worst dirt , best course....?

[paul cowley]

...OK ,the question is 'what is the best course built on the least desirable land '......great courses [pebble etc.] obviously get a boost from scenic values , others from just great topo and soil conditions.....so whats the best course built with the least going for it prior to construction ?

[Tyler Kearns]

Paul,

Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, although the project benefited greatly from an unlimited budget. However, the transformation is quite remarkable.

Tyler Kearns

[paul cowley]

....why don't you just as well ask the bigger question 'which past or present designer can get the most out of a poor site ?'

[Jeff_Mingay]

I'm bias, but I'd be remiss not to mention my home course, Essex, here in Windsor, Ontario.

Dead flat topography, less than ideal soil conditions.

Yet, Donald Ross managed to layout a pretty good golf course here during the late 1920s, by simply routing 18 holes of varying lengths and designing 18 varied and interesting green complexes. Period.

To this day, Essex provides a lesson in economy and simplicity in golf course architecture.

I'm bias  

[paul cowley]

 ...or do the most with the least amount of $$$$$

[RJ_Daley]

Some of the worst dirt courses built were no dirt courses.  They built a few in Hawaii that were 100% on top of lava.  They had to make their own dirt by grinding up lava and blending it with organic material they brought in.  There are a few courses built (or partially) on ledge rock too, where they blasted away the top and brought soil in to lay on top and figured some elaborate schemes to drain it.  I can't give you specific names of those courses, but I've seen slide shows of the lava projects...

[Jeff_Mingay]

Paul,

Obviously, there was less temptation to go for the visually dramatic 80 years ago. The magazines weren't publishing glossy coloured photos yet, and thus architects weren't designing courses to photog well. Only to play interestingly.

Restraint served Donald Ross and his contemporaries well. Unfortunately, restraint is difficult for a lot of golf course designers these days, who are aiming for that "home run" that will launch their careers.

That said, Donald Ross is probably the guy who most consistently made the most of mediocre properties, generally at minimum expense too.

[Andrew Summerell]

It depends on how bad you want the land to be & how good you want the course to be.

Kingston Heath is on sandy soil, but the land is flat & uninteresting, yet with good routing & great green complexes it ranks in the worlds top 30.

[jefffraim]

I don't know if this counts but what about dredge projects by Raynor in the 20's (Lido, Fairfield)

[ian]

TPC at Sawgrass is the best course on a poor site that I have seen. I would bet that the budget was reasonable due to the way it was built.

[David_Elvins]

This thread might be slightly related.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=14808

[paul cowley]

ian ...do you think the TPC would be any the less without the gallery mounding ?....or suffer from lack of framing ?

[paul cowley]

david .....i think i was on sabbatical that week ,did not see the thread.....although i just flipped thru fast to make sure i hadn't posted   ...anyway ,seems most new thoughts are just new to the owner , but they still feel new ,at least to me  

[ian]

The gallery mounds are not near as important as the existing trees. Without the framing of the trees, the course would lose much of its feel.

I pick Sawgrass because I think it is one of best designed golf courses I have played, period. The technical thought required on this project exceeds most other projects. The site was average at best, but the enginnering was clever, and the course is a strategic masterpiece. If there was no timber edges, and the lines were a little more Raynoresque, the course would get a lot more love than it currently does.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Ian,

For the record, I'm a huge fan of TPC Sawgrass. I agree with your assessment that it's  great golf course on what was a poor site to begin with. In fact, it's amazing what was accomplished under the direction of Pete Dye more than 20 years ago. Amazing.

What's really funny is, I wouldn't even consider replicating the aesthetics of the Stadium course, ever. But TPC Sawgrass (was) a strategic masterpiece. (I think the "new game" has nullified many of those original strategies.) And I actually love the aesthetics!

Sawgrass was so unique, originally. And it would still be if so many golf course designers didn't so blatantly rip off Dye's style exemplified there.  

[Joel_Stewart]

I'll choose Yale which was built on rock.  Some of the courses built in Hawaii on lava beds may be a good choice.

[Micah Woods]

I cast a vote for Shanghai Links. It is situated where the Yangtze meets the East China Sea, and until the golf course was built, it actually was part of the sea. A dike was constructed, a silt slurry was pumped onto the property, and the elevation was slowly increased.


