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V. Kmetz

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What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« on: March 29, 2018, 09:37:36 AM »
Recent discussions of a few sorts cause me to ask if there are other identifiable hole patterns/shot demands beyond the traditional ones that have been long recognized?


e.g...


Is 17 Sawgrass a template? Or is a "Short" in Wolf's clothing?
Is the Bay Hill/Sawgrass 18 (water alongside [either side] of the length of a long hole) a template or is that echoing 18th at Pebble (maybe that is the template?)? or are all these "Capes"?
Is Riviera 10 a template?


Cheers  vk





"The tee shot must first be hit straight and long between a vast bunker on the left which whispers 'slice' in the player's ear, and a wilderness on the right which induces a hurried hook." -

Mark Fedeli

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2018, 11:40:00 AM »
I've always thought of Riviera #10 as a template of sorts. I believe it was Gil Hanse's inspiration for the 10th at Tallgrass (NLE).


It's such a specific option being given to the player on the tee, with such specific outcomes for each option, that it should at least be considered one. In fact, I feel the shot options are so specific to that particular hole design that it's just as much a template as something like the Biarritz, which, execution-wise, just plays like any other par 3 for the vast majority of players.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2018, 11:47:36 AM by Mark Fedeli »
South Jersey to Brooklyn. @marrrkfedeli

Kalen Braley

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2018, 12:28:41 PM »
I've always thought the 6th at Pac Dunes was a loosely based template of Riv 10, although inverted. 


Short hole, smallish green, play away from it for the best approach angle, trouble long and short if you choose to play right at it from the tee.

Tom_Doak

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2018, 01:36:40 PM »
I've always thought the 6th at Pac Dunes was a loosely based template of Riv 10, although inverted.


Actually it was the green site of the 16th at Pacific Dunes that I thought was similar in strategy to 10 at Riviera.  The 6th was not based on any particular model.


I have seen quite a few imitations of the 10th at Riv ... Tom Fazio has built a couple, Gil has built a couple, and there was another I saw last year that escapes me right now.  I also built one for the Dyes 33 years ago ... the 10th at Riverdale Dunes.  (The green is not as skinny, because it's a public course.)

Angela Moser

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2018, 11:57:01 PM »
When you say modern templates I am more thinking of new templates, like new ideas of template concepts...


they sure aren’t as obvious as the old templates because they lack the title of the hole.  It’d be cool to build a course and name the holes „the nest“ or „Gilbert’s odyssey“ or something... and 100 years from now people will write about how great this nest template is... etc.


Does anyone of you figured a new template out? Something that is so outstanding to put it on every course you build?

V. Kmetz

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2018, 06:57:48 AM »
When you say modern templates I am more thinking of new templates, like new ideas of template concepts...

they sure aren’t as obvious as the old templates because they lack the title of the hole.  It’d be cool to build a course and name the holes „the nest“ or „Gilbert’s odyssey“ or something... and 100 years from now people will write about how great this nest template is... etc.

Does anyone of you figured a new template out? Something that is so outstanding to put it on every course you build?


Indeed AM, that's just what I intended for the thread to poll...whether or not there are unrecognized, perhaps as yet unnamed "templates" floating about or deployed...from the meager results (Riviera 10) so far, I'd have to say "No."... It seems the extensive modeling of extant holes, for repeatable patterns, shot demands dried up lo' about 1930-35...and/or that ones that might exist are so unique to their original property(ies) that they can't be replicated in any volume (like ANGC #12).


cheers  vk
"The tee shot must first be hit straight and long between a vast bunker on the left which whispers 'slice' in the player's ear, and a wilderness on the right which induces a hurried hook." -

Garland Bayley

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2018, 11:00:32 AM »

...from the meager results (Riviera 10) so far, ...
...

How is that modern?
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

Alex Miller

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2018, 01:07:50 PM »
As VK and Angela mention, I think the template must come from post-golden age. I have two that come to mind, both Dye templates.




Island - 17 at TPC Sawgrass, 17 at PGA West Stadium and many more... http://www.golf.com/photos/best-island-greens#10


While Pete Dye wasn't the first to make an island green, he did popularize and repeat it.




Snake - Honestly too many to count, but I'm thinking of Pete Dye's double dogleg Par 5 similar to 16 at Sawgrass and PGA West, and even repeated on that course using a lake twice on the par 5 5th hole.






