Mystery Golf Architect Revealed (Armchair Architecture Course) w/comments

[Carl Nichols]

Tom, Jeff:
Thanks very much for the responses; very interesting.
Carl

[Jason Topp]

This program does a terrific job of revealing countour and its effect on golf holes which is difficult to decipher from photographs.  For example - many of the angled fairways also have some slope that would help a more conservative tee shot kick around the corner (assuming firm, fast fairways).

The other thing I kept thinking about when looking at the holes was how much they would be impacted by wind.  Were there any assumptions about prevailing winds?

[Tom_Doak]

Jason:

Prevailing winds at Erin Hills are generally from the southwest (straight into the teeth of #8 on the plan above).  But, you can have north and south winds there pretty commonly, so you can't just think about one prevailing wind and discount the others completely.

[Charlie Goerges]

Tom, Here are the comments by Judge. Not all judges made comments on every entry.


Tommy Naccarato

“Routing leave a lot to be desired. Just too many greens and tees in close proximity to other golf holes, making them susceptible to open shots coming in while on the tee. It's a good use of land, but ultimately, I fear that the routing would have me scratching to figure out which hole was which.”




Mike Nuzzo

“Professional looking”





Yannick Pilon:

Design 003
The routing hugs the land fairly well with a couple of awkward transitions or long walks.  I am not sure that a non-returning eighteen is the best way to go on this site.  I believe that two returning nines could have easily been created by using the features of the land efficiently.  In this climate, a golf course owner or operator will need all the rounds he can get to make a profit, even the nine-hole rounds!  The location of the first tee and the eighteenth green make it tough to design a clubhouse area that will be efficient while still showcasing the golf course adequately.
Favourite holes are no. 3, 15 and 16, even if they could still be improved with a couple of strategic bunkers.  Overall, this is a very decent routing, but it lacks a little strategic interest to create a really good course.

GENERAL NOTES:

•   Hole no. 1 offers a good start with an uphill hole which is not too steep.  I like the way that the bunkers are stacked up along the edge of the slope.  Simple, but efficient.

•   Hole no. 2 is a good hole with an interesting drive to a diagonal fairway.  However, there is no great advantage for successfully cutting the corner of the dogleg.  Maybe the second fairway bunker should have been closer to the green site to have a bigger impact.

•   Hole no. 3 appears to be a very nice hole that will fit nicely in its natural setting.

•   Hole no. 4 offers a nice par three with an interesting green site.  Quite penal, but still nice.

•   Hole no. 5 is another interesting hole that sits well in the landscape.  However, I am not sure if it is a par four or a par five.  Nonetheless, I like the way the bunkers create many options and ask golfers to navigate between them to reach the green.  The bunker that sits short and right of the green offers an interesting approach shot down to a green that will be slightly blind from the fairway.

•   Hole no. 6 feels a bit boring in this large expanse of flat terrain. I would have liked to see some bunkering added here to generate interest.

•   There is a very long walk between holes no. 6 and 7, and this tends to break the flow of the course which was mostly good since the beginning.  I like the idea of the wide fairway split by a bunker, but I am not sure the strategy works out properly, considering that the bunker on the right side of the green does not entice golfers to go for the right part of the fairway.  It is not clear what was intended here....

•   I am not sure I understand the strategy of hole no. 8, if there is one.  The hole feels a bit awkward to me on that piece of the property and devoid of real interest on the tee shot.

•   The transition from the green of hole no. 8 to hole no. 9 is again a bit awkward.  The golfers might skip the hole entirely if they are not careful!  Hole no. 10 seems to naturally follow hole no. 8.  However, hole no. 9 has potential, even if the bunkering appears to be disjointed from the green site.

•   The tee shot of hole no. 10 is not well defined.  It will be blind from the forward tee and the landing zone is tough to determine from all the tee decks.  The second half of the hole is featureless and would benefit from the addition of a bunker complex or two.

•   Hole no. 11 would most likely be more interesting if it was straighter over the linear mound that frames the right side of the hole.  The bunker on the left would add more interest on the inside corner of the dogleg, as opposed to act as a target bunker to frame the outside corner of the dogleg.

•   Holes no. 12, 13, 14 & 15 offer a strong routing, but their strategic interest appears to be limited in the present configuration.

•   Hole no. 13 would be a little more interesting with a fairway zone extending behind the green to allow balls to roll back on the putting surface.

