The Irony of Old Macdonald

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brad Klein,

I'm not so sure that golfers about to trek 3,000 miles on a cumbersome trip, transportation wise, don't have a clue as to where they're going, how the courses are and who designed them.

Crossing the country and spending a few days and more than a few dollars hardly seems like an exercise for the uninformed.

There seems to be a growing awareness of the works of "architects" living and dead.

I think you're correct in terms of golfers lacking in-depth knowledge or a clear understanding of the design principals evidenced in each designer's style, but, I think there's been a renewed interest in architecture by the golfing world in general.

[Jed Peters]

There seems to be a growing awareness of the works of "architects" living and dead.

Patrick:

I concur.

Even my golfing friends that aren't all that into golf course architecture often ask me "who designed it" when we're playing somewhere.

Now, that being said, I don't believe that people go to bandon to play Kidd, C&C, or even Doak.

They do go to Kohler to play Dye. They go to vegas to play fazio or nicklaus, etc. etc.

Example--I'd be RTJ or Nicklaus or Fazio would sell more homes to the "informed" golfers spending their dollars than Doak would.

But, maybe I'm wrong.

[rchesnut]

Kalen, I think Bandon has been an incredible success...but I still think they need marketing.  They're a lot busier than they expected to be when they embarked on this adventure, and there are days when they're booked, but they aren't booked solid in the high season and it was nearly empty up there a couple weeks ago even though the weather was perfect...while I haven't seen any official numbers, I've been told that rounds were down in 08 at Bandon (like everywhere else) due to the economy. 

With a fourth course (and new lodging that goes with it) there will be more beds and tee sheets to fill up.  While Bandon is no secret to well informed golfers and golf travelers, I'm still surprised when I talk to more casual golfers who do annual golf trips with their buddies, but still haven't been to, or in some cases heard of, Bandon.  Bandon competes with Pinehurst, Pebble, Myrtle Beach, Wisconsin and others for the golf traveler's dollar, and with each new Top 100 course they build there, I think they're building a case as the best pure golf destination in the world...and I don't expect them to stop at 4 courses either.       

[Kyle Henderson]

When telling others of my Bandon trip last month, 99% of non-golfers had no idea where it is. 80% of golfers had no idea, and I live in Northern Cali. But, as everyone is saying in this thread, few destinations can boast 4 world-class courses in such close proximity. If Old Mac matches its siblings, Bandon is sure to last.

However, I hope the resort's popularity never quite matches it's quality so I won't have to compete with those in possession of larger wallets and more free time than I. Soon there will be G5's passing in and out of town by the dozens...

[Patrick_Mucci]

When telling others of my Bandon trip last month, 99% of non-golfers had no idea where it is. 80% of golfers had no idea, and I live in Northern Cali. But, as everyone is saying in this thread, few destinations can boast 4 world-class courses in such close proximity. If Old Mac matches its siblings, Bandon is sure to last.

I'll bet that the others you told NOW know where Bandon is, who designed the golf courses and how great they are.

If the others were non-golfers I'd readily agree.
If the others were golfers, then, they really aren't golfers

However, I hope the resort's popularity never quite matches it's quality so I won't have to compete with those in possession of larger wallets and more free time than I. Soon there will be G5's passing in and out of town by the dozens...

Are you saying that you want Mike Keiser's noble experiment to fail or be only mediocre in its efforts to attract golfers in sufficient numbers to support his endeavor ?

[Tom_Doak]

Rob:

I don't think there are any plans to expand the number of rooms anytime soon.  Mr. Keiser has always erred on the short side in that department:  he'd rather have a bunch of full rooms and send some people into town, than have some rooms which are usually empty.

[Cristian]

I'm planning a trip to Bandon in 2010. To me the real question is: Will no. 4 be the best course at Bandon that could have been built given the land. or: How good could it have turned out had Tom Doak and his team not been given the restriction of building something in tribute or style of MacDonald? Surely some choices would have been made differently and also surely here and there compromises will have been made. Should not the ideal set of holes given the land and the philosofy of the designer be the only prerequisite in an ideal situation?

And here is an interesting one: Would the course not have turned out even better, had he not been given these restrictions?

