Great/Good Sites - Poor/Disappointing Courses

[Adam_F_Collins]

Thinking about the Inverness, Nova Scotia thread and how Nicklaus, then Graham Cooke and now Rod Whitman (and Jeff Mingay) have been in line for designing a course there.

It got me thinking about how a great site is only part of the equation - how what one does with the site they are given.

What are some examples of great sites (or good ones) which have been poorly utilized by the designer(s)?

[Sean Leary]

The poster child this for is Sandpines...Just an utter waste.

[Michael Hayes]

The poster child this for is Sandpines...Just an utter waste.

I could not have said it better!!!

[Tom_Doak]

Let's not start another Sandpines thread, shall we?

In truth, I doubt Sandpines was really a great site ... it was a giant hunk of sand which is a good start, but there weren't necessarily a lot of great natural contours there to go with it.  

I say that without any grounding, because I haven't seen any pictures nor map of the site to start with.  But it's my belief that it would be really hard for a great site to produce a POOR course.  You'd really have to work at it to take a great site and produce a course which wasn't at least a 6 or 7 on my 1-10 scale.

The shame is that a lot of those 6's and 7's might have been 9's and 10's had the designer seen the light.

[peter_mcknight]

Saucon Valley CC, The Weyhill Course.  With that type of rolling property and over 200 acres with which to work, kind of amazing how poor the final result was.  How the Gordons did much better with Stanwich, then totally lost the plot when it came to the Weyhill Course, I have no idea.  I really like the 5th, 8th, 9th, 13th and 15th, but the rest is pretty forgettable.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Sean Leary & Michael Hayes,

What made SandPines a GREAT site ?

[Tyler Kearns]

Adam,

I think Tom hit the nail on the head, with a great site, it is probably harder to produce an awful golf course than create something special. The real gift lies in designing a course that evokes the essence of the site, and lies in harmony with the natural landscape. Sand Hills is truly a great site, and it would be difficult to build a bad golf course there, however, in terms of architecture, it would be quite easy to design a mediocre golf course that most people would love because of the setting. Coore & Crenshaw, being the talented and visionary architects they are took a site that would be a 5 on the Doak scale without a golf course, and turned it into near perfection.

TK

[Sean Leary]

Pat,

Maybe it wasn't exactly a great site as Tom says, but I think that it was at least a good site.  Sandpines has been overly discussed on here, but I think Rees didn't get nearly enough out of what was there as he should have. As Michael can attest, we don't have many great courses in the NW, and the core of what was there with the sand dunes should have produced a better result, so it is disappointing.

[PThomas]

in his Confidential Guide Tom memorably described these courses as "Dumb Blondes" ....Arrowhead in Colorado was on the list, and deservedly so:  an okay course, but it certainly didn't come close to its setting

for those who've played it, would Princeville In Hawaii make this list?  some people have said it is just unbelievably difficult...

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

The absolute prize belongs to Carry Bickler for the disaster that he produced at Encinitas Ranch.  It might not be a links course, but the terrain and vistas are superb.  Instead the place is a shooting gallery for both birdies and golfers not paying attention to the incoming off-line shot.  At least he did a good job with the cart paths!

[Mark_F]

The poster child for this here in Oz is Peter Thom(p)son's open Course at Moonah Links.

Runner-up, is, I think, Peter Thom(p)son's Ocean Course at The National.

I would be interested if Tom Doak, or Mike Clayton would consider either of them anything other than a poor course.  Moonah Links certainly is, but, not having played The Ocean, I am not qualified to comment.

But I know a few people who are...

3rd place is the Fingal Course at St Andrews beach - because it ain't been built yet.

[Eamon Lynch]

Old Head should crash this party.

[Ben Cowan-Dewar]

Old Head and Pelican Hill come to mind.

Mark F,
I do not agree that Moonah Links Open was a truly great site. In fact, the Legends had a better site and surprise, yielded a better course.

