What's Up with Rustic Canyon ?

[THuckaby2]

Some interesting comments re living in California.

I'd just query this:

do all Florida residents move because of the potential for hurricanes?

do all Kansas residents move out of fear of tornadoes?

do all Wisconsin residents move because they tire of the harsh winters and damage those cause?

I could go on and on.

The point is there are very few, if any, perfectly safe nirvanas on this planet.  There are seemingly risks associated wherever you go.

And Dave is right:  people live here because the pros outweigh the cons.  I'm here to tell you I have lived here my entire life, and have never had any damage to my health or property, or to that of any family member, from any natural disaster.

And I'd venture to say that's the case for 99% of CA residents.

Oh, I know, tell that to the folks in La Conchita... or the management of Rustic Canyon... but the fact remains that these events are way fewer and far between than it seems at the time they occur.

Of course, the real sane Californians live in NorCal, however.  

And I remain VERY happy that the developers of Rustic Canyon took the risk to give us such a unique and wonderful golf course.

But Dave's right also - if all we could do out here was build in perfectly safe areas, we'd sure have damn few new courses!

TH

[Dan Grossman]

I understand that Angeles National, the new Nickalaus golf course in Sunland, also sustained signficant damage.  I think one of the greens (the 17th) and a tee (the 18th) was washed away.

After being here (in SoCal) during the last several weeks, it is hard to believe that any amount of civil engineering and/or design could have saved Rustic Canyon or any other golf course built in and around the foothills.  

And for those of you who think the railroad people did a good job, 4 out of the 5 railroads leading out of the Los Angeles basin are closed due to flooding.  They are currently busing Amtrack passengers from Ventura to Moorpark because the rail is unsafe between the two cities.

[THuckaby2]

I understand that Angeles National, the new Nickalaus golf course in Sunland, also sustained signficant damage.  I think one of the greens (the 17th) and a tee (the 18th) was washed away.

That was mentioned somewhere else yesterday... but man, seeing that course and where it is, they can't POSSIBLY be surprised.  It is right in the middle of the flood plain.  To me the existence of that course proves there is no viable decent land left for golf courses in our state.

TH

[Mike Benham]

Someone mentioned Seminole and their elevated greens ... a simple question, why did they elevate the greens?

I suspect that the answer to that question would not apply to Rustic ...

[JakaB]

One thing you guys need to understand is that engineering mistakes have been being made every since white people first moved to California....they just keep componding on one another until disasters like what happened this week are inevitiable.   I would bet that at the time of the construction of the the railroads a little storm like this would not have flooded a single track.   One thing that really troubles me is where do you people put your maids, manservants and other various service people.....Was the area of death a poor neighborhood....would that explain why precautions are only being taken now...

For those who think nothing could have been done to save Rustic from the floods.....you can engineer anything...it just gets tough to pay for.....they could have built fake tees on stilts like at Harvest Links if it was their choice....they will be lucky if the goverment doesn't come in and build a retention wall at the end of Rustic to benifit the ones downstream....nothing like a huge wall with an 8 inch culvert to hold water back for a while...

[THuckaby2]

Jeez I ought to stay the helll out of this one... but....

Was the area of death a poor neighborhood....would that explain why precautions are only being taken now...

haven't you seen the pics of La Conchita, John?

Having seen those, and driven past it many, many times, let's just say it isn't Montecito.  

[DMoriarty]

But, if it was known that a flash flood like that occured every 2-5 years, well I'd have to question the wisdom of siting the course there.  The appeal of the raw land (having seen Geoff and Tommy's photos before construction) was attractive.  But, in hind sight, if the flood frequency was well understood beforehand; I wonder if it wasn't what you attorney's call an "attractive nuisance"?

If the area had a flash flood like that an average of every 2-5 years, the course would never have been built.  If it had a flash flood like that every 10-20 years, it probably wouldn't have been built.    

I think some not familiar with the situation see this two years in a row and conclude that it happens all the time.  What many do not seem to understand is that the past two year's events are a direct result of the fires of last October.  Bare ground does not hold water, nor does it hold topsoil or anything else.  It all just washed down.    Oh yeah, it is unusual for this amount of rain in that area, In the first ten days of January, the area recieved much more rain than they usually get in a year.  

A few pics, more to follow . . .

No. 18's New Look . . .





