AAC II. Results. Are. In.

[Charlie Goerges]

Here are the contestants:

Michael Baldwin
Garland Bayley
Nick Campanelli
Jim Colton
Andy Gray
Gary Kurth
Steve Lang
Alex Miller
Guy Nicholson
Ed Oden
Will Peterson
Daryn Soldan
Emil Weber

[Jim Colton]

Charlie,

  Maybe it's too early for this, but can you post a lines and greens image for each of the entries individually (hopefully with the lines in full view)?  This might help us evaluate the basic routing of each of the entries on equal footing before getting into the detailed work.  It could be an interesting middle-step to generate some discussion, similar to Ben's design process thread.  You can still keep in anonymous.

[Garland Bayley]

Charlie
The green location is a beautiful chart
Fellas - that chart took a significant amount of time - not including all the work to create this contest
The brown clubhouse may flood one day....

Mike,

It seems to me that the more greens in the smaller circles, would be an indicator of better locations. Whereas, the greens separated by space in the larger circles would be just a location where people were trying to find a hole. I am guessing that the tighter the green overlay, the more similar the routing of the holes ending there may be. Whereas, the looser the green overlay the more varied the routing of the holes ending there.

Charlie,

Am I mistaken, or did you draw one small circle around just two greens? If so, why? Is that because you were going to put a green there yourself?

[Alex Miller]

Garland,

If you don't mind I'll answer for Charlie. You are mistaken, there are at least three greens circled in all of them, and the one you're talking about seems to have 3 in exactly the same spot.

Also, it seems that the routing lines rarely show the same hole even if it is a common green site. Though it's hard to see the lines, the orientation of the greens seems to have the arrow pointing to the left (when viewed from the approach shot).

Thanks to Charlie for not only putting this together but giving us new ways to compare and contrast routings!

[Charlie Goerges]

Jim, I'll get to that as soon as I can, but in the meantime, here's one that has lines and greens for all of them. It looks a bit like spaghetti, but that's probably good this early in the judging.

[Garland Bayley]

Well, that clearly blows my theory about the same hole being routed to the highly overlapping green sites.

[Nick Campanelli]

Charlie, how long did it take to put that graphic together?  Good work though.  Submission "yellow" definitely tried using the entire site (i'll assume thats the submission mentioned earlier with 45 holes?)  

[Emil Weber]

Charlie,

Thanks for the graphics. I like spaghetti in all colours 

And thank you very very much for creating this contest! Much appreciated by all.

[Gary_K]

Wow, that's interesting, I'll be staring at the routing drawing quite a lot over the next few days.  There are very few holes, if any, that share the same route.  During the routing process, everyone was probably thinking "well, this only make sense".  Obviously, that may not be case.

Gary K.

[Steve Lang]

  over hill over dale.. wow..  that overlay is somewhere between a monkey with a small crayola box and straight edge and a blinding vision tracing fireworks display!

I notice a bunch of holes where the entrants went both upslope downslope on the same paths..

[Garland Bayley]

Whomever did the yellow holes was one busy beaver.

[Jim Colton]

Jim, I'll get to that as soon as I can, but in the meantime, here's one that has lines and greens for all of them. It looks a bit like spaghetti, but that's probably good this early in the judging.

My early money is on dark green, at least the East 18 of his 36 if that's how he has it split.  Very nice routing as far as I can tell.

[Garland Bayley]

Jim,

How can you say that? The best 36 holes on the property have to average out lower quality than the best 18 holes on the property do. That's what math says to me.

[Andy Gray]

Jim,

How can you say that? The best 36 holes on the property have to average out lower quality than the best 18 holes on the property do. That's what math says to me.

I'm not entirely sure what you are saying, please elaborate?

But if I did get the right drift, you are saying that if one designed more than 18 holes on the property then overall the quality of holes would be less because the best land wasn't used for the one course? I can say that my first course was designed with only that one course in mind, and the rest of the holes were designed because I had some time and wanted to have some fun with other parts of the property.

It will also be interesting to see how this is judged, whether it is the best 18 holes from a contestant, or the best overall property.

[Garland Bayley]

Andy,

Jim indicated that there was a west 18, and an east 18. Since it is my judgment that the best holes are not just on the west nor just on the east, then there will be weaker holes put in to complete each 18.