[Matthew Mollica]

Mark F,
I do not agree that Moonah Links Open was a truly great site. In fact, the Legends had a better site and surprise, yielded a better course.

Ben,

I too believe legends is better than Open.
I'm curious to see why you think it was not a good site.
I'm not sure there's too much more you could ask for there.

Matthew

[paul cowley]

I would have to say Ballybunion New, which I would rehab for little more than expenses .....I've already done the heavy lifting in my head and by freeing these ideas it would make for more room in an already overcrowded space.

....just a win /win for the club and me!

[Chris Kane]

Mark Ferguson, I'm not sure that Moonah Links (Open) is a poor course - but its not a great one, which is very disappointing given the land they had to work with.

Its probably a Doak 5-6 IMO, which is a real shame when the site could have yielded a 7-10 course.  The courses nearby at St Andrews Beach and National Moonah show what can be achieved on similar land.

[BCrosby]

Ocean Forest.

The ratio of:

golf course quality to site quality plus money invested

is very low.

Bob

[Philippe Binette]

Remembering when we walked St Andrews Beach before it was built... we were talking about how there was basically nothing to do with that routing.

But I could imagine somebody showing up, not finding a real good routing, imposing his style on the site and it would have been a mess...

or worse, somebody showing up with Tom Doak routing :
- not liking the fact that there's no par 5 after the 3rd hole and inventing a couple of par 5 on the back.
- open up some semi blind greens
- building some cookie-cutter bunkers
- flatten out some undulations on or around greens
- building mounds lining up fairways to separate the holes
defend all that and build a really bad course.

[John Pflum]

But it's my belief that it would be really hard for a great site to produce a POOR course.  You'd really have to work at it to take a great site and produce a course which wasn't at least a 6 or 7 on my 1-10 scale.

Tom,

I remember reading a quote from you (maybe in a Golf Digest a while back) where you said (paraphrased), "If I couldn't produce a great golf with the Pacific Dunes piece of property, I need to get into another line of work."  

[Don_Mahaffey]

What's a great site? Is anything overlooking the Ocean a great site, or does it have to have great views AND have a soil profile of sand 20 ft+ deep.

I believe there were some very, very good sites in the Coachella Valley that were completely wasted. There are a number of courses there that were built on sites with very nice natural dunes where the designers just knocked everything down and started with a blank canvas.  Good for real estate I guess but a waste of good golfing land, IMO.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Sean Leary,

What holes at Sandpines don't you like .... . and why ?

What holes do you like ...... and why ?

[A.G._Crockett]

Ocean Forest.

The ratio of:

golf course quality to site quality plus money invested

is very low.

Bob

Bob,
I haven't played Ocean Forest, but in the same vein, how do you feel about Crabapple/Capital City.  A LOT of good land, with few if any memorable holes, as compared to Settindown Creek, for instance.

[Mike_Cirba]

I always thought that Huntsville in PA was a great site.  It's sprawling, rolling, and occupies several hundred acres, with limited EPA areas for that area of Pennsylvania.  It's at least as good a site as Stonewall, but the course is ultimately a disappointment.

After a fairly good front nine, things start degrading by hole number 13 and I find it difficult to imagine that someone else couldn't have come up with a routing that maximized the attributes of the property in a better fashion or a more interesting, consistent golf course.

[Geoffrey Childs]

I would like to hear from those who replied just what is their definition of a poor golf course.

This has the potential to become a 20 page monster.  Perhaps talking about not getting the most out of a site would be more appropriate.

Bob- I hardly found Ocean Forrest to be a poor golf course.  I would agree that the site with its dunes and ocean front location might have produced a truly great golf course but the couse as it is can't be considered poor in my opinion.

[Mike_Cirba]

Geoffrey,

You're right...perhaps the thread title should be Great Sites - Disappointing courses?

It's tough to imagine a really "poor" course on a great site, but I'm sure there might be some.