[Scott Coan]

Had the pleasure of hosting 7 of my friends in the 3rd Cape Kidnappers Cup on Saturday.  Absolutely perfect weather with just a gentle breeze.  Quite wet underfoot as they received 4 inches of rain 48 hours prior.  Normally this track plays extremely fast and firm as the nature of the ground is quite hard so it was very unusual to have the squishy feet all over the place.

First glimpse of the course after driving up the 15-minute Jurassic Park access way.  This is the par 3 3rd hole.


Zoomed.  You can see the 4th tee just beyond the 3rd green which is a completely blind tee shot to be aimed at a pole
 

2nd green (par 5) from access road.


1st hole dogleg right par 4


1st approach from about 140 yards


2nd green, par 5.  I had about 270 in with the approach demanding that you come in from the left.  I scunjed my 3-wood just short of the front protecting bunkers...  


3rd, par 3



Some of the subtle undulations of the 3rd green.  Incredibly difficult greens to read on this course.  I had a about 15 foot putt on this hole that I swore would break about 18 inches right (back towards the tee and away from the ocean).  I nearly shat myself as I watched it break 2 feet left.  Tons of optical illusions as you must always remember that the entire property gradually slants towards the sea...


After a blind (but very forgiving as long as you get it up and over the bluff) tee shot you are confronted with a perfect power fade with plenty of bailout long and left.  Alas, the body did not perform what my mind was attempting and I hit a fat 2 iron into the tee trees on the right.  Gone-burger.


Here's what you see from short right.  Just don't go here (easier said than done of course!)


5th par 4.  You can just see the Principal's Nose bunker in the middle of the fairway.  A good drive clears it.





6th long par 3 over huge gully.  Left is death.  All the room in the world to the right.


6th green.


7th approach.  Quite a difficult drive to get your head around as you're just not sure what's out there.  My mate hit a good drive that we swore would have been just on the edge of the left rough.  What you can't see from the tee is that the fairway slants big time right and straight down over a slight bluff.  That "left" tee shot ended up way over on the right!
 

Huge swale in the par 3 8th green.


9th is a short par-4.  You can bang a drive over the fairway bunkers but then you are left with a blind wedge shot straight up over the bunkers.  Best to lay up right of the fairway bunkers and hit from plateau to plateau but if you pull your layup this is waht you are confronted with.


Waves in the 9th green.

 
I'll get the back 9 up when I can find more time.

Cheers,
Scott

[John Kirk]

Sensational pictures, Scott!  Most of the Kidnappers pictures I've seen have been of the back nine.  Looks like a very enjoyable course to play.

Thanks a lot.

[Lance Rieber]

Scott, I am green with envy.  Great pictures and congrats to Tom Doak again on a wonderfully brilliant golf course.  Can't wait to see the back nine.  Lucky Bastard!
Lance

[John Kirk]

That 6th hole is intriguing.  Is that a long par 3, 200 yards or more?  If so, I can imagine playing a low hook off those mounds short of the green and running the ball in there.

Looks like a tough up and down if you miss left

[Mike_Cirba]

Scott,

Fabulous stuff...thanks for sharing.

A quick question though...how intrusive are the cart paths to areas of play?  It seems like really abruptly sloping land so I'm imagining that Doak and Co. probably had to move them closer than they'd like....they sure look close on the one pic.

Thanks!

[Joe Hancock]

Mike,

I'd bet there's some contour happening on that pic showing the concrete. If I had to guess(which I do), I'd guess there's 30+ yards between the green and the cart path. All the other pictures are void of cement, thankfully.

Looks like a lot of drama in the landscape, and I'm sure the Ren Men captured it in all it's glory. Nice work to all involved here!

Joe

[RJ_Daley]

Mike, the only evidence I can even see of cart paths in Scott's excellent photos are that 3rd hole.  Obviously, by the tire tracks in the dew, they take the carts on the turf through the green for the most part.  Might they only use cart paths for travel to traverse the ravines and green to next tee?  

The photos have given me a different glimpse of impression of the course from previous that I have seen.  I looks so very mature now.  Some of the treed areas look norther climate, as if the course were in Michigan or something!

Tom Doak, in the photos above, are there specifically shaped or graded features, or bunker work that you would say is one more of your crew's special talents or specific ideas?

