[John Kavanaugh]

It is my impression that Pacific Dunes will get cleaner every year due to increased play and erosion.  Has this also happened to Sand Hills?  Pine Valley is going down that road, not to mention tree growth.

Oakmont must have gotten progressively worse year after year until the recent renovation.  Is it a lock that unless you throw money at the problem a course you join or play will get worse every year until you die.

[Jeff_Brauer]

They do change, but "worse" is a subjective opinion, no?

If erosion, tree growth, etc. changes a course from the designer's imposed look, isn't it even more natural than before, if it takes the shape nature dictates?

[John Kavanaugh]

That might work if you didn't have supers mucking it up.  I think supers have a bad habit of simpling things up to make their job easier.  Am I wrong that the look of Pacific Dunes is becoming less natural everyday.

[John Kavanaugh]

note:  I am a golfer and how a course looks matters.  I like pretty things...sorry.

[Dave Swift]

Do you honestly think that supers muck things up because they try to simplify things?  Personally, I really doubt it.

The real question is, how many architects and owners are on the same page when it comes to how things should be managed?  Architects usually have their vision in mind, owners usually have the bottom line in their mind.  

You give the supers the money to maintain it, they'll give you whatever it was intended to be.

[Grant Davey]

"a course you join or play will get worse every year until you die" Wow that's pretty morbid.
That explains why I always recall the old days being alot better but could never understand why.  

John,

As far as Supers messin' it up, I truely am offended by that statement. Where you not hugged by your local Super as a child? If you like I can walk you through it.

Sidenote, I'm diggin' these smiley faces

Grant
 

[Grant Davey]

These guy's cause quite a bit of striffe, perhaps there to blame.

[Matt Kardash]

Do you honestly think that supers muck things up because they try to simplify things?  Personally, I really doubt it.

The real question is, how many architects and owners are on the same page when it comes to how things should be managed?  Architects usually have their vision in mind, owners usually have the bottom line in their mind.  

You give the supers the money to maintain it, they'll give you whatever it was intended to be.

Well, I've worked the past 3 summers on a golf course maintenance team and our superintendant has done a few minor things to the course to simplify maintenance. As a matter of fact, just today he modified a corner of a green because the corner was too tight for the triplex and it wasn't making a very nice cut.

[John Kavanaugh]

Do you honestly think that supers muck things up because they try to simplify things?  Personally, I really doubt it.

The real question is, how many architects and owners are on the same page when it comes to how things should be managed?  Architects usually have their vision in mind, owners usually have the bottom line in their mind.  

You give the supers the money to maintain it, they'll give you whatever it was intended to be.

Well, I've worked the past 3 summers on a golf course maintenance team and our superintendant has done a few minor things to the course to simplify maintenance. As a matter of fact, just today he modified a corner of a green because the corner was too tight for the triplex and it wasn't making a very nice cut.

Matt,

It just takes a small step like that to set a course on the slippery slope to ruin.  Is a triplex the only way to cut a green?

[Matt Kardash]

Do you honestly think that supers muck things up because they try to simplify things?  Personally, I really doubt it.

The real question is, how many architects and owners are on the same page when it comes to how things should be managed?  Architects usually have their vision in mind, owners usually have the bottom line in their mind.  

You give the supers the money to maintain it, they'll give you whatever it was intended to be.

Well, I've worked the past 3 summers on a golf course maintenance team and our superintendant has done a few minor things to the course to simplify maintenance. As a matter of fact, just today he modified a corner of a green because the corner was too tight for the triplex and it wasn't making a very nice cut.

Matt,

It just takes a small step like that to set a course on the slippery slope to ruin.  Is a triplex the only way to cut a green?

We used to cut the greens with walk behinds, but now due to budget cutbacks we don't have a large enough staff to pull it off. This isn't a cheap course or anything either, it costs 100 bucks a round.

[Rich Goodale]

"Cleaner" over time is inevitable, unless you have a huge maintenance budget to try to preserve some sort of artificially rough and ready look.  Pacific Dunes is essentially no more "natural" than Shadow Creek.  IMO, cleaner is better, not worse.  To swallow that statement, John, maybe call it "aging gracefully" or "patina," or whatever you wish.  Nobody on this board (excepting Tommy Naccarato) would want to regularly play the Old Course (or any other course) the way it looked 150 years ago, or even 50 years ago.  Assuming Tom D and Mike K have put the necessary TLC into Pacific Dunes, I would fully expect it to be a better course today than it was 6 years ago when I last played it.

[Tom_Doak]

Rich:

I have to argue the point that Pacific Dunes is no more 'natural' than Shadow Creek.  On the one, if you hit your ball off the grassed area into sand or native rough or gorse, you're often on a part of the course that was untouched by construction.  On the grass, though it has been cleared and irrigated and seeded, perhaps 90% of the surface area of the course is still at original grade.  That is a fairly good contrast with Shadow Creek, where every single square inch of the property was regraded and relandscaped.

John:

I guess if anyone really believes a course is "perfect" when it opens, then the only way it can evolve is downhill.  Sometimes, though, I'll leave a tree hoping that it will grow more into play in ten years, or a rough-and-tumble sandy area expecting that it will evolve differently over time, and trust mother Nature to take care of it for me.  

In the case of Pacific Dunes, I also trust Jeff Sutherland and Ken Nice to preserve the challenge of the course instead of making it easier for their crew to mow ... but we're all fortunate that the course generates the revenues to make that possible.

[BCrosby]

All courses change after they open. For all sorts of reasons. Those changes might make it worse, better or just different. It seems to me that process is not very amenable to sweeping generalizations.

Let me flip the question over.

Has a mediocre course ever evolved into a great course? I can't think of one.

There have been courses that became great after being rebuilt. Muirfield, Pebble, Turnberry, East Lake and others. But those were planned changes.

Bob

 

[John Kavanaugh]

Bob,

It would take a long time member to say but I would hope that there are cases of where a super has mucked a great course into mediocrity and a new super brought it back.  

[John Kavanaugh]

Rich,

If in 50 years the bunkers at Pacific Dunes resemble those now at Pebble and Cypress will you agree the course is worse when our children visit?

[John Kavanaugh]

  Sometimes, though, I'll leave a tree hoping that it will grow more into play in ten years

Tom,

Thanks, I always felt that architects knew that trees grow.

[Rich Goodale]

Sure, John.  But, if they resembled the bunkers at Muirfield or Dornoch I'd say the course had improved.

Tom

I'll agree (sight unseen) that Shadow Creek is less natural than Pacific Dunes by your criteria, but to me all golf courses are manufactured and to say that one course is more or less manufactured than another is akin to saying that one pregnant woman is more or less pregnant than another one.

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