The Best Courses That Were Created

[Dave McCollum]

I read this thread while on the road playing some snowbird golf.  I thought I should mention Huntsman Springs in Driggs, Idaho designed by David Kidd.  Not sure all of you guys would call it a great course, but it has to be an unbelievable one given that it was built on a dead flat, waterlogged, mountain meadow.  It certainly is a marvel of hydrologic engineering.  Hit one off into the native surrounds, walk out to hit it again, and when you head back to the course, your footprints have filled with subsurface water.  The course has water on 16 of the 18 holes, yet it is still very strategic and playable.  More so than any other course I’ve played, it is filled with visual deception.  It looks intimidating and difficult when it really isn’t and contours are full of surprises, a lot of them pleasant.  I’d call it a Doak 7 or 8 built on an absolutely 0 site.

Recently, speaking of Mr. Doak, I played Stone Eagle in Palm Desert.  Standing there looking at the course, I couldn’t believe it was possible to build it on that rock pile, that moonscape.  I was awed, astounded, utterly amazed, and my visual circuits were so overloaded that my breakers tripped.  Not because of what was created from nothing, but because of what was created from such a hostile, other worldly landscape.  There sits this beautifully designed and conditioned golf course, moving elegantly across a rocky and brutal landscape that only a Big Horned Sheep would find comfortable.  The contrasts were literally mind boggling.  And these staggering views kept coming relentlessly for the entire time I was there.  It was a totally unique golf experience for me that I am still unable to describe.  I’ve tried and can’t do it.  Some things are better experienced than described.  I’ve never seen anything like it and don’t think I ever will.

Just for perspective, on this same trip I played other desert courses, including two that I’d call absolute masterpieces:  We-Ko-Pa Saguaro and Desert Forest near Phoenix.  Desert Forest recently reopened after the brilliant renovation by Dave Zinkand and his talented friends like Jeff Bradley.  So now it’s even better than Ran’s lyrical description because now it has great greens and bunkers to compliment its challenging originality.  Those are both great desert courses in my book.  However, great as they are, I can’t compare them to SE because the landscape of the Sonoran Desert is like the Garden of Eden compared to the landscape around SE.  Not that SE’s environment isn’t starkly beautiful in its own way, it is.  The views in every direction are certainly more dramatic, which is saying something.  It’s just that SE is so unique it probably belongs in a class by itself.  How was it “created?”  I can’t imagine.

[Tom_Doak]

Dave:

Thanks for adding Hunstman Springs to the list.

I wasn't thinking of Stone Eagle when I asked about this category.  We had a lot to work with there -- a lot more slope than we needed, actually -- but the course is made by the rock outcroppings that we were able to leave and use for hazards and backdrops.  Inside the irrigated area, though, there is very little of the course that didn't have to be graded aggressively, and of course we had to crush materials for topsoil to cover all the tees and fairways.  It was probably the most difficult construction job we've ever done, but I am proud to have it on my resume.

[Dave McCollum]

Tom, you should be proud.  It is a marvel.  It must have been rather the opposite problem of building something from nothing:  how do you put golf on another planet?  I remember reading something in your Confidential Guide about Shadow Creek, I think.  Something to the effect that if you were ever given the opportunity to create a golf course from a blank slate and given an unlimited budget, you believed  that you could do at least as well or better.  Pretty cocky attitude for the young buck that wrote that, don’t you think?  I think with this site you proved your belief in yourself beyond argument.  It wasn’t a blank slate; it was a hostile, foreign world.  You turned it into a work of art. 

