Blank slate... manufactured golf

[Jaeger Kovich]

The Bayonne thread got me thinking...

If you had a site such as a Bayonne or a landfill/toxic site that required 100% fill. You had to completely manufacture a golf course from your imagination, no help from a single natural contour. Imagine it was dead flat and square.. Import the soils of your choice. What kind/theme/style/motif/project statement would you choose?.. Money is always an issue.

Obviously the tendency, at least from what I have seen, is to call it a links course and build rounded mounds with fescue and retention ponds. I played a 9 holer in NJ like that yesterday, which got the wheels turning.. Bayonne, Shadow Creek, Lido, Ferry Point (under progress) are other examples of possibilities.

What I would do:
Using a combination of CMB and Tilly templates along with some templates of my own I would build using a loose geometric style.

Why:
Its guaranteed.. These golf holes are proven to be fun, playable, exciting, easy to build, cheap. I'm not talking taking specs from Yale a     gps-ing a short hole in, I have my own thoughts on yardages, and I'm going to spend all my time on green contours.

If you are going to manufacture golf on a blank slate, it will always feel manufactured. So don't hide it, use it to your advantage and use the fill in a way that affects the golf course most. Golf courses are no place for decoration (unless natural).

I love the big and the bold. Its a personal preference. And easily transferable to a lose geometric style.

Routing.. templates, out of 100% fill, you can do a lot more planning ahead of time to get better estimates and models. Also easily tweakable.

I feel pretty confident that I could manufacture something extremely fun, certainly memorable, challenging and definitely economical/efficient in construction.

[Wade Whitehead]

Jaeger:

Have you been to Shadow Creek?

WW

[Mac Plumart]

If money is an issue, wouldn't you shy away from this project?

Either way, I'd try to go the anti-thesis of Shadow Creek.  I'd really study the surrounding natural habitiat and see if I could replicate nature and have a smooth flowing natural looking course.  I suppose the style or feel would be like a typical Ross course, as I think it would be a joy to play for everyone.  And I would shy away from the PGA centric type of course.  I'd make it playable and enjoyable.  And I would shun big time tournaments and simply make it a place to play with friends who enjoy golf.

[Adam Clayman]

Jaeger, Are you familiar with the Rawls course? It was a Flat square(?) cotton field.

Rounded mounds and ponds sounds like the 1980's called and want their idea back.

[Sean_A]

Me, I would take the exact opposite approach.  I would blow the land to pieces.  Next step, look for an excellent archie to route, seed and shape a course over what now exists. 

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

This is not as easy to do as any of you think.  When you can cut and fill, you have more chance to make the course look natural, but having to do it entirely from fill is much harder.

I may be signing up for just such a project in Korea next year.  Several courses by several different architects, but all from the same zero-plane starting point.

[Jim Franklin]

This is not as easy to do as any of you think.  When you can cut and fill, you have more chance to make the course look natural, but having to do it entirely from fill is much harder.

I may be signing up for just such a project in Korea next year.  Several courses by several different architects, but all from the same zero-plane starting point.

I would imagine this to be difficult, but I would also imagine it would be your ideal golf layout because you control the routing, the humps, and bumps of the fairways and greens. Sounds like a cool project.

[Rob_Waldron]

I played Arthur Hills' Chicago Highlands on Sunday. The course was built on a land fill. The imagination incorporated into the design was outstanding!

[Jamie Barber]

How do they build the desert courses in the Middle East? I assume they are pretty much entirely artificial but some of the ones in Abu Dhabi for example look v. nice (not that I've played any)

[John Moore II]

Me, I would take the exact opposite approach.  I would blow the land to pieces.  Next step, look for an excellent archie to route, seed and shape a course over what now exists. 

Ciao

Thats actually a really good idea. Except you would have to consider how deep the water table was in that area. If it is very shallow, it would be harder to do that and not end up with a lot of water coming up to the surface. But in some place like Las Vegas or anyplace in the Mountain West, it would be a great idea.

