who was the lead architect at Concession?

That is the person to give credit to.

Cary,

I respectfully disagree. We diss Nicklaus himself plenty when we see something with his name on it we don't like. He's the leader of his band. If it works he deserves the credit. I know I get a lot more credit for things that my associates are crucial to, but when things go bad I know where the buck stops too.

Doug, not sure I agree.  My sense is that Jack never routes courses.  (Has he ever routed a course in his life?)  He only spends a few days at any given course.  

Contrast that with, say, Doak.  Tom routes all or the vast majority of his courses, yes?  He spends way more than just a few days at each one.  My sense is that he gets way way more involved with every aspect of the design and construction, compared to Jack.  I bet this is true of the other architects who post here as well.  

Jack has put together a golf course factory.  How many courses are they working on now -- something like 200 or more?  He runs a golf course architecture business.  I've never been sure that he really is a golf course architect himself, though.  

Is it indelicate, or political/business suicide, for the archies here to comment on this?  

[Kalen Braley]

Nice info Tom,

Perhaps this is found in an earlier thread, but can you say a few words concerning Sheep Ranch .  Its kind of a mystery to me and I'm not able to find much information about it on the web.

Thanks,

[Peter Pallotta]

I bet if you took the top 10 best screenwriters in Hollywood, every single one could properly conceptualize, structure and flesh out a good movie (not every time, but at least once).  Now, very few of those movies might be the kind we like, and even fewer would be GREAT movies; but all 10 would be properly structured and fleshed out movies. That doesn't seem like much of a compliment, until you try to conceptualize, structure and flesh out a movie (or a book, or a painting, or a jazz solo) yourself, especially with producers/agents/audiences/budgets constraining your efforts.

All of which is to say, I'm impressed by Jack as well; he's been doing good work for a long time, and actually still seems to be growing and learning and getting better, even after all these years. That's remarkable, IMO, especially for someone who's had a lifetime of praise and success heaped upon him.  That the chances of me being able to afford or to play one of his courses are next to nil is another question.

Peter

[Patrick_Mucci]

Doug:  You are right on.  When my courses are successful, nobody insists on knowing whether Bruce or Jim or Eric or Brian or Don was the lead associate, although I usually share that info freely.  Jim gets the most ink here, but for the record, here are the "lead associates" of what most people would consider my top ten courses:

High Pointe and Lost Dunes - Tom Mead
Stonewall Old - Gil Hanse
Pacific Dunes and Sebonack - Jim Urbina
Cape Kidnappers and Ballyneal - Bruce Hepner
Barnbougle Dunes - Brian Schneider
St. Andrews Beach - Brian Slawnik
Stone Eagle - Eric Iverson

Not to take anything away from Don Placek, whose work at The Sheep Ranch and Stonewall New just doesn't get much ink.

Tom Doak,

Listing those whe deserve credit is a generous and noble gesture on your part.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Peter,  If you can find a bargain flight to the UK you can play the Nicklaus Course at St Mellion fairly cheaply: http://www.stmelliongolfbreaks.co.uk/
Of the three Jack Nicklaus courses in the UK with which I'm familiar it has by far the greatest character.

[ed_getka]

Tom,
   I also appreciate you listing your lead associates on your various projects. I had no idea you spread around the work that much. Out of curiosity, how do you decide who to assign to each site?

Kalen,
   The main way to find out about Sheep Ranch is here. It is an under the radar "unofficial" course that you can see to the north of Pacific Dunes. There are a number of green sites out there and you basically play HORSE (like in basketball), and just pick a green and start hitting shots until you get it in the hole. The course isn't fully maintained so don't expect green conditions like the resort, but the greens are very interesting and there are few more enjoyable ways to spend an afternoon. I find SR works best to get the kinks out after traveling to Bandon by arriving mid-day and playing until dark. Then the next day you start up at the resort proper.
    Mike Keiser doesn't own the SR land, and the staff at Bandon would disavow knowledge of the place in the past, but I think that has changed a little.
    Through the grapevine there seems to be a movement afoot to formalize the SR layout.

[ed_getka]

Regarding Nicklaus' work, what have you guys heard about Kinloch down in NZ? Apparently this project has been taking a long time due to real estate issues, but apparently the land is pretty good.
   Nicklaus is putting out some pretty good courses, even if he is a factory. I know I would like to see Mayacama, Ocean Hammock, Pronghorn, Old Works, etc... Perhaps his percentage of great courses isn't as high as some, but some really good courses are coming out of the Nicklaus team.

