Is Routing Overrated?

[TEPaul]

Now that I mentioned rereading Tom Fazio's book, I should insert here what Matt Mollica said just above and Tom Fazio's feeling about it;

Matt Mollica said;

"I also appreciate that routing on a plot of land akin to a rice paddy, where lots of land is to be moved, is not as crucial. Neither is culinary prowess when microwaving popcorn.  If we’re talking about the upper echelon of golf courses, we’re talking five-star dining, not popcorn.  I don’t know how anyone could argue that routing and design are not intimately linked on such courses, or that routing is not an integrally important part of the puzzle."

Fazio mentioned that the old architects did not have the ability to move huge amounts of earth like he does today and consequently needed sites that offered them more natural assets of one kind or another. He also said that there were obviously more natural sites out there in those days, but today that really isn't completely necessary (not that he or any other modern architect wouldn't prefer working on a great natural site).

But Tom Fazio used Shadow Creek as an example of a flat basically "clear clay" or "blank canvas" type site where he could and did basically create a course from scratch (not having anything in the way of natural asset).

He does NOT appear to look at that kind of thing as necessarily a good thing or a bad thing just something that's possible today given technological advances in machinery and such. He also says it gives him the ability to create a routing and holes that might be just as the client might call for with an excellent routing offering near perfect variety and balance, holes turning right, left, up, down, whatever. In other words, the potential possibilities are limitless although he must create them all out of earth moving and shaping. At the other end of the spectrum he also says that the amazing potential of machinery also gives him as much ability to alter massive problem areas on sites with complex and probematic topography, again something that could never have been done in the "old days". His message clearly is on sites like the former or latter the old guys had to pass but he has the ability to do something about them and do it well!

And as an addendum, he did mention he shaped the periphery of the property of Shadow Creek totally to block out the unattractiveness of the flat land just contiguous to Shadow Creek, while at the same time using the mountains far beyond to frame and juxtapose the long views with his holes and routing.

Surely another way to go with golf architecture, creating a course from basically zero natural asset but time seems to say that there aren't many better at this than Tom Fazio.

Some may not like this kind of site and total architectural creation, and I'm one of them, but I really do admire Fazio's imagination and ability to do it!

[redanman]

Routing is like a magic trick.  For some architects who create terraformed routings, there is little to it.

Not to pick on him, ah hell, I will, the Fazio orginization, so concerned with creating holes and terraforming earth to meet the creative needs don't really do routings and are more concerned and proud of hiding cart paths than routings.  This leads to the really lousy routings of his best courses.  Pine Barrens at World Woods, Galloway each a very good course has a really shitty routing.  Probably his organization's best routing is Victoria because a routing really had to be done.  They just HAD to work with those little islands.  Nothing to shout about but a commercially good routing.

The bulldozing of land leads to less of a need for routig other than to finish 9 and 18 near the clubhouse.  Modern architecture mostly for this reason fails miserably more than half the time in true routing, use of the land.  Not that there aren't other obstacles to true routing greatness (Now speaking in generalities, BTW) such as wetlands and animal habitats, majority use of carts,  routing often isn't necessary.  

Tom Doak, I would think that not every project is 50/50 as you say.  It is for your organization, but convince me that more than half of the projects done yearly over the last 10 years on non-core projects especially really cared about finding the best natural holes.  Also, Tom, Pebble Beach could have easily been two loops of nine by placing the clubhouse elsewhere, no?  

TimW, you are on the idea with PB.  Thought for all:
The holes may not be exactly the holes we have today, but maybe more great holes would have existed in another routing. This is an exercise to be done.  11, 12, 15, 6,1,2, even 3-couldn't holes as good or better as these been produced elsewhere with the clubhouse situated near the spot adjacent to 6, 8 and 13, 14?  It is such a good piece of land with mild elevation changes and lots of nooks and crannies, I doubt the current routing is necessarily the best and it is a sacred cow.  I for one thinks the Nicklaus #5 adds little other than ocean aesthetics, the old hole wa a beaut.

Today courses not being golf only and terraformed, routing is hardly a consideration for most courses.  It cannot be "rated" less "overrated".  Only a small proportion of courses really have a routing since the initiation of co-development of golf courses with housing.

In a golf only core on a good piece of land it, too can be forced trying to find too many scenic spots, incorporate too many "specimen trees"-(ARCHITECTS..... Why not put the specimens out to the side or between holes rather than build holes around them?) place the ponds, clubhouse, frame the views, pave the paths-all distractions.  

How often do we really have a routing rather than a stringing or a connecting?

