Ballyneal on the cover of Golfweek...Who knew the ocean was there?

[Mike Nuzzo]

I say the photo is legit with no photoshoping.
With film and or a filter you could easily get those contrasts, especially if you are Dick D.

[Garland Bayley]

JS,

Can you provide an explanation for Pacific Dunes being close to 1,5 points higher than Ballyneal if not for the ocean?

I believe that may be because Ballyneal still has ratings included from it being an immature course. Can you explain why Pacific Dunes debuted much lower on the list than its present standing? Perhaps the same reason?

[Garland Bayley]

I say the photo is legit with no photoshoping.
With film and or a filter you could easily get those contrasts, especially if you are Dick D.

I swear you guys don't spend much time outside? I think that under the correct weather conditions and time of day, you can get that picture without a filter. Clearly there were storm clouds in the distance near the horizon.

[Sean Leary]

JK,

Aren't those Bandon pullouts MAJORLY enhanced with color?  Isn't that really the same thing?

[Adam Clayman]

Garland, I still don't see how John meant that, especially when he said they had one chance every year for a cover, and they blew it. How much more highlighted can you get, than the cover?
 What maybe happening in that picture, and specifically the storm cloud, is, just under that darkest cell, there is a hint of a lighter shade. My guess is thats light from behind(underneath) the dark storm cell pictured. At least thats what typically happens with a lot of these storms on the plains. Many are disorganized cells that are just beginning to form and organize into the long lines of storms that I use to see in Chicago.

[Garland Bayley]

Adam,

By blew it, I think he meant they photoshoped in the ocean. Which, it seems most agree, they did not.

[Tim Bert]

Once again we are being insulted by Golfweek by pretending that Ballyneal is a seaside course.  The free copy of Golfweek was sitting out at LCCC yesterday and when conducting a small poll it was found that everyone who viewed the cover thought Ballyneal was set on a large body of water.  Why do the editors of the magazine believe that your typical golfer will not accept that an inland course can be great.  Why do they not believe that architecture can stand on its own.  Am I wrong or did they struggle with the choice of Chambers Bay over Ballyneal and decided just to morph the designs into one.

How bout those ads...Congrats.  I will say that people suddenly get why I trip to Bandon.  Stunning pull out.

Inneffective pollsters can yield ineffective results.  

Did you simply ask if they thought the course was seaside or set near a large body of water?  If you asked me that and I wasn't familiar with the course then I might have guessed the same.  Same goes for Sand Hills.  Even if I couldn't see the water in the image, I might guess that there was water just beyond a dune if I thought that was the exercise.  The surroundings certainly seem to make nearby water a realistic possibility.  None of us really know how many questions you asked or how specific you were, but simply asking the question as you phrased it above does not equal people thinking the sky in the photo is actually water.  They may have led themselves to that conclusion without thinking they saw water.

On the opposite front, I could see you asking those being polled, "Which body of water do you think this course is near?"  No one would likely answer none because you've asked a leading question.  The result would be everyone thinking the course is set on a body of water.

Maybe we could construct a more detailed 5 or 10 question survey that you could take back to the same participants and see if we can distinguish whether the err in judgment was the responsibility of  a) Golfweek's b) JK's question or c) the participants drawing their own conclusions

 

[John Kavanaugh]

Adam,

It was my intent to say that a picture which showed Ballyneal to be the land based course it is would have been more honest and a reflection on how great that type of course can be.  An opportunity was missed on the thousands of eyes who only see the cover while grabbing another fistful of free tees. 

[Garland Bayley]

I love this picture. Certainly land based.



Edit:

Another one you gotta love.

[Ryan Farrow]

On second thought, the original picture has too many "brown" spots in the fairways that were not "touched up" so the chances that the background was manipulated ='s zero. But to be honest with you, I'm surprised they didn't put a better photo on the cover.

[RJ_Daley]

Once again we are being insulted by Golfweek by pretending that Ballyneal is a seaside course.

this time you are being brazenly provocative... maybe next time you can act astonishingly uneducated... you bomb thrower, you...    

Maybe Durrance should have brought in a buffalo or prairie dog to stage within the frame?  Then JK would have accused Golfweek of using a "water buffalo, or sea otter, to fool readers into thinking it was a course next to a body of water!  

Anyone who has spent any time out there has seen awesome skies, textures and hues of color and light, and play of such along the ground.  Really, no filter or photoshopping are necessary.  I have a bunch of photos with every type of sunset and sunrise texture you can think of, and I don't know how to photo shop, and they are taken with a simple cheap and old digital camera.  

