Double greens - Extinct or do they have a future

[Patrick_Mucci]

Many view St Andrews as THE ultimate golf course.

One could argue that it's distinct ability to be played forward and backward, without adjustment, would lend to it's unique and lofty architectural status.

Nowhere in golf does the use of double greens serve a better purpose.

It would also seem that double greens would be an ideal feature on limited or uniquely configured property.  And, that ongoing maintainance costs might be reduced by their use.

In light of the high cost of land and difficulty in locating large parcels of land in populous areas, wouldn't double greens seem to provide an architectural opportunity and an excellent solution to the above problems.

Why don't we see more of these unique features ?

[Tom Doak]

Double greens are a great feature on a golf course with very limited play.  Except for private courses, not many people want to build those anymore.

On a busy course, double greens are a safety problem unless they are very very big to keep the flags spaced well apart -- and in so doing they wind up being even bigger than two separate greens.

Pretty much every double green built in the last thirty years was a promotional gimmick so the brochure could say the course has "a double green just like St. Andrews."  For this reason, I hate them as a feature.

[wsmorrison]

Patrick,

I would think in our land of excess litigation that American trial lawyers would love to see a proliferation of double greens and reversible golf courses here in the US.  I for one would like to see fewer trial lawyers (the Democrats have sold their souls to trial lawyers among other narrow-based interest groups) and see lower damage awards with less going to the lawyers.  This certainly wouldn't be appropriate for Mississippi, the trial lawyers land of milk and honey.

I know that TOC gets an awful lot of play and while they do limit the handicap of the players and play on very large greens, still there is often a bottleneck due to the crossover of holes 7 and 11 and the proximity of 12.  Wayward shots here by any of the groups on these three holes can cause problems with traffic flow and even safety.  

There is a Flynn course, Pocantico Hills, built on the Rockefeller estate in Tarrytown, NY in 1935 that utilizes 2 double greens (holes 6&12 as well as 2&16) and only 11 greens in all with some of the holes played back and forth on the same fairway.  It is a marvelous routing and design on the grounds of a majestic estate overlooking the Hudson River Valley with a beautiful manor home, playhouse, and a collection of Nelson Rockefeller sculptures.  Interestingly, there is no distinction between fairway and rough and never has been according to aerials and recollections of the family.  The course is nearly 5700 yards but plays longer due to the grounds that are kept about the length of a typical first cut of rough.  Of course, this is the ultimate definition of a "home course" as it gets about as little play as any course in the world....only family and friends with no more than 1 or 2 foursomes a day on average.

A small housing community could utilize 60-80 or so acres for an 18 hole course with 9-11 greens and up to 18 tee boxes.  Yet the amount of play would have to be limited.  Still, I think that high end communities should consider the implementation of such a design.  Perhaps when the economy rebounds, this might be an attractive development proposition.

[Bill Overdorf]

Pat, I feel safe in offering a response to your post re double greens. Liability is a key element in considering their use as the typical player is directionally challenged. Therefore, this feature should be employed with extreme caution given the fact that one could be aligning a putt or actually making the stroke when he finds himself amid incoming artillery. In another, though related, sense, playing revenue will suffer big time if the course establishes a reputation for dangerous playing conditions.

I have used this feature sparingly but with an effort to create a unique flavor for a course, provided conditions are properly aligned. We have a double green at The Classic in the Tacoma area with a short par 4 and a moderate length par 5 sharing the green site but it should be noted that this is done wherein both approach shots are short enough to provide directional safety and separation is created by an array of bunkers in the throat between the greens. One other exists on paper for our Chuckanut Ridge track that serves two short par 4's with lines of play of about 90 degrees opposition to each other. A little hard to explain, but if you can visualize the approach of one hole (No.10) in an easterly direction and the other (No.16) in a northerly orientation with No.16 southeast of No.10 you may be able to understand the relationship. It can be made to work but I view its use strictly as a space saver as developing a major problem. Damn near impossible to define the concept here though.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak, Wayne & Bill,

Many courses have you sign a release when you rent a cart.
Why not have a similar disclosure and release signed as a pre-requisite and condition of playing the golf course ?

While I'm several thousand miles removed, I haven't read, seen or heard much about the liability issue at St Andrews.

There must be an abundance of golf courses, especially older ones, that have greens and tees near each other, which survive the viscisitudes of our legal climate.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery why aren't the greens at St Andrews copied more ?

[Bob_Huntley]

Patrick:

The liability problem at St. Andrews is neglible owing to the differing laws in Britain and the U.S.  Unless it has changed in recent years, there was no thought of pursuing a suit contingent upon success. In fact there was a law against such practice, it's called barratry, you can look it up.