How often do we have a routing to appreciate or evaluate?  With few exceptions, this is a totally transformed part of architecture vs. pre 1950.  Uncommon is the routing that does little more than loops or sets of loops.  Routing has achieved political correctness as Mr. Cirba has suggested re: paired 3's.  Fazio is proud of back to back 5's however and has done it frequently.  BElfair West comes quickly to mind.

Older, well-routed courses are rarely challenged by today's routings.  I vote for "over-rated" regarding today's transformed constructions as they often don't really exist.

[redanman]

Good question Dave, I think they are still there but we have the EPA and development projects to deal with!

[TEPaul]

Dave Schmidt:

Certainly that's a good point of yours that transportation ease today probably makes more of the good sites available today then back then. So, it's not that they weren't out there back then and out there today, just that they're more accessible today than back then (as you said). Fazio's point about that was probably that there were more good sites back then that were more easily accessible (back then or now).

But Fazio's point about the possibilities today vs back then due to machinery is a good point.

redanman:

One certainly cannot say that just because modern architects can and do create golf courses out of "blank canvas" sites (little in the way of natural asset) or areas that meld and are combined with other uses that they aren't doing "routings" with their architecture and designs!

Every single golf course ever built, no matter what it is or how spread out it is has to have a routing and the architect has to create that routing! That might make it a bad routing, in your opinion, and in mine, but nevertheless it's every bit as much a course routing as the most naturally discovered routing ever known.

Routing is fundamentally just a connection of holes that creates the "golf walk" (for walking golf courses) or the "golf journey" (for the cart use course).

The prevalence of the cart in golf today vs yesteryear has made that happen, as well as many other land use considerations.

But regardless of all that (ability to walk or ride) any golf course has to have a routing and the architect has to create it.

[redanman]

redanman:


Every single golf course ever built, no matter what it is or how spread out it is has to have a routing and the architect has to create that routing!

I wholeheartedly agree, Tom, but it's not art. Routing for the golf's sake is art.

It's a little like looking at some Modern Art in some chic New York Galleries.  It's not really art.    It's expensive, it's in a gallery, it has paint and a canvas,  but it's not art.

[guest]

Tom Paul;

I'd still like to see Tom Fazio create back to back 3's or 5's if that's what the land forms suggest (and after designing a few scadzillion courses on some superb sites, one would think it might have been "suggested" by now), so even if he didn't say that in his book, I'm not sure he doesn't believe it's probably too "unorthodox" for the modern golfer.  

Fazio just finished Red Sky Ranch near Vail, Holes 8,9 and 10 are par 3's.  www.redskyranch.com

[A_Clay_Man]

This discussion begs for the question, Why? Why, with all the improvements in knowledge and technology hasn't their been comensurate advances in quality strategic designs? Sure Sand Hills has shown thru rankings that if you do build quality, it will be treasured immediatly by us purists, but that's only because the commercially driven crap, that is the reality of fiduciary responsibility, has no soul.

[Forrest Richardson]

No, routing is not overrated. There have been excellent points made here. Tom's "50/50" theory is very appropriate: routing is most certainly half of the battle.

Yet I suggest we all consider the thousands of golf courses -- both great ones and those less fortunate to have such a good upbringing, or home environment.

Take any golf course and imagine it improved -- without moving it somewhere else! When you close your eyes to do this it will be rare that you imagine a routing change. This is because routing is rather permanent. It is, as Tom D. titles his early book, "the anatomy".

Anatomy is the bones, the structure. All else is mostly flesh and make-up. It is equally important, but as anyone who has ever stared at a beautiful woman knows, without the structure of the bones, she would not be so alluring. (Desmond Muirhead is credited with this analogy. Thanks.)

[guest]

Fazio just finished Red Sky Ranch near Vail, Holes 8,9 and 10 are par 3's.  www.redskyranch.com

correction 7,9 and 10 are par3's sorry, still back to back 3's

[ForkaB]

Dave's focus on transportation technologies makes me think of one closer (although not dearer) to our hearts--the golf cart.

It seems to me that somewhere along the way, probably no more than 30-40 years ago, architects and developers realized that this technology allowed them to be freed from the constraints of the land when routing a golf course.  No longer did you have to have a course that flowed from tee to green to tee to green to tee......ab et ad clubhouse.  Now you could build holes wherever you wanted too, linking them by asphalt or concrete rather than by a sense of wholeness.  If the routing happens to run into a "box canyon" of highly marketable building lots--no problem!  Stick in the lots, put a cart part through them and start again on the other side of the road.  If you've done a routing and Voila! a great golf hole appears to you 300 yards off the line of routing charm--no problem!  Just route a cart path up to the new tee and one back from the new green.  If you've got a troublesome piece of land that goes with the flow but would require creative earth moving to make an interesting hole (or the balls to allow an average hole into the routing)--no problem!  Just fire up the Komatsu and watch the soil fly!

