Ballyhack Virtual Tour now Available

[Lester George]

Gents,

Hopping on a plane to Jacksonville for the annual ASGCA meeting but thought I would leave you all with this COOOOOOL deal.

If you go to www.ballyhackgolfclub.com and choose "virtual tour" from the GOLF pull down menu you can see the entire (almost) Ballyhack Golf Course in TOTAL VIRTUAL REALITY. 

You can go to the main map and choose any hole (or lot) and look up, down, left, right, over, under, etc.  This new technology is brought to you by ROUNDSCAPES which has a camera that takes 600,000 images an hour.  Once you take the course from two three vantage points, it ties it all together (without distortion).  You can even go into the cottages to see your overnight accomodations.  Click on the pro (Aaron Dooley) in the bottom right corner and get tips on how to play the holes.  Click on the monuments on each hole to go to that point.  DRAG YOUR MOUSE AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS!!!!!

Looking forward to seeing all of you for the GCA outing.  We still have a few slots open.  If you are interested, contact Wade Whitehead (here) of Jonathan I reland at Ballyhack Golf Club. 

See you all then.

Lester 

[Wade Whitehead]

VERY cool feature, Lester.  The course really pops thanks to the great resolution.  I've never seen as comprehensive a virtual tour or one as full of cool features.

GCA Outing plans are in final approach.  If anyone else is interested in joining us, please let me know immediately.

WW

[George Freeman]

Very impressive website!  The course looks really really fun.

Lester:  Is it the intention to allow the bunker edges to ware out and soften over time (i.e. lose the cut-edged look)?

Also, I'm sure this has been discussed before, but how challenging of a walk is Ballyhack?

Thanks!

- George

[Carl Rogers]

Scott Weersing and I were Lester 's guest at Ballyhack last July.  A terrific course ... thanks again Lester!

Walking is a great and difficult challenge at Ballyhack and can attest to it first hand.  In our round, there was a complete downpour after the 14th hole.  An hour later, the super did not want any carts on fairway but we wanted to complete the round  .. so we walked from 15, 16, 17 & 18 ... very tough and a I am no wimp.

What I take away form the course is the contrast in topography between the front and back nines (they are bisected by a road).
I give the nod to the back nine.

[Emil Weber]

Wow thats one of the best course tours I've ever seen. The course looks great, Lester!

[Lester George]

George,

Ballyhack, as discussed several times was never set up to be walked much.  Although there are some very natural transitions on both nines, the attraction of the site was its severity.  If a walking golf course was the goal, we would have moved on to another site.  The bunkers are generally not maintained and the beauty of the bunkers to me is that they have very few "formal" edges unless they are greenside.  They will be left to evolve for the most part.

LOester

[Bill Kubly]

Lester,
I hear that the course opened this week after a severe winter (lots of snow).  The native grasses really look good and the Virtual Tour really shows the course off very well.  I  hope to make it up there this spring to play.  The cottages are also really great.  They are much like the 4-plexes that were built at Sutton Bay, and are great for 4 guys or 4 couples.  Hope it comes out of the winter in great shape.......