The “dirt” at Shanghai Links first looked like this.

Then, in a monumental effort, the perfectly flat site was given shape, largely with fill taken from drainage ponds on the site.


Excavators were lined shoulder-to-shoulder to ferry the mud away in a very slow process. Thanks to Randall Morgan for this photo.

Once the drainage system was in place, an excellent although little-known golf course was laid out. It is the premier site for golf in Shanghai, with cooling winds from the water, well-contoured greens, and wide fairways with plenty of central hazards. Not insignificantly, the site is no longer flat at all, and I have heard that a mound between 17 green and 18 tee is actually the highest point in all the 533 square kilometers of Pudong.


This view of the 17th green at Shanghai Links is taken from what may be the highest peak in all of Pudong. The 17th is a par 5, approached from the left over the two cross bunkers.


The uphill par 3 7th also is played from the left, and the green, shown here, is situated at a crest and drops away from the player. Then comes the par 5 8th, shown in the background. The East China Sea is to the right, and the bold line goes to the right of both cavernous bunkers, skirting the edge of the sea but leaving a downhill mid-iron to a welcoming green. The safe line is to the left, but the layup is as blind from the left as the green is inaccessible.  Who wants to go all the way to Shanghai to play for par on a downhill, 501 yard par 5?

There are certainly many other courses in Asia built on some bad dirt. Harley Kruse could say more about Binhai just down the road from Shanghai Links; I believe it used to be a massive fish farm. Binhai is a really good course, and it may even have the highest peak in Pudong now. Unfortunately many of the courses built on bad dirt in Japan are in the mountains, and it is shocking to see how much trouble has been gone to to construct some of these properties.


It is not uncommon there to move mountains out of the way in order to fit in a golf hole, and to bring in fill soil for the entire site.

On balance, I think for production of a good course on bad dirt, Shanghai Links is tough to beat.

[RJ_Daley]

Welcome to the discussion Micah.  Are you an operator or design associate?  You obviously have the pictoral goods.  Thanks for sharing you pictures, to demonstrate the scope of those mega-projects.  

This insight into the extent that the Chinese are going to inorder to build golf courses should generate a whole new discussion about the direction of Chinese golf and if their approach to taking on mega-earthmoving projects will have an influence globally.  I'll start the new one...

[moth]

You call that earthworks - this is earthworks! (That's me 23rd from the left with the grey suit on!)



And a picture I have always wanted to post - how do you put a cow on a motorbike - answer below!

[paul cowley]

micah and brett.....good posts from across the other pond.

we saw the before cow photo ,but i would love to see if it really worked.

[A_Clay_Man]

Fought's Cimmaron, in Palm Springs, is in a massive wash. Considering the possibility of re-occurring floods, I thought the course went along way to qualify for the answer to this question.

While I have'nt seen it, Harborside, a Tim Nugent design in Calumet City, Il. appears to have been built in an area that would also qualify. When we use to pass this area as kids, you could not hold your breath long enough to escape the stench of rotten eggs from the nearby steel mills.

[tlavin]

Bay Harbor in Petoskey, Michigan was formerly a concrete factory, but it had Lake Michigan at its side.  Harborside in Chicago was formerly a sludge treatment facility that was converted into 36 holes of linksland-lite golf.  The course has awe-inspiring views of superelevated highway ramps, a powerhouse and a paint factory.  You never forget where you are: in the heart of the rust belt.

[Bruce Katona]

How about any of the courses in Houston, in particular The Woodlands.  Texas gumbo that bakes hard and hold water when wet.  Thet need to put in a sand layer after rough shaping to help drainage prior to final grade with topsoil.

[Craig Sweet]

Old Woks in Anaconda, MT. Built on a Super Fund site, Nickalaus brought in over 666,000 yards of soil.

The bad stuff is capped with something like 12" of clay and then they brought some soil, and then a sand and organics mix for growing the grass.

All in all its a pretty decent course.

[Dick Kirkpatrick]

Banff.

Stanley Thompson was fortunate that he was working for the railroad company, because they needed to haul soil by the trainload for two years to satisfy Stanley's design features.