Pre-Construction pictures of Kingsbarns

[Tim Weiman]

Brian:

I think that would be most interesting. Tom Paul and I have talked about how we can take Golfclubatlas "to the next level". It sounds like you will making a fine contribution.

Thanks very much.

Where is Richard Wax? Don't people feel if they make a strong statement they should stick around and answer questions about it?

[Brian Phillips]

Tim,

I just went onto Kyle Phillips' website and found an interview he did for a magazine and here is a quote from it:

My good friend, Richard Wax, with whom I had worked closely during our years with RTJII, introduced me to the site. The original developers were looking to sell. I was then able to bring together an American developer for whom I had already designed a course, his financial partner and Southern Golf, the contractor with whom I had an excellent relationship during the construction of the Wisley Golf Club. This formed a solid team.

Interesting.

Brian.

[Observer]

MDugger - Tim Weiman,

Brian Philips offers a logical reason for the existance of containment mounds, and you accept it, carte blanche.
They were used to hide something and therefore you accept them at Kingsbarn.

But, when Rees Jones or Tom Fazio uses them to hide something at one of their courses they are unacceptable.

Tommy Naccarato is correct, containment mounds are artificial, and saying that they look like they fit in is a copout.

Pat Mucci, Rich Goodale and JakaB are correct, objectivity, is not one of the strong suits of this site.  

Intellectual honesty would be appreciated.

[Observer 2]

Observer,

If your going to classify the landforms at Kingsbarns as containment mounding, then you better include the winding ridge that runs along the right side of the foxy hole at Dornoch in the same category.  The difference is that one is created by nature and one by machinery, but they are both a far cry from the bumpy mounding that you see on nearly every golf course off the side of the road.  I hate the fact that I can immediately recognize a site as a golf course when I drive by because the shaping always looks the same.

Observer 2

[Tim Weiman]

Observer:

My only input on this thread has been about Brian's preconstruction photos. Mostly, I'm shocked that a professional in the golf business such as Richard Wax would call the site the very best out of 1,000 he has seen.

That's why I asked Wax - several times - to explain his statement.

As for the finished product, Kyle Phillips' work and any containment mounding, I haven't seen it. So, what do you want me to say?

I was of the view that it is "intellectually honest" to refrain from commenting when I have neither seen the course or even seen photographic documentation.

Do you have different perspective? Should I comment when I haven't seen Kingsbarns?

I noticed you made reference to Pat Mucci. I am not aware that he has seen Kingsbarns either. Maybe he has. Maybe he hasn't. But, I think Pat would agree that refraining from commenting on a course one hasn't seen, hardly represents being less than "intellectually honest".

One more thing: why in the world did you feel a need to post anonymously just to ask me to comment on a course I haven't seen?

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

What are the most interesting features that the architects incorporated into their design at Kingsbarn?

How does it compare to Whistling Straits--another mock-links course? Similarities and differences?

What do the Scots make of it? Is it accepted as the genuine article or are their some anti-American criticisms about some aspects of the course? Are there carts or cart paths?

[Paul Turner]

Tom

The Scots love it.  I played it with Walter Woods and when I questioned whether it was in fact a "real links", he quickly asserted it is, and shut me up!  I love the course but I still think it's different from a true links.  

No cart paths.

I believe that St Andrews Bay is a different story, it's just down the road.

[PMiller]

Hi to all of you,

This is my first contribution so I trust the etiquette is right.

Brian Phillips has said some kind words relating to my photos and to my teaching in reference to golfing soils and grasses.  I encountered him on the Edinburgh College of Art MSc Golf Architecture where I provide some input on appropriate subjects.  We had a site visit to Kingsbarns with this group and followed up with some discussion and classroom input, mainly relating to the creation of soil profiles that would create the right pore distribution in the rootzone for fine turf to flourish.  This was despite the natural soils being far from suitable in large areas of the site.  I also see many contributions relating to Mark Parsinen, his vision and confidence to put Kingsbarns in place.  I think relating to the site the main attraction is the long sea-front, about two miles.  This enabled the design to allow sea views from every hole, which while we expect this of links golf it is not always provided (Old Course, Muirfield).  Golfers expectations are thus, to some extent, realised.