Would these count? It seems like Dye is the most likely architect to develop modern templates given how many courses he's designed and his propensity to repeat strategies / styles on different sites.

V. Kmetz

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2018, 01:09:03 PM »

...from the meager results (Riviera 10) so far, ...
...

How is that modern?


It's not in the traditional sense... but in the sense of "Since the Templates have been established"..."Post-Original"


After...Road, Bottle, Long, Cape, Double-Plateau, Biarritz, Eden, Short, Redan, Punchbowl, Alps, Sahara, Leven, Raynor's Prize Dog-Leg, Dolomites, Maiden, others...which are kind of discovered/applied by 1920.


If that is true, it means we haven't really discovered a recognizable hole type that examines something new/creates a particular playing demand/has its own original challenge...worthy of repeated copy... in a century'worth of golf history, almost from the beginning of GCA...certainly one that doesn't require water (as TPC 17, and ANGC 12 do and others I originally mention).


It makes me think: what will refresh GCA continually or did those Scottish routes and shots and their amalgamation by first generation architects exhaust those "model" possibilities?


Riviera #10, as old as it is, is still after those identifications, so if it even "is" a template, it's a "modern" one...that was my thinking.


cheers  vk
"The tee shot must first be hit straight and long between a vast bunker on the left which whispers 'slice' in the player's ear, and a wilderness on the right which induces a hurried hook." -

Jonathan Mallard

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #9 on: March 30, 2018, 01:24:16 PM »
I've always thought the 6th at Pac Dunes was a loosely based template of Riv 10, although inverted.


I have seen quite a few imitations of the 10th at Riv ... Tom Fazio has built a couple, Gil has built a couple, and there was another I saw last year that escapes me right now.  I also built one for the Dyes 33 years ago ... the 10th at Riverdale Dunes.  (The green is not as skinny, because it's a public course.)


11 at Brickshire?

JC Jones

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #10 on: March 30, 2018, 01:33:38 PM »
I've always thought the 6th at Pac Dunes was a loosely based template of Riv 10, although inverted.


Actually it was the green site of the 16th at Pacific Dunes that I thought was similar in strategy to 10 at Riviera.  The 6th was not based on any particular model.


I have seen quite a few imitations of the 10th at Riv ... Tom Fazio has built a couple, Gil has built a couple, and there was another I saw last year that escapes me right now.  I also built one for the Dyes 33 years ago ... the 10th at Riverdale Dunes.  (The green is not as skinny, because it's a public course.)


I could see that.  If the right side of the approach to 16 was built up to be level with the fairway, that hole would skyrocket on the ranking of best holes at PD.
I get it, you are mad at the world because you are an adult caddie and few people take you seriously.

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Ira Fishman

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #11 on: March 30, 2018, 01:48:21 PM »
I think that PD16 is terrific just as is. The depression on the right side of green puts the premium on driving left. But maybe I am just a sucker for rumpled fairways.


Ira

Mark Fedeli

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2018, 01:56:18 PM »

It seems like the reason there aren't any modern templates is not because there aren't contenders, but because no one has made publicizing new templates a big priority.


After all, CBM simply decided that specific features from a bunch of existing holes were worth celebrating, and then went out and did so in his designs. No reason a top architect can't decide to do that now. Many of the original templates do have clear and proven aesthetic and strategic characteristics, but some others are pretty darn random. Is the triple-tier green on 16 at Pasa any less distinct than the double-plateau?
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John Kavanaugh

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #13 on: March 30, 2018, 02:09:40 PM »
The Fazio unbunkered hole.

Jeff_Brauer

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #14 on: March 30, 2018, 03:25:16 PM »


Nice thread.


Off the top of my head, from Pete Dye:


-Yes the island green. Only problem is, it is so distinct it is too obviously a copy, perhaps restricting some from using it. 
- Also, the angled fw or zig zag, which to be fair was popularized in the Golden Age.  Perhaps the long strip bunkers.
- In reality, I think his most enduring template will be the long par 4, bunkered on the inside at both dogleg and green to make it play even longer.
-While not as popularized as others, I often use the concept of his "T" shaped green (13 at Harbor Town, where the front pin is the scariest.

I have built at least a dozen Riv 10 inspired holes. One thing I learned from Tom Doak is that its actually better to NOT have clearly delineated fairways.  Very sneaky that Doak character.....


