Armchair Architect's Contest (AAC) VI -2018 Winner Announced!

[Garland Bayley]

I find it interesting that no two green sites exactly overlay each other like we saw in the past. Any thoughts as to why this is?

Here is the green sites map from one of Charlie's contests. Some of the greens are dead on top of other participants.

[Garland Bayley]

...

Everyone did a great job on those old ones and I always found a great example from each person. In fact, Garland (this just popped into my head), your hole in the first contest that made use of the natural esker on the Erin Hills property was just great. You approached it off the drive at a slight diagonal so that the player had three real, actually distinct options off the tee. You could go left or right (one was the easier shot but left a more difficult approach to the blind punch-bowl green) or you could go straight over the long way and if you carried it, you’d get a turbo-boost that could run your ball all the way to the green. (Everyone had at least one great hole, but that one must have really stuck in my mind). I was pissed when I heard that they levelled that esker in real life. Dafuq!

For the curious.

7th  392  354  296

07Top by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

After laying out the first two holes, I found the following landform available for use in the next hole.

07CentralHazard2 by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

07CentralRidgeHazard by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

Once I determined that I could use it as a diagonal hazard, I laid out one of my favorite holes on the course, the 7th. Having succeeding in finding decent holes 5 and 6 first, followed by this hole, I began to think I might find an interesting course on this landscape.

EDIT: Judge's comment

Hole no. 7 is unique and very interesting.  The extremely wide fairway gives an incredible amount of options to golfers.  The left side of the fairway is the most obvious way to go off the tee, but the bunker in front of the green will make the second shot tougher.  I would prefer to try to carry the linear mound on the left side of the fairway to set myself up for an easier approach.  Hopefully, it will be possible to drain the low area in which the green is located; otherwise, this might be a nightmare for any superintendant.

07FromTee by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

The view from the left showing elevation change throughout the hole.

07FromLeftSide by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

The view from the right showing elevation change throughout the hole.

07FromRightSide by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

If the golfer chooses not to cross the central ridge, then he is faced with a approach over the first green side bunker on the course.

07ApproachFromLeft by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

However, if the golfer crosses the ridge, he finds an open green front to play down into. The problem is that the golfer has to correctly choose what portion of the ridge he can cross. Taking the safest crossing to the right opens up the possibility of the ball bounding down to a much lower elevation that is found on the right side of the hole back there.

07ApproachFromRight by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

The view from behind the green below and the view from the tee probably best show how short right off the tee can lead into a depression that will add distance and give a poor view of the target.

07FromGreenBack by Garland Bayley, on Flickr

@http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,38984.msg814740.html#msg814740

[Ben Hollerbach]

The Augusta National Golf Club Grounds Planning Committee, in partnership with the First Tee of Augusta and the Drive, Chip, & Putt Championship, is pleased to announce the winner of the Magnolia Course design contest.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a design, it was extremely encouraging to see all of the creative designs presented and the flexibility that can be afforded to grounds intended for golf. The committee judges of Mike Young, Rob Collins, Adam Lawrence, and Adrian Stiff deliberations resulted in a single winner. We are pleased to announce the architect who has won the commission to build the Magnolia Course is Drew Groeger. Drew's routing impressed the judges due to its extreme flexibility for players of all age and it's affordance towards Masters patron parking. Congratulation Drew!


Drew's submission also came with a detailed presentation of the course that I will ask him to post if he desires.


The pool of submissions were all very different and utilized the design prompt in a variety of ways. Below are the pool of applicants and I encourage each designer to speak about their design and what they found most interesting. I believe each design includes innovative solutions to the problem of a multi-use children focused golf course.

Josh Bills





Colton Craig





Bob Brighly




Ben Hollerbach (not eligible)






Ted Sirbaugh

Ben Malach





Matt Hollerbach

[Garland Bayley]

It looks like Drew's course uses the same tee for up to three holes. Think Olympia Fields North! Way to think out of the box Drew.

OOPS! On closer examination, I find the additional tees. I think it would be cool to have one shot, two shot, and three shot holes all originating at the same tee box. Perhaps that is what is intended for the adults, as opposed to the separate tees for the kids?

[Peter Flory]

Wow.  These all look really good! 

