Kelly Blake Moran

[Tim_Weiman]

Kelly,

Thanks for jumping in.  There is nothing wrong with lurking, but I think it is desirable for GCA to attract more industry participants.  Based on your writing, I suspect you'll feel at home.

Best wishes for the holiday.

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

Thanks.  Happy Holidays to you.

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

I look forward to interacting with some very knowledgeable people.  Many forums are full of standard material and answers.  This forum seems to have much vitality.  Happy Holidays.

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

I look forward to some lively and informative discussions.  You are right that there should be plenty of room allowed for everyone involved in designing, critiquing, etc.  I think those that are most interesting in whatever they do are those that give the most of themselves to what they do.  Those that do not accept the fad or fashion, or see the present way as the safest way to make a living, keep bread on the table. That is the only problem I see with an "advocacy group", is that the single pursuit of a cause can mean you lose your ownself, your own deepest way of thinking to the cause, and you may miss something much better or more enlightening along the way.

Have a Happy Holiday

[Will E]

Kelly,
As I mentioned on another thread I really enjoy the Hideout.

I find your work here to be very different than what was created at Bay Colony. Am I missing the Von Hagge influence that you must have after spending so much time with his firm?

Again, great work at the Hideout, I hope I get to meet you someday.

[Mike_Cirba]

Kelly Blake Moran,

Great to see you here!  I don't think you'll regret periodically dropping into this group of passionate fanatics, and I bet it will be mutually beneficial, educational, and enjoyable.

By the way, how in heavens did you ever convince the owner(s) of Hawk Pointe to allow you to build the wildly undulating and wholly distinctive 6th, 7th, and 14th greens?  I play a LOT of new designs, and I can tell you that they stand out as revolutionary (even if based on holes like 16 at North Berwick, or perhaps the Biarritz model).  While I'm thinking about it, exactly how much does the 7th green fall from it's highest point about 1/4 of the way into the green to the very back?  It has to be over 5 feet as I recall.

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

The bench is about 2.5' from top to bottom.  The front part of the green slopes toward the incoming shot at 3%.  so without looking at the green plan which is at the office, I would say the total elevation change is about 4'.  yo may be right though.  I sometimes left the site wondering if I was right about those greens.  Hawk Pointe was my first solo design and I was worried about doing such bold greens, but my instincts mostly felt good, and it has become the basis for an approach that has produced some very interesting greens to play approach and recovery shots to.  Just finished a course on Long Island called Laurel Links, on the North Fork, and the greens are a more mature version of the Hawk Pointe greens.

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

I am glad you enjoyed Hideout.  Hideout was definately a reaction against the heavyhanded approach we took at Bay Colony and Pelican Marsh, at least the first nines of each that I was involved with.  Hideout is intenede to be a very simple approach, focused mostly on strategy.  Bay Colony, etc. always had a heavy bent toward creating beauty.  

I have the greatest amount of respect for von Hagge.  He is probably the most intelligent man I have ever met.  Despite all the fun people have with the scarves, the cape, the show man, he is a deeply moral person, he has intense love and respect for those that work for him.  He is a great man.  I wish the golf world would give him more attention.  He is not a classic style designer, but he is immensely talented, and has produced some magnificent work.

I just got out from under his wing and found that I had different beliefs in course design and those differences are what you see when comparing Bay Colony and Hideout.

Happy holidays.

[TEPaul]

Just keep it coming, Kelly! Most of us (nonprofessionals) are always trying to get into the architect's head, past and present, and it isn't that easy to do, not without some input from them anyway! That's one of the reasons many of us do so much reading and research!

Nice remarks on Von Hagge--I wouldn't have thought it---Pat Mucci will be on here soon, I know it, because he really likes  the guy, has great memories of working with him on a project once!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

KBM,

Did you do any work on Von Hagge's Oceano 9 at Baja Mar?

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

It's nice to have someone else reinforce the positive things I said previously about Bob Von Hagge.

Kelly,

I'm glad you're going to participate on this site, joining some other accomplished architects, adding stature to our group of interested fans and wanabes.  But, as the Ref says at the start of the boxing match, "protect yourself at all times",
but, have fun.

[Brad Klein (Guest)]

I've not yet had the pleasure of seeing KBM's golf courses. But as an editor I've had the pleasure of working with him on fine-tuning an essay (or two, as I recall) that we ran in Superintendent News on his method of design, which I recall was something called "land-based design." Apologies if I get it wrong, but the concept was clear enough - working with rather than against the terrain and spending loads of time on site.

Kelly is one of those rare designers - he's willing to express hismelf in public, somtimes stepping on toes along the way. In a world of fragile egos, this is welcome. As I recall from a number of his letters, whether in Golf Course News, Superintendent News or to me, he has a way sometimes of overstating things - which is fine. It's not a criticism to say that he is an architect first and a writer, second.

All of this is by way of saying that I find his voice refreshing. And he does remind us to learn from both the strengths and weaknesses of classic age work. By the way, he'd make for a provocative Feature Interview.

[Mike Cirba]

While discussing Kelly's philosophy of design, I think it's important to note that he seems to be a minimalist to the max!

I came across an article written about the way Hawk Pointe was designed to use existing water sources that stated he moved about 10-15% of typical golf course construction earthmoving on what is hardly a site with a ton of apparent natural features, but he found and used most of them.  

I agree, Brad.  I think he'd make a great feature interview here.

[cardyin]

I played The Hideout about two years ago, and I had all sorts of problems with it.  First was the expectation.  Given what I had heard beforehand, I was expecting a log cabin in the woods and a little dirt parking lot  (something like the Dunes Club at New Buffalo, Michigan). Although it was back off the beaten track, it just looked like another south Florida tract--wide open piece of property fringed by trees in front of a modest, but modern, clubhouse, and a paved parking lot.
I played alone, and there were few others there.  I thought both par 5s on the front nine were mediocre.  The second hole was a dogleg left with at least 130-140 yards between where the fairway ended and the green.  One either had to lay up and then hit a mid-iron in or just bang away and try to play from the waste area.  I don't think par 5s should play  drive, 7-iron, 7-iron.  The ninth hole, also a dogleg left par 5, was supposed to have a fairway split by pine trees at the second shot.  However, the trees were not clustered; they were scattered. So, you just bang away and hope your ball finds its way through.  I recall both par 3s the front nine faced the same direction, although the distances were dissimilar.  Then, after the 12th hole (another dogleg left par 5), the course concluded across a road and into an entirely different piece of property--heavily-wooded and sandy.  The final six holes were doglegged like a jigsaw puzzle into this separate property because there apparently was not enough land to support any other routing.
I am told Moran worked for Robert Von Hagge, who worked for Dick Wilson, and I could see the lineage in the greens. They required very precise approach shots, and some seemed to me to be angled so that they rejected pretty good shots.
Having said that, there were some excellent holes on the course,  most notably No. 11, a great long straight par 4 at the back edge of the property.
I always like to see bright, young designers come along and get a chance to demonstrate their ability.  From what I have read on this thread, apparently Moran has moved on to do some fine work, and all the best to him.  I just don't think The Hideout represents the best.

[Kelly_Blake_Moran]

No, I worked on Las Misiones, Tres Vidas, Club Campanario.

[Mike Cirba]

The more things change...