Flat sites

[Rick Shefchik]

In the Fazio-Pinehurst thread, there's mention of a proposed Fazio project on a former parking lot.

While we'd all agree that it would be better to have natural topographic features to work with when designing and building a new course, we also know that's not always possible. Here in Minnesota (the Twin Cities area) there's a lot of prairie without much contour, and courses continue to be built on land that doesn't inspire on first glance -- including a course currently being built two miles from my home on a former farm field. The architects (it's been kind of a committee project) have built lots and lots of mounds, transforming the site and lending it plenty of contour, but it looks phony.

The question is, what's the best way to deal with a flat site? Obviously you don't want parallel airstrips, but the phony mounds don't seem to be much of an improvement. What would you consider to be the right amount of earth-moving and reshaping in a former cornfield?

Rick

[Philippe Binette]

I think great golf couses can be built out of flat land without moving a lot of earth. A piece of land always has some subtle contours that an architect can work with. Personally, I believe that if you create a lot of small severely banked mounds, the golf course will look out of place in the prairie low profile landscape.
 In this vision, it is possible to create long smooth and subtle mounds that will fit the land and by using grasses and bushes it is possible to create a comfortable relatively enclosed area ideal for golf...

 Some architects should stop moving earth and start looking carefully at their piece of land...

[Paul Richards]

I've said it before on previous threads, but the genius of
Donald Ross is evident when you visit Evanston GC, north of
Chicago.  The site would make a great Wal-Mart parking lot
(could Fazio have done this well with Ross' limited budget
here?), yet it is a fun and fascinating course.

[BCowan]

This is a great thread.  I'd have to ask the same question, could Fazio or JN design a good course on flat land?  The flatest course i can think of is the first 15 holes at Toledo CC.  The last 3 cross the road and are fav among locals.  Are too many people Elevation whores?  I always try to give more credence to courses that lack movement, yet are well designed. 

[Bill_McBride]

Best flat course:  Talking Stick North.   Great use of center bunkers and other features. 

[Tom_Doak]

There's flat, and then there's FLAT.

On a gentle site with 1% to 2% fall everywhere, you could build a pretty good golf course without moving earth around, as with Paul's example and many other old courses.

But if the site really has 0% fall, like The Rawls Course, and it's not very sandy to the point you can trust the water will drain down, then you have to contour pretty much the whole site to get the water to go somewhere.  It's ridiculously expensive to re-grade 200 acres, 80-90% of which will never see a ball land on it, but nobody likes to see puddles in the roughs, either.

[Andy Troeger]

Fazio has built a course on flat, desert land. Butterfield Trail in El Paso, TX basically had nothing to start with, although Fazio moved a lot of dirt and created some interest. The Rawls Course is probably the better of the two, although I would say it is a close contest. Both are pretty good for what they had to work with.

I don't think Talking Stick North is as interesting as either Rawls or Butterfield.

[BCowan]

The more I think of it, 2 great flat courses would be Naples National (3 inches in elevation change i believe before construction) and Sweetens Cove.  Sand Capping was used at SC. 

[Bill_McBride]

Fazio has built a course on flat, desert land. Butterfield Trail in El Paso, TX basically had nothing to start with, although Fazio moved a lot of dirt and created some interest. The Rawls Course is probably the better of the two, although I would say it is a close contest. Both are pretty good for what they had to work with.

I don't think Talking Stick North is as interesting as either Rawls or Butterfield.

They must be good, Andy, because I think TSN has a bunch of terrific holes (2, 3, 4, 5, 12) before it tails off toward the end. 

[Anthony_Nysse]

I'm a little bias, yes, but the great Ben Hogan also said that Pine Tree is "the greatest flat course in the world."

[Andy Troeger]

Fazio has built a course on flat, desert land. Butterfield Trail in El Paso, TX basically had nothing to start with, although Fazio moved a lot of dirt and created some interest. The Rawls Course is probably the better of the two, although I would say it is a close contest. Both are pretty good for what they had to work with.

I don't think Talking Stick North is as interesting as either Rawls or Butterfield.

They must be good, Andy, because I think TSN has a bunch of terrific holes (2, 3, 4, 5, 12) before it tails off toward the end. 

I don't get the love for TSN. I think it has one really good hole (#12), one pretty good hole (#2) and a bunch of long par fours that did not do anything for me. #2 would be better if the main hazard wasn't OB, which I don't care for as a primary hazard in most cases. It is by far my least favorite C&C course.

[Tom_Doak]

I don't get the love for TSN. I think it has one really good hole (#12), one pretty good hole (#2) and a bunch of long par fours that did not do anything for me. #2 would be better if the main hazard wasn't OB, which I don't care for as a primary hazard in most cases. It is by far my least favorite C&C course.

I could not disagree more.  That's one of the most brilliant choices a golf course architect has made in the past fifty years ... making the left of the course there out of bounds so you're not scuffling out of the desert like every other desert course [or worse yet, from a "buffer" bunker].  It really puts the fear of God in a player on what is otherwise a profoundly simple hole.  I wish I'd thought of it myself, but more power to them!

[Lou_Duran]

Tom Doak,

Would you consider Rawls to have been one of your more difficult assignments?  How gratified are you by what you accomplished there?

I would like to hear what people think of Lochinvar in Houston.  It is one of the flatter courses I've played and thought that Nicklaus got a lot out of the site.

I wonder how many positions in a ranking a course loses for not being endowed with nice topography.  Is Seminole flat? 

[Mike_Young]

Tony,
I think Hogan had it right re Pine Tree.