[Caleb Anderson]

Scott

Looks like a great day at the Cape.  Brings back memories of the trip I took in January.  Will you be making it up to Kauri Cliffs as well?

As far as cart paths are concerned, they are not intrusive at all on the golf experience and generally speaking, you don't even notice them on the course.  It seemed like great care was taken to keep the cart paths from intruding on the natural setting of the site.  On hole 11, a long par 3 with the teebox out by the cape, a long walk to the tee was left I assume to keep a natural tee and viewing setting.

[Tom_Doak]

RJ:  By way of answering your question ... tell me where you see evidence of the earthmoving work we did.  Four of those holes required massive earthwork.  The rest required almost none, and probably the most difficult part of the job was to build bunkers in a way that there was no berming sticking up on the horizon.

Also, take a look at the picture of the tee shot on the sixth, and guess how much space there is between the two bunkers on the right of the green.  This is one of my associates' favorite tricks.

Caleb:  We stopped the cart path short of the tenth green, and made people walk to the eleventh tee, for two reasons:

a)  we didn't want people hitting a path to the right of the tenth green and winding up in the ravine short and right of eleven; and

b)  if the cart path went beside #10 green, parked carts would have been in the danger zone for tee shots on the eleventh; the tenth green was outisde the danger zone, but a cart path to the right of it would not have been.

The path which is in the pictures on the third hole is there for the opposite reason ... to keep golfers from going any further to the right and getting into a danger area for shots played from the second fairway.  It's a little closer to the third green than I would have liked, but those two holes are in a narrow area and it was the best solution.  I haven't seen anyone actually hit the path but I'm sure it happens every once in a while.

Had I realized at the start how easy Cape Kidnappers would be to walk, I would have tried to convince the client to make it "walking only," but the feeling was that for the greens fees being charged, everyone would want a cart as part of the package.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

The only thing better than these pictures would be to have taken them.

[Scott Coan]

Now for the back nine, an awesome collection of holes that I would consider more difficult (and more spectacular) than the front, especially if you ever catch it in a Southerly.  On this day the wind was negligible so the nines played pretty much equal, with one player shooting even par on the front and another shooting +1 on the back.

I’ve added in the legend (in meters) from their website to provide a better understanding of each hole.

 



 

This was playing about 190 yards on the day.


 

This hole certainly lives up to it’s name of “Infinity”.












The view from the 13th tee (down and behind the 12th green) back towards Napier.
 

This is a short par 3 (120y) with a very difficult green.  Just a wedge with no breeze but I’ve had to hit a hard knock-down 8 at times.  Happy to say I managed my 1st par on this hole in 6 attempts!





Driveable par 4 with a little bastard of a greenside bunker…


Matt told me afterwards he was lining up on the electrical box you can see left of his shoulders.  He drove the green and made his bird, but not without a very difficult 2-putt from short of the hole.  


Here’s what an approach would look like.  My mate Russell hit from about here, landed on the green and spun it back into the bunker.  He hit a great bunker shot and had a gimme for par.  I, on the other hand, was not so fortunate…


I had a good drive as well, but got sucked into this little gem (or little bastard, as I would now prefer to call it!).










My first bunker shot crested the hill but I just did not carry it far enough.  It started to trickle back and once gravity was finished it was up against the other lip, leaving me with a downhill lie for an abruptly uphill bunker shot.  Sculled the next one into the forward lip, but at least it fell back into a position where I could have a decent crack.  There you have it – a near perfect drive and I walked off with a double.  Such is life!











Here’s what you see on the other side of this fence!







This is the 16th tee as seen from the 13th tee.




This is the approach from about 220 yards.




From about 140 on the right side of the fairway, just beyond the bottom of the ravine where I lost my first drive.


From a few paces forward.




A couple of shots from behind the 18th green.




From about 150 yards out, center right.


Same spot, zoomed.






My blind approach from about 70 yards.  Looking back it would have been fun to putt or try a bump and run, but too many vagaries to sort out.

[Scott Coan]

This is a wonderful golf course to play and surprisingly easy to walk.  6 of our 8 chose to walk and had no problem.  You do face a bit of a slog back from the 16th tee as you are faced with an uphill par 5 and two long par 4’s in a relative line back to the House.

