[Patrick_Mucci]

If yes, WHY ?

If not, WHY ?

[A.G._Crockett]

Patrick,
I am certain that I could not.

As to why, I'll put aside the construction know-how of insuring adequate drainage, etc.  My failing is in the lack of an artist's eye and imagination.  I love beautiful things, including golf holes, but I have never been able to create them or visualize them in advance.

In fact, much of my interest in GCA stems from seeing a beautiful hole or a great course and wondering how the artist who created it ever managed to see it.  I just can't.

One caveat: IF I had unlimited time and money, AND a great piece of ground, I MIGHT be able to erase enough mistakes to eventually end up with a decent course.  I'm talking about 25 years and millions of $$$ later...

But right out of the chute?  It would be a hopeless mess.

[Mike Sweeney]

One caveat: IF I had unlimited time and money, AND a great piece of ground, I MIGHT be able to erase enough mistakes to eventually end up with a decent course.  I'm talking about 25 years and millions of $$$ later...

and a very very good contractor, yes. There would be nothing original, but it would be decent.

That said I would hire a professional and save money on my mistakes.

PS> That professional would not be Tiger at his rate!

[A.G._Crockett]

If yes, WHY ?

If not, WHY ?

Patrick,
What about you?

[David Lott]

No.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I have been drawing golf courses since I was in high school.  My Latin stinks because I spent more time drawing holes than reading Caesar's Gallic Wars.  I could design a good hole but could not design an entire course.  I wish I could and in my dreams I have, but when I walk a virgin piece of property I don't have the foggiest notion of how to route it or use the land.  Too bad to because I could design one great hole.

[Kalen Braley]

Patrick,

We must first define "decent"....

Anything in top 100 would not meet this category I would think as they are execptional...

[RJ_Daley]

Yes and No...

Yes, I could work with a good piece of land and good topos to take plenty of time to study the property and come up with a decent routing, understanding many of the needs and things that must be avoided in a routing and what the infrastructure must coexist with within the design routing scheme.  

I could wave my hands at the constructors on the machines, direct the activity, do cut and fill estimate balancing with good software support, or work with constructors on the fly.  But, only on good ground, not much grading and shaping to be done, not much major cut and filling, and not on problem soils or rocky areas.  

I guess I'm saying I got 800 acres spied out in NE that are perfect, that I have no doubt I could contribute much to the design and ongoing project.  

No, I can't begin to dream of designing a course on problem property, tight heavy soils needing ooodles of drainage and engineering.  I can't begin to understand heavy wooded, rocky, or hardscrable ground needing huge ponding or sourcing for enormous amounts of shaping material and top soils sourcing on-site or worse from off site.  

I can't operate machinery and shape.  I can only operate a Tennessee backhoe.  I can't intelligently evaluate runoffs and drainage issues, particularly as they relate to impacts that could effect off site.  Though I can understand things when explained.

I can't spec irrigation, and don't have a decent or up to date understanding of irrigation requirements, nor current capabilites.    

I could sweep out the crew trailer, wash the clothes, make grub for the crew though...  

[Michael Moore]

I have to believe that a significant majority of golflclubatlas.com discussion group participants, including myself, know enough about variety, strategy and aesthetics to design a decent course.

If an architect can write a book, I can design a course.

[Mike Sweeney]

Patrick,

We must first define "decent"....

Anything in top 100 would not meet this category I would think as they are execptional...

Doak 3 is "average"

Doak 4 is "modestly interesting" which I would say is decent.

I am sure that most here could create a Doak 4 in the Sand Hills of Nebraska with 800 acres, lots of money, great contractor, and basically a view to copy directly great greens from other courses.

But why create a Doak 4 on land that can yield a Doak 8+ with a professional?

[John Foley]

Given the time, I bet I could route an interesting golf course. I bet could find some good holes, develop some strategy that made it interesting.

However, I know:

- It wouldn't drain.
- The grass wouldn't grow
- It would be a maintenance nightmare.
- After a while it would become evident that what I did was so very wrong in many places.

Given the chance & the money, I'd find a great piece of land and work very very closely w/ the architect.

[Mark Bourgeois]

When you're ignorant of everything required, it's easy to formulate an answer -- there are innumerable unknown unknowns!

I could see coming up with a decent routing, with individual holes containing some level of strategy and good shots.  I might even get all the way up to a par of 72! So a big consideration would have to be the property, especially its size.  Give me a small parcel and no way.

One of the "known knowns" is that in comparing professionals to amateurs in any field, the amateur may end up in a place similar to the professional but it takes him a million times longer.  So another big consideration would be how much time I had.

Right now, I have a mental image of a course consisting of some okay holes but so strung out it's got eight miles of cart paths. Maybe that would be okay because the holes would be so far apart no one could hit someone or a house, then sue me.

Not getting sued -- does that sound "decent?"

It's really the unknown unknowns that would kill any effort to get the thing in the ground...the hard part would be not knowing any basics of practical design, like whether it really would be a good idea to put that green down by that creek, or whether it would flood every spring, suffer from poor air circulation every summer, and sit in some freaky "frost belt" come winter. I just have no idea.

By way of a benchmark on all this, that Don Mahaffey tag line, "Permanent wilting point = deader than a smelt?"  You know that one?  I have no idea what that means.  I own a nice lawn.  I fish a lot, too.  But I couldn't pick out a smelt if I was looking down on one of those trawling nets that pulls every living thing out of the sea.

Um, or is a smelt some type of extinct grass?