For Faz, I would say the valley fairway, on nearly every long hole, even when not routed through a natural valley.  They are so darn comfortable to hit to.  Also, how his greens have a gentle concave valley at the front, also increasing comfort to hit to.  Come to think of it, his bunkers do the same thing, making them nice to look at. I recall one of his guys saying that they did it as standard so often, that they took to putting a catch basin in front of every bunker.  Not sure you can call great shaping and artistic eye a template.


For CC, the toilet seat green.


From Norman, and others, the broad expanse of fw chipping area near the green.  Yes, it dates to Scotland, but had fallen out of use so long, whoever re-invented it should get some credit as a "new" template.

Note: Edited right after creation because the new golf club atlas always reformats a lot of type if you cut and paste it around.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2018, 03:31:12 PM by Jeff_Brauer »
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Garland Bayley

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #15 on: March 30, 2018, 08:52:12 PM »

...from the meager results (Riviera 10) so far, ...
...

How is that modern?


It's not in the traditional sense... but in the sense of "Since the Templates have been established"..."Post-Original"


After...Road, Bottle, Long, Cape, Double-Plateau, Biarritz, Eden, Short, Redan, Punchbowl, Alps, Sahara, Leven, Raynor's Prize Dog-Leg, Dolomites, Maiden, others...which are kind of discovered/applied by 1920.


If that is true, it means we haven't really discovered a recognizable hole type that examines something new/creates a particular playing demand/has its own original challenge...worthy of repeated copy... in a century'worth of golf history, almost from the beginning of GCA...certainly one that doesn't require water (as TPC 17, and ANGC 12 do and others I originally mention).


It makes me think: what will refresh GCA continually or did those Scottish routes and shots and their amalgamation by first generation architects exhaust those "model" possibilities?


Riviera #10, as old as it is, is still after those identifications, so if it even "is" a template, it's a "modern" one...that was my thinking.


cheers  vk

So then, how is your thread different than http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,65732.msg1568933.html#msg1568933
?

Since you are no longer requiring "modern".
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

V. Kmetz

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #16 on: March 30, 2018, 09:48:31 PM »

So then, how is your thread different than http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,65732.msg1568933.html#msg1568933
?

Since you are no longer requiring "modern".


I don't know, maybe its not (I was only lightly conscious of that one)... Perhaps this one is sharpening/asking/wondering if the premise of that thread inquiry has to be walked back even farther...if there have been any since the get-go?...Or is the term "template" reserved to those original ones discovered/deployed by the early 1920s...?


I don't know the history of PB and its 18th...but has that one been a template; or is that just a long Cape advantaged on that beautiful natural site...it seems like its spirit (if not its yardage and "par") have been replicated on profile TV/tournament courses (Sawgrass, Doral, Bay Hill).


cheers  vk





"The tee shot must first be hit straight and long between a vast bunker on the left which whispers 'slice' in the player's ear, and a wilderness on the right which induces a hurried hook." -

Tom_Doak

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #17 on: March 31, 2018, 12:23:46 PM »
Nice contribution by Jeff B. 


Certainly, and sadly, the island green is a modern template.  In the past year I have seen versions of it in Manila and Hyderabad, both on courses set in the middle of centuries-old forts! 


A lot of the difference here, as Jeff always says, is marketing.  Macdonald beat everyone to the punch, AND had the audacity to name his templates and claim some of the best holes in the world as his own.


It would take a special kind of prima donna to do that in today's market. 


But there are tons of designers who repeat themselves, and relatively few who don't.  Mike Strantz had a short par-3 with tees playing into it lengthwise and crosswise. Jim Engh has his button-hook par 5 and muscle bunkers.  Even Bill Coore has built the 8th green at Sand Hills on probably 70% of his courses, though I never thought of calling it what Jeff does.


To me, there are way way more than 18 good ideas for golf holes, and I want to use as many of them as I can, instead of limiting myself to a certain number of templates.  I've built a few versions of famous holes myself, but I don't consider them to be among my best work.

Cliff Hamm

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #18 on: March 31, 2018, 06:11:50 PM »
Par 3 over water with a 'wall' fronting the green.  Think Baltusrol 4, Harbor Town 17, etc.