It is without question an incredible test of golf.  At first the complexity is finding your lines off the tee but once that is sorted it’s all about angles and distance into the greens, and of course putting on the greens.  If the super is ever in a bad mood he can add 6 to 8 shots onto your score in a heartbeat!

For such a wide expanse of land it is amazing that just about every tee is located in close proximity to the preceding green.  There are a few slogs up and down ravines or across awesome wooden bridges but they offer a nice respite to just chill out and listen to the birds.  On many occasions during the round I found myself tickled at the absolute silence, magnificence, and peacefulness of the place.

My favorite holes would be the 7th, 12th, 15th, and 17th with the 18th growing on me more and more every time I play it.

The 7th plays completely different depending on the tee and the wind.  I’ve played it from the tips into a howling wind where it took a big blow to even get over the ravine and into the fairway.  Once I reached the fairway (my first drive was duck hooked and lost in the heather) I was faced with a blind 3 wood up the hill, down a fairway ravine, and back up to an elevated green.

On this day we were playing the Whites and with no breeze I hit a perfect drive that eventually came to rest about a yard into the right rough at the base of the green in front of the three bunkers you can see.   I was faced with an uphill blind lob wedge from about 70 yards.  I would have much rather had my mates drive which you can see in the approach picture.  He was back about 50 yards and had a much clearer shot to the green.

The approach shot on 12 is awesome as all you can see is the green fairway running up to a green that looks to drop straight into the ocean.  You just have to trust your yardage and let it rip as impossible to get a feel for distance in your head as nothing is on the horizon to provide any depth perception.  I had about 200 yards from the right rough and hit my best shot of the day, a 6 iron that was meant to run up but came out flying and flew to about 1 foot on and rolled past the stick about 10 feet but my hands of stone and frayed nerves on the day prevented me from closing the deal.  (I three-jacked the first 2 holes for bogies and from then on I was toast.  These are some mighty tough greens to putt so bring your confidence or be prepared face the consequences).

The massive 15th speaks for itself.  It is the plainest and yet most spectacular par 5 I have ever played.  It sits before you like an airport runway and plays to 650 yards from the tips with death over the cliff left and toast to the right in the canyon.  The drive is pretty wide open and every time I’ve played it I have stuck a great drive.  The fun begins with your second shot as there is no forgiveness either side as dead straight is the ONLY option.  I had 300 yards in, so silly to hit anything of length and opted for a 6 iron that was pulled slightly left but still in the fairway.   That left me a 7 iron from about 140 into a breeze that was starting to pick up.  I tried to steer it in there and ended up with a pull/draw that I was hoping would find the left edge of the green or at least the “life boat” bunker on the cliff edge.  Alas, it was nowhere to be found and I had to take the proverbial long walk back…    

The 17th is a sheer brute if ever played into the wind and from the tips and I would recommend to all to play it as a par 4 ½ and hope that you can get up and down with your wedge.  On this day we had a slight breeze at our backs and from the Whites it was much (although not much) tamer.  I hit what I thought was a good drive that faded a little too much as it went over a rise towards the fairway bunker.  My playing partner advised me to reload as he had been there before – I was holding out hope that the rough line that I could see continued to extend down to the right.  To my dismay it did not extend right but in fact jutted back into the fairway left into a small heather filled ravine.  Gone-burger.

My provisional was hit harder and found the fairway just to the left of the bunker.  I had about 140 in to a blind green where I could just make out the tip of the flag.  My mate Matt played out left after seeing my mishap from the tee and had a much better approach from about 155.  We both played from tee to green in 4 shots with me having to add in the two penalty strokes, making me 0 for 6 in the par department for this hole!

When first played the 18th can look very nondescript as the green is invisible from the tee as it sits down in a very forgiving bowl.  I would advise all to have a good look at the green complex when walking from the Clubhouse to the first tee as it will provide much needed insight as to your approach.      

I’ve played it from the tips in a gale where I belted in a 2 iron from the left rough over the fronting bluff, down past a front pin, halfway up the bowl on the other side and rolling back down to 3 feet for a bird – a shot I will always remember.

On another occasion once again from the tips and into the wind I had a 2 iron but this time from the right side of the fairway.  I knew I had plenty of room left and everything from that side filters down to the green.  I picked my target and proceeded to pull hook the shot, thinking I would be stuck up in the heather on top of the hill left of the green.  To my surprise the ball still came to rest on the back side of the green!  Of course the pin was up front and I had a triple or quadruple breaking putt that I left about 4 feet to the right and could not convert.

