Unique teeing ground

[Tim Gallant]

The other day I was looking through old golf photos, and I was struck by the teeing ground of the 14th at Maidstone. There are multiple tiers of the teeing area, however, instead of featuring uniform straight lines, which you see often on tee boxes, it gently cascades towards the top right corner and takes a more natural look with slight curves to the lines (see evidence below). I thought this worked so well within its surroundings where nothing else looks man-made, so having a standard two-tiered or three-tiered tee box with straight lines would look out of character.


I wanted to see what are some of the best examples of teeing areas that take a more natural approach, or fit well within their environment.

[Tom_Doak]

I believe the tee depicted was rebuilt by Bill Coore and his team at some point in the past 3-4 years.  I don't remember the tee having multiple levels when I first saw it.


Bill's crew and my own have been building free-form tees which sometimes have level changes on many courses in the past few years.  We started trying to do something different with our tees at Pacific Dunes, but really got rolling on it later.  Sebonack has many tees like the one you've depicted.  At some point -- perhaps at Streamsong, where we were working side by side -- Bill and Ben started building tees in a similar style.  I was happy to see that, because some of their early courses like Kapalua had rectangular tees built on cross-slopes, which made for a very unnatural look.

[D_Malley]

I like the concept of melding the tee area with a closely mown green surround.
maybe the back or side of the previous hole's green or any other green near the tee location.

I first saw this with Gil Hanse's design at Applebrook, but i think the old course has some of this as well.

[Jon Wiggett]

I am not sure that the photo'ed tee looks any more natural than the square ones as both are obviously artificial. However, it certainly will be easier to maintain.


Personally, I have always liked tees that are basically at ground level or even the start of the fairway.


Jon

[Tom_Doak]

I like the concept of melding the tee area with a closely mown green surround.
maybe the back or side of the previous hole's green or any other green near the tee location.

I first saw this with Gil Hanse's design at Applebrook, but i think the old course has some of this as well.

DMalley:


Yes, The Old Course has many tees that are just extensions of the fairway / approach of the previous hole.  I tried to copy that on my first design at High Pointe, where the fairway of the 3rd hole wrapped around the left side of the green and then onto a flat spot for the 4th tee.


I remembered from your post that what got us working on the concept again was a map we were given of The Valley Club at Montecito, when we were first consulting there.  The map showed the tees for nearly all the holes as extensions of the previous fairway.  I thought it was just an artistic flourish by the guy who drew the map -- until I saw the aerial photos that confirmed that's how they had maintained the course.  The fairway gang mowers just continued past the green on one side and mowed the next tee as part of their pass.

[Blake Conant]

Played Dormie Club on Sunday and the 12th tee rises up sharply with the hole.  The simplest solution to a short uphill hole, but rarely utilized. 





Photo courtesy of One Golfer's Travels

[Tim Gallant]

Played Dormie Club on Sunday and the 12th tee rises up sharply with the hole.  The simplest solution to a short uphill hole, but rarely utilized. 

Photo courtesy of One Golfer's Travels

Blake, that is a really cool example, and exactly what I was thinking of. The teeing ground blends nicely into its surroundings, and (at least from the photo), it doesn't follow the prescriptive square shape tee box.


DMalley, I agree, that teeing grounds that are 'extensions' of the short grass work well. Do you have any photos of Applebrook teeing areas that you could share?


The other that I was thinking about was the area used to tee the ball at 17a on LACC North. I am told most people who play the hole tee off from a mound just to the left of the 17th green. While this isn't exactly a 'regular' hole, I wonder why there aren't more par-3s that don't take advantage of a more 'natural' teeing ground. By natural, I am thinking of more movement within the area itself that blends nicely with its surrounding.