[A_Clay_Man]

There's one double green which is niether old or promoted and that's the last green on both courses at Blackwolf Run. Tom Doak is correct that it is absolutly huge. The genius of the green is that there is little chance of nailing someone from the wrong hole. Whether it's the treeline or the angles of the shots in or both but that green is truely unique,

Other doubles which NLE are at Cimmaron in Palm Springs but those have been grown in probably due to the litigious nature of their California cleintel and the fact that nailing someone is clearly in the cards. Lacking the genius of BWR's natural features.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Don' Oakmont and Garden City Golf Club have greens that serve dual purposes, and almost always have golfers using them while golfers hit their approach shots into them ?

They seem to have worked well for many years without incident or need to close them down.

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick;

Actually, quite a number of double greens have been built on modern courses over the past two decades, possibly starting with Nicklaus's 9th/18th green configuration at Grand Cypress's original course (FL) in the early 80's.

As much as their original inspiration may go back to TOC, Tom Doak is correct in that they largely seem like attention-grabbing gimmicks these days; even those that work pretty well like Raymond Hearn's at Sea Oaks in southern NJ, or Hurdzan/Fry's effort at nearby Sand Barrens.  

It probably just shows that sometimes an original idea should sometimes not be transplanted elsewhere.  Everything else seems to pale by comparison.  

[David_Tepper]

Is anyone aware of any other courses in Scotland (or any where else in the British Isles, for that matter) that have one or more double greens? I am not aware of any others. If no other courses in the British Isles ever saw fit to emulate this feature of TOC, perhaps we should treat this aspect of TOC as another reason it is a truly unique golf course, one whose features are to be admired but not replicated.
  

[TEPaul]

DavidT:

I'm sure the primary reason TOC's double greens are not replicated on other courses more often is the dimensions of TOC's site. It probably isn't any more than a 150 yards wide and that's pretty unusual. But clearly on a real narrow out and back routing like that one double greens work extremely well.

Double greens on a 150 acres squarish site, for instance, would probably not be easy to route ideally and so what would the point really be to do it?

[Doug Siebert]

Seems to me double greens could be made to work anywhere provided they are at a diagonal such that the other hole is long right in both cases.  It is pretty uncommon to miss a shot 40 yards long and right, for any handicap.

Wouldn't it make maintenance a lot more expensive to have one double green that's probably the size of 4-6 normal greens, or is it lost in the noise with all the expenses at a typical course?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Cirba,

I never considered Grand Cypress's 9th and 18th, functionally, one green, anymore than I do the 9th and 18th at Boca Rio, even though it is one continuous putting surface.

As I said originally, it would seem that narrow strips of land would be ideal settings for these features, not to mention courses restrained by limited acreage.

I would also think that if they were well done it would be a unique positive for the golf course and their marketing efforts.

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick;

I understand the distinction you are making, but my point is that it was "billed" as a double green for marketing purposes upon opening, and the whole place was sort of sold to the public as a "faux links" with all of the rough covered mounding, etc..  Perhaps a better example would have been the "New Course" tribute to TOC that Nicklaus built at Grand Cypress a few years later, which includes many double greens that are both stylized and functional as such.

In any case, I think that the whole concept of "Scottish Links design", with or without double greens, has been marketed to death over the past two decades, with very few of those courses actually approaching anything like their inspirations in terms of actual style, function, and context.

[Doug Wright]

Mike,

I agree it was a Nicklaus marketing gimmick in the 1980s. Meridian GC south of Denver (Nicklaus 1985) had just such a "double green" with a large ridge bisecting the higher par 3 15th and the lower par 4 12th. It was great for the "Signature" marketing aerial that the club used for years and maybe still does. For many years they've mowed so that there's a 5-10 foot swath of fringe along the ridge so the two greens technically are separated, and they never were anything like St. Andrews in terms of balls ending up on the "wrong green" anyway.

Given the liability issues mentioned, I'd say "what's the point" other than marketing cache.

All The Best,

[Insurance Salesman]

I like the phrase "marketing cache". Double greens are loaded with premium potential.

My questions are, how small can we build these double greens and is there anyway to work in a couple of triple greens?  

[redanman]

Dougie:

You beat me to the punch re: Meridian.  Nicklaus does seem to have built the most of these.  

If memory serves me correctly, Norman's Great White at Doral has a triple green which is massive (Maybe only a double) on the second nine.  

Agreed, that they all in America today are marketing or experience driven rather than truly an architectural feature.  I would have to think that some unusual oddity of a property would necessitate that a double green be created.  I don't see that happening too often.   All I have seen save TOC are all forced in one way or another for their own existence sake.

Is there anyway to work in a couple of triple greens?  

[Dan Kelly]

What's the point?

Wouldn't the point be to increase the number of "holes" (and, thereby, multiply the number of "courses") that could be played on any given property?

Put aside the liability issues, and imagine a small, private club with limited play and air-tight waivers. Wouldn't it be the height of fun to play (and an extraordinary challenge for an architect to design) holes with double greens where, one day, you'd be playing to all RIGHT pins; the next to all LEFT pins; the next to RIGHT, RIGHT, LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, RIGHT, LEFT, LEFT (etc.); the next to LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, RIGHT, LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, RIGHT (etc.); the next to some other configuration?

