Has Gil Hanse ever had a great site?

[Josh Tarble]

This thread is baloney.  I'm guessing every working architect would say any site is a great site right now. 


On top of that I'd say Hanse has had several great sites and great clients: 
Castle Stuart (sand + ocean + wind)
Streamsong Black (sand + infinite money)
Olympic Course (sand + water - working conditions)
Boston Golf (great land/setting)
Mossy Oak (good land + presumably great client)

[John Kavanaugh]

Without starting another thread could someone explain what is not great about the Rustic Canyon site? I thought it was one of the most beautiful places I had ever played. No doubt it was firm. No doubt it had a natural hazard feature. No doubt it is walkable. I just don't see massive elevation change as a plus. Plus you get the super cool feature of driving past the Regan Museum on the drive out.

[Peter Pallotta]

JK's question above brought this to mind:


That, while I suppose I like the ocean and sand and tumbling topography as much as the next fellow, it's remarkable how fixed and nearly unanimous the definition of a great site has become for us.


Joel just has to ask the question in its simplest form - has Gil had a great site - and 90% of us know, or think we know, exactly what he means. It's as if the underlying and unquestioned belief is that only a Bandon or a Cabot or a Sand Hills could reasonably called a great site (and, by implication, could possibly serve as the basis for a great course). 


I know I've brought this up again and again, but it really does strike me as noteworthy, i.e. how powerful and all pervasive is the current consensus opinion about what makes for great golf.


The narrowness of this view (and its implications) pops up everywhere, e.g. several threads and hundreds of posts about a Sand Valley course that's yet to open (lots of sand there, I hear, and tumbling topography) but only one or two, with a few dozen posts, about the Loop - which has opened, but which is not dominated by sand or tumbles or water.


Was it a great site for Merion? For Shinnecock? Pinehurst No 2? Oakmont? Chicago? The Country Club? Seminole? Winged Foot?






   

[mike_malone]

I think Rustic Canyon is a great site.


A great site is one where 18 holes can be routed in such a way that the designer is free to create variety that charms golfers.

[Kalen Braley]

I think the problem is the board is confusing terms.  Good != great.

[Mike Schott]

Without starting another thread could someone explain what is not great about the Rustic Canyon site? I thought it was one of the most beautiful places I had ever played. No doubt it was firm. No doubt it had a natural hazard feature. No doubt it is walkable. I just don't see massive elevation change as a plus. Plus you get the super cool feature of driving past the Regan Museum on the drive out.

He certainly used the advantages of the site to make a great course. The natural hazards are very well used. It's also scenic. I could play that course every day and never tire of the course.

[Sean_A]

Pietro does raise an interesting questions about sites.  To me, TOC is an awesome site because

1. It provides variety in stances

2. Wind....but used well

3. Requires a degree of precision once the ball lands

4. Does not involve walking up and down

Many times I think a site is too hilly to be ideal, but I am not sure if that means they aren't great sites.  For me, hills are over-rated.  I spose an ideal site avoids uphill slogs, downhill ski runs and yet some flat areas are on offer.  I often imagine a beauty of a course with maybe 25 feet of elevation change.  Jeez, even TOC has some blindness and the elevation change there can't be much.

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think Peter's on to something if talking about great courses.


But I think great sites are much easier to identify with far less variance for subjective opinion.


Taking a few things (such as size and lack of environmental restrictions) as a given, then sandy soil and interesting topography are so far ahead of the next most important things that they render them almost immaterial.


Now great designers know how to make great sites in to great courses. But a poor course on a great site: almost unheard of. A missed opportunity maybe but even then most people don't see it as such.

[Mike_Young]

The design business is much like the music business.  If you can get one really good song to record and it becomes a hit then you can do an album.  the album will rarely contain all hits but it may just bring out one or two which allows for another album.  The songwriter in music would be like the developer/owner and the singer would be the architect.   In music the writer is often not recognized and the singer is.  Seems it is often the same in golf design.  Get the right site of the right owner.

GH has a very good site right now....

[Andrew Hastie]

It's relative.


Most of his sites have been better than 90% of architects even get once.


Of the few courses I've played by him, Craighead was probably the least impressive base site, given that it wasn't sand based and was without huge land movement. But even it was next to the sea with great views and plenty natural features.

A good point!


I was just looking at the website for Applebrook G.C. Maybe not the best site in history but not much wrong with it either.


But do the best courses come from the best sites anyway?

[Sean_A]

But I think great sites are much easier to identify with far less variance for subjective opinion.

Taking a few things (such as size and lack of environmental restrictions) as a given, then sandy soil and interesting topography are so far ahead of the next most important things that they render them almost immaterial.

But size and shape of a site are incredibly important regardless of soil and topography.  So many links have the soil and topography, but fail on the shape or size criteria. 

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

But I think great sites are much easier to identify with far less variance for subjective opinion.

