The Greatest Courses Never Built

[Craig Van Egmond]

Tom Doak,

       Karsten Creek is #30 on the Golfweek Modern list, #20 on the Golf Digest Top 100 Public course list and #42 on the Golf Magazine Top 100 You Can Play list.

   

[Lester George]

The greatest course never built that I am aware of is Costa de Marin on the ocean in Northern California designed by Algie Pulley back in the early 80's.  After ten years of permit struggles, I think they finally gave up.  

A combination of Pebble Beach and Pacific Dunes is the only way to describe it.  Fourteen holes directly influenced by 75 to 125 foot cliffs, every hole had an ocean view.  Some holes played across the ocean from a cliff to landing areas formed by buttes off the coast made for some of the most dramatic holes ever designed.  It was one of the reasons I apprenticed under Algie, the routing was truly ingeniuos.  I still have it somewhere.

Lester

[Matt_Ward]

Tom D:

When you ask me can either of the courses be better -- I'd have to say yes, any course can be better -- even your work at Pacific Dunes!

The issue relates to the inability of others (my opinion mind you) to see the qualities of Olde Kinderhook and Karsten Creek.

Olde Kinderhook gets very lttle attention because it's located near Albany and few have played it. Put Olde Kinderhook in Westchester County or the east end of the Island and everybody and his brother would be singing it's praises.

Karsten Creek is one of the very best Tom Fazio layouts I've played and it has the wherewithal to test the better players as it proved during last year's NCAA Championships.

Tom -- I don't doubt your confidence in your ability to design or that you have done something differently -- but I can only go by what I see is there NOW. In both instances -- the work was done very well IMHO.

FYI -- GolfWeek has both courses within its top 100 Modern listing.

[George Pazin]

Lester -

Any chance you could post the routing?

[Phil_the_Author]

Talking with Dave Catalano yesterday at Bethpage, he told me that they had wanted to build course number 6 about 20 years ago, but that environmental groups caused too many problems.

They would still like to do it.

[T_MacWood]

In California, along a spectacular stretch of coast, there was a project involving a collaboration between JD Dunn, George Thomas and Alister MacKenzie -- Caves Landing. I'm not sure what went wrong.

Tilly was the architect of a massive project in Canada (5 golf courses if I'm not mistaken) killed by an economic down turn.

Donald Ross was originally selected to design Somerset Hills....another mystery how it ended up with Tillinghast.

[ForkaB]

I used to take the sprogs to the beach at Capitola (just south of Santa Cruz), and once went into the local museum, which had some information on a golf course development there planned for the 20's-30's.  It is certainly not there now.  Does anybody have any further information on what happened to this?

PS--interesting on how many California coastal projects went NLE before they even existed.  As well as the Depression economy, I'm guessing that water availability had something to do with it.  One also wonders, if there had not been a Depression, and California had enjoyed the surplus of silly money that the East Coast did in the 10's and 20's, maybe there would have been a string of courses down the coast that would have made Southampton look like a child's sandbox in comaprison.  Or does it already.....?

[Brian Phillips]

Luckily I am less likely to take "no" for an answer these days.  Barnbougle, St. Andrews Beach and Ballyneal might all have been in this "what if" category if I hadn't offered to defer a lot of my fees to help make them happen.  [I have a lot more stake in Barnbougle than Greg Ramsay does.]  Ben Crenshaw did the same thing to help Sand Hills get off the ground.  Hopefully it works out as well for me financially, but regardless, it was worth it to see some great golf courses get built.

I wonder how many architects have done this, or would be willing to do it. Pete is famous, I guess, for his handful of dollar course projects. (Obviously he is more famous for his terrific work, regardless of remuneration - just didn't quite know how to phrase it.)

Tom, I remember on one of the Fountainhead threads a few years ago you said you were glad you hadn't read the book after reading someone's synopsis; you indicated others had recommended the book, presumably because they saw parallels betwen you and Howard. Well, one that does exist is that it was more important for him to see his works completed than to receive his just monetary reward. Ayn would be proud....

George,

I think you would be surprised how many architects take payment in shares instead of cash.  I know of a number that have done it quite frequently.

Nearly all of our work on projects are with deferred payments especially at the start of a project.  So many of the projects we are involved in just don't have the cash flow at the start, so no, it is not as unusual as you think.

Brian Phillips.

[TEPaul]

"PS--interesting on how many California coastal projects went NLE before they even existed."

Rich:

I truly never would've thought of it in the context of golf courses along the Cal coast going NLE before they even existed back in the 1920s and 1930s but I saw this unbelievable program the other day on the mind-boggling project of the West Coast Highway that stretched from SoCal to practically the Canadian border.

The project must have been for that early time like getting a man on the moon in a later day considering all the massive engineering and danger involved of basically hanging a road along and just over that entire West Coast as well as the amazing bridges that were built to connect it over rivers and such.

