How would you have designed Torrey Pines?

[David Stamm]

I hope Cirba doesn't mind me riding on his coat tails with his Merion routing question, but if you had to start over with the property Torrey Pines sits on, how would you do it differently? Much has been said about how the property was a wasted opportunity. How could it have been improved? This is for the professional architects on the site as well as the armchair arch's. Let's have some fun with this.

[Jason Topp]

Assuming you can safely do it, bring the canyons into play through holes that hug their edges with an advantage for hitting it close to the edge.

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

GREAT question!

Woild love to see someone give it a shot.  I think tp is a superb routing.

[John Moore II]

I have read that the city does not own the canyons, which would also imply that there is some type of area around the canyons they do not own. I think these questions about what would you do border on irrelevant, as I would say very few, if any, on here know what the land looked like prior to any holes being built. It also depends on budget as well. On a tight budget, it may be as good as could have been done 50 years ago. Now with a near unlimited budget, I am sure Fazio could make anything he wanted with enough dozers and tree spades. So to me, the question is not answerable.

[Dan Herrmann]

I'd love to see what Tom Doak would do with the canyons a'la Cape Kidnappers.   (Let's ignore ownership quesitons for this question.)

[Peter Wagner]

Hi David,

Well for one thing I would try to increase the scenic aspect.  To me the course doesn't maximize the natural beauty of the canyons and the ocean.  This is a somewhat similar setting as Pebble but nowhere near as striking.

I'm not qualified to layout a course but it might be kind of nice to have a dogleg or two.   

- Peter

[David Stamm]

Hi David,

Well for one thing I would try to increase the scenic aspect.  To me the course doesn't maximize the natural beauty of the canyons and the ocean.  This is a somewhat similar setting as Pebble but nowhere near as striking.

I'm not qualified to layout a course but it might be kind of nice to have a dogleg or two.   

- Peter

Peter, I couldn't agree more. And I think you touch on an excellent point that gets missed. There are only a handful of doglegs on the course. I find it interesting how everyone talkes about how long the course is/will be for the tourney during the broadcast, yet when almost every hole is straight away, very little demand is made on the player compared to some of the more illustrious venues they have faced. The requirement to bend the ball both ways is not nearly as much of a factor at Torrey as it should be for a U.S. Open, IMHO.

[Dan Herrmann]

David,
I've read that Rees really doesn't like doglegs.   Do you think the lack thereof is due to Rees or the original architect?

[Carl Rogers]

It would seem that a number of holes similar to Pebble Beach No. 8 would be possible.

[Tom Huckaby]

Short answer:  I feel very confident I would have massively screwed it up and the Huckaby course would be a shamble, far far inferior to what's there now.

I also find it kinda funny that rank amateurs think they can do a job better than professionals, but hey, dare to dream!

 

[David Stamm]

I also find it kinda funny that rank amateurs think they can do a job better than professionals, but hey, dare to dream!

 

You mean like Crump, Wilson and, uh never mind.

[David Stamm]

David,
I've read that Rees really doesn't like doglegs.   Do you think the lack thereof is due to Rees or the original architect?

Dan, the routing is almost entirely the same as it was before. However, I would not say that it was due to Bell jr not liking doglegs. Just up the road, Bell jr did a private club called El Camino that has quite a few more doglegs than Torrey and it was done at almost the same time.

[Tom Huckaby]

I also find it kinda funny that rank amateurs think they can do a job better than professionals, but hey, dare to dream!

 

You mean like Crump, Wilson and, uh never mind.

No, I mean the guys posting on here, suggesting changes seemingly with no knowledge of any limitations required by the site, government, etc., as opposed to those greats from far different times who also spent years on the task.  But whatever, it does remain fun to dream.


TH

[David Stamm]

I also find it kinda funny that rank amateurs think they can do a job better than professionals, but hey, dare to dream!

 

You mean like Crump, Wilson and, uh never mind.

No, I mean the guys posting on here, suggesting changes seemingly with no knowledge of any limitations required by the site, government, etc., as opposed to those greats from far different times who also spent years on the task.  But whatever, it does remain fun to dream.


TH

Point taken, but I was hoping we could just forget for the moment government restrictions and debate what could've been done.