In other words: Are there virtually unlimited solutions in building a golf course on a suitable piece of land, or is there always one ideal in the view of the designer which, if he is given restrictions, will lead to compromise and a result which is less than ideal in the eyes of that particular designer?

[Anthony Gray]

   Christian brings up a question many of us have been wanting to ask.
How different would the course be without the Macdonald theme? Were specific features added to accomodate the Macdonald theme? What would Tom Doak liked to have done differently but culd not because of the Macdonald mandate?

  Anthony

[Dan Herrmann]

Are there virtually unlimited solutions in building a golf course on a suitable piece of land, or is there always one ideal in the view of the designer which, if he is given restrictions, will lead to compromise and a result which is less than ideal in the eyes of that particular designer?

Cristian - damn good question.
My take as a layman is certainly "an ideal view ... that will lead to compromise".

With all the regulations and legal restrictions it's gotta be nearly impossible to build the ideal.  I'm guessing the Old MacDonald project provided Doak/Urbina and team more latitude, but any new course in (say) the NE USA would be a real challenge.  2008 just doesn't give today's architect the same options the "dead guys" had in the 1920's.
------------------
And back to Tom's first question - human nature stinks sometimes.  The only biblical quote I'll ever use is John 4:44.  Paraphrased, it says, "No man is a prophet in his own country".  The metaphor still often applies today to golf course architects building a 2nd or 3rd course at a given facility.  But keep in mind that Stonewall (PA) brought Tom back for the 2nd course!

[Tom_Doak]

Christian / Anthony:

Yours is, indeed, a good question.

From the beginning of this project, my one concern was that we wouldn't get too button-holed into building a replica course or even a course which had to look like the stereotype of what Macdonald built, for precisely the reason you have brought up ... because if I got to a certain hole and though I had a better idea about how to do something, I didn't want to have my hands tied.  (I never want to have my hands tied.)

Which is why I'm not surprised that nearly everyone who has been out to see the course comments along the lines of "It's not exactly what I expected," but also why people are excited about it.  I've also heard a lot of people say it looked severe, which isn't usually the reaction to my work, but we've been working just as hard on the playability of this course as any of our others.

So, let's get to Christian's exit question:  "In other words: Are there virtually unlimited solutions in building a golf course on a suitable piece of land, or is there always one ideal in the view of the designer which, if he is given restrictions, will lead to compromise and a result which is less than ideal in the eyes of that particular designer?"

To me, there is no one right way to build a golf course; I learned that as soon as I saw how diverse the top 50 courses are from one another.  So I've always thought that you could approach the same piece of land with different styles and create something great, as long as you don't mess up the fundamentals of routing and construction.  The rest is mostly individual preference, although I will insist that there are certain styles that WOULDN'T work well on certain properties, and that in theory there is one particular style BEST suited to any property.

So, in the case of Old Macdonald, we could have tried several different styles -- but it was helpful to have a different style in mind than the one I'd used before, just as Pacific Dunes was in part a reaction to certain elements of Bandon Dunes.

The word "compromise" came up a lot from the outside when we were working at Sebonack, but I'm surprised to hear it come up again here.  This process has been so different for me than my usual method that I couldn't honestly tell you how the course might be different, although certainly, along the way, I've seen some potential holes out there that it was a bummer not to build.  But that is pretty much ALWAYS the case on any property ... you can't build all the best holes you find ... your golf course in the end has to have just 18 holes, and they have to fit together.  There's always compromise involved in that.

I think you guys as a group also tend to overestimate the impact of environmental restrictions.  There were a couple of small wetlands we've had to work around on the Old Macdonald property ... we've used one of them as the carry hazard for our "Littlestone" hole, which you'd know as the "Lido" hole.  But, in general, we haven't dealt with many restrictions at all.  Yes, on some properties and with some features (streams), environmental restrictions do sometimes come into play a lot more than that, but not as often as you might think.

[Tom_Doak]

I guess, in summary, I would much rather have a property with flaws to work around, than the "ideal" property which offers few restrictions but less inspiration.

[Jim Nugent]

Couldn't Christian's question be asked about every CBM/Raynor course?  Including NGLA?

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:

It could indeed be asked about any Macdonald / Raynor course.

But, in fact, it could just as easily be applied to any other architect's work.  Nobody but us knows how much our "style" is overriding other considerations in deciding what holes to build.

