Important Innovative designs

[Phil Lipper]

Golf course Architects tend to embrace the past, redan, biarritz etc. but what new courses (last 20-30 years) are the truly innovative ones? The ones that arent imitating other great holes or courses, the ones that 50 years from now are going to be imitated?

[Bill_McBride]

Pacific Dunes and Cabot Links come to mind, mostly for their ingenious routings that maximize exposure to the ocean. 

[Tom_Doak]

Pacific Dunes and Cabot Links come to mind, mostly for their ingenious routings that maximize exposure to the ocean. 

That's hardly an innovation, really.

Pacific Dunes might be innovative for being a second 18-hole course at a destination that had better land to work with than the original 18-hole course ... usually the first architect doesn't let that happen but Mr. Keiser didn't own the land for Pacific Dunes until David Kidd was half done with his course.  That is a huge reason the place took off as it did, but it was not really a planned move.

Barnbougle was the first of its kind in Australia, and is a model for others currently being built, even though the idea of a "destination" links course was well tested in other countries.

Honestly, I think most innovations in golf architecture are small and incremental now.  There are 30,000 courses in the world, it's hard to do something radically different, apart from having a radically different piece of ground to put it on.  You could say Mike Strantz's work or Jim Engh's is "innovative" but they just have their own style, as do many others.

[Frank Giordano]

Pacific Dunes and Cabot Links come to mind, mostly for their ingenious routings that maximize exposure to the ocean. 

Isn't this the most traditional or conventional form of design, given that the original Scottish and English links appeared wherever the "inventive" shepherds/architects started whacking their stones?

[Howard Riefs]

Pacific Dunes might be innovative for being a second 18-hole course at a destination that had better land to work with than the original 18-hole course ... usually the first architect doesn't let that happen but Mr. Keiser didn't own the land for Pacific Dunes until David Kidd was half done with his course.  That is a huge reason the place took off as it did, but it was not really a planned move.

Sounds similar to the land acquired to build Cabot Cliffs after Cabot Links opened.

[Charlie Gallagher]

Mike Nuzzo's Wolf Point. Here's why:
-Two cuts, green and fairway.
-innovative use of irrigation, greatly reduced number of sprinkler heads on the property that have greater dispersion from each head.
-all power lines, junction boxes, control systems are underground. Only man made objects visible on the course are the bridges, sprinkler heads, flagsicks, and cup liners. I'm excluding the club house, and residence.
-Highly strategic design that forces the player repeatedly to make choices regarding direction of drive and approach. Favored line of attack is often dictated by hole location on a green hundreds of yards distant, but alternative choices are also presented.  Wind is employed as a major factor during play.
-design and engineering that permits a small greenskeeping crew of 5 to maintain about 90 acres of "fairway" plus the greens, and about 60 bunkers, if memory serves. My numbers could be a little off. The entire property can be mowed by a 1970's style gang reel mower in warm weather, with greens mowed by triplex machines.
-design in harmony with the site; one for instance:  the creek that meanders through the property was not levied or contained on the 5th hole, the enormous fairway there is allowed to flood when the stream is swollen by heavy rains. The green is raised to avoid damage from flooding.
-"Nuzzo Knuckled" green undulations.
-Firm and fast playing conditions from a non sand dominated soil profile (Don Mahonney can go into greater detail on that aspect) It plays like a firm heathland or links course.
I think many of the concepts employed at Wolf Point are not unique or new, but the incorporation of its many features onto and into one site makes for an ingenously rare golf experience.
 Important and innovative. America needs a lot more Wolf Point type courses.

[Phil Lipper]

I had feeling when I asked the question, that the answer might be that theres 30,000 courses and change now almost has to be incremental.
The let me ask it another way are there design elements that were thought to be obsolete 30 years ago that are now coming back in vogue?

[Charlie Gallagher]

I apologize to Don, I meant" Mahaffey", not Mahoney. Don Mahaffey, for those who might not know, worked with Mike Nuzzo on the construction of Wolf Point and the installation of its irrigation system, a talent he also employed at Dismal River's recently opened Doak course. He is the superintendent at Wolf Point, as well.

[Phil Young]

Phil,

Although it was to create a links course in the land of links courses, wouldn't Kingsbarns be an example. I ask because It was an engineering marvel with a flat piece of land turned into a rolling, sloping, downhill journey to the sea among manufactured dunes.

Wouldn't this be an example of an innovative use of construction practices used to create a course type that the land didn't support? An example of how modern engineering principles can produce some wonderful golf courses where the land doesn't naturally.

[Phil Lipper]

Actually what the did froman engineering perspective at Kingsbarn is mild compared to Bayonne National. The took a relativley flat piece of land next to NY harbor and created a hilly links course.

[Tom_Doak]

Honestly, I think most innovations in golf architecture are small and incremental now. 

Tom, I thought #7 and particularly #11 at Rock Creek were pretty damn innovative, even if only incrementally so...

I think both of those are unique golf holes, in my experience.  But I don't think of them as "innovative" in the sense of being something that someone else would imitate ... we didn't move any earth on either of them, we just used some severe terrain in an interesting way.

Now that I think about it, the most innovative course we've built is The Sheep Ranch -- but it is allowed to be so different because it isn't used like a normal course.  Wolf Point enjoys the same advantage.  Those are always the projects which have the most chance to be innovative, because most other courses are precluded from imitating them by practical considerations.

[Tom_Doak]

Pacific Dunes might be innovative for being a second 18-hole course at a destination that had better land to work with than the original 18-hole course ... usually the first architect doesn't let that happen but Mr. Keiser didn't own the land for Pacific Dunes until David Kidd was half done with his course.  That is a huge reason the place took off as it did, but it was not really a planned move.

Sounds similar to the land acquired to build Cabot Cliffs after Cabot Links opened.

Actually, he optioned the land for Cabot Cliffs before Cabot Links started.  Mr. Keiser learned that lesson at the same time I learned it; he's just had more chances to capitalize on it.