Another aspect of the development was the way in which Mark Parsinen assembles teams of people who see problems with the backgrounds of different experiences.  Discussion and debate allows consensus to be reached.  This was certainly the case with soils management plans; there were about 8 to 10 of us on site and sitting around for hours exploring every avenue.  Whilst there are probably things that would be done differently if the project were to be repeated (aren't there always!?) the finished job has been well received and has made its way into golf's collective conscience very quickly.

If there are specifics on this, or I can put in more pictures,please let me know.

Paul Miller

[Paul Turner]

Has that old stone wall survived?  There's one down the boundary of the second, but I can't remember a wall that's perpendicular to the shore.

[PMiller]

re containment mounding

At Kingsbarns this looks right because Scotlands Golfing Geomorphologist, Robert Price, gave advice.  Compare to that on the 16th on the Eden, St Andrews, and you see a poor, unimaginative 'dune ridge', running both sides of a flat and featureless fairway.  (Brian will like this comment).  Mark Parsinen was absolutely determined to understand what a links environment truly looks like (not what we think it looks like) prior to building one.

Paul Miller

If Ress were the architect and he had used containment mounding, as Phillips and Parsinen did at Kingsbarns (to the benefit of this great golf course) would we have reacted differently?  Just wondering.......

[Brian Phillips]

Now Paul you don't mean my favourite fairway in Fife do you?  Or even my favourite re-design ever?

Here is the fairway Paul was talking about



Thank you Paul for jumping in.  There is also another thread about that is 'construction photos of Kingsbarns'.

Paul, I think you will enjoy Robert Price's interview in 'feature interview' on the side bar.

Brian.

[RJ_Daley]

With the understanding that it is a picture, and I haven't seen this fairway in person, and I am guessing there is more contour on the fairway than the picture shows;  I do not think this looks natural, and find it appears of the same objectionable ilk as the containment mounding found on other courses we have been bashing.  It appears uniform in height, length, and regularly spaced and conveniently graded down at the right side of the fairway.

[Brian Phillips]

RJ,

There is not any movement in that fairway at all.  I promise.  This is the 16th fairway on the Eden course after Mr. Steel was finished with it.

No wonder the locals walk off after 9 holes.

Brian

[Michael Dugger]

Observer:

My we are bitter this morning.  I haven't bothered reading past your post for obvious reasons.  

What is your deal?

For one, you are obviously someone "real" posting under a fake name.  What is disturbing about this is you appear to have a bone-to-pick.  You're dragging three or four threads together and picking a fight.  

We are you doing this?  

It is merely turning GCA into a "pissing contest", again, like so many, including myself, don't want to continue with.  
BURY THE HATCHET.

[RJ_Daley]

I was just thinking about some of our most frequent posters that often take great offense at some of us who criticise this sort of unimaginative golf course design and construction.  They say we are bias and unfair and don't appreciate strategy and that strategy is the most important thing, etc.  But, I'll bet that no matter how ardent of an apologist any of those frequent posters are for architects who create such schlock as above 16th Eden or some of the Sandpines stuff, those same people could themselves both design and with a few days practice on a dozer, build anything better than that which we see above.  

This has the same humorous flavor as the link provided to the "creations of friends and loved ones" thread
http://maddox.xmission.com/irule.html.  I think anyone that would defend this unimaginative stuff is comparable to the parents putting their kids work on the wall of the office cubicle.  It is self dillusional... :-/

I thought it was so funny, I posted the link here again. That picture of the 16th Eden could be posted on Homer Simpson's cubicle office wall, and called HOTD...

[Michael Dugger]

Observer,

Now that I've read everything that has been written beyond your pile of #*$^ post, it seems that you are wrong, again, or smoking crack.