[Ben Hollerbach]

It looks like Drew's course uses the same tee for up to three holes. Think Olympia Fields North! Way to think out of the box Drew.

OOPS! On closer examination, I find the additional tees. I think it would be cool to have one shot, two shot, and three shot holes all originating at the same tee box. Perhaps that is what is intended for the adults, as opposed to the separate tees for the kids?

That is correct. Each one of Drew's core "holes" can be played as 3 par 3's, a par 4 and a par 3, or as a par 5.

[Alex Miller]

Drew's submission looks great - very deserving! Looking forward to a more detailed presentation if he posts it.


Congrats, Drew.

[Garland Bayley]

My reference to Olympia fields is because I believe in casual play they hit tee shots on 6 and 7, finish 6, then procede to their drive on 7, and finish it.

[Garland Bayley]

I'd like to know Mike Young's thoughts on the winner.

[Peter Flory]

Drew- has that concept ever been done before, or did you invent it?  It is very clever.  It would also be great for an estate course to get the maximum permutations out of a smaller area. 

[Garland Bayley]

My understanding is that John Daly worked on a par 72 that could be configured as a par 90. I.e., every par 3 had a par 5 tee too, and every par 4 had a par 5 tee too. Probably best played in a cart. 😣

[Drew Groeger]

First: Ya HOO!!! Thanks to Ben for running the event and the judges for their time. I’m super excited to win and share my ideas with the board. I may not post a lot but I read everything and, wise or not, think highly of many of your opinions.

Second: Kudos to the other entrants for taking the time to develop their schemes and share them. I know it’s no small task to create a plan and I look forward to hearing from you about how you approached the problem and what you may have found to be the better challenges.

Third: You can review my full design submission here (Viewed in full screen is best). The concept, minding the limited site and competition parameters, is to create as many holes as possible for as wide a skill level as possible. So I created hole “complexes” where a player teeing off at the start of a complex can decide to play it as three par 3s, a par 3 and 4 (or 4 and 3) or as a single par 5. Think of a par 5 with greens at each landing zone. This allows for players of a wide variety of skill levels, junior thru scratch, to enjoy a round and be able to play it differently each time. Since each complex has 6 holes playing over the same ground and my routing contains 4 complexes (with one straightforward par 4 included) there ended up being 25 holes on the site. Variety and economy as dance partners.

Fourth: Please be warned: I was THAT GUY and fully modeled the site in 3D software and presented each hole with renderings of all 25 holes. The irony of my approach and how the thread originally unfolded is not lost on me. I welcome all comments from the pen and ink crowd! To be completely clear and honest: I LOVED participating in this contest, put lots of time into it, learned a great deal along the way and totally wanted to win. But I did this for me. To see what problems I could solve and what I could create with very specific constraints. I approached this the only way I knew as possible: since I cannot go and walk this land I needed to re-create it in a way that would allow me to visualize it as a golfer and designer and find the best holes my amateur mind could find. If this was a real project I was commissioned to design for, I would approach it differently. Using 3D software, for me and for this, is a great design tool. It use may or may not be such in every real world situation.

Fifth: I truly hope to hear from the judges about their views! (Or anyone else for that matter) Getting feedback from that talented group would mean so much. The critique of peers is vital to growth. So, no pressure!

[Garland Bayley]

To form my own evaluation of the submissions, I need to know how to read the topo. I don't see elevation numbers, so how do I know up from down? What elevation change between lines?

[Drew Groeger]

Drew- has that concept ever been done before, or did you invent it?  It is very clever.  It would also be great for an estate course to get the maximum permutations out of a smaller area.

Peter: I have no idea if this concept has ever been done before but I can tell you how I came about it: as a golfer, often when I'm playing I'll get to my tee shot (on a par 4 for example) and think "ok, so its a par 3 from here". You know, those mental games we play. Especially on par 5s, after hitting two shots I can be anywhere from 30 to 250 yards away and think "how would I play this as a par 3?" So for this competition, I simply added in green sites to accommodate that thinking. Routing all of those options was a challenge but I took that on. Creating options and making a smaller piece of land as flexible as possible seemed like a win-win. I agree, this concept should work well for those sites that can't accommodate a standard 18-hole routing.