On this day I absolutely belted a drive down the left side that came to rest 70 yards short of the green.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that I had about a 25 foot bluff over which I had to hit my lob wedge.  If I stood dead straight over the shot I could just make out the tip of a tree which gave me a line but the depth was simply a guess.  I struck it well and it landed about 15 feet past the pin and stayed there.  Two of my playing partners were back about 70 yards from me and each put it inside mine so the big drive resulted in a more difficult approach shot.

Get on a plane, come to New Zealand, and test yourself on one of the great golf courses of the world!
     

[RJ_Daley]

Tom, thanks for asking me or us to try and identify which features are the result of much earth work.  I'll take a stab at it and hope others give it a go.  It should be some fun to see if any of us have an eye for it.

But, your second question asking to take a look at the bunkers on far back right of 6th, and guess how much space is between them might be hard, at least for me because for what ever reason, that single photo is not coming up on my screen.  I tried opening it in a separate window and tried copying the properties and opening it separate as well and no luck.  So, I got this one off the internet and hope it is representative of what you are asking.



IN the above, it looks like the bunkers are stacked up one right behind the other.  But, obviously since you ask, it is one of your guys tricks as you say.  So, I'd wonder, could the first bunker be mid green, and the one that appears to be just behind it be far right rear?  Whose work is it?

Moving on, I'll try to say which I think might be mucho earthwork.

I'm going to guess that the first faiway was earth spread from off camera, higher up to left and spread down to right, with the rumples of fairway blended into the bunkers up the right were all graded, not natural lay of the land.  Then the green might have been cut down from a knob top to green grade level, and the spoils used in the shaping of the back left bunker cluster.  Whereas the front left ones are scooped out of what was there, also taking the scoop spoils and distributing them to the back left mounds and bunkers.

I'm guessing that the 3rd par 3 is another cut the top off a knob and spread the spoils towards the ravine and to shape the upholstery back of the massive fronting bunker.

I think you might have followed the same pattern of cutting off high ridges and pushing the spoils down towards the ravines, like where Scott says he hit a 3I into the tea trees.  All the knarly knobs and bunker work on the inside right approach being spread from on high from the left on what must be 4th hole.

I dont know where you might have gotten material for the hump of the principals nose, but I'm thinking near the green, you used the scooped out spoils of the bunkers on left approach to do mounds between bunkers to right.

I'm thinking that the 7th is too screaming wild to be earthworks, and that it is pretty much lay of the land.

I can't tell much from the scope of the photo for the 9th, but from the look of the tree behind the player hitting out of the bunker, it looks like earth was spread to it behind the rear or the tree, and the whole swaled out series of bunkers.

I wish we could use a marking pen like John Madden drawing up a football play.

I haven't taken on the back 9 photos. Perhaps someone else might like a turn at similarly embarrassing themselves...

[Stuart Donald]

Scott

Great photos and a fantastic looking golf course - wish I could do as you say and join you for a round. The closest I will get is if my Dad can get down there from Tauranga in my stead! Looking forward to stopping by and only hope my golf isn't spoilt by wandering thoughts of all the fish to be caught in that bay, and the beautiful wines waiting back at hotel.

If anybody is interested, my mission in life is to build a golf course estate in my beautiful homeland (NZ), that will allow die hard golfers to enjoy the best on offer of food, wine, scenery, fishing, skiing, relaxing and of course golf. Would love to see some of you stop by... I will keep you posted.

[Scott Coan]

Tom (and RJ),

My untrained eye can find little or no evidence of the massive earthwork you talk about on the four holes so I'll take my stab at trying to identify the other five that were mostly sitting there already (2, 5, 6, 8, 9).

Would have loved to have seen it before you got there!

sc

[James Bennett]

 Scott

the 18th is uniquely and wisely named (as are many of the other holes eg infinity, pimple and pirates plank).  However, I suspect the 18th hole name has a maori interpretation, rather than the literal "I need a clean pair of underpants, having just played the last few holes'.  What does 'IPU' mean?

