[Tommy Williamsen]

The thread on best routings got me thinking about sites that must have been a nightmare to route. I used as an example Victoria National. It must have given Fazio nightmares.

[Thomas Dai]

With little ££ James Braid for one seemed to produce some pretty fine courses on what would seem far from ideal terrain.
Perhaps terrain, earth moving, funding etc limitations actually enhance the routing thought process and in some ways aid the ultimate outcome?

Atb

[Ally Mcintosh]

I don’t know the course, Tommy.


But - speculating - I’m not sure if it would be an incredibly difficult property to route. I’m sure he had regulations to deal with that we can only guess but many hole corridors seem to be more or less a given (that’s even assuming the water is not man-made in most areas) and he has areas of the site he hasn’t needed to use, hence there was choice.


The hardest properties are those that are very small with awkward corners and either a shortage of good land features (for great golf) or a bunch of severe land (that makes a small site even smaller) plus a plethora of environmental and safety concerns. Throw in bad soil where drainage design becomes a nightmare and a pre-determined clubhouse position in a less than optimal golf starting point and you have a proper puzzle to unravel.

[Scott Warren]

Painswick can’t have been an easy property to find 18 coherent golf holes on. Evidenced best, perhaps, by some of the holes they chose to build to get you around the site.

[Greg Smith]

I've always heard one of the toughest sites ever was Le Manoir Richelieu in Quebec (Herbert Strong).  The terrain was really severe: a bunch of rocky seaward slopes perched above the St. Lawrence, which might as well be a sea at that point.  Incredible views, which was why the hotel types wanted Strong to build there I guess.  I can't imagine the soil was great, either.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Ally, the course is built on an old mining site. Siting the tees, fairways, and greens had to be difficult. To route it Fazio had to be very creative.


I agree that small pieces of property are extremely tough to route. Wannamoisett is a good example.

[Jeff_Brauer]

For me, the most difficult were the mountain sites in Asia.  I still tried to follow the contours like I would if it were a normal 2 foot contour interval, but they were 5 to 10 meter contours, LOL.  Instead of leveling a cross slope on a fw by a few feet, you sometimes had to lower one side by 50 or more feet.  And, if filling, the distance it took to run the slope out was substantial. 


But as an example of following contours rather than just routing as if the topo wasn't there, I was called in to help on a project and managed to reduce cut and fill from over 2 Billion CM (with a B) to about 1.2 Billion, and the legislated limit was 1.6 Billion CM, from memory (it has been a while)


On more normal sites you might find in America, I think a constant slope across the property might be the most difficult, except as Ally notes, small property with odd shape.  Think Olympic where you can go downhill off the first tee, but must come back up slowly (i.e., their 17th and 18th as long gradual uphill slopes, along with holes like 8 which are difficult, blind, uphill par 3's.

[Tommy Williamsen]

For me, the most difficult were the mountain sites in Asia.  I still tried to follow the contours like I would if it were a normal 2 foot contour interval, but they were 5 to 10 meter contours, LOL.  Instead of leveling a cross slope on a fw by a few feet, you sometimes had to lower one side by 50 or more feet.  And, if filling, the distance it took to run the slope out was substantial. 


But as an example of following contours rather than just routing as if the topo wasn't there, I was called in to help on a project and managed to reduce cut and fill from over 2 Billion CM (with a B) to about 1.2 Billion, and the legislated limit was 1.6 Billion CM, from memory (it has been a while)


On more normal sites you might find in America, I think a constant slope across the property might be the most difficult, except as Ally notes, small property with odd shape.  Think Olympic where you can go downhill off the first tee, but must come back up slowly (i.e., their 17th and 18th as long gradual uphill slopes, along with holes like 8 which are difficult, blind, uphill par 3's.

After I played Red Sky Ranch in CO I wondered how much earth Norman and Fazio had to move. 1.2 billion is astronomical.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I doubt any course in America moved that much earth.  I'm not sure I have heard of an American course over 1.6 Million CY.


 In China, the designer is often hired by the contractor, with a vested interest in moving as much dirt as possible.  The only problem on that project was there was a limit of 1.6B.  On another project on Hainan, my grading plan showed "only" 450,000 CM.  It surprised them that it could be that low.  I double checked and that is what it was.  There was one hole that was a bit funky, on the top of a ridge.  They said it was okay to level that one by tens of meters, which almost doubled the cut and fill count, which they liked, although it was still a bit low for their tastes. 