1.  We have an expert who was a part of the project saying...

"At Kingsbarns this (Kingsbarns mounds)  LOOK(S) RIGHT because Scotlands Golfing Geomorphologist, Robert Price, gave advice.  Compare(d) to that on the 16th on the Eden, St Andrews, and you see a POOR, UNIMAGINATIVE 'dune ridge', running both sides of a flat and featureless fairway.  (Brian will like this comment).  Mark Parsinen was ABSOLUTELY DETERMINED to understand what a LINKS ENVIRONMENT truly looks like (not what we think it looks like) prior to building one."

2.  We have a nice picture of the mounds at EDEN in St. Andrew's DISPLAYING, as Mr. Price put it, "a poor, unimaginative 'dune ridge'"

3.  Brian Phillips appears to have no opinion of the 'containment mounds' at Eden, per se, but does back Mr. Daley's assertion that the said 'containment mounds', in question, do indeed SUCK.

Quoting Brian Phillips:

"This is the 16th fairway on the Eden course after Mr. Steel was FINISHED (note the disgust?) with IT (won't even acknowledge it as a 'dune ridge'.

No wonder the locals walk off after 9 holes." (ouch)


IMHO, this type of damning evidence is good enough to put to rest this notion that we are biased or "NON-objective" in our thinking about containment mounds, natural vs un-natural, etc.

I don't care if I come across as the a-hole here.  We are always talking about the GCA discussion forum being a place to come and learn and talk about stuff, and so on.  

If OBSERVER can't understand what I've just put down here there is no hope of OBSERVER ever 'getting it'.

IMHO, Kingsbarns looks very, very much, based on the pictures I've seen (I haven't been there, yet) like an authentic links.  "Carved by nature, holes routed "naturally", 118 golf holes waiting to be discovered," pick you own cliche.

Even though this wasn't the case, as Brian's original pictures clearly show (the place was as flat as a pancake), IMHO it is a testament to the AWESOME work of Kyle Phillips and everyone else involved, that Kingsbarns LOOKS like a course that was always there, waiting to be discovered.  It doesn't matter if it wasn't, it LOOKS like it, and from what it sounds like, it plays like it.  To me there is something to this notion of "golf as it was in the beginning".  Sandpines doesn't evoke this same spirit.  

I just don't know how else to put it than that.  What is interesting to me about the Kingsbarns project is this question that can be derived from our conversation here:

What is more difficult?  Creating a great course like Kingsbarns or Whistling Straits (a blank canvas, so to speak)

versus

DISCOVERING a great course like Pac Dunes or Friar's Head.

In one case we must create our 'natural looking golf features', in the other, we strive to not SCREW-UP what is already there for us.  

IMHO, the second is more difficult, and it is what separates the good from the best.        

[ForkaB]

MDugger

I think you'll find that the majority of the holes at Friar's Head were "manufactured" rather than found.  Very elegantly, of course.

[corey miller]

I think I need some help in understanding manafactured as it pertains to FH  What is the most manufactured element of the course?

[ForkaB]

corey

My impression when I walked the course about 15 months ago was that the majority of the holes (i.e. those south of the dunes) were built on an old potato field/grass farm which did not have any significant "architectural" features.  I do know that C&C incorporated admirably well what small elevation changes there were on the flat part of the original site, but I assumed (and perhaps was told, can't remember) that the finished product involved a significant amount of "creation" as well as "discovery."  If I am wrong, I would be pleased to have anybody who knows the project better than I to put me right.

[TEPaul]

Of course Coore and Crenshaw created the golf architecture on the very flat farmland portion of Friar's Head and of course they had to "tone down" the unimaginable rugged terrain in the dunes section of the golf course.

I saw photos of the course before construction, I walked the course before construction, during construction and after construction was finished.

The extraordinary thing about their work on that site and course is to see particularly the dunes section before construction as it was hard to imagine how they could ever get golf holes in there (I think Coore was somewhat concerned about their ability to do that too). But walking slowly through that section after construction it's just amazing to me how they did it.

It's so hard to see at this point what they did exactly but there are some great holes in there now. They tied in so well with some of that radical topography that it's just amazing to imagine how they could have done it so well. There's very little in that dune section that looks man-made to me.