•   It would have been nice to have a wider fairway on the right in the landing zone of hole no. 14.  It would give players a chance to go around the green side bunker on their second shots and bounce the ball onto the green surface.

•   Hole no. 15 is nicely integrated in the natural topography of the golf course.  However, I would have liked to see a wider fairway in the second landing zone to compensate for the heavy slope in the fairway.
•   Hole no. 16 is my favourite hole on this routing. It appears to be almost drivable, but semi-blind.  The hole could use more bunkering to help define the tee shots and penalize golfers that will fail to reach the green on their tee shots, but overall, this seems to be a good hole.

•   Hole no. 17 is a disappointment after holes no. 15 and 16.  The tee shot from the back tee is totally blind to a green located in what appears to be a featureless area of the property.

•   The final hole is also a disappointment.  It appears to be a fairly straightforward hole with no real risk reward scenario that could add an exclamation point to the end of the round.  The green of hole no. 18 is also a good distance away from the tee of hole no. 1.  This makes it difficult to locate the clubhouse in an area that will be both practical, and visually interesting for golfers at the beginning and the end of their round.  Having a non-returning 18 makes it tough to create a good impression around the clubhouse area since there are less golf features to showcase for the golfers. 

Best Holes:   Hole no. 5 –Par 4-5?
Hole no. 16 – Par 4

[Tom_Doak]

On the asssumption that Tommy N will someday look in on this, I have to say it -- the Emperor has no clothes!!!

Yannick, I think you are way too focused on "strategy" in your opinions, which it seems can only be created by bunkering. 

To take one prominent example -- the eighth hole on the routing I did had one of the best and most severe green sites on the whole property, with a steep drop to the right and a perfect little swale on the left.  And, the hole was 440 yards.  The tee shot gave the option of laying back with a flat lie and a long approach, or trying to drive over the crest of a slope, leaving a shorter but sharply uphill approach with a poor view of the green.  To me, adding "strategic" fairway bunkers on a hole like that would be a giant case of overkill.

[Charlie Goerges]

I understood your reasoning on number 8, but Yannick made a point about #7 that I'm curious to get your take on. In the image below it looks like if you take the risk to get to the upper fairway area and make it, you'll be approaching over a bunker whereas if go the safe route, no bunker. Is it just that the upper fairway will have such a short approach and better visibility that the bunker won't be a problem?





The hole does look "right" to me though because, like I said, when I've looked at these things I wasn't as concerned about shot by shot strategy. I like things to look naturalistic, fun, inviting.


Charlie

P.S. I just now realized that I forgot to include the 12th hole in my esker discussion. I am such a stupid.

[Dan Moore]

This routing overlay might be helpful in this discussion.  I'm just starting to compare what Tom did to some of my photos.  Interesting how Tom's routing gets holes moving in more directions to take advantage of the wind.  I also like how the 15th threads through the narrow opening used for the Dell hole green.  The par 3 3rd from the top of the hill over the mound to a greensite beyond that chosen by HFW for the 12th looks cool too, thoughI have to say the HFW 12th is one of my favorite holes. 

[Tom_Doak]

Charlie:

That seventh hole is a fairly short par-4.  I am not sure about your screen shot of it -- doesn't look like the same angle as I put the tees, where (in plan view) you either have to carry the right-hand bunkers or hit a fade past them, or you'll wind up in the hollow or into the bunkers through the fairway.

If you take on the bunker on the right, you're rewarded with a level view of the green -- you still have a bunker to carry in front, but with a 9-iron in your hand, I don't think of that as much of a hazard.

If you are a short hitter, or just play sloppily down the left, you have pretty much a blind approach (only seeing the top of the flag) out of a hollow.  I don't think anybody would take that angle deliberately.  With the blind shot, I didn't see any point in bunkering this line of approach ... the people down there are just trying to make 4, and the green target for this hole would have been relatively small, so it's okay with me they don't have to carry a bunker in front.  That's a great example of how I see "risk and reward" a lot differently than some people do. 

Your question is a two-dimensional view, ignoring the value of the hollow in making the hole plenty difficult for the average guy.

[Charlie Goerges]

So it works about how I thought, the hollow or what I thought of as the lower fairway is a hazard. I know my contour lines didn't pick up a lot of the smaller changes in elevation and so has the effect of "smoothing" out everything a bit, and the depth of that hollow may have been one casualty of my process.