That project was canceled by the China golf ban in 2015-6? so I never got a chance to see what that looked like.  They also have a preference for playability, i.e., no forced carries, and some of the valleys I left in front of tees might have gotten filled in higher had the course been built.  And, I might have been optimistic about how much grading there would have to be to really make the course flow in the landscape.   We'll never know.

[Jeff Schley]

For me, the most difficult were the mountain sites in Asia.  I still tried to follow the contours like I would if it were a normal 2 foot contour interval, but they were 5 to 10 meter contours, LOL.  Instead of leveling a cross slope on a fw by a few feet, you sometimes had to lower one side by 50 or more feet.  And, if filling, the distance it took to run the slope out was substantial. 


But as an example of following contours rather than just routing as if the topo wasn't there, I was called in to help on a project and managed to reduce cut and fill from over 2 Billion CM (with a B) to about 1.2 Billion, and the legislated limit was 1.6 Billion CM, from memory (it has been a while)


On more normal sites you might find in America, I think a constant slope across the property might be the most difficult, except as Ally notes, small property with odd shape.  Think Olympic where you can go downhill off the first tee, but must come back up slowly (i.e., their 17th and 18th as long gradual uphill slopes, along with holes like 8 which are difficult, blind, uphill par 3's.

Jeff 2 Billion with a B is hard to fathom. I watch Gold Rush and this has me thinking of Tony Beets and Parker Schnabel opening up a monster cut! Is this really feasible to move that much dirt  economically considering fuel costs and labor?  If a plan has that, perhaps a re route of a couple holes and reduce the course to a par 70? That is just so much work I can only imagine.

[Adam Lawrence]

Two billion cubic metres is completely impossible. Say your site was 100 hectares (247 acres). That's a million square metres. To move two billion cubic metres you would have to move two thousand vertical metres (6560 feet) across the entire site.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Adam,


I probably should have mentioned that it was a residential project with 5 to 10 X that land mass, but it all had to be graded together.

[Adam Lawrence]

Adam,


I probably should have mentioned that it was a residential project with 5 to 10 X that land mass, but it all had to be graded together.

Even if the site is 1,000 hectares (2,457 acres) it means changing the level of the whole site by 200 metres (656 feet). If it were 10,000 hectares (24,570 acres) the entire site would have to be regraded by twenty metres.


I'm sorry Jeff, but those numbers are not conceivable unless you are building a whole new city.

[Jeff Schley]

Are the most difficult also the most expensive?

[Mike Hendren]

Augusta National Golf Club.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Are the most difficult also the most expensive?

Not necessarily. Large budget just makes a difficult site easier, in that you have more options.


But there’s no fun in that.

[Jeff Schley]

Are the most difficult also the most expensive?

Not necessarily. Large budget just makes a difficult site easier, in that you have more options.


But there’s no fun in that.

Hi Ally.  Curious what you mean by no fun in that?  Difficult sites are a challenge to figure out, or just too demanding to be fun.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Are the most difficult also the most expensive?

Not necessarily. Large budget just makes a difficult site easier, in that you have more options.


But there’s no fun in that.

Hi Ally.  Curious what you mean by no fun in that?  Difficult sites are a challenge to figure out, or just too demanding to be fun.

Sorry Jeff - I meant there’s no fun in having such a large budget that you can manufacture options from a difficult site. In terms of routing puzzles.


There’s definitely fun in being able to sort out a good routing on an awkward site by using the natural features and what you’ve been given.


Turn of phrase though. There can be satisfaction in many forms with GCA. Keeping cost down - even on a large budget job - should be a big win.

[Jeff_Brauer]

While Japan has some connection to what we consider classic design principles, China almost started their golf history from scratch, even using American architects.  Japan does have some "level the mountain" courses, but my gut says China has more. 


As Ally hints, it isn't satisfying as an architect to figure out what height you can level a mountain to in order to start with a "flat site."  It is really a completely different way of thinking, where moving millions of CM of dirt is expected, sometimes because the contractor controls some aspects of the project.


I have no idea how the cost structures worked out economically over there, but the huge budgets seem to be part of the culture, in both clubhouses and golf courses.  I recall advising a client that big clubhouses become a financial drain over time.  He understood but felt it was necessary to overspend to attract members in that climate.

[Ira Fishman]

I learned on here that two courses that disappointed me--Old Head and Kapalua Plantation--are on very difficult sites to route. The first is too small to maximize the location, and the second is on a very steep site.


On the other hand, I also learned that one of my favorites--Pasatiempo--also is on a difficult site because of size and tilt.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()