Ronald Montesano

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #19 on: March 31, 2018, 06:59:05 PM »
The saddest one is one that I labeled a Cauldron a decade ago on this site. It is that par three hole that Mike Strantz would build, with a green seated in a declivity, with tees nearly surrounding the green. Examples are 14 at True Blue, 3 at Royal New Kent, 6 at Tobacco Road, and 3 at Tot Hill Farm. I love these holes and wish that we could look forward to more of them. I've not played Bulls Bay, but #17 resembles it a bit.
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Michael Whitaker

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #20 on: March 31, 2018, 11:26:39 PM »
Strantz also had a par-5 template shaped like a Question Mark or Sickle. He used this template on nearly all of his courses.

It's the 4th on True Blue... the 4th on Tobacco Road... the 11th on Tobacco Road... the 2nd on Bulls Bay... the 2nd on Royal New Kent.

I'm not positive, but I think it is also the #7 at Stonehouse.

Here is the 2nd at Royal New Kent


Here is the 4th at True Blue


Here is the 11th at Tobacco Road
« Last Edit: March 31, 2018, 11:52:48 PM by Michael Whitaker »
"Solving the paradox of proportionality is the heart of golf architecture."  - Tom Doak (11/20/05)

Jeff_Brauer

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #21 on: April 01, 2018, 10:21:12 AM »


Even Bill Coore has built the 8th green at Sand Hills on probably 70% of his courses, though I never thought of calling it what Jeff does.


To be fair, I never called it that until I read it hear on golf club atlas.  Blame that guy (don't recall who used the term, but, it's catchy and it stuck.)  I often give the middle more depth, for bail out from the front bunker, and thus call it the "A Frame" green.
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Angela Moser

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #22 on: April 01, 2018, 09:38:46 PM »
Strantz also had a par-5 template shaped like a Question Mark or Sickle. He used this template on nearly all of his courses.

It's the 4th on True Blue... the 4th on Tobacco Road... the 11th on Tobacco Road... the 2nd on Bulls Bay... the 2nd on Royal New Kent.

I'm not positive, but I think it is also the #7 at Stonehouse.

Here is the 2nd at Royal New Kent


Here is the 4th at True Blue


Here is the 11th at Tobacco Road





Michael: I don't know why, but the layout reminds me of the 13th hole at The Dunes Golf & Beach Club in Myrtle Beach. I played it and I drew it for Mr. Doaks Confidential Guide Vol2.
Does anyone else see the similarity?


The time frame of new/modern templates... lets just say from the day that Mr. Dye started to influence the industry. To me it is getting tougher to really find the holes that reminded the current architects to holes that they would copy, as some of the current architects are trying to blend it into the landscape as much as possible. There might be not everything screaming Redan... it is more gently included into the landscape, so the golfer is just taking all the natural beauty in.

Garland Bayley

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #23 on: April 01, 2018, 10:36:56 PM »
I haven't had a lot of time to spend on this the last couple of days, but here's my first team:

Par 3's:
short:  16th Royal Melbourne (East)
medium:  11th St. Andrews
m-long:  4th National Golf Links
long:  3rd Rolling Rock

Par 4's:
short:  10th Riviera
     12th St. Andrews
     7th High Pointe
medium:  16th St. Andrews
     5th San Francisco Golf Club
     6th Royal Melbourne (West)
long:  10th Highlands CC (N.C.)
     18th Phila. Cricket Club
     13th Pine Valley
     2nd Lost Dunes

Par 5's:
short:  9th Royal North Devon
     8th Royal West Norfolk
medium:  16th Shinnecock Hills
long:  10th Pinehurst No. 2

There are a lot of holes mentioned above which I would like to include, but I don't think it's very feasible to think you could place them on a nondescript site.  The 8th at Crystal Downs is fantastic, but where are you going to find another piece of land like THAT?
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

Michael Whitaker

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Re: What ARE the modern/unrecognized "templates"?
« Reply #24 on: April 02, 2018, 10:31:40 AM »
Angela - The 13th at The Dunes (“Waterloo”) is similar, but it is shaped more like a “V” than a question mark. Strantz’ hole design plays in a long sweeping sickle shape around some hazard, whereas Waterloo plays straight away, then across the lake, then straight again to the green.

"Solving the paradox of proportionality is the heart of golf architecture."  - Tom Doak (11/20/05)