[Tom Huckaby]

I guess, in summary, I would much rather have a property with flaws to work around, than the "ideal" property which offers few restrictions but less inspiration.

Wow, this is way too good to just let slip by.

So Tom, in your perfect world you wouldn't want what C&C got at Sand Hills and the new NZ place?

Is that for the challenge?  Is it harder to make greatness when you have to work around flaws?  Is it just more fun for you?  In that other discussion - and at other times - people always say how hard it is to "find the best 18 holes and tie it all together" or the like at places like those C&C courses....

Anyway, can you flesh this out a bit more?  It's pretty darn fascinating....

TH

[Cristian]

"I guess, in summary, I would much rather have a property with flaws to work around, than the "ideal" property which offers few restrictions but less inspiration."

I agree with Tom H. That remark is fascinating. I wonder whether Tom D means that the inspiration to think around obstacles and therefore the fun and satisfaction in designing and building would be greater or that he would actually be challenged to come up with a better end result (or both)?

Tom D:
I think I understand what you are saying; because of the infinite combinations possible to build 18 holes, you are always compromising and hence a 'themed' assignment doesn't make that much worse, if any, as long as the theme fits the land. (Or if the assignment is not themed, as long as the chosen style fits the land).

[rchesnut]

I found another one of Tom's remarks to be even more thought provoking -- not wanting to have his hands tied, and the compromises forced on architects who want to build the best holes but can't because courses "have" to be 18 holes.

As an athlete, I like freedom, variety and challenge.  I left tennis because I found the restrictions and "scenery" to be boring....same size court, same net height, few variations in surface, same chain link fences.  I preferred the "nature" walk that golf courses in different settings provided, with different conditions (wind, rain, cold) and styles of holes adding to the variety, not to mention the interaction with friends while I played. 

After a while, I started noticing that golf architects created different levels of freedom as well, and I started to gravitate away from courses that dictated where I had to hit the ball and punished me with a lost ball when I failed.  I've moved toward courses that give me (and my erratic game) a lot of strategic options on where to hit it, and courses that do a great job integrating themselves into natural surroundings. 

Tom's comments about 18 holes, combined with my first "sheep ranch" experience a couple weeks ago, adds another dimension to my thinking.    I enjoyed my 2 hours on the sheep ranch so much because I had even more freedom....there weren't 18 holes, there were probably 100 possible combinations.   I could tee it up where I wanted, play for as long as I wanted (1 hour?  4 hours?  8?), play holes in any order I wanted and go where I wanted...it was a giant, spectacular seaside playground.   And I would guess that certain spectacular green sites there wouldn't exist if Tom had been forced to build a "traditional" golf course. 

For safety and financial reasons, the "sheep ranch" model obviously won't work...the land is too valuable to remain as a giant free playground for golf.   But I'm glad that, at least for now, it exists somewhere as an example of what can be done when an architect's hands, and's experience, aren't tied down by conventional thinking.  Similarly, tying this back to the subject of the thread, Old Macdonald doesn't just copy what's been done before, it's a different experience than what I'm used to seeing on a golf course...and that's a good thing. 

[Tom_Doak]

Tom H:

Maybe I stated that so strongly that it gave you the wrong idea. 

Sand Hills was indeed a great piece of ground, but I guarantee you that routing it forced some tough decisions, and there were at least a couple of places where Bill and Ben were wishing it was different ... but, they stuck it out instead of bulldozing those things away.  One man's features are another man's flaws.

That is the challenge of minimalism, but that's why it is so interesting.  Once you start "fixing" a flaw here or there, you wind up changing the whole damned hole.  We did that on one of the holes at Old Macdonald last week ... the landing area was just too severe in its natural state, but once we started moving dirt, about 200 yards of the hole changed along with it, and we lost some of the coolness it had at the start.  But it's late in the game, and the holes on either side of the hole I'm talking about were pretty much fixed, so we couldn't change one of them to make this hole work differently and to save more of the cool stuff.

And, to answer Christian's related question, I think the end product turns out better the less of that you do, if you're working on good land.  My original quote was meant to be more along the lines of -- boring land doesn't have many flaws, but I'd rather be working with something that has flaws and CHARACTER.

