I was looking at an aerial photo of a nearby state park and was trying to envision how a golf course would fit the land (I'd attach the photo but I can't figure out how). This is a fairly wide peninsula with a north-south orientation. It covers almost 250 acres and is surrounded on three sides by the ocean.

Assuming there is room to do an out-and-back routing, would you prefer to keep the water on your left side or on your right? Can anyone clue me in as to how an architect would make such a decision? I know the general rule of thumb is that bad golfers tend to slice, so water on the right is more penal. The other option would be to cross over with an inland hole, but that wouldn't take full advantage of the ocean vistas.

Dan,

Send the file to me and I will put it for you if you want.

Cheers Brian

Rick,

The problem with making a lot of crossovers is that it's much harder at the crossovers to get the greens and tees close together so the course is easy to walk.  This is the best reason to limit crossovers.

You can use parallel holes running across the peninsula to make a crossover, as MacKenzie did with the two par-3's at Alwoodley.

Dan - That appears to be some piece of property!!!  

What is interesting about the site is that it appears you have three different directions you could place holes the water on a side. Unlike, say Pebble Beach where the water is one border, not three. You have more directions to play with on this piece of land that it appears an out and back routing may not be the most ideal.

I think if an architect, say Tom since he already posted, wouldn't look at this property and try to get a series of holes that all play along the water consecutively. They would try to get as many holes bordering the water as possible and, it appears from your description, they would have an excellent opportunity to make some good inland holes. You may also try to incorporate a green or two that brought you from the inland portion of the course to the water. So, you played a hole that ended at the water but didn't start there.

As a golfer, I wouldn't want to have 6-8 holes play on the water then none of the other. Rather I would like to play on the inland holes, then the water, back to the inland and back to the water or something of the sort.

Hope this makes sense.

So, for your site, before talking about water on left or right, I'd want to know what the ground offers. Are there any holes just crying out to be built, so much so that including them might have to be considered a priority?

Good question.

There are a few green sites that I think would be important to include. The first is at the outermost tip of the peninsula that juts out to the west. The second is the land mass filling the east side of the pond.

The light green field at the center of the photo is the highest point of the property (a pretty significant hill). It would be nice to take advantage of the views from there, either with a tee box or as part of a hole that runs up and over the hill.

Although it would be interesting to play a hole over the ocean to the northern part of the property, there needs to be a safe way of traversing the sandbar. That northern block of land is about 850 yards long (measured from the end of the sandbar to the north coast line). The two clearings on it are both hills, and a valley runs east-west between them. That would be an obvious spot to cross over—it is about 500 yards from one side to the other.

Looks as if the width is adequate for holes running an all directions...not just in a string like some peninsula layouts.

The "right" or "left" question is more a matter of which way the hole leans. For example, water to the right is of no extreme hardship to the predominant slicer if the hole moves to the left. Conversely, water to the left can be very troublesome, if not more that with water to the right, when a hole hooks around the drink.

I would tend to side on whatever would create the best adventure.

Don,

Green sites are but one element of determining routing. But I would take exception with your approach to exclusively determine green sites and route from just those determinations.

Very interesting thread!

I think the example of the aerial from Boston combined with the posts on this thread indicate some instructive things about routing particular types of properties.

Routing long narrow peninsula shaped properties with limited latitude side to side creates routings that sort of flow on their own to a large extent. Look at TOC, North Berwick, NGLA, even Merion. The hole landforms on those courses are somewhat self-evident. The only true routing variation one could have on properties like those would be to use the same basic landforms and routing but in reverse!

But when you throw in real interesting and complex topography on those long narrow sites it potentially gets more interesting for some holes but also far more complicated to route successfully.

I'm glad Tom Doak mentioned Alwoodley. That site is a long hooking peninula shaped site but if there was water around it (if it really was a peninula) Mackenzie (or Colt?) routed the course really well when it comes to the question of having the water on either side of holes (variety).

Holes #7, #14, #16 are the "crossover" holes on that course. Personally, I prefer to call holes like that "connectors" or "separators" not "crossovers". To me the "crossovers" in a routing sense are when you walk from #13 green over #7 to #14 tee and when #3 tee plays over the midbody of #16. The latter particularly I consider really interesting old fashioned hole crossover quirk!

But the topoprahy at Alwoodley is not all that complicated in a routing sense and because it isn't one can see from the routing drawing or an aerial that Mackenzie was able, without much problem, to make the course very efficient in a land use sense (not much wasted space!) and a course with much right and left variety. If there was a ton of interesting topography on Alwoodley it probably would've made his routing and design job far more complex to do!

Dan, where is that land exactly?  Is it on the Cape near Provincetown?  I was there last summer and all I could see was potential site after site.  Is this merely a theoretical exercise for funzies, or is this a serious effort?  Given you have stated it is a State Park, I can't believe that any serious official consideration would ever be given to converting it to a golf course.  But, it sure looks good and is fun to imagine.  Have you tried to use Terraserver to get an aerial and topo?  Perhaps our main man Scott B., "King of the Aerials", could pop up a link if you tell him where it is at and if they have a file on that particular land.  With the aerial posted (or link to it) perhaps we can have a little contest to route the course?

It would sure beat all the humdrum posting going on here lately.