Best course design where "genuis" shone through

[Brett_Morrissy]

Inspired by Pat's thread on sites and inherent genuis.

What is your favourite (not necessarily best) site where the GCA has allowed his talents to shine and where perhaps the combination of site plus architect (and budget) has evolved into your favourite "genuis" site. Lets remove Pine Valley, Cypress & TOC from nominations.

I am sure there will be plenty of nominations for the worst 

My nominations:
Favourite design that is perhaps not on the best site (good ground though)
Kingston Heath GC - Sandbelt, Melbourne, Australia.

Favourite design on spectacular land that I have walked/played:Ballbunion GC, Co. Kerry, Ireland.

Comments?
Brett

[Mac Plumart]

Brett...

I love this thread and I actually tried to get one like it going a few months ago.  Although, I must say that I am not sure I am the guy to give nominations...as I really don't have expert enough knowledge to know what is great land and what isn't...but I'll throw a couple names out of courses I've played.

Best course on poor land...Shadow Creek, TPC Sawgrass

Best course on great land...Ugh, I am unsure what the land looked like before it was a golf course...but I'll say Kiawah Ocean and Sea Island Seaside.  Magnificent settings and wonderful courses.  PLEASE correct me if I am wrong and the land these courses were on was trash before they were built.

[Thomas McQuillan]

Best course on average land: Baltray, alot of the land is really flat the further you go from the sea.

Best course on good land: its a toss up between Portmarnock and Royal Co. Down.

Worst course I have ever played in my life: Bellewstown in Co. Meath. Basically a series of holes routed horizontally across a steep mountain. Impossible to hit a fairway.

[Tom_Doak]

Brett:

I will nominate Royal Melbourne (West) for genius.  More than half of the holes were already there, and nobody in today's world would have batted an eye at any of them.  MacKenzie moved a green on one and a tee on another, planned a handful of new holes, and presto!  Genius.

[Peter Pallotta]

Brett - just from what I've read and looked at in pictures, Garden City seems to me a work of sublime genius. Which goes along with my thoughts on Pat's thread, namely that if he's looking for genius he'd be better off looking for it in a person and not in a site. Nature is, like, a very BIG thing; I don't think we should insult it by calling it a genius...

Peter

[Tom_Doak]

Peter,

Or, you could just say there is genius in all Nature.

[Mac Plumart]

Dude man...you all are sounding like Max Behr!!     Not that that is a bad thing of course, but I've seen you guys poke fun at his writing before.

[Jordan Wall]

For me, it was Riviera.

[Peter Pallotta]

I think there is, Tom, in ways I can't articulate; but I'm hard pressed to think about that genius in terms of our own particular use for it, i.e. as a golf course, even if I think that's a wonderful use for it. And, while I know that good and great architects often praise a great site and work faithfully with it (and rightly so), I think that works of genius should be credited to the architect.  

Peter
  

[Kevin Pallier]

North Berwick in GB&I. Simple yet sublime.

KH in Australia. The fact that Mackenzie was impressed is surely kudos in itself.

I like Jordan's nomination for Riviera in the USA.

[Scott Warren]

Best course on average land: Baltray, alot of the land is really flat the further you go from the sea.

That may be so, but among the holes on the lesser land (9, 10, 11, 17, 18 come to mind), I don't think any of them are outstanding. No surprise that the great holes (3, 5, 6, 7, 12-16) are on the great land. The course is, IMO, great despite the area of poor land and what's built on it.

I have found a lot of similarities between Baltray and Deal and IMO, both would be on another level, competing with the best courses in GB&I, were they blessed with another 30 acres of land equal with the best their sites possess.

New Zealand GC takes the cake for mine for architectural genius overcoming a boring site. Perhaps not boring, it's very beautiful, but not suited for great golf.

[Brett_Morrissy]

KP:

I agree with your genuis gets past the land...North Berwick after TOC - I was hoping/wondering if Nth Berwisk would be on people's GB&I list after TOC...

It is one of the courses you could play everyday.
bm