Taking a few things (such as size and lack of environmental restrictions) as a given, then sandy soil and interesting topography are so far ahead of the next most important things that they render them almost immaterial.

But size and shape of a site are incredibly important regardless of soil and topography.  So many links have the soil and topography, but fail on the shape or size criteria. 

Ciao

I doubt any of GH's courses have struggled for acreage, hence my assumption that size is a given.


We're really talking about modern courses, not Victorian links. And most of the best modern courses have been built on undulating, sandy soil that happened to also be part of vast estates.

Anyway, my point was that whilst you might get great courses built on clay and average courses built on sand, a sandy site is always better than a non-sandy site when all other variables are the same? It isn't subjective.

[Eric Smith]

This thread is 4 years too late. Everyone knows Gil is getting screwed left and right out of great sites. It's a GCA scandal!   Join the conversation @realmenoftwitter #generayburnshouse

[James Brown]

JK's question above brought this to mind:


That, while I suppose I like the ocean and sand and tumbling topography as much as the next fellow, it's remarkable how fixed and nearly unanimous the definition of a great site has become for us.


Joel just has to ask the question in its simplest form - has Gil had a great site - and 90% of us know, or think we know, exactly what he means. It's as if the underlying and unquestioned belief is that only a Bandon or a Cabot or a Sand Hills could reasonably called a great site (and, by implication, could possibly serve as the basis for a great course). 


I know I've brought this up again and again, but it really does strike me as noteworthy, i.e. how powerful and all pervasive is the current consensus opinion about what makes for great golf.


The narrowness of this view (and its implications) pops up everywhere, e.g. several threads and hundreds of posts about a Sand Valley course that's yet to open (lots of sand there, I hear, and tumbling topography) but only one or two, with a few dozen posts, about the Loop - which has opened, but which is not dominated by sand or tumbles or water.


Was it a great site for Merion? For Shinnecock? Pinehurst No 2? Oakmont? Chicago? The Country Club? Seminole? Winged Foot?






   

+1.


Lots of tautological revisionism here.  How different could the Torrey Pines site in 1950 be from Bandon in 1990?  Or Sand Hills from Dismal? 


To a large degree, what I see here is:  "a great site is what you make of it"

[Scott Weersing]

Another reason that Rustic Canyon was a great site was access to water. How many courses in the US can you think of that do not have a pond anywhere on the course? (one is Pacific Dunes) But Rustic is great because it does not have the necessary irrigation pond. There is a big water line underneath the course that they tap into for water.

[Tom_Doak]

Another reason that Rustic Canyon was a great site was access to water. How many courses in the US can you think of that do not have a pond anywhere on the course? (one is Pacific Dunes) But Rustic is great because it does not have the necessary irrigation pond. There is a big water line underneath the course that they tap into for water.

Several of mine:


Apache Stronghold
Ballyneal
Dismal River
Old Macdonald
Pacific Dunes
The Loop


Plus NONE of our five projects overseas have a pond in play or even in view.

[Kalen Braley]

Tom,


If memory serves me right, there is no pond on Rock Creek either, just the creek/stream on a few holes....

[Tom_Doak]

If memory serves me right, there is no pond on Rock Creek either, just the creek/stream on a few holes....

Kalen:


That's right, I forgot Rock Creek.  The irrigation pond there is right behind and above the 9th green -- but it's about 40 feet higher, so, out of sight, out of mind.


I didn't think about Rock Creek because it does have water hazards in play on several holes.  [So does Rustic Canyon, and Pacific Dunes, and a couple of the others mentioned.]  It's actually hard to name very many great courses that have no "water hazard" at all.  The best are Royal Melbourne [all 36 holes], Kingston Heath, Sand Hills, Ballyneal, and Barnbougle. 


Actually, I guess you could hit it in the Cut to the right of 15 at Barnbougle, so scratch that.  The Loop doesn't have a water hazard at all, though ... the irrigation pond is over on the other course 

[Bill Vogeney]

Kind of a fan of French Creek. I have always thought it was a cool little piece of property. Just enough movement in the land.

[Garland Bayley]

Without starting another thread could someone explain what is not great about the Rustic Canyon site? I thought it was one of the most beautiful places I had ever played. No doubt it was firm. No doubt it had a natural hazard feature. No doubt it is walkable. I just don't see massive elevation change as a plus. Plus you get the super cool feature of driving past the Regan Museum on the drive out.

Rustic is a snooze fest compared to Bandon, Portrush, Wine Valley, Tenby, Columbia Edgewater, Castle Stuart, etc.

Rustic landscape is boring and predictable. The terrain is a little above boring and predictable. You can put a very good golf course in such a place, but that doesn't make it a great site.

And who is Regan?

[Matthew Mollica]

I agree with JK FWIW.
Soil, topography, vegetation, size, seclusion, minimal boundary issues, prevailing weather conditions.
Rustic has a lot going for it as a greenfield site.
MM