[Tom_Doak]

All:

I have no problem listing those guys as lead associates; the only hesitation is that it doesn't tell the entire story.  Bruce wouldn't have been able to build Cape Kidnappers without Brian, Brian, Eric, Chris Hunt and Dan Proctor helping him out; none of our courses have been built without at least a couple of associates contributing their talents.


Jim N:

Perhaps it is political suicide for the other architects here to comment on your thoughts, judging from the responses.  Or maybe they just haven't been close enough to Jack's work to comment, apart from Jim Lipe.

All I can comment on for sure is that I do indeed complete the routings for all of my courses myself.  Sometimes, someone else has given us a head start, and sometimes one of my associates has suggested a hole or three, but usually it is mostly mine, even in collaborations (where everyone should do the parts they do best).

If Sebonack is representative, I spend about four days on site for every day Jack spends himself.  I don't think that means I make a lot more decisions than Jack does, it only means that I take more time to think about them before I decide.  In fact, Jack wondered aloud more than once why I take so much time -- he prefers to make his decisions quickly and get on to other things, and he certainly implied that I would get more done if I'd just make my decisions and delegate my associates to take it from there.  But, Jack has little inclination to hang around and watch a green being shaped, whereas I think that's the second most fun part of the job.

But as to your last question, absolutely, Jack is a golf course architect.  I'm sure he could route his own courses if he wanted to, but he has decided to delegate a lot of that work and just comment on it and edit his associates' attempts, probably in part because he does a lot of development-related projects and the routing process is more time-consuming with all the give and take.  I don't think Ben Crenshaw has done many of the routings of his courses, either, but he certainly has a lot of input in the process on any course his name goes on, and so does Jack.

[Doug Wright]

All I can comment on for sure is that I do indeed complete the routings for all of my courses myself.  Sometimes, someone else has given us a head start, and sometimes one of my associates has suggested a hole or three, but usually it is mostly mine, even in collaborations (where everyone should do the parts they do best).

If Sebonack is representative, I spend about four days on site for every day Jack spends himself.  I don't think that means I make a lot more decisions than Jack does, it only means that I take more time to think about them before I decide.  In fact, Jack wondered aloud more than once why I take so much time -- he prefers to make his decisions quickly and get on to other things, and he certainly implied that I would get more done if I'd just make my decisions and delegate my associates to take it from there.  But, Jack has little inclination to hang around and watch a green being shaped, whereas I think that's the second most fun part of the job.

But as to your last question, absolutely, Jack is a golf course architect.  I'm sure he could route his own courses if he wanted to, but he has decided to delegate a lot of that work and just comment on it and edit his associates' attempts, probably in part because he does a lot of development-related projects and the routing process is more time-consuming with all the give and take.  I don't think Ben Crenshaw has done many of the routings of his courses, either, but he certainly has a lot of input in the process on any course his name goes on, and so does Jack.

Tom,

Thank you for this enlightening response from one who's worked directly with Jack.

[Jonathan Cummings]

Good gracious - I'm just a critic.  If it ain't Jack, who should I credit for the exordinary detail work at Concession?  

Jimmy Lipe, send me an IM if you want - I'll keep mum, but who in the hell dreamt up and so effectively executed the plans at Concession?  Some one or a collaboration of folks is/are very talented and should be recognized much the way Doak pointed out individual contributions of his team.

JC

[Don_Mahaffey]

The biggest change I notice with Jack and friend's work is a strong effort to try and fit the golf course into the surrounds...even it means moving a ridge or two...the finished product does seem to tie in better then their early work. If you visit some of Jack's early work in AZ you'll find courses that seemed to be separated from, rather then integrated into, the surrounding native areas. Raised turfed edges, sprayed to keep a sharp look and cleanly swept transition areas don't exactly look natural.
They still move mountains, but they put it back nicely.

[Tom_Doak]

Don:  Good point.  The most interesting thing to me is that while Jack would be the last to proclaim himself a minimalist, he seemed genuinely shocked at how much rock Tom Fazio was moving on the second course at Pronghorn.

Jon:  Jack isn't as interested as I am in sharing the credit for his work, partly because his clients have paid a lot of money to use JACK's name on the design.  Plus, if he starts giving credit to individual associates, then clients are going to start requesting certain guys, and that creates trouble in operating the business.

Indeed, one of the reasons I just credited all of my associates above was because some are getting more of a reputation here and elsewhere than others, and I wanted to demonstrate that EACH of them have been responsible for one or two great courses.

[ed_getka]

Tom,
    What are the responsibilities of a lead associate on a project? I assume day to day oversight of what is happening, but what else is involved?