Looking at the 10th Green from the 18th Fairway . . .


Debris . . .


From Wash Left of 5th Green . . . .



Wash Bisecting 5th Fairway . . .


From 6th Tee . . .


6th Green . . . .


Toward 7th and 8th Greens from Wash left of Seven . . .

[Mike_Golden]

Barney,

You are out of your fucking mind.  Little storm, my ass.  Grow up and get a life.

[Mike Benham]

Let's get the Karma going in the right direction ... this is a great view of the 18th green, with the slope running away from the fairway and the ridge bisecting the green.

If the edge of the wash stays as dipicted in the photo, how will that change how the hole plays?[/i]

No. 18's New Look . . .

[George Pazin]

Not too sure really what I can say - I thought we weren't allowed to comment on photos if we hadn't played the course, yet there seems to be some precedent established on this thread of commenting on the engineering of a course from several thousand miles away....

Good luck with the clean up. At least now there appear to be more water hazards that will placate the raters.

[JakaB]

Barney,

You are out of your ****ing mind.  Little storm, my ass.  Grow up and get a life.

The three huricanes my parents evacuated from this summer were big storms....your little rain event is only compounded by pre-exising drainage issues.   We in the midwest are suffering through flooding too....the difference is we just bag it up and take it like a man.  

[THuckaby2]

Not sure which raters need to be placated, or how
water hazards would achieve this anyway....

But all I can say is WOW!  Not to be a complete
insensitive prick or anything, but 18 to me looks
really cool!  I guess what tempers it is this is looking
backwards - if you had to play over that little cliff
and look right at it, that would really be something -
but still the stark fall off on the right is a net
positive in terms of playing the hole.  You are REALLY
gonna tempt fate going right off the tee now.

As for the rest, thank you very much for posting
these Dave, as pictures do speak a lot of words.

Here's hoping that whatever they do in the way
of clean up and fixes, it gets back up and fully
operational as quickly as possible.

To that end, is it being played now?  The back nine
anyway?  Any idea what the plan is?

TH

[THuckaby2]

Hmmm... I'd agree the strategies SHOULDN'T change
on 18... but with this new look, well... it's just gonna be
that much more obvious you don't want to go there,
and you're gonna have zero hope of a ball being stopped by brush or rough or something... so I think it WILL affect
the strategies, as more golfers get scared off from the
right side due to these visuals!  The mind will be willing
to go right and shorten the hole, but the flesh will be week
as that last second DO NOT GO RIGHT pops into one's head
with so much greater clarity.

Of course no one HERE has that happen.  I'm talking about
other golfers, of course.

 

[Mike Benham]

If the "Don't go right" thought gets bigger, you must remember that there isn't a ton of room left with the driving range/cart barn ...

[THuckaby2]

EXACTLY!
And thus the thinking changes... what ought to be
a relatively simple tee shot takes on a far
different shock and awe value.

God, not to be a prick again, but I just had
an awful selfish thought and that is the
course is probably gonna need a re-rate, for
course rating/slope purposes... My SCGA brethren
will need to get out there again once the
fixes are made.  It will be interesting to see
how those numbers change, if at all.

TH

[Mike Benham]

  We in the midwest are suffering through flooding too....the difference is we just bag it up and take it like a man.  

So the floods in the midwest aren't engineering disasters?
 
Seems to happen a little more often then in SoCal where they
have had more than 400% of their normal annual rainfall.  And
yes, you could engineer a solution to 400% above annual
rainfall but why?

Come visit NorCal where we are building a replacement Bay Bridge
that will cost billions but be able to withstand an 8.5 earthquake.

But visualize the scenario that will take place, the new
Willie and Jerry Brown Memorial Bay Bridge, standing alone
 after the 8.5 earthquake with no cars on it as all the support roads will have collapsed and moments away from Tsunami
that will flood the Bay Area.

[Brent Hutto]

So the floods in the midwest aren't engineering disasters?
 
Seems to happen a little more often then in SoCal where they
have had more than 400% of their normal annual rainfall.  And
yes, you could engineer a solution to 400% above annual
rainfall but why?

Just an engineering-geek nitpick. Designing for 4x annual rainfall in Ohio is a very different thing than designing for 4x annual rainfall in SoCal. The more salient statistic is not the average annual rainfall but the largest single event expected over some time interval like 25 or 50 years.