[cary lichtenstein]

Nope

[Walt_Cutshall]

No way. And I don't think the vast majority of us could either.  

[Michael Dugger]

Yup, for the same reasons RJ Daley stated.

But, in "thinking outside the box," my answer to this question is no.

It would be better than decent.

[Gib_Papazian]

Dick Daley hit it on the head - the land is huge here. If I was dealt that booch property that Casey O’Callaghan got stuck with at The Ranch in San Jose, I do not know what I would have done except take the next train back to Burlingame.

However, if you give me a good piece of ground and Neal Meagher keeps my feet somewhere close to terra firma reality, I have no doubt the result would be great.

That, gentlemen, is because I have highly developed aesthetic sensibilities and a love for whimsical, quirky, funhouse golf courses. Off the top of my head I've a half-dozen close friends on this board I consider my equal or better.

Build it by myself? Of course not! Jeff Bradley would shape the golf course, Dave Wilbur would consult on drainage and grass varieties and be on site to make little modifications to make sure I did not screw up with one of my tangential vectors.

Neal would have veto power if he was sure something was not going to make sense long term and our Superintendent would be involved in the design process because at the end of the day, if he cannot achieve a proper maintenance meld (to coin a phrase), the architecture is invalidated.

I would confine myself to strategies and schematics and not try and argue with the professionals on how best to achieve the leap from vision to reality.

You think George Crump just walked away from the hotel business and magically designed PV without any help? If Hugh Wilson and Harry Colt had never come to Clementon, would PV be as good?

Without experienced people helping every step of the way, it would have been trial and error and more error until he finally got it right.

So Patrick, I guess the answer boils down to two parts:

Could I do it absolutely alone and have it come out decent? Sure! It would be an extremely creative and interesting golf course - but one with so many intractable problems and errors in the infrastructure that it would eventually fail.

With help from great and experienced people? I've no doubt it would be terrific and an absolute blast to play for all skill levels aside from the big guns. I've no idea how to design something to challenge Phil or Tiger and don't care if I do.

But it would have a Redan, an Alps, a Punchbowl and Short . . . . . . and even something like Klondike at Lahinch if the land dictated it. Or maybe not . . . . . but it would be as much fun to play as North Berwick or Prestwick and if humorless scratch players didn't like it I would not care - as long as guys like the The Emperor did.  

Wait a minute . . . . you redesigned a golf course years ago as I recall and I'm told it came out fantastic, so maybe you answered your own question.  

[Matt_Cohn]

Is there anything in the world that a first-timer can do as well as a knowledgeable professional?

Routing and drainage would concern me. I can barely route a course on a big blank sheet of paper. I've never even considered drainage.

[Kirk Gill]

I've pictured golf holes on just about every piece of empty land I've seen since I was a kid. Who's to know what I might do, if given a chance? The first ingredient necessary before taking on any creative endeavor is to have the balls to do it. Take on the task and accept the chance of failure.

The right piece of land would be key, as would a team of folks who really know what they're doing, and who would be willing to collaborate with a novice.

The reasons why I could? I have an imaginative eye, a feeling for land and the way a shot would be shaped above and along it, and a belief in myself.

Why I couldn't? I don't have the education, experience, or practical understanding of the necessities of golf course infrastructure. I'd almost certainly be in over my head. I can't provide any tangible, measurable reason why someone would invest in me and allow me such an expensive opportunity. And I don't have the cash myself !

I'd like to think that, given the chance, I would either fail or succeed, spectacularly.

[Jim Nugent]

I did design a course, in my mind, on some spectacular large sand dunes a few miles from the sea.  More accurately, I routed a course between, over and around these dunes.  This is soft, soft sand, that is scores if not hundreds of feet deep.  

I have no idea if my design is feasible, production-wise or golfing-wise.  Six of the approaches to greens are semi-blind (including several skyline), and three more are completely blind.  Lots of rolly-polly fairways.  A few template holes, including an Alps and a Redan.  The holes look fascinating to me.  But I often don't judge my own ideas too well.  

Definitely minimalist: would only need to move earth (actually sand) to shape greens.  And that is the most confusing part of the mental exercise for me.  I have few ideas about the greens and green complexes.  Don't know much about what kind of contours they need, or how to tie them in with the routing.  

This course will probably never get built.  But I do think that, if my fortunes permitted it, I would much prefer building a course to buying one.  

[Mike_Young]

Yes.

[Rich Goodale]

Not to my standards, but to Tom Paul's standards, maybe....

[Andrew Hastie]

Design a course? Yes.
Only someone else could determine if it's decent or not.

I think the piece of land would make all the difference. A badly draining property would be a nightmare. A sandy undulating  property would be a dream.

Certainly some good advice would help. A novice architect that has seen many great course's could probably do some nice things.
But then again a good architect could maybe do great things.

[A.G._Crockett]

Yes.

Mike,
Thanks for responding, but you were exempt from this exam.

But you're right; you do show some promise...

[Tom_Doak]

I'm pretty sure I can.

I'm surprised so many have said "no" here and I suspect some of you are just lying because you don't want to be chewed out.  But under the parameters that have been suggested -- taking a good piece of ground and just having to build a "4" or better on the Doak scale -- I think there are lots of posters who could do better than that.

Still, the real test is whether you could get a decent course in the ground.  It's much easier on paper.

[TEPaul]

Tom Doak said:

"I'm pretty sure I can."

Look, pal, nobody gets away with pat generalities on this website, not even you. You definitely need to define for ALL OF US exactly what you mean by "pretty"?

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