[Tom Huckaby]

Tom D:

That is a fine explanation, many thanks.  This does remain just fascinating stuff, even for an idiot like me who poo-poohs the whole subject of "architecture "all the time.  In my defense, I never said it was easy to do, I have just always said we ought to leave the assessment of it to guys in the business.  And posts like yours illustrate why.  THAT is what goes into designing a great golf course, and how can any of us know that without seeing the raw site and knowing the thinking that went into the course's creation?  So how can we ever really assess "architecture"?

But I massively digress, sorry about that.

In any case, man these must be fun puzzles to complete, however you do it.

TH

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom D - that reminds me of the editing process for television biographies, and the use of sound clips/comments from various experts/talking heads. Some comments seemed useful and on-point from the first time we heard them, and we were sure they'd make the final cut; while others were interesting but so far afield that we would almost forget about them completely -- until we were near the end of the process and suddenly found that in the jig-saw puzzle that was the finished work, the former were often unneccesary and even unhelpful while the latter suddenly became like gold, ie just the thing that helped make the work what it had been seeking to become all along.  Which is to say, it sounds like landforms/features are often 'neutral' - neither good nor bad -- until they find (or not) a place in the whole.  The difference is that in gca it seems like you need to have a vision of that whole from quite early on, even as you keep changing it.  That sounds complex enough, but especially so on a project like Old Macdonald. It's no wonder you don't ever want "your hands tied" - that would make the task of creating the golf course that was "seeking to become" all along nearly impossible. 

Peter   

[Jon Nolan]

I'm blanking on the hole number (#6?) but the green complex adjacent to PD #14 is a wet dream.  If the course as a whole lives up to that standard we're in for a special treat no matter.  The entirety of the holes within the 'bowl' visible from PD appears to be phenomenal golf.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak,

Understanding the generalized Macdonald style at OM, is there anything you've done there that you would incorporate into future designs ?

[Tom_Doak]

Patrick:

Yes, there are a couple of things.

So far, my favorite green complex that we've built is on the Long hole (sixth hole, par 5).  It is based loosely on the 14th green at St. Andrews, but since we didn't find a good spot for a green like that, and we needed to build a green here in order to make the seventh hole an appropriate length.  So, we just put a bit of fill out in an open field and contoured it appropriately, which is something we rarely ever do, and it turned out great.  (It helps that there is a large gorse bush just to the right which ties in the green visually, so it's not all alone, and there is a good distant background as well.)

Another of my favorite features is the diagonal line of mounds which you drive over on #7.  The first three of them are man-made, to tie into some other dunes off to the right side of the hole.  Jim said he was sick of building bunkers and just wanted to do something different ... and with the daunting second shot ahead, bunkers would have forced a lay-up shot if you found them.  So we did it bunkerless instead, and I love how it works.

Neither of those is really a "Macdonald" idea, but then again I've been familiar with the Macdonald palette for a long time, and have borrowed little bits already in other locations.

[Michael Moore]

Neither of those is really a "Macdonald" idea, but then again I've been familiar with the Macdonald palette for a long time, and have borrowed little bits already in other locations.

Maybe the course should just be called "Middle-Aged Doak".

But seriously, thanks for chiming in so regularly, your observations are always interesting.

[Michael Dugger]

#1
#2 Eden
#3 Sahara
#4 Hogsback
#5 Short
#6 Long
#7 Ocean
#8 Biarritz
#9 Cape
#10 Bottle
#11 Road
#12 Redan
#13
#14
#15
#16 Alps
#17 Channel
#18 Punchbowl

Question for Tom Doak...can you identify the missing holes?

[Tom_Doak]

Michael:

The first hole is a double-plateau green, similar to the first at Yeamans Hall or 11th at National.

The 13th is "Leven".

We don't have names for 14 and 15 yet.  Fourteen is a medium-short, uphill par-4 playing to a green set against the big dune in the center of the property.  It might be called "Maiden" after that big dune, but it's really not a "template" hole at all.

The fifteenth is a big par five from the big inland dune to a green overlooking the ocean.  Again, it's not really a template hole.  A ton of names have been suggested for this one, but we haven't decided yet.

P.S.  We are thinking leaning toward calling #17 "Littlestone" since there is no "channel" on the hole in Bandon, and since Macdonald's original idea for the hole came from the 16th at Littlestone, England.