Man, I got a brand new BB gun, but my mom said I can't let anyone else play with it cuz they might put out their eye.  I'll bet you were the kind of kid that put snakes and frogs in all the kids lunch buckets just to watch them squeal!

Tom,

I believe Alice Dye is a big fan of your photographic eye, maybe you should do the photography yourself, or you could consider several of the other fine golf course photographers out there. Just a thought!

I looked through them in the office today, but I couldn't find any that I wanted to post.  I did, however, have an epiphany about why I couldn't find any pictures worth posting.  I am certain most people here couldn't make heads or tails of the pictures.

And so the point of this thread is...?

Tom,

I agree that it is not easy to put what we see in our minds eye or what actually exists and somehow transfer that vision to a one dimensional flat media.

Case in point, hole # 10 at Augusta. Having been there four times, I cannot find any way photographically (to date) to show the drop in elevation that both the specators and players experience when they stand on the tee box.

So maybe I can relate to some of your frustration.

Aidan.

Mr. Doak's, Tom's, comments about visual clutter, reference points and the human minds tendency to exagerate distance, make me think of the Fazio thread discussing framing.

The question I have is what part an architects skill play in utilizing the time tested techniques of framing, forshortening, and focal points(and others) play in the creation of the gameboard of a golf course.  

While some of us have criticized Mr. Fazio for being over dependent on framing for his creations, I wonder how much the architect actually relies on these tools and how important they are in the final product?  Are these essential to creating a great course? Is the process of separating the 'visual clutter' from the surrounding environment just as important or even more important than the strategy included in the course?  Does the routing of the design and the journey through the golf course depend on this part of the design?

I am looking out my window right now....and yes, the Montana landscape is vast!  I can see a flag way off in the distance....its....its...a huge American flag flying over the local Perkins resturant.

Tom,

Its only a matter of time before Deer Lodge has a Perkins with a flag the size of a basketball court fly over it.

The Rock Creek course...will it set back in on the side of the mountain in the woods, or does it play out and down the open foothills?

Even when the pictures are taken from the eventual tee with a flag on the eventual green, there is so much visual clutter in a broad landscape that it's rarely possible for the outsider to focus on the parts that matter.  

Reminds me of a great sculptor, who, when asked how difficult it is to create a masterpiece, said: "It's easy! Just take a raw piece of stone and remove the parts which are not necessary..."
 

If you use google earth and search for Deer Lodge, Montana, you will zero in on a small town right on I-90

Head southwest a couple of miles and the open foothills give way to pine and fir covered mountains...and you will find Rock Creek lake...I assume the course is being built in the vacinity of the lake and the road leading into the lake???

Craig:

I don't have a picture of our routing plan or I could post it now.    The golf course occupies rugged land between the mountain and the last hill before the highway, but we are still set well back from the mountains.  There are Douglas fir trees around a few of the holes and visible from most, but there are only a couple of holes where you would have any chance of winding up behind a tree; even so, they add a lot to the change of scenery as you progress around the course.

The fishing lodge and golf pro shop are located on the creek near the bottom of a big valley, before the creek goes through a narrow pass and on down to Clark Fork by the highway.  The first fifteen holes are in a clockwise loop above the pro shop [nos. 2 thru 6 are uphill to the seventh tee at the highest point of the course]; the last three make a smaller loop below the shop.  The creek is in play on the par-3 8th, the par-5 10th (if you really push the second shot), the par-3 17th, and all three shots on the par-5 18th.

The routing is not quite the standard mix of holes and I'm sure people will question why on such a large piece of property, but here's the scorecard and I am confident all the holes will hold up their part of the equation:

1 - Medium par-4, small tributary creek cutting in front of the green.
2 - Long par 4
3 - Medium-long par 5 through a meadow toward the mountains
4 - Long par 4 uphill to long skinny green in a bowl
5 - Short, wide par 4 with optional carry over a nest of fairway bunkers
6 - Medium-long par 4 over two dips
7 - Long 4 downhill to shelf of landing area, then over the corner of a rocky hill to green in saddle
8 - Picturesque par-3 crossing stream which runs along right of fairway and green (the stream is in a 20-foot-deep gorge at this point)
9 - Medium-short par 4 to large green in bowl against rocky hillside

10 - Long, downhill par 5 with green set back up on a shelf next to creek
11 - Long par 4 with split-level landing area and crowned green
12 - Short par 3, drop shot, to small green with bunkers all across front in a swale
13 - Very long par 3 across deep valley, a standout hole
14 - Long par 4, way downhill off tee, second shot thru gap in hills to unusual green site
15 - Driveable par 4 (330 yards from back, downhill, narrow gap in front of green between bunkers)
16 - Long par 4 with dry creek to carry off tee, tilting second shot to green in front of rocky knob
17 - Par 3 over the creek at the bottom of the valley
18 - Par 5 back uphill, must carry creek on tee shot and then climb toward green with creek hard on left side, mountains in distance.

This yields the somewhat unusual scorecard:

445 444 434 = 36    543 344 435 = 35 = par 71.

I think the course is about 7,300 yards from the back tees, but it is between 4600 and 4900 feet altitude.

From the time the routing has been set I've been convinced that holes 7, 10 and 13 would be among our best work.  The first seven holes are shaped and the third and fifth are now personal favorites as well.

Ryan:

In the case of Rock Creek, the final routing has about twelve holes from an earlier plan that was in place, before the client said that he wanted to use the land in the bowl below the pro shop for golf.  As a result of that decision, we had to stretch the first 15 holes to make room for the last three [because we weren't going to give up the great holes up at the top of the plan], and in the end we were looking for a spot to cut one hole out of the routing.  Cutting one hole is much harder than cutting two, particularly on rugged land where stretching out a hole is an unlikely option.

The par-3 13th was always in the routing, but the only good short-cut we could find was to put the par-3 12th in front of it, in place of a par-4 that had played out beyond and a short par-4 that played back to what is now the 12th green, from the opposite direction.

I really didn't want to use back-to-back par-3's again because it will draw comparisons to Pacific Dunes, and it's tough enough for all of my current courses to be compared to that one.  But the par-3 12th was a good enough hole and it is a lot different than the 13th, and it really was the best solution to tightening up the routing to use those holes below the pro shop.

Tom D,

How long is the golf season up there (or Craig)?  Will the club have set months of being open/closed (a la Sand Hills) or will there be on/off days in the shoulder seasons where it could either snow or be 65 from one day to the next?  I'm just curious/interested in seeing how the 'exclusive private retreats' use the shoulder seasons.


Ryan,

You just got yourself a new hoops coach who took his team to 5 straight NCAA tournaments.  And the fans of the team he left have been TRYING to get rid of him for years.....a win/win situation for all, it seems.