I think that architects are at least as much prisoners of technology as they are defenders of naturalness-at least when it comes to the wholeness of a golf course routing.

[Mike_Cirba]

guest;

Thanks for enlightening me.  I'm glad and encouraged to hear that Tom Fazio is willing to break unspoken routing "rules".

All;

Admittedly, this thread's premise was meant to be a bit provocative.  I hoped that taking a somewhat adversarial position might get others here to more fully flesh out their viewpoints and understandings about routing...a topic we rarely discuss well, or fully.

Glad to see it's working!    

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all of you and yours!    

[Tim Weiman]

Mike Cirba:

I see Tom Doak makes the statement that routing is 50% of the job. Truthfully, I don't know enough about golf course design to agree or disagree with this statement.

However, I do feel one is more likely to agree with Tom the more one spends time looking at raw land as opposed to finished products.

Also, a commitment to "minimalism", i.e., moving as little dirt as possible, probably makes the effort required to get a good routing greater. Conversely, the willingness to throw money and technology at the problem probably reduces the need to study and exploit each natural feature.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mike, The back to back par 3's at Pelican Hill-South (Formerly Ocean Course)

[redanman]

1 What percentage of courses built in the last ten years were built without any housing?

2 What range of percentage of land is "Off limits" for the course in projects associated with real estate maintaining "choice" and "prime" lots?  

3 How often does "routing" in returning loops maximize the developers "choice" and "prime" lots in a project with real estate leaving "bare bones" for a routing?

4 How often does the course get routed first and the lots laid out completely secondary avoiding compromise of attaining the best "natural routing" of the "best holes"?

5 How many parcels for a golf course are really even decent as a total percentage?  We probably concern ourselves here with no more than 35% of all courses.  I mean ALL courses, not just the C&C, Doak, Fazio, Jones but the Blaukovitz (Sorry Jim, Picked only as a very distinctive name, locally known name, basically never mentioned here), Smith and Doe courses.

I am most interested in the answers to #1 and 4.  I am pretty skeptical. Routing solely being where the holes go.

[Tom Doak]

redanman:  I'll tackle questions 1 and 4 since you deemed them most important.  

I think the answer to #1 is about 30-40% of the courses designed in the last five years had no housing component.  I might be a bit high there, but the percentage has been higher in the past few years because developers have believed that high-end stand-alone daily fee courses could be successful.  I know my own work is not exactly representative of the trend as a whole, but out of 15 courses we've done, only Quail Crossing and Riverfront (and Stonewall II, if you count four cottage sites) have housing components.

As to question 4, if there is a housing component, it will always be considered when doing the routing.  You read quotes all the time from Nicklaus and others relating that the developer let them "do the golf course routing first and then did the development around it," but that has to be a lie.  If you weren't paying any attention to the housing, you'd make most of the land useless by cutting off potential road connections and by making parcels too small.

Yes, those compromises mean that the architect is not building the best possible course on the land -- unless you consider that in most of those cases the course would not be possible without the development!  And compromise doesn't necessarily mean failure; as someone mentioned elsewhere, MacKenzie had to compromise with Sam Morse on Cypress Point, but it still worked out O.K.

[Tom Doak]

I still think the routing is 50% of the game in design.  Certainly, there are courses where the earthmoving has more to do with the finished product than the routing.  But as Tom P says there still has to be a routing, and if you only get 20 points out of 50 in doing it, I would defy anyone to get more than 70 out of 100 on the finished product.

[Forrest Richardson]

redanman --

1. Probably less than 1 in 100
2. On sites with natiral interest, 90% of land in residentially-driven courses is set in stone by policy 
3. This is more a factor of overall land parcel shape; a large square tract of land will suggest solutions differently than a long and narrow tract
4. Probably less than 1 in 50; this is an economic question associated with what will drive profits; it is also a question of highest and best land use; low areas in flood plains will obviously be earmarked for golf before raising them for development, etc.
5. Probably less than 1 in 5

[TEPaul]

Forrest:

The prioritizing of ideal portions of land and land use to residential interests rather than routing and golf design interests is obviously a reality not soon to change.

Most people probably will continue to prefer to entertain in their homes and sleep in their beds with same located in the ideal land areas.

Unfortunately, there may never be enough people such as you and I and Pete Dye and Tommy Nacarrato who prefer to not only play golf but also to entertain and sleep in a bunker.

I hope that will change but it may not happen in the immediate future, unfortunately.

