The best silk purse from a sow's ear?

[TEPaul]

From my post #27 on the "Composite Course out of Bandon and Pacific Dunes" thread the question is which architects on which courses have dealt with inherent site problems of whatever kind and created the best silk purse (a good or great course and architecture) out of a sow's ear (inherent site problems)?

And of course the even more interesting question of how exactly did they manage to do that?

Personally, I'd start by nominating C&C's Easthampton G.C. but although I don't know his inventory that well I might have to say that the architect in the world most capable of doing things like this best very well might be Tom Fazio--the architect problem solver supreme and the architect who apparently can make something out of almost nothing!---(given rather large budgets, of course).

[TEPaul]

OOps, how could I forget? Somewhere near the top of the list one might have to put Dye's TPC Sawgrass (a swamp) and certainly Macdonald/Raynor's Yale (apparently solid rock) and most definitely The Lido (lots of man-made terra firma)!!

[T_MacWood]

I'd say Lost Dunes, Long Cove and Riviera. As for MacKenzie's work I know Darwin was extremely high on Alwoodley and the work the Doctor did on that not so great site.

[Tom_Doak]

The TPC at Sawgrass, hands down.  Pete Dye is the only architect who would have figured out how to save the trees there, much less build a great golf course.

Lost Dunes had its complications -- an interstate highway and a bunch of environmental issues -- but the rest of it was a giant sandbox to play in.  It really wasn't that complicated to build, so I wouldn't call it a sow's ear.

Same with Easthampton -- tight and constrained, but pretty good material nevertheless.

Texas Tech was a sow's ear.  We'll see how we score when it's open.

[A_Clay_Man]

Shadow Creek seems like a hands down winner too.

Shiv- Tim Nugent may not have all the credentials but from what I've heard he must have some inane sense of what's good and what's not, ala Casey Stengel. HAs anybody made it up to Foxwood(?)?

[BCrosby]

The Country Club.

About half the the course is routed through granite out-croppings, severe elevation changes and a couple of bogs. It's so bad that one tee box had to be built on a steel scaffold. A terrible piece of property.

Bob

[David Wigler]

Shadow Creek in a walk.  Old Memorial in Tampa should get some votes as well.

[TEPaul]

BCrosby said:

"The Country Club.
About half the the course is routed through granite out-croppings,"

Bob:

If you're talking about holes like #3 and #11, no kidding, but those rock outcropping make those holes some of the coolest and coolest looking I've ever seen--and those outcroppings are used so well right in the landing areas.

The interesting thing is an architect like Fazio will be mentioned on here as being one of the best at creating something good out of nothing (and that's undoubtedly true) but the supreme irony probably is if Fazio was faced with raw landforms like those Country club granite outcroppings he would probably figure out how to blow all of that granite and those outcroppings into smithereens thereby wiping away some of the coolest and most off-beat natural golf features imaginable. And he would rationalize the whole thing by trying to convince everyone that he absolutely KNOWS that no golfer would have accepted it in the first place anyway.  

[BCrosby]

Tom -

The granite outcropping to the right of no. 11 (no. 9 on the composite course) is also massive and really dominates the tee shot. Maybe the biggest and baddest rock at The CC.

I forgot to mention that Flynn also had to route the last four holes around the service and main entrance roads to the Clubhouse.

My guess is that Fazio would have punted on the project. It takes an extraordinary architectural imagination to find even a mediocre golf course on that property. That Flynn was able to find a great golf course there .... No doubt you and Wayne will give us the whole story (soon?).

Seems to me that it was a much more difficult challenge to build a great course like TCC on the rugged terrain in Brookline than to build a great course in flat, sandy terrain. At least in the latter case you had UK models to work from.

Bob    

[Mike Hendren]

The Hill Course at French Lick Springs is hardly a great piece of property.  Ross' routing is superb, with the only discernable earthwork, excepting the fabulous greens) being short-left of the 12th green.  