[Mark_Guiniven]

Ipu means bowl so looking at that green someone must have known what they were doing. Unlike the timeless 'Al's Ace' on #13  

[Tom_Doak]

Mark:

Al's Ace refers to Julian's son Alex who made a timely ace there in my company.  (It's only the second I've witnessed.)  They were playing their first round on the new course the day they arrived from America, it was windy, things weren't going well, and everyone was quite frustrated.  I went out for a few holes on the back hoping to calm their anxiety, but it all went away when Alex one-hopped a nine iron into the hole at 13.

Answes to my little quiz:

On #6 the first bunker is 15-20 yards short of the green, the other is nearly 50 yards behind it.  Julian Robertson told me the bunker way back there was silly because no one would ever go in it ... but in the Renaissance Cup, Greg Turner did!

As for the earthmoving quiz:

The dip in the first fairway before the green is a twenty-foot fill across a ravine.

Holes 2 and 3 are pretty much untouched.

The dip in the approach to the fourth is about a ten-foot fill, and the approach, which used to be crowned, was cut down several feet to be more receptive.

The bottom of the fifth fairway is filled quite a bit, and the green is cut down about six feet so you can see some of the water behind it.

The green on the sixth was cut down 4-5 feet to soften the steepness of the approach a little bit (but it's still too steep).

The seventh green itself is a 22-foot cut and the fairway in front of it is a 15-foot fill ... it was pretty steep down there when we started!

The eighth green was filled significantly by cutting the hillside behind it.

The ninth landing area was cut down 2-3 feet and the dip in front of the green was filled in 15-20 feet all the way across to the seventh fairway.  The green is also cut ... originally the ridge to the right of the green came further across behind the tree.

In contrast there is almost no significant earthwork on the back nine, with the exception of the 16th fairway which was a major cut-and-fill exercise, and there is some fill straight through the back of the 18th green to hide cars proceeding to the bag drop.

[Mark_Guiniven]

You got me then Tom. Apologies to Mr. Robertson's son. It's their course. They can name a hole anything they like.

Love the 'headstone' sign next to 15 Scott. I hadn't seen that one, but then again I don't go climbing over fences designed to prevent me plumetting to my death either. I think it was Brian Slawnik I saw digging out that bunker when I was there. Even with the thing tethered by steel cable I wouldn't have wanted that job for quids. Tom must have had to pay his boys danger money.

Did anyone see that article John Huggan wrote about Kidnappers and other NZ courses this month? Some of that was outrageous for a golf mag. Mike Clayton just had to be the unnamed Aussie tour pro bagging Clearwater. The Truman Show and Bob Charles/Ray Charles lines were priceless. Turner's supposed rebuttal (if that's what it was meant to be) made it a Kangaroo court. They should do that every month. None of those courses are ever going to advertise with them anyway.

[ed_getka]

Scott,
  Thanks for the post.

[Gene Greco]

Pebble Beach on steroids! Whew!

[ForkaB]

Thanks Scott (and Tom Doak)

To quote Carly Simon, "These are the good old days!"

[Mark_Guiniven]

If anybody is interested, my mission in life is to build a golf course estate in my beautiful homeland (NZ), that will allow die hard golfers to enjoy the best on offer of food, wine, scenery, fishing, skiing, relaxing and of course golf. Would love to see some of you stop by... I will keep you posted.

Stuart,
Where would you build such a course?

Scott,
What has been the reaction of the players you've taken up there? What do they make of it all?

[bodgeblack]

Yes, fantastic photos Scott. I am sure a quite an experience to play.

How nice to see greens not framed by bland mounds, bumps, pimples etc. The 12th really does look like an "all-world" golf hole. I can just imagine the excitment and liberating feeling hitting the 2nd shot into the big blue yonder.

I am curious as to how much of the earthmovement was calculated prior to work on commencing on site?  I am always conscious of not getting into a bind with figures calculated in the office rather than making decisions out on site. How did it work at Kidnappers?

cheers
Jamie

[bodgeblack]

Yes, fantastic photos Scott. I am sure quite an experience to play.

How nice to see greens not framed by bland mounds, bumps, pimples etc. The 12th really does look like an "all-world" golf hole. I can just imagine the excitment and liberating feeling hitting the 2nd shot into the big blue yonder.

I am curious as to how much of the earthmovement was calculated prior to work on commencing on site?  I am always conscious of not getting into a bind with figures calculated in the office rather than making decisions out on site. How did it work at Kidnappers?

cheers
Jamie

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