As for flat sites...I did a course in Alexandria , La with less than 2 feet of elevation change in a little over 5000 feet of length.   All we could do was grab the elevation of the  parallel creek and dig ponds for fill....

I think English Turn is still in NOLA isn't it?  That sight is actually flat and below sea level...all the catches go to pumps...

[Jonathan Mallard]

There's flat, and then there's FLAT.

On a gentle site with 1% to 2% fall everywhere, you could build a pretty good golf course without moving earth around, as with Paul's example and many other old courses.

But if the site really has 0% fall, like The Rawls Course, and it's not very sandy to the point you can trust the water will drain down, then you have to contour pretty much the whole site to get the water to go somewhere.  It's ridiculously expensive to re-grade 200 acres, 80-90% of which will never see a ball land on it, but nobody likes to see puddles in the roughs, either.

+1

I was just getting ready to go into all this, plus the drainage system that would need to be built to convey all of this water elsewhere.

[John Shimp]

I thnk Chechessee is a great flat course.  The angles on that course are tricky particularly on the first 6 holes where biting off the corners really hurts. 

I loved Talking Stick North for the first time this past spring as well.  I couldn't belive how much trouble I was in off the tee with seemingly nothing going on.  I ended up seeing a lot of quail as I chased my ball over the place.  Really cool golf course.  I liked the hillier We Ko Pa Sagauro more but found picking tee shot lines a lot easier than TSN except on a couple of holes (eg 18 at WKP).

[Tom_Doak]

Tom Doak,

Would you consider Rawls to have been one of your more difficult assignments?  How gratified are you by what you accomplished there?

I would like to hear what people think of Lochinvar in Houston.  It is one of the flatter courses I've played and thought that Nicklaus got a lot out of the site.

I wonder how many positions in a ranking a course loses for not being endowed with nice topography.  Is Seminole flat? 

Lou:

Seminole is not flat at all; there are two big ridges, one by the ocean and one up in back, and about 14 of the holes play off one or the other.  That's why it's famous.

The Rawls Course was certainly one of my more difficult assignments.  However, I usually find such projects less fulfilling because there is no way to judge the result ... you could always have done everything completely different.  I can only take on something like that once every few years, after I've had time to think about how to do it better.  We are actually talking to somebody right now about something like that, and my ideas for it will be radically different if it moves forward.

[J_ Crisham]

Tom Doak,

Would you consider Rawls to have been one of your more difficult assignments?  How gratified are you by what you accomplished there?

I would like to hear what people think of Lochinvar in Houston.  It is one of the flatter courses I've played and thought that Nicklaus got a lot out of the site.

I wonder how many positions in a ranking a course loses for not being endowed with nice topography.  Is Seminole flat? 

Lou ,  my spin on Lochinvar was that it was good but not great golf- the atmosphere on the other hand is really good- it's a fun place to spend a day. I don't consider it to be in the same class as Champions Cypress Creek course as flat courses go. Champions has a much better set of greens and more variation in the doglegs . Here in Chicago , North Shore is very flat as is Evanston - both pretty decent tracks. Garden City GC is flattish and IMO probably edges out Pine Tree for the best flat course I've played- both are very , very good.

[J_ Crisham]

Forgot to mention Bob O Link - another pretty good but not great course in Chicago- taking out a couple thousand trees would no doubt improve it.

[Josh Tarble]

I thnk Chechessee is a great flat course.  The angles on that course are tricky particularly on the first 6 holes where biting off the corners really hurts. 

Chechessee is a great example. I think the pushed up greens are  one way to add interest to a flat site as well.

[Tim Gavrich]

I think Brunswick (GA) CC is a virtuoso effort on a pancake-flat site. Wonderful pushed-up greens and a great mix of straight and doglegging holes. Ditches seem to be the drainage panacea there.

[Rees Milikin]

I think Brunswick (GA) CC is a virtuoso effort on a pancake-flat site. Wonderful pushed-up greens and a great mix of straight and doglegging holes. Ditches seem to be the drainage panacea there.

Brunswick is the best course I have played on completely flat ground, those greens really helped create something interesting.  I doubt anyone else has played Sugarcane Golf Club in Belle Glade, FL, but the original 9 (built right next to one of Lake Okeechobee's overflow dams) is really good for being built on basically a drained swamp and the original 9 at Clewiston (Stiles & Van Kleek) is pretty good.

[Rick Shefchik]

I've played Talking Stick and really liked it -- very impressed with how much was going on when you could basically see the entire property from many points on the course. But the flattest course I've played is Ft. Myers Country Club, a 1917 Donald Ross that has just undergone a major makeover. I haven't seen the renovated course, but the original had only some interesting greens to recommend it -- and a culvert running diagonally through the property, which Ross used in some clever ways. I don't think he spent a whole lot of time or imagination on the original design. He probably didn't think it was worth it on that site.

[Rees Milikin]

I've played Talking Stick and really liked it -- very impressed with how much was going on when you could basically see the entire property from many points on the course. But the flattest course I've played is Ft. Myers Country Club, a 1917 Donald Ross that has just undergone a major makeover. I haven't seen the renovated course, but the original had only some interesting greens to recommend it -- and a culvert running diagonally through the property, which Ross used in some clever ways. I don't think he spent a whole lot of time or imagination on the original design. He probably didn't think it was worth it on that site.

I was in Ft. Myers a couple of weeks ago and stopped by to look at the renovation.  They completely re-routed the hole that ran parallel to Cleveland Ave and the greens look to promote more of an aerial game than the previous iteration. 

[PCCraig]

Rick,

What course were you talking about in your post from 2002?