When his entire book of work is analyzed,  I suspect Ross built more solid golf courses on more ordinary sites than any of the Dead Architects.  

BTW, I still maintain that he was jobbed in the Dear Architects Survivor Series, though I am beginning to see the light with respect to the winner thanks to Paul Turner.

Regards,

Mike

[RJ_Daley]

I think more definition needs to be made of what constitutes a 'sows ear'.  Are you stating that a flat and featureless terrain is more of a 'sows ear' than a thick mish-mash of scrub brush, or forest and difficult soils and contours?  I've heard many architects say, just give me a fairly flat open field and they will shape the rest into a silk purse.  I tend to agree that TPC Sawgrass and those on complicated land and swamp were the greater sows ears than some of the courses cited that were manufactured and shaped on a plain canvas.  

Make something of a silk purse out of fairly unremarkable terrain WITHOUT a big budget, and then you have my attention.  In that vain, Doak's Highpointe might fit and is actually two terrains; and Rustic Canyon may be in that category as I don't thing they had an excessively large budget, albeit an adequate one, obviously.

[Darren_Kilfara]

The Country Club.

About half the the course is routed through granite out-croppings, severe elevation changes and a couple of bogs. It's so bad that one tee box had to be built on a steel scaffold. A terrible piece of property.

Bob

Bob, about that tee built on a steel scaffold (which I presume must be #4), I've got to tell you a story about the greatest individual golf hole I've ever seen played. I was playing TCC #4 in an intrasquad Harvard event, and one of my teammates blocked his drive into a tree on #4; his ball rebounded back onto the tee and rolled to a stop a couple of feet from the steel railing at the back of the tee box. I thought that his best option was to take an unplayable and re-tee, playing three - the railing was in his way, I thought - but he took out a sand wedge, made a very steep swing to avoid the railing, and just managed to carry the ravine 70-80 yards off the tee. With his third he hooked a 3-wood around the trees on the left and somehow found the fairway, just short of the green...and from 60 feet he holed his putt for a par.

Anyway, I think the elevation changes at Brookline are largely what gives the course its character - I'm sure the abundance of granite must have caused any number of problems during construction, but the land itself isn't hopelessly severe. I guess Flynn's major coup was to eat up a number of steep climbs with short approach shots (e.g. at 6, 8 and 14), although with that said, the two most awkward shots on the entire property (the approaches at #9 on the non-composite course and #8 on the Primrose, a.k.a. #12 on the composite course) involve long shots played uphill to blind targets.

Cheers,
Darren

[BCrosby]

Darren -

You have to have played the hole to undestand how amazing that par was.

I always dreaded the climb up to that tee. Once there, I avoided looking back at the third green. The idea of going to the back edge of the tee to hit anything sends shivers up my spine. Whether or not I had a shot, I wouldn't have gotten that close to the edge, fence or no fence.

So, was your teammate low man on the hole?

Bob

[SPDB]

Agreed on TCC as being a bad site, although it is really only bad in a couple of areas. I suspect a number of New England courses would look similar if they chose not to blast through the rock. So in this respect, TCC simply made a choice to incorporate the rocks (although i imagine lack of technology or mechanical wherewithal made the decision for them).

I also don't think Fazio would punt on any job. One look at Hudson National will tell you that. That site must have been impossible to deal with, and, in certain spots, Fazio performed masterly without disrupting the land (too much).

[George Pazin]

This will of course be labelled as Fazio bashing, but I often wonder & have several asked how great the engineering feat at Shadow Creek really was. Could someone in the biz (architect, builder, greenkeeper) comment on this? It seems to this ignorant viewer that they simply threw a boatload of cash at the problem, which is not how I define a truly well engineered project.

[John_Conley]

Wiggles beat me to it.  The one course that comes to mind is Old Memorial.

[GeoffreyC]

Talking Stick- both courses with each different.  Minimal earthmoving yet great interest and strategy on a flat nothing site.