Do you think that project that was years and years in the works logically stopped a number of potential golf courses from using that coastal land? After all the West Coast Highway would've had to go inside them if they were there.

I'm not even sure why the West Coast highway that was such a complex engineering project was planned and executed. It must have been a long range tourist endeavor as much as anything else!

[Mike_Sweeney]

Raynor at Cypress Pont

The second Raynor course at Fisher's Island though to be more bold then the one built.

G,

I can't remember if you have seen, if there is one, a routing for Yale II ?

[ForkaB]

Tom

You should drive the PCH some day.  The engineering IS mind-boggling, but even more so are all the potential golf courses that STILL lie unbuilt along the way.  Just remember, that many of the ones that WERE built (e.g. Valley Club, Pasatiempo) were placed on the lesser value inland sites.

For most normal people the vistas are enough to make it worth the 1-2 journey, (LA-SF).  However, for a GCA junkie like you, it could be a 10 day trip with all the detours to find the redans amongst the cliffs overlooking the sea lion rookeries and nude beaches.......

Go for it.

[TEPaul]

Rich:

You may have forgotten or never knew but there probably isn't and inch of road in California I haven't driven at one time or another including basically the entire PCH. I worked in a state wide political campaign for about a year and a half out there and was on the road everyday all day all over the state most all the time.

But my question was---did the need and desire to run that PCH right along the edge of the entire coast prevent a number of planned golf courses (that preceded the PCH in planning) to not get done or go NLE?

[ForkaB]

Tom

In their wisdom, when the State of California decided to build a Pacfic Coast Highway, they chose to route it down the COAST!!!!  Not over the 4000 foot "foothills" and not through the various INLAND valleys!!!! Silly them......

PS--you surely couldn't have found too many votes in Goleta, Montara and Yreka, could you?.  Did your guy want to lose the election?

PPS--I know the answer to that last question.

PPS--Coastal Commission or not, the real answer is that outside of a few favored places (e.g. Monterrey) there was(and maybe still is) no economic imperative for building golf courses along the central California coast.

[TEPaul]

"In their wisdom, when the State of California decided to build a Pacfic Coast Highway, they chose to route it down the COAST!!!!  Not over the 4000 foot "foothills" and not through the various INLAND valleys!!!! Silly them......"

Rich:

I realize that--I know exactly where they ROUTED it! I drove the thing and I also mentioned that program tracking it's amazing construction---basically an engineering marvel.

And this is the third time I've asked you---do you think BECAUSE they decided to build the highway right on the COAST and on the CLIFFS overhanging the COAST that precluded and prevented various golf courses that may have been in the planning stages BEFORE the highway was planned and BUILT?

But if you can't figure out the question just forget about the answer!

[ForkaB]

Tom

Actually there is very little of the PCH which is ON the cliffs.  Mostly it skirts around or alongside them.  Most of the highway is on pretty flat land near the coast, as you should remember.  Not real linksland, or even great raised dunes land, but adequate enough to be the equal of anything in Southampton.

As for my answer to your question, see my 2nd "PPS".

[Lou_Duran]

George P asks:

"I wonder how many architects have done this, or would be willing to do it. Pete is famous, I guess, for his handful of dollar course projects. (Obviously he is more famous for his terrific work, regardless of remuneration - just didn't quite know how to phrase it.)"

Would it surprise you to hear that no other than Tom Fazio has deferred his fees years into the process?

I am sure that there are many qualified practicing designers/architects who would undertake a promising assignment with the prospects of financial renumeration well down the road.

As to the original topic, "the greatest course never built" could very well be in one of our minds.  If design is a synthesis of experience, imagination, and love of the subject matter, other than a member of the ASGCA, who would argue that this is possible?  There are any number of good examples of laymen doing outstanding work (the Macs, Crump, Hunter, Dye).

[TEPaul]

Rich:

What' a US Senate campaign in 1970 have to do with the PCH that was built many decades before?

I know where the highway goes in relation to the coast since I drove the entire thing. Above San Fran particularly it hugs the coast and cliffs too close for my liking. If one is prone to vertigo and dizziness as I might be you should stay the hell off that road, plus it's so precipitous in spots it's almost always under construction for repair as was pointed out in that TV program I mentioned about the PCH recently.  

[ForkaB]

Tom

I lived in Half Moon Bay for 4 years, and I know very well the twists and turns of the PCH south of San Francisco.  The fact that you were terrified by those minor hillocks just shows how ignorant you East Coasters are about elevation and scale.  No wonder you are so impressed by a wee bump in the landscape of Southampton that another flatlander (CBM) called the "Alps!"

[George Pazin]

Brian and Lou -

I think my years of posts have given you guys a mistaken impression I thought Tom D was the only one to do this. I actually meant it as an honest question and it doesn't surprise me that others have done it. I think it's a little different when it's an up and comer looking to get his foot in the door (I look back and laugh when I think of things I did my first 6 months in business - would that I had that kind of foolish energy now!), but I am encouraged to hear others are doing this.