Of course art is a subjective thing.  For me, when I see something that amazes me, it’s like a visceral punch in the gut.  A good blow that disorients me, suspends logic, meaning, and belief, rather like being in love, a pleasant ache.   Like I said, I can’t describe it.  About all I can manage is to stare in wonder.  Somebody else might laugh and think it was a ridiculous degradation of a natural place with such a silly thing as a golf course.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom, you should be proud.  It is a marvel.  It must have been rather the opposite problem of building something from nothing:  how do you put golf on another planet?  I remember reading something in your Confidential Guide about Shadow Creek, I think.  Something to the effect that if you were ever given the opportunity to create a golf course from a blank slate and given an unlimited budget, you believed  that you could do at least as well or better.  Pretty cocky attitude for the young buck that wrote that, don’t you think?  I think with this site you proved your belief in yourself beyond argument.  It wasn’t a blank slate; it was a hostile, foreign world.  You turned it into a work of art. 

Of course art is a subjective thing.  For me, when I see something that amazes me, it’s like a visceral punch in the gut.  A good blow that disorients me, suspends logic, meaning, and belief, rather like being in love, a pleasant ache.   Like I said, I can’t describe it.  About all I can manage is to stare in wonder.  Somebody else might laugh and think it was a ridiculous degradation of a natural place with such a silly thing as a golf course.

We used to compare the site to Mars -- because of the red tint.  But the Mars lander could not have gotten around the site before we started our work.  I used to say to Eric Iverson when we were walking around the site [climbing over boulders and down through ravines] that it was a good thing we were still young ... my knees could not hack that hike now.

I don't think the site compares to Shadow Creek at all ... there was a lot to work with at Stone Eagle, it was not a job of fabrication.  For me, fabrication would be much more difficult.

P.S.  Tom Fazio did do some routings for the Stone Eagle site, for a previous potential client.  When I do my routing book, I hope we'll have permission to include his plan to contrast with our own.

[J_ Crisham]

Calusa Pines is certainly one of the best in Florida or anywhere for that matter. The piece of property was very flat and due to some impressive earth moving and shaping a world class course was created. Some dandy green complexes.  Top 3 in Florida alongside Seminole and Mountain Lake. Very different  from each other but world class in their own ways.

[Nick Schaan]

Dave

thanks too for adding Huntsman Springs. we had a lot of fun using our imagination and combining it with a bit of engineering. We were also very fortunate to be able to get sand form the nearby dunes in St. Anthony and keep a fleet of potato trucks busy hauling it in their off-season at a really great value.

[Chuck Glowacki]

2 on Long Island come to mind, Tallgrass and Long Island National

[Tim_Weiman]

Tom, you should be proud.  It is a marvel.  It must have been rather the opposite problem of building something from nothing:  how do you put golf on another planet?  I remember reading something in your Confidential Guide about Shadow Creek, I think.  Something to the effect that if you were ever given the opportunity to create a golf course from a blank slate and given an unlimited budget, you believed  that you could do at least as well or better.  Pretty cocky attitude for the young buck that wrote that, don’t you think?  I think with this site you proved your belief in yourself beyond argument.  It wasn’t a blank slate; it was a hostile, foreign world.  You turned it into a work of art. 

Of course art is a subjective thing.  For me, when I see something that amazes me, it’s like a visceral punch in the gut.  A good blow that disorients me, suspends logic, meaning, and belief, rather like being in love, a pleasant ache.   Like I said, I can’t describe it.  About all I can manage is to stare in wonder.  Somebody else might laugh and think it was a ridiculous degradation of a natural place with such a silly thing as a golf course.

We used to compare the site to Mars -- because of the red tint.  But the Mars lander could not have gotten around the site before we started our work.  I used to say to Eric Iverson when we were walking around the site [climbing over boulders and down through ravines] that it was a good thing we were still young ... my knees could not hack that hike now.

I don't think the site compares to Shadow Creek at all ... there was a lot to work with at Stone Eagle, it was not a job of fabrication.  For me, fabrication would be much more difficult.

P.S.  Tom Fazio did do some routings for the Stone Eagle site, for a previous potential client.  When I do my routing book, I hope we'll have permission to include his plan to contrast with our own.



Tom,

Don't recall hearing about your plans to do a book on routing. Greatly look forward to that, especially for examples of courses where very different routing plans were considered or might have been considered.