[Patrick_Mucci]

George Pazin,

I've never noticed any money lying on the ground when I played Shadow Creek.

There was none in the water, none in the sand, none in the trees and none through the green.

Someone must have gotten there before me.

What does "throw a boatload of cash at the problem" mean ?

Shadow Creek is a marvel, the result of the vision and committment of a genius, Steve Wynn, and the architect he worked with.

[THuckaby2]

George can and likely will speak for himself, but I'm guessing his point is that any architect could have done what Fazio did at Shadow Creek given the kind of money that was spent there...  and thus it's not that much of an engineering "feat", not anything to praise Fazio - or Wynn - for anyway.

To which I'd reply that such doesn't matter - not to me anyway.  What's there is so incredible, I don't care who did it or how much money was spent... taking featureless desert and making North Carolina with large elevation changes, stone cliffs, rocky streams, etc. is always gonna be a "feat" in my book.

I find it hard to believe that anyone who's seen an aerial of the place AND played the course would come away unimpressed, maybe not with the "architecture" - we all think differently re that - but for sure with what was done there period.

TH

[George Pazin]

Tom paraphrased my question rather well, and it is indeed a simple one that I've asked before & no one (ed note: 2 words) has ever answered it. How difficult was the engineering on Shadow Creek? This has nothing to do with the course, I simply want to know, if people are going to praise Fazio for being such a genius for building the course, how difficult the problem really is.

Heck, I'd ask the same question to Tom D with Texas Tech - how difficult of an engineering feat was it?

Not every question has a sinister motivation behind it.

[THuckaby2]

I'm glad I got that correct, George - and I only offered that because I wasn't sure when you'd get back to see this.

In any case, it is a good question... and to me another way to look at all this is to say that the BETTER engineering feat would be to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear WITHOUT unlimited sums of money.  

That being said though, the bottom line to me remains that what was done at Shadow Creek is so incredible, I'm just impressed that someone did it at all... and in this case, I agree with Patrick Mucci that Wynn and Fazio deserve praise just for what they got done period.

Another separate question would be to ponder what other architectcts might have achieved there working with Mr. Wynn and the seeming unlimited budget...

So in the end I have no answer to your very valid question, other than to say that to me, it sure does seem like one hell of an engineering feat no matter what.  But I too would be interested in the take of those who really do build golf courses and have seen the place....

TH

[Michael Dugger]

Matt Ward has commented numerous times on the great job done with Nicklaus' Old Works in Anaconda, Montana.

"Sow's ear", that piece of land was a horses ass.  

[Patrick_Mucci]

George & Tom,

I think that Wynn was the visionary, and that Fazio was his instrument.

George, I would recommend that you obtain
"Shadow Creek, From Barren Desert to Desert Oasis"
by Steve Wynn and Tom Fazio.  
I believe that you can call the pro shop and order a copy.

If you'll contact me off line, I'll give you the phone numbers and names of the staff who can assist you in getting your copy.

When you look through the book, remember, that all the trees have matured since it was first published.

What was done there is a modern day marvel.  

[THuckaby2]

Patrick:  I've seen the book - didn't buy it while there, maybe I should have - but a friend of mine has it and it does document the process very well.  Oh yes, it's hard NOT to come away impressed reading that, and to me it's impossible not to be impressed seeing it in person.

Neither the book, nor seeing it in person, will answer George's question even still, however... which really is, how much of all this is due to vision and skill and how much is due to possessing unlimited funds?  I too have no ulterior motive postulating about this - again, I am so impressed it doesn't matter much to me the whys and what fors - I just find that the more I think about this, the more it is a valid question, one that I don't think can be answered by those outside the golf course building profession.

TH

[W.H. Cosgrove]

Fazio's Spring Hill in Minnesota is hampered by a huge chunk of granite under the first par three on the front side.  Then after crossing under a busy county road the course wanders through a swamp then crosses back under the road, and then again climbs up the big rock.  

It must have taken some pretty good imagination just to shoe horn it into that combination.