[archie_struthers]

 

We had a blank slate at Twisted Dune and decided to go down not up....we removed almost 4,000,000 tons of fill and cut down 50-75 feet in many spots...it was quite a job to keep the trucks moving off site with the material which for the most part ended up filling the reclaimed land where the Borgata now stands.  The sost to import or export fill from a site is exorbitant , we were able tomitigate our costs by selling it to the state for the job in AC

My appreciation of Eric Berstols work at Bayonne stems fromknowledge of just how difficult the process was for us ...his job was much more difficult and the golf course at Bayonne is right out of the Emerald Isles...it is outstanding !

[Ian Larson]

At Bayonne carting companies were paying the site to dump their demolition and construction debris for the fill. The Bayonne site didn't pay for it to be imported. Im not sure if it cost them money for the actual dredge they brought out of the harbor, probably nothing besides paying the dredging company to actually do it. And i cant say for certain, but I think I remember that they didn't really pay for the topsoil to be imported either with some complex deal in place. Carting companies were bringing in demolition fill 24/7....I sat on the hill where the clubhouse sits today watching the NYC fireworks in 2003 and that night it was still truck after truck coming in and dumping.

[Bryan Icenhower]

We had a blank slate at Twisted Dune and decided to go down not up....we removed almost 4,000,000 tons of fill and cut down 50-75 feet in many spots...it was quite a job to keep the trucks moving off site with the material which for the most part ended up filling the reclaimed land where the Borgata now stands.  The sost to import or export fill from a site is exorbitant , we were able tomitigate our costs by selling it to the state for the job in AC

My appreciation of Eric Berstols work at Bayonne stems fromknowledge of just how difficult the process was for us ...his job was much more difficult and the golf course at Bayonne is right out of the Emerald Isles...it is outstanding !

Archie - the first thing I thought about when I saw this topic was your course.  Played it without knowing that is had been completely manufactured and was amazed in learning the truth.  Really fun course, and maybe I will get there this week as I will be in the area.

[Tom_Doak]

Ian:

Bayonne got paid to take a lot of contaminated dredge material from the river and then cap it.  That's the only way they made the numbers work to build it.

[Ian Larson]

Ian:

Bayonne got paid to take a lot of contaminated dredge material from the river and then cap it.  That's the only way they made the numbers work to build it.

Yeah, your right now that I think of it. I just remember they really weren't paying for anything to get the fill needed to build the place from flat. I spent a few months on site doing the drainage and grading the dredge on a D6. It was not fun times working with Cherokee (the capping company) and the unions. That dredge was so nasty. Especially when it rained...you cant even imagine. It was like trying to grade quicksand at times. It was such a go,go,go environment that letting it dry out a bit and giving it a chance to set up wasn't even an option because of the rains we got. it was the first and only time I got a dozer stuck, it just sunk in it. I thought I was going to get some cement shoes for the harbor that day.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Ian - Awesome story about getting the dozer stuck!

Do you know how detailed the plan on where to dump the fill was? Would there have been an easier way to do it in hindsight? Free top soil must have been nice

[Ian Larson]

The plan wasn't extremely detailed when it came to where the the carting trucks dumped demolition waste. Not detailed in a way that it was GPS'ed or anything. It was more like dump it in that general area because it's gonna be a mound kinda thing. And keep it coming until we can't see the petroleum tanks outside the site kinda thing. Bergstol was there alot and always making adjustments and changes from anything on paper. When the waste got to where it needed to be we covered it with a few feet of dredge, graded that in a broad sense but more detailed than the waste. Then the real detail came to the topsoil. Don't quote me on free topsoil I just vaguely remember some kinda deal that made it pay for itself but I wasn't involved in that stuff. Just grading and digging where I was told to. My souvenir from the site was a Post I found from the '70's with the Rangers on the cover after they won the Stanley Cup. I hit a garbage spike when excavating for a methane burner line. Nearly perfectly preserved.

[Adrian_Stiff]

The Players Club was built from a flat site. We imported a lot of inert landfill and shaped the course, we got paid for taking the landfill which inturn paid for the golfcourse. I have done 3 full 18 holers this way and in the UK I would say currently its the only way golf course construction stacks up.

You need a very hands on approach (although I think you need that in any golf design). It can take a few years to get the required fill in..... the ultimate compliment is a few years later is when someone says "its a great piece of land" and when you make the rankings.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Ian your sign must be from 1994 because the last time the rangers won the cup was 1940! Sorry to burst your bubble.

If it was union who did the finish work?