The Systematic Destruction Of A Perfect Golf Site

[Tommy_Naccarato]

This is the only way I can best describe Cross Creek Golf Club, in Rancho California--One panaromic picture in paticular, so please bear with me.

<<<<If you could, please slide your picture as far left as you can, before it fully loads.<<<<

Please notice the natural terrain of this site, how beautiful, gentle and rolling it is. The oaks that occupy many areas of the site are of a majestic nature, and the whole place was more or less MEANT to be a golf course.

Now, Please slide the picture to your right, and you will be able to see how the most pristine of golf sites can be trashed by one of the Golf's more successful commercial designers. (In case anyone thinks I'm bashing, I'll let you all figure it out who it is.)

This golf hole/golf course is the prime example of letting Golf's best, most studied architects*** design for the best sites, and the commericial "Grade it-Rape it-Shape it, architects**** to handle the horrible ones.

(***List of Architects can be produced upon request)
(****List of Architects can be produced upon request)


The 10th @ Cross Creek Golf Club

[SGD]

With Julie Andrews wretchedly singing at the top of her lungs:

"The HILLS are alive with the slop of ARTHUR..."

I don't want to sound negative, but don't you finally get tired of some of these firms mass-producing the same old, earth-moving, tired, see-it-once, see-it-again and again designs on really nice pieces of property?

I played it when it opened, and I can't remember 1/3 of the holes.  Hills is right there neck-to-neck with Palmer-Seay and the Gary Player organizations for designing the most boring, repetitious, uninspired golf courses in the land.  

[RJ_Daley]

Would I be right if I guessed that the more attractive terrain to the left of the hole pictured is set aside for the obligatory zero lot line mega-housing pod? :-/

[Tommy_Naccarato]

SGD,
I first toured this site some five years ago with Dr. Yancey Beamer. It had been rumored that this site was to be Tom Doak's very first California project and Yancey, knowing the aquaintance of one of the owners had heard that he had became ill, and his partners sought the adive of Art Hills. they bought into everything that the firm told them.

What a shame.

It was around 98-100 degrees in Temecula that day. At the site, with the cooling ocean breeze coming off of the Pacific some 12 miles away, it was around 88 and we were less then five miles away from Temecula!

As we pulled up to the site, my jaw dropped. It was so perfect--Not what you would see in most golf sites here in SoCal. The fact is that this is very hidden country. Yancey's response to me was, Isn't this the type of site where Dr. MacKenzie would probably say, "Job well done!"  I couldn't have agreed more!

Yancey and I visted that site a two more times before construction started, and everytime we shook our heads knowing, just knowing that Art Hills would screw this site up.  He did a masterful job of doing exactly that.

SGD, Please tell me what you think of the tee shots on the first and second holes. I found them to be like exact copies of one another. (Until you get to the fairway, where they do take on a different form)

After the first four holes, I was ready to leave. The whole thing disgusts me.


The tee shot at the second. Or is that the first? ? ? Maybe it is the second?)


This is taken from the side of the green at #13. the tee shot comes from the direct upper left of the picture. the cut and fill required to build this hole is so evident, as well as it holding the distinction of being one of the worst holes on the course, but not by much! the entire time I was out here I was wishing I was playing Pelican Hill. It was that bad!

[SGD]

You're right, Tommy, #1 and #2 are the SAME tee shot and #13 is HORRIBLE.  

I've been critical of Tom Fazio's work at The Preserve in previous threads, because I just love that piece of property and Fazio didn't put his heart into it, but at least Fazio didn't chop up the site.  

Here, at Cross Creek, Art Hills RUINED the site, which I agree with you was pretty damn good to start with (just look off 100 yards in any direction away from the golf course).  The developer can't bring in somebody to add strategy, reshape the bunkers or rebuild the greens to make this a good golf course, because it's been cut, filled, and shaped into oblivion.  

I can understand why Palmer and Player get jobs because of their playing resumes and name value, but I just don't get how Arthur Hills has EVER risen to become a first tier architect.  I haven't played any course of his that's the least bit interesting.

  

[Tommy_Naccarato]

SGD,
Of course we cannot forget the 12th, which I feel may be some of the worst CONSTRUCTION I have ever seen on a golf course to date.



In that huge drainage swale, is a black ABS drainage pipe that spices up the decor of the hole. It was placed there to drain the creek or for a more precise term, natural crevice that once existed there before the hole was cut, filled and then shaped. As you can tell from the pictures, the hole seems to look to have some agronomic issues and features so many cuppy lies and other stuff that I usually try to avoid paying attention to.

The green complexes through out the course, being the one attributal feature, are further disgraced by green speeds that warrant a radar gun to measure distances. They are simply a product of a greens superintendent under the gun to produce the fastest surface, all of the time.  His job depends on it.


And what SoCal course would be complete without their very own Augusta #12-like, par three to go along with the other 17 abominations of golf course design theory!

[Will E]

SGD,
Welcome to my world.
Tommy,
I thought you said Art Hills wasn't so bad. You're right he's usually worse.
I do think there might have been something in the air a couple of Fridays ago when you claimed to have ventured on to a Faz layout you enjoyed on the same day that I gave some praise to Hill's new work on the way to Marco Island.

Why does he keep getting work? Is it the same reason the zero-lot line homes keep selling, easy maintenance and constant repetition?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Some more.

The course just keeps on getting worse and worse in my mind. So much that I feel like a character from an out-take from the teen horror cult classic "Scanners"


The approach into the 18th, which hopefully SGD might agree, may be even worse then the 13th. The tee shot comes from directly right of the picture, and if you are not on the RIGHT side (THE LEFT) of the fairway, even a lay-up may be impossible. I suggest putting-it/hammering it with you putter as the option.


The 16th which is another hole that require you to place you tee shot on the very left of those mounds on the fairway to avoid rolling into the creek (after bounding across the cart path) what seems like the entire right side of the hole.


Another panaorama. This time from the back of the 11th green. While this may not look to bad for some of you, trust me, it is.

[SGD]

Only one word comes to mind:

H O R R I B L E

Tommy: Do you have any photos of the Cross Creek site BEFORE Arthur Hills arrived in SoCal?  I'd love for GCAers to compare BEFORE photos of the Cross Creek site and the Rustic Canyon site (which you posted on another thread), and then below that compare an AFTER (completed golf hole) photo from Cross Creek and Rustic Canyon.

Then, I'd like someone, ANYONE, to post comments as to Arthur Hills' relative competence as an architect.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

SGD, It just so happens that one of the days that Yancey and I went out there, I did take pictures. However it was my pre-digital days--a dark and aggravating time where the 35 mm I had seemed to love to not wind film properly.

None of them came out.

SGD, if you could, drop me an email on a discussion of the most urgent matter!

tommy_n@earthlink.net