I agree that, from what I've seen of them, double greens are  just plain gimmicky (except at the Old Course, of course!) if you always play to the same side of every double green going out and every double green coming back.

But if you could vary the rotation ...

(PS: Started this an hour ago. Just finished it -- and see that Mr. Schmidt beat me to the punch! I think. Well, as they say, great minds ...  )

[Craig_Dex]

Great topic!

Speaking of "triple" greens, there is a private estate in Sea Island, Georgia called Cabin Bluff that has something like that.  The course was designed by Davis Love III on 27 acres.  He built three HUGE greens (with three holes cut in each), with three tee boxes near each green.  The routing of the course is such that one can actually play 27 different holes.

Of course, it is a private estate, so hitting into someone else is never an issue.

[Doug Wright]

Craig,

Welcome to GCA. Good call re Cabin Bluff. We had a discussion about Cabin Bluff a couple of months ago, and it sounds pretty interesting--6 fairways, 18 holes. You can find it here:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/YaBB.cgi?board=GD1&action=display&num=1035558506

Cabin Bluff website:

http://www.cabinbluff.com/content/contentct.asp?p=27

One of the few places (ie a private reserve) where this concept seems to make sense, though I have to say I like Dave/Shivas's idea above.

All The Best,

[mike cocking]

Interestingly one course which hasn't rated a mention in this thread is Kingston Heath.  The 16th / 8th green is one of the better double greens I've seen - including those at St.Andrews - and unlike the former has been designed to recieve play from basically the same direction.  

(Not that this is a benefit, or, disadvantage, merely a quirk and a particularly difficult quirk to make work properly - I wonder whether many of the other double greens mentioned on this thread feed play from the same direction).

Also of interest, we (Michael Clayton Golf Design, the company I work for), are seriously considering a double green for a piece of land we have been asked to look at in China.  The land seems quite spectacular, set between mountains full of rice paddies (correct spelling??) next to the ocean and alongside some natural streams.  However it is long and very skinny, with one section or throat only around 50 to 60 metres wide.  A double green looks like it could work quite well, functionally speaking, and not for marketing purposes or anything like that.

Mike

[Slag_Bandoon]

is there anyway to work in a couple of triple greens?  

  The Reserve in Hillsboro, Oregon has a triple green on its North or Cupp Course.  

Here is a view from 8th approach.  

  www.reservegolf.com/reservegolf/section.cfm?wsectionID=1439

To see the course overhead view CLICK below yardage Box on right.

(There are two courses there - Cupp is on the right.)  In this picture it shows it as the 10/8/17 greens but it's actually 1/8/17.

   It seems to work here as the mounding gives at least a sense of security and isolation.  What!?  Artificial mounding beneficial?  I'll go wash my mouth out with soap.  

  They did use this in their marketing earlier on but now they just advertise winter rates.    

[Craig Disher]

Adam Messix pointed out to me today that Lighthouse Sound near Ocean City, MD, has a double green - holes #2 and #3! #2 is a par 5. When you finish it, you just drive down the road a bit and hit back to the rear of the green you just played. I had to see for myself - here it is from LS's website. It must be fun to play if you're walking.

[Mike_Cirba]

Craig;

Oh yeah...that's a beaut!  

I was going to mention Lighthouse Sound on one of the routing threads, but "backtracking" as is evident on this example is always awkward, particularly just to accommodate a double green and get out of a tight corner.

The routing of Lighthouse Sound is seen below;

[Forrest Richardson]

Jack Snyder designed a quadruple green in Phoenix. The course no longer uses the green as designed, but it was quite a work of art when built. Jack describes it in a chapter he authored in my routing book:

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"Sometimes the routing of a course can create unusual situations. At Cave Creek in Phoenix, there were three greens that came fairly close together. Not too close, but they were all lined up. The thought struck me about 2:00 a.m., when I was working one of my usual all-nighters, that we could join these three greens together. St. Andrews has its double greens, and there are other double greens throughout the world, but here was a real opportunity to join three greens and create something unusual. They all came together, two from the north and one from the south. Then I took it one step further. I designed two separate approaches to one green — two fairways — and I added a fourth green to the series so we would have an alternate green to use in conjunction with whichever of these fairway was in use. We could have a left-hand dogleg and a right-hand dogleg. The first reaction of my client was, "Of all the cock-eyed ideas in creation, this is the worst! Don’t you dare put that in there." I responded that if they didn't want something unique but very playable, that was their choice. The next morning, I got a telephone call: "Hey, that’s not a bad idea." We did it — a huge green of about 27,000 square feet. Sometimes you have to push. If I had assumed that they would never buy it, it would have stayed in my head forever."

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