[Charlie Goerges]

Tom, I was also meaning to ask whether any of the holes in sketchup come anywhere close to looking like they should have? Or how you imagined they might look? (notwithstanding the limited number of images and the fact that I used a foreshortened view that makes distant things appear larger than they would in reality)

[Dan Moore]

Here is a shot of EH #11.  Hole #7 from the contest used this corridor in reverse so this shows the landing zone in the foreground.  The tee would have been a little right of the green. 



Found this shot of the entire hole corridor.  Would have been hole #1 of Tom's routing of Erin Hills

[Tom_Doak]

Charlie:

A lot of the sketchup views were pretty good, I thought.  #5, in particular, looks like I remember that hole, both back and front views.  The view of #8 was also very good.

If anything, the hills don't show up as strong as they should.  That landing area on #3 was pretty wild, and the green on #4 was on a sharp little hill -- something like the 11th at High Pointe, or even the 5th at Gleneagles (King's).  It doesn't look nearly that dramatic in the view above.

[Charlie Goerges]

Tom, I'm glad to hear that they were reasonable representations. I really couldn't hope for more than that because of the inaccuracies of the topo that I had. The flattening out of hills is likely the result of the topo being a watered-down version of reality and the tendency to want to get up in the "air" a bit to show the entire hole. Once you get up a bit higher, you start to lose perspective. Sort of like being in an airplane and looking down. most everything looks pretty flat from up high.

[Dan Moore]

Tom Doak was kind enough to contribute part of his original Erin Hills routing to Charlie for the Armchair Architect contest.  The routing as sketched up by Charlie was presented at the beginning of this thread and included Charlie's hole by hole drawings.  I added a copy of the routing over the topo map that was posted. 

I'm on record as a fan of Erin Hills, no doubt in part because I grew up about 30 minutes from there, but also because I have walked the course and played it several times.  It is an incredible property that could have yielded any number of top notch routings. 

I've had some fun locating Tom's routing on some of my photos from Erin Hills.  I thought I'd share some of those photos, not to criticize EH, but as a fascinating look at the routing process and the variety of possibilities inherent in the glacial undulations at Erin Hills.  Hopefully, I got most of it right. 



Tom's holes are indicated in red on the routing topo map.  Hole #1 was presented above. 

Here are Holes 2-8.  Holes 9, 10 and 11 circle the water feature and are not part of the current course.  I'll add the back nine soon. 

Routing Contour Map of Holes 1-3



Hole #2

This hole starts near the 11th tee of EH and moves SE toward the 13th green.  This photo of EH 13th shows the tee in the background, a major drop off in the fairway lz and the approximate green location.  (Note Tom Doak correction indicating green is located in the high ground to the right in the photo.)     



Contour routing map of Holes 3-5




Hole #3  This par 3 hole has the tee on the mounds to the right on the crest of the hill of the 12th hole with the green located beyond the 12th green.



This should say 3rd green




Hole #4  This hole moves through the corridor the 17th hole.  The tee is behind the 17th green, the fairway bends around the esker to a green located in the rough to the left of the start of the 17th fairway.  Note how the esker is used as a feature in the landing area.






Hole #5  A par 3 from near the 17th tee to a greensite behind the 16th green





Contour Routing map 6-8




Hole #6  This hole begins near the 16th green behind the current 4th green, proceeds down the 4th hole corridor (in the opposite direction) with the green tucked to the left in what would have been the rough at the beginning of the 4th fairway. 



 


Hole #7 Looks like a par 5.  Tee located in the rough of the 4th fairway, hole proceeds over small hill into the corridor of the 3rd hole, then jogs right around some broken ground with the green located behind a shoulder of a hill. 




Hole # 8  This very short par 4 starts in the 3rd fairway and proceeds over the controversial 2nd green into a area that is very undulating.  The green of this short par 4 appears to be terraced into a rather large glacial mound.

[Tom_Doak]

Dan:

I don't mind your doing this, but I'm curious if it is helpful to others.

Personally, I understand the contours better than the photos of the land with fairways and greens and tees in different places.

Also, I think you got my second hole wrong.  The green site was on high ground (to the player's left of where you are showing), not down anywhere by the 13th green as you seem to be showing.

[Charlie Goerges]

.