I would suggest that the routing, very generally speaking, be reversed. In other words, I would've had the first tee where the 18th green is and work my out and back and finish where the 1st tee is and have perhaps 3 or 4 holes finish near the ocean beofre coming in.

[Tom Huckaby]

David:

Do you really think that whomever routed Torrey didn't seriously consider all alternatives, and decide on what worked best given any and all restrictions in place?

That they didn't want to maximize canyon-side and ocean cliff-side holes as much as they could?

See, that's my assumption.  I refuse to believe that any professional would not try to do this.  Thus suggesting improvements on a routing seems rather odd to me....

But maybe they were that stupid.  I don't know. 

In any case in a dream world, yes, more canyon and ocean cliff-side holes would be cool, and having those toward the end of the round would be neat also.

TH

[David Stamm]

Tom, you're missing my point. Without getting into the canyon issue, imagine of you will the 6th. We tee off from the the greensite there and head for the tee and leave it as a par 5. The canyon would be very much in play then if you wanted to go for the green in 2. Then you tee off from the 2nd green and head for that tee and possibly shorten the hole and make it a risk/reward short par 4. 5 stays the same, 3 stays the same and 4 stays the same. Then you play from the 1st green to the tee. Would this not make the golfer walk away feeling like the course APPEARED better by finishing on the cliffs near the ocean? You could play from the 18th green to the tee and then play from the 17th green to the tee (and possibly shift it to the right and bring the canyon into play). And so on and so on. Think about it.

[Tom Huckaby]

No David, I get your point very clearly.  Those are all very neat suggestions.

I just don't think you're getting my point:  which is very simply that I have to believe that would have all have been thought of and for some reason couldn't be done.  Obvious improvements like this, well.... like I say, I just have a hard time believing such wouldn't have been considered.  These are professionals who would have routed a golf course before, and who would want the best golf holes that could be created.

But it's neat to consider, for sure.

TH

[Jay Kirkpatrick]

Tom,

That answer implies that all architects are made equal.  It suggests that the routing was so obvious that, if given the property today, Doak and Dye would have created a roughly similar routing.  I couldn't disagree with that more.  If a top 5 modern architect had that piece of property at his disposal, I would virtually guarantee that they could create a much better top 50 golf course than the current one.  In fact, I bet they would rave about how perfect a site it was... whereas the "experts" are talking about this being the worst Open venue of the modern era.

[Tom Huckaby]

Tom,

That answer implies that all architects are made equal.  It suggests that the routing was so obvious that, if given the property today, Doak and Dye would have created a roughly similar routing.  I couldn't disagree with that more.  If a top 5 modern architect had that piece of property at his disposal, I would virtually guarantee that they could create a much better top 50 golf course than the current one.  In fact, I bet they would rave about how perfect a site it was... whereas the "experts" are talking about this being the worst Open venue of the modern era.

Jay:  that's not at all what I mean.  Certainly other professionals might come up with other routings.  My point remains that rank amateurs making armchair prognostications without knowledge of limitations imposed just seems to me to be odd.

As for whether it would be better or worse, hell I don't know.  Perhaps you're right.  But that's not my point at all.

But it's been belabored enough.  Like I also said, it's fun to dream.

TH

[David Stamm]

Okay, let's take baby steps then....







 

[Sam Morrow]

I bet that if I had designed Torrey Pines there would be threads on GCA calling it the weakest open venue in recent memory.

[Tim Leahy]

Also remember Bell Jr. was working with a municipal budget. Take a look at some of the holes he designed at Sandpiper in Santa Barbara on similar property with a private budget. 10, 11, 13 and 14 at SP are pretty spectacular holes.

http://www.golflink.com/golf-courses/course.asp?course=103145

[Kalen Braley]

I don't know if I would have changed the routing much.

But I would like to think I would have created more undulating greens, interesting bunkers, and alot more internal contouring.

I'm guessing there were plenty of swales on the original piece of property as it fed into the cliff edges and these swales were likely flattended to put the course in...with the exception of 13.

And if there weren't many swales there, then by all means put them as if they had existed forever.  I think this would have brought a lot more interesting to the LZ's and added strategy in terms of which part of the fairway one wants to be on.

Or How about building some bunkers that fall away into the cliffside like as originally existed at Pasatiempo?  Or build some greens with actual interest instead of being flat for the most part.  These are the types of things I would like to think I would do differently.