[Tom_Doak]

John:

I think you've gone off your rocker.  I waited until I got home to look at the cover again, and I just don't see it at all.

On top of that, your perspective is pretty far off, because that dune behind the green at Ballyneal is way higher than the eye level of the photographer at the tee ... so even if there was an ocean back there, you couldn't see it.

Did you see anything in the cloud formations that reminded you of anything?

[Garland Bayley]

John:

I think you've gone off your rocker.  ...

This of course begs the question, when did you think he was on his rocker?
 

[Paul Jones]

I like the picture and thought they did a good job with the cover.  If this is the worst hole on the course, I cannot wait to get a chance to play the course and the other 17 holes.

[Kalen Braley]

Perhaps John and his buddies had an optical delusion....err I mean illusion by thinking the camera point of view was significantly higher than the green and dune behind.  Hence the blue part is the body of water in the background. 

[Mike_Cirba]

So that course is only #13? 

I do need to travel more this year, even if the ocean is painted in. 

[John Kavanaugh]

So that course is only #13? 

I do need to travel more this year, even if the ocean is painted in. 

It is the the best modern course I have ever played.  Please feel free to schedule a trip without the Sand Hills Huckaby mandatory visit.  The course stands on its own and deserves your full attention.  As a matter of fact giving that it is a walking only course the cooler months when Sand Hills is closed may be the prime time to play.

note:  At no time during my 9.5 hour vice to vice to vice road trip this afternoon did I find time to look over the free copy at my club.  Maybe tomorrow.

[Mike_Cirba]

John,

That's a very high endorsement.   I would want to play it in a focused mode, so it wouldn't be part of driving the 5 hours to North Platte. 

[Seth Berliner]

I will get a hold of DD and get a definitive answer for everyone.

[John Kavanaugh]

I will get a hold of DD and get a definitive answer for everyone.

Seth,

The question is...Did Golfweek photoshop the picture for the cover?  That is probably out of DD's control.

[Tom Huckaby]

So that course is only #13? 

I do need to travel more this year, even if the ocean is painted in. 

It is the the best modern course I have ever played.  Please feel free to schedule a trip without the Sand Hills Huckaby mandatory visit.  The course stands on its own and deserves your full attention.  As a matter of fact giving that it is a walking only course the cooler months when Sand Hills is closed may be the prime time to play.

note:  At no time during my 9.5 hour vice to vice to vice road trip this afternoon did I find time to look over the free copy at my club.  Maybe tomorrow.

John:  sigh.  You obviously truly enjoy being a royal asshole.

For one and all, once again, I never in any way stated, and nor do I feel, that it is mandatory to see both of these places on a trip to that part of the country.  This is prick Kavanaugh being his asshole self once again.

TH

[Seth Berliner]

I just spoke with Dick and here is the info he gave me.  There was a LITTLE, and I emphasize LITTLE, saturation added to the photo.  Dick commented that the cross light was perfect for the shot with a polarized lens which tends to make the greens "Pop" a little more.  

For those of you familiar with Colorado summers, that is a big rainstorm brewing in the distance, a common and almost daily occurrence on the Eastern Plains.  This being the reason for the dark blues that you see.  

He also noted that Interocean Boulevard is 10 miles from Ballyneal.  

[Steve Lang]

 

Hey everybody... Again, the geological basis of gca...  there once was a sea there!  66,000,000 year ago



and of course after the last ice age and with the big glaciers retiring north, the Paleoindians were sharpening spear point to go hunting around the lakes and remaining inland "seas" around them parts, looks like

[Adam Clayman]

Seve, I recently saw a documentary on the evolution of Dinosaurs (or was it global warming?) that said the earth went through a significant warming period which melted the ice age. During that period, this leeward side of the rockies region became a desert. It sure would explain all the sand.

[John Kirk]

Adam

Within a few months I will be able to give you a definitive answer to that question.  At this point, I believe the answer is the sand was left as a deposit from the ocean that occupied the western half of the Great Plains until 30-40 million years ago.  Since then, the sand has been blown around by the wind and pushed around by glaciers.

Contact Bluestem Books in Nebraska and buy a copy of "This Fragile Land" by Paul Johnsgard, a book about the Nebraska Sand Hills environment.  I bought the book, but need to read it carefully before preparing a summary on sand movement in the Plains.  I bought Gene Greco a copy.  Nobody loves the Sand Hills more than Paul Johnsgard and Gene Greco.