Interesting to read the comments regarding Stonetree, as I had a small bit to play in the environmental part of the application with the city of Novato...........must have been 8-10 years ago. I worked for the man who is most responsible for Stonetree's routing, design, construction....Jim Summers.
Jim and Sandy Tatum did some work together during the late 80s and 90s and, to my knowledge at least, had the most to do with Stonetree. Fred Bliss had some small involvement, and John Miller even less. I know for a fact that Jim spent close to 2000 hours with his feet on the ground during the construction process, and in my mind deserves the credit for overcoming the formidable obstacles to approval, routing, design, environmental issues, and construction of Stonetree.
A tough site, absolutely, in my mind mostly having to do with blending the flat, bay mud holes with the narrow, steep, oak studded holes on the hill. The bay mud holes are capped with sand, the hilly holes red Marin Co. clay. The greens have alot of contour, and were shaped for speeds of 8.5 to 9.0....then along came Kevin P. (I can pronounce Kevin's last name, but can't spell it....a long name with LOTS of Ks, Ps, Qs, and Ys) from the Maryland area, as the all-star superintendent, and the speeds went up...way up! I think they have been dialed back since the opening period of the course.
Anyway, regardless of the positives or negatives of Stonetree, my hat's off to Jim Summers, a smart, tough minded golf guy who has built some pretty good golf courses in his career working with difficult Northern California sites...... others being Canyon Oaks in Chico, Tierra Oaks in Redding, Lockeford Springs in Lodi, the Shakespeare nine at Chardonnay in Napa.
Tom