Ohio is probably getting a once-every-ten-years rainfall this winter whereas southern California experienced something like a once-every-fifty-years rainfall. I don't know the exact numbers but that would be the valid comparison. Most large scale engineering projects would be designed for the largest rainfall in something like 25-50 years and then a 1.5x or 2x safety factor above that.

[Mike_Golden]

JakaB,

You are just amazingly ignorant.  Why don't you tell the rescue workers at La Conchita that they're whining too much.

It must really give you a thrill to be able to sit back and write things as stupid as you do.  The only reason the midwest 'bags it up' is no one gives a rats ass about it.  About the only thing that's ever gotten any attention in Indiana is when Bobby Knight started throwing chairs on the basketball court or when Notre Dame won some football games 30 years ago.

Don't worry about any more comments from me on the crap you write-I'm done.  And it will be my pleasure to completely ignore you if we're ever at the same golf course sometime in the future-I have no tolerance for loud mouth morons who have nothing better to do in life than sit back and pick apart anything someone has done.  Bye.

[Mike Benham]

Just an engineering-geek nitpick. Designing for 4x annual rainfall in Ohio is a very different thing than designing for 4x annual rainfall in SoCal.

How or why is it so different?  

Water either must be absorbed into the ground or flow downhill
(evaporation is also an option but I even don't think JakaB could
engineer that option to be a viable one ...).

Don't forget the smilies ...

[Brent Hutto]

Semi-arid regions with very little rainfall on average tend to have a rainfall pattern that is less frequent rather than less intense. Let's say one spot in the desert averages ten inches per year and another spot in a temperate rainforest averages one hundred inches per year. It rains 200 days/year in the forest or about 0.5 inches per rainy day. The desert doesn't get 200 days/year of rainy days with 0.05 inches per rainy day. Rather it will get maybe five rainy days averaging two inches apiece.

With the distribution of heavy but infrequent rainfall that exists in the desert, once every few years there will be a rainy day that happens to be ten inches instead of two inches. That's 1x annual rainfall in a single day. The rainforest is never going to have 1x annual rainfall because it simply can't rain one hundred inches in a day.

So designing for 1x annual rainfall (ten inches) for a golf course or highway in the desert is prudent. Designing for 1x annual rainfall (one hundred inches) for a golf course or desert in a temperate rainforest would be wasteful and impractical, if such a design were even possible at all.

[Mike Benham]

So designing for 1x annual rainfall (ten inches) for a golf
course or highway in the desert is prudent. Designing for 1x
annual rainfall (one hundred inches) for a golf course or
desert in a temperate rainforest would be wasteful and
impractical, if such a design were even possible at all.

Thanks for the answer (which I had correctly assumed was to
 be your answer ... not bad for a finance guy) ...

But does that design theory only take into account the water
 the rains on the property?  Whereas the RC issue is that
there are miles of canyon and mountain side (watershed)
colllecting this 1x-4x rainfall and then channelling it through
 the golf course property, that's where the damage came
from.

Likewise, flooding along major rivers (the Mississippi for
example) rarely occurs because of the rain in that region but
because of the compound effect of excessive rainful up the
river.

I'm pretty sure that the LA River did not overflow during this
series of rainstorms but that doesn't mean much unless you
want all your rivers to look like the LA River ...

[Brent Hutto]

I don't know much about civil engineering but surely the designers of those sorts of projects look at an entire watershed. I was only addressing the "so many times annual" versus "once every so many years" part of the equation.

You're right about the LA River. I don't think you could build a very nice golf course along those banks. It would play firm and fast, though.

[Andy_Lipschultz]

The LA River has overflown a few times since it was chanelized following the flood of 1938 which caused 113 deaths and property destruction around $400 million in today's $'s.

I believe the '38 flood (Tommy N. jump in...) washed away a few of the holes at Lakeside GC. The current course sits alongside the LA River which seperates the course from Universal Studios.

[Andy_Lipschultz]

Here's the view from the No. 7 tee box (looking up the fairway).

[THuckaby2]

Andy:  whoa... that is something else.  Not to
be dense or anything, but the entire fairway
that was short of the wash - where one would
lay up - is now gone?

I wonder what the plan is there... will they try to
regrass that again?  Or just punt and make it
an incredibly penal/heroic/no choice tee shot?

TH