100m (328 foot) safety corridor. Is it enough?

[Robin_Hiseman]

I'm currently doing an appraisal on a golf course which has single hole corridors in the region of 100 metres wide.  Having compared this scheme to the plethora of courses in Palm Springs it seems that the architect has complied with the accepted width for a single hole corridor in the US.  I can't criticise him for that, but it strikes me that we European architects generally regard 120 metres (394 feet) as being the absolute minimum width in such circumstances.  My question is..who is right?  Are we over cautious, or are the courses that apply the US template inherently dangerous?

I should add that I've never been to Palm Springs, or other similar US residential golf tracks, so cannot draw upon first hand experience of how such tight courses (at least in my mind) play out on the ground.  I have, however, played plenty of courses with homes too tight to the line of play and I know how uncomfortable that feels to me standing on the tee.

Any opinions you care to offer will be appreciated.

Thanks

Robin

[Peter Ferlicca]

Robin,

I live in the Coachella Valley and there are plenty of golf courses that I would imagine are tighter than 100 meters wide.  Indian Wells Country Club comes to mind, some holes on the front nine there have a 40 yard wide fairway, maybe 10 yards of rough on one side and then homes within 5 yards of the fairway on the other side.  And some of the holes don't even have a backyard fence, you could literally roll it right into their pool.  The same goes for Shadow Mountain Golf Course, in Palm Desert some holes there are probably 50 yards wide with homes right on each side of the fairway.  The nicer high end courses have the holes 100 meters wide, but the holes are all built down in a valley.  So the homes are 20 yards up on a hill making it much harder to hit them.  IMO, the wider the better.

[Robin_Hiseman]

Gosh!  Taken a look at Indian Wells and Shadow Mountain and they are both extremely tight.  How does anybody dare use their pool?!

[Bill_McBride]

The other problem is tight doglegs with houses inside the corner.  There is one here in Pensacola at Scenic Hills CC where big hitters can carry over the house to the fairway beyond.  The bigger problem is actually not so big hitters who can't carry the house but think they can.  A family bought the house who somehow did not understand that buying in such a location could be dangerous.   After a lawsuit, there are now warning signs all around the tees, DO NOT etc etc.

[Tom_Doak]

Robin:

"Safe" is, of course, a matter of percentages.  We all know a golfer can hit the ball off the course occasionally, no matter how wide it is.  The question is, how often is acceptable?

The U.S. has a generally accepted standard, and that standard is generally accepted by courts as sufficient.  In the U.K. and Australia, no matter what the distance, it's a matter of how many balls are going over the fence, and whether that constitutes a nuisance.  Thus, in the U.K. and Australia, you have to make things extra-wide to err on the safe side, since you can't predict exactly how the golfers will play, or how a judge will see it.

I've just got back from Royal Melbourne where they are dealing with boundary difficulties on a number of holes.  In one or two cases, it has really screwed up a great golf hole.

[Anthony Butler]

I've just got back from Royal Melbourne where they are dealing with boundary difficulties on a number of holes.  In one or two cases, it has really screwed up a great golf hole.

Hey Tom,
Although not a corridor issue (since it's a par 3) one of the members at Essex Country Club told me the 16th green at Essex County club was moved due to complaints from the yellow house behind the old green. I think you'd have to overclub and pull it to make in their yard on the fly.

Speaking of Australian golf course 'corridors' we never moved into a house on Killara in Sydney because of all the golf balls found in the yard during the building process. Both Killara and Avondale are extremely cheek-by-jowl with the surrounding houses. The fact that nothing in the way of major changes have been made is either due to the difficulty of getting those type of law suits too far along the Australian court system (prior to any serious damage or injury occurring) or the fact over 1/2 the adjoining houses were owned by members.

[Doug Ralston]

Are you kidding me? As most of you know, buying property adjacent to a golf course averages about doubling the value of similar property without course. Hey, they pays their money and they gladly takes their chances. Sceens and nets etc are cheap compared to a few hundred grand for extra value. Do not cry at their misfortune.

Of course, I have more sympathy for those who bought before the course was designed.

[Tom_Doak]

I've just got back from Royal Melbourne where they are dealing with boundary difficulties on a number of holes.  In one or two cases, it has really screwed up a great golf hole.

Hey Tom,
Although not a corridor issue (since it's a par 3) one of the members at Essex Country Club told me the 16th green at Essex County club was moved due to complaints from the yellow house behind the old green. I think you'd have to overclub and pull it to make in their yard on the fly.

Anthony:

I'm very familiar with that case as we were consultants to the club at the time, and built the replacement green.

The house had been there for many years, but a lawyer bought it, installed a child's playhouse is his front yard, started collecting golf balls, and then sued the club.  Their lawyers advised settling the case and moving the green -- which was less than 100 feet from the adjacent road, where it had been since Donald Ross put it there in 1903.  As part of the settlement, the homeowner accepted that the settlement with the club be incorporated into the deed to the property, so that no future buyer could claim the new green was still too close or that they didn't understand the dangers when they purchased it.

If a course is developed as part of a golf community, concurrently with the course, there may be similar deed restrictions on every lot in the development.  But, I'm not sure it's necessarily protection for the golf course, if a clear case can be made of inherent safety problems.

[David Lott]

Safe?

Not for people who bought the housing, financially speaking.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Robin & Tom,

I'm always troubled by these cases, especially when the golf course and the homes were part of a single development plan.

There's an inherent safety issue with every home adjacent to a golf course.  As Tom indicated, incident frequency may be the central issue.

But, the buyer HAS to know the risks before buying the property, hence, I don't know how it comes as a surprise one day.

I know of an incident where the adjacent homeowner went on the golf course and found balls, picked them up and claimed that they were hit into his back yard.  Other incidents were alleged to have occured on Mondays.  However, the course was closed on Mondays.  It turns out that