[Jim Colton]

Also, of 30 clients that I've had, there are less than ten of them who could really judge the merits of different designs by looking at various plans (as in this contest) -- so even if I was confident that I could come up with the best plan, I'm not confident that the client would choose it.  Mr. Lang looked closely at my plan for Erin Hills and interviewed me, but he chose to work with Hurdzan/Fry/Whitten because he hit it off with Mike Hurdzan personally.  He also implied that the success of Pacific Dunes might have meant that I didn't need to try so hard on his project, which was a misjudgment on his part.

Tom,

  I'm interested whether 'build a course that could host a US Open' and 'move as little dirt as possible' were at the top of the client's wish list back when you first interviewed w/ Mr. Lang, or is that something that evolved later once HFW got involved and the USGA started popping in.

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:

I do remember distinctly during the interview with Mr. Lang that he mentioned wanting to have the course 8,000 yards long so he could host a U.S. Open ... and my body language alone probably cost me the job right there. 

As for the "move as little dirt as possible" mantra, I think he picked that up from my previous design ... several people had recommended me to him and pointed that out as one of the features of my work, and it seemed to appeal to him.  But, it was the kind of site where a lot of architects would probably have said the same thing.

[Dan Moore]

Tom,  Would the drives on either 6 or 7 have been blind?  The tees are located behind hills but I can't tell from the photos if they were avenues of visibility that would have been used so that the landing areas would be visible from the tee.  Thanks. 

[Tom_Doak]

Dan:

I assume you're speaking of my routing in the order I had originally. 

I seem to recall there was a little shoulder on the east side of the wetland on #6 that would have made that shot blind, if you didn't build up the tee or remove part of the hill.  I probably would have opted to do the latter.  Hadn't thought about that hill for 10+ years, so my memory is not 100%.

On #7 the tee shot would have had to be cleared through a belt of trees running down the right side of the fairway and then crossing over to the left side of the second shot.  A long hitter would have had to hit a left-to-right tee shot, and if he was long enough it would have cleared the crest of a hill and rolled down and to the right.  That's not what I would call a blind tee shot, but a fair number of golfers wouldn't have seen where their ball wound up from the tee, as you suggest.

[Jim Colton]

Jim:

I do remember distinctly during the interview with Mr. Lang that he mentioned wanting to have the course 8,000 yards long so he could host a U.S. Open ... and my body language alone probably cost me the job right there. 

As for the "move as little dirt as possible" mantra, I think he picked that up from my previous design ... several people had recommended me to him and pointed that out as one of the features of my work, and it seemed to appeal to him.  But, it was the kind of site where a lot of architects would probably have said the same thing.

Tom,

 Do you think that your original routing done for a previous owner might have worked against you, because it likely wasn't 8,000 yards and perhaps more playable/less demanding than something you might design with a US Open in mind?

[Tom_Doak]

Actually, Jim, I think the main reason I lost that job is because Mr. Lang hired a guy to help guide his selection process who was a GOLF DIGEST panelist [and a USGA committeeman  too].  And if they'd just chosen me, then his "golf consultant" would not have made any difference, and that guy CLEARLY wanted to make a difference.  [That's often the way it works ... every time there is a "consultant" around, he winds up steering the job to somebody else, and I'm never sure if it's on the level or not.] 

And so they decided to sign up Hurdzan / Fry, with Ron Whitten [who coincidentally was the head of GOLF DIGEST panelists] as a co-designer.  I wasn't very happy about that at the time, even though Ron has been a friend of mine for 25 years.  But, I guess I learned that all's fair in love and business.  And to be very wary of consultants.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Tom,
It would seem like the consultants rates went up this year as he looks like a genius to many.
There is no end in sight...


Who should get the most credit?
The one who bought the land?

Did you have the same boundary lines as H&F?
I thought there was a whole lot more land and a similar footprint is surprising.
Or did they use your footprint?

Cheers

[Charlie Goerges]

HFW had more land available than TD. If you go to page 1, one of my posts attempted to explain it.


Regarding consultants, don't they often act as though they feel they need to justify their existence? From what I've heard about feasibility studies there's never a non-feasible project if a consultant is involved.

[George Pazin]

I was hoping that this contest (in contrast to most GCA photo discussions) would be judged on  how the holes fit the land, and not on the basis of bunkering, graphics, or narrative ... but I think that's hard to do.  I know the site pretty well, and even so, it's hard for me to look at the other plans in Sketchup and really judge them based on the contours alone.  Drawing a bunch of bunkers makes the strategies more obvious; that's why everyone builds too many bunkers.

This is worthy of its own thread, imho.