from Steve Lapper
John,
I couldn't disagree with this statement more. All too often a new course comes along and garners considerable hype, attracting those humans acting like insects who buzz and hover all around it, many ready to praise, and a ready few to criticize. Bandon, Dallas Nat'l, Black Rock and of course, Friars Head come to mind. All of these places have opened in the last few years and have met, or exceeded that fate. All mentioned have had part glorious property, part slightly more pedestrian.
In the case of Friars Head, you mention that it "comes close" but could have been (or used its land) better. HOW? What part would you have changed? Would you have chosen to keep the course off the farm flats and solely on the bluffs? If so, How could you ever have achieved and 18 hole layout?
Should Ken Bakst have asked Bill Coore to pile earth down near Sound Ave. to create something artificial? If you, like many, think the transition holes aren't "the best use" or the the holes in the flat's not "special enough," or even the finishing holes less than perfect (perhaps, but they are unique and naturally carved out of the existing land), then where else on the property would you have routed them? Should Pebble Beach be considered a design failure for having it's inland holes? Remember, a course can only be as good as it's land and turf and very rarely (Perhaps only Sand Hills come to mind, among the moderns) are architects given so much land and latitude that they can ignore some measure of convention or orientation.
This thread is about design failing (presumably to any degree) to match the quality of the land. Friars Head, IMHO, just doesn't suffer from that. Sloping bluffs that rise from pancake flats don't permit either feature to be ignored or allowed to exclude the other. If anything, FH is coup d'grace of design for using its available land and extracting most of the highest qulality out of its topography.
A much, much better example of really poor design sited on otherwise high-quality land is the nearby Bridge GC , in Bridgehampton. It borders on tragic what occured there. The elevations, vistas and abundance of sloping sand-based turf there should have yieled something very, very special. Instead, it gave us no more than a highly-manicured goat track that is repetitious, uninspiring, and lacking in both style and strategy. Like him or not (and there are plenty who do), Rees near butchered that property and the result is glaringly evident. Only its fine conditioning works to hide some of that.
Other prime examples of design failure on quality land might well include The Links at Spanish Bay, The Preserve (Carmel), Kauri Cliffs, or Torrey Pines. Each of these has wonder topography that are occupied by mediocre and uninspiring designs.
A mention of a place like Friars Head just doesn't belong here. One might potentially concieve of a better hole (I can't but that's just my opinion) somehwere on its property, but measured on its whole, the design neither misses, nor comes up short on matching its quality land.
Steve-
PERFECTeveryone is entitled to their opinion and I'm glad this site is open enough to give individuals the freedom to voice their opinions. I could not disagree more with John's criticisms (or Mike Cirba's). I think the transitions from dunes to open fields is every bit as good as Cypress Point in the flow and mood changes elicited during the round. Mike Par 3 #4 is great for its angles to the green. #8 great for its amazing greensite where you can putt back to the hole or facing it from the same spot and make both attempts (or look silly on both). #17 with the tree removal is a butt puckering short iron at a perfect place in the round (ala Sawgrass). I can go on and on but not in this thread. I'll end by saying there is nothing I don't like about Friars Head.