[Forrest Richardson]

Dave Schmidt -- As I've noted before, in other discussions, it is difficult for anyone to get 18 holes in their mind at one time. Routing is, no wonder then, difficult to discern and appreciate. We think of golf holes one at a time. And we think of courses as a whole, not by their routing, but by their style, their landscape and their setting. All of these qualities are considered individually -- we CAN get the arms of our mind around them. But 18 different things? No way. The human mind is not equipped to think of all the cast members of a play all at one thought. Rather we think of the play itself, the cast as a whole, or an individual scene or part.

Tommy N. -- Do not start again on Talking Stick North. It is a good routing, not as great routing. The course is made great by its design and approach to shaping on a flat site much more than by its routing. The  wire fence you keep referring to will someday be a wall separating a Days Inn from the fairway! The adjacent land to the left of this fairway is "to be developed", it is not sacred ground or any sort of a preserve.

Tommy N. -- Let us not forget that a clubhouse is among the single components of a golf course where the golfer (and non-golfer) will spend the largest percentage of their time. It is here where we anticipate a round, share the joys of a round, eat meals, and talk all about the "what-if's". I can forgive a decision to place a clubhouse on the best piece of land because more people will appreciate it than any other element of a golf course. Does this mean that using a special site for a clubhouse instead of a thrilling par-3 is appropriate? Not necessarily. Of course not. All things should be situated to feel like they are in the best, most natural locations.

To all -- Brad K. is right. Routing is destiny. It is the culmination of decisions that define where a golfer will go. Think of it this way: You go into a travel agent and decide where to go (this is site selection). Then you get into the matter of how you will get there (this is routing). Finally, you get into the details of which hotels to stay at, what to do and which flights to take (this is the design of individual holes, the details of style, etc.)

[Forrest Richardson]

TE Paul -- Proportions are easy to fix, but not easy to swallow. Make courses shorter, or with fewer holes, and viola! You now have changed the proportions!

[Tim Weiman]

Forrest:

You referred to a golf course as having a "good" but not "great" routing.

How did you make such a judgment? What makes it good? Why does it fail to be great?

Was your comment exactly what Dave Schmidt has raised doubts about, i.e., a general comment unsupported by facts?

P.S.  I haven't seen the course you mentioned, so I don't know whether it is good, bad or ugly.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Forrest,
I think the site of the clubhouse at Sandhills is perfect for the routing.

In the real world, yes, on any course that utilizes a boundry fence ala Talking Stick, is the perfect site for a Jiffy Lube, Days Inn, or MacDonald's. But that is the unfortunate thing for golf, that anyone would want to put any of those types of establishments next to a golf course. (I think Desmond would have more then concured on that one!:))

It is not a perfect world, and I shudder to see such placements of businesses ad golf so close that the golf course becomes cloaked in commercialism. If we are supposed to be, as per your wonderful book, enjoying this "journey" or "walk" where the routing is supreme, why then should it be disfigured by commerical growth? And while I may be junting a little off-target here, I can't help to think of the course that sits 500 yards away from where I type this.

La Habra-Westridge is a perfect example of HOW NOT TO route a golf course. In fact it should be required study for the student of golf architecture. It is now saturated with views of the rooftops the new shopping center, and it paints the most lovely pictures for its journey. There is nothing like seeing a series of 2 ton AC units on top of the local Walmart, Lowes and Sams Club.

[Forrest Richardson]

Tim -- I'm only giving Tommy N. a hard time about TSN. As I've said, I really like the course and feel its made so by design of holes and the approach to shaping (minimalness). My opinion is that the routing is not "great". It is a core layout which has a pleasant orientation and progression of holes -- not much more than that in terms of routing. It certainly does nothing to anticipate future growth; to conceal the golfer into his own world during the round. Is this a fault? Not today...it's a good site because the Indian Tribe has not yet developed much land, if any, within a 1/2 mile. I may have missed something in Dave Schmidt's comment. I was responding to Dave's uncomfortableness with routing -- its difficulty to grasp and appreciate as an attribute. That's all.

[redanman]

Away most of the last week, thanks Tom and Forrest for the answers.  

Sometimes the discussion gets a little esoteric and stuck in the fnatasy of ideal here discussing very small numbers of near perfects, which is what I suppose it should be all about.

A key point may be that routing does not exist in a vacuum but is a part of a whole whose parts when added  yield more than 100%.  

[paul cowley]

the routing is the skeleton the designer hangs the course on,created from what the site ,[or site constraits],give him.he then 'fleshes' out the features.ones ability to handle both tasks ultimately determines whether the course is a frankenstien or a bo derek.