[Brian Noser]

Sucks being colorblind.....

[Steve Lang]

  but how do you get all of the best 18 holes connected without real long walks? 

[Nick Campanelli]

Garland, I agree and disagree with you...

While you may find the best 18 holes withing the site, odds are the 18 holes wont align into one routing.  As a result, the connecting holes may (and i stress MAY) not be great within a 36 hole complex....

Playing devil's advocate....I also feel, and know with this site, that there are definitely more than 18 great holes there....i just dont know that creating a 36 hole complex is the answer.  Deciding on the best 18 holes to complete a solid routing seems like the best solution to me...that is unless the developer is pushing 36 on the architect!

[Garland Bayley]

but how do you get all of the best 18 holes connected without real long walks? 

They are called par 5s. They are often used by architects to do connection. Ian wrote the other day how ST did it that way. And, if I understood TD, he claimed to do the same.

[Steve Lang]

  Garland,

Stanley Thompson / Tom Doak...  i can think of several of their par 5's that connect things, but that can't be the basis for all par 5's, not enough of them, especially for this site

[Garland Bayley]

But all you need is 2. One connecting east to west, and one connecting west to east. Any other par 5s on this property, you can build world class.

[Andy Gray]

I agree with what you are saying Garland, but you will find almost (and perhaps every) great course has a few holes which are not as great as the others (while being very good). There is compromise in every design I see on the map, and I personally believe that a better designer is able to weigh up the various options open to him/her and choose the one which will yield the greater routing. I do not necessarily agree that the best course would have to have holes on both the west and east side of the property (although it could be, we will have to wait for the judges), as there is plenty of interest on both sides to carry a coherent and interesting routing.

[Garland Bayley]

Andy,

Do you mean to tell me you looked at that map in detail. May I ask how is your migraine? Or, how many Tylenol (Oxycontin?) did it take to decipher it?

[Tim Nugent]

OKAY. WOW! just finished gooing through those 13 submittals and sent my results off to Charlie so now I can interact without risk of being swayed.

1st, let me say that I was very impressed with the amount of work that was put in the submittals.  And, I had to go through all 13 because I couldn't dismiss any as "Boy, this really sucks".  I'm sure all have a much better understanding of just how intiment one gets with a site just through a topo.  Granted it's only a piece of the puzzle but you can get pretty far with it.

Just as hard as it was for ya'll to figure out your program - what to do,  I had an equally hard time trying to arrive at some sort of evaluation criteria.  Just the inclusion or exclusion of a criteria would change the final scoring.  And it's fairly arbritrary as to what the criteria is.  Luckily we have multiple judges and hence will have multiple criteria and some overlapping criteria (which will strengthen those aspects in the scoring).

Since I don't wnat to bias the other judges, I will keep those criteria a mystery for now.  But I did have more than 10 in an attempt to not have any aspect garner an overbearing weight on the outcome.

I also prepared a plan myself llong ago as a means to get an understanding of what the site had to offer.  However, I changed the scale to 2x's what ya'll worked with so I wouldn't be influenced by what I came up with.

Also, after scoring the 13,  scored mine and only bested my "winner" by 10% (and I came up with the criteria - go figure).

I liked the fact that ya'll are just numbers - 1-13, so I won't even know who's who.

I liked the comment pertaining to siting the Clubhouse.  Never thought it was so critical- eh?

Mike N. Why do you think that clubhouse will flood?  There could be a waterfall just off the property - or he could have deemed this to be sited in Dubai.  Gotta keep an open and flexible mind.

[Gary_K]

Tim,

Thanks for taking the time to be a judge, I’d guess rating the routings is challenging and time consuming. 

In the spirit of trying to spur some discussion (without giving too much away and influence the other judges), irregardless of how the routing rated overall, is there 1 or 2 holes that jumped-out at you?  Holes that made you pause to study them a little closer and in your mind say ‘I like that’ or ‘ I wish I thought of that’.  Can you identify 1 or 2 in the colored spaghetti drawing and what caught your eye?  I don’t know if this is pushing the discussion too far at this point in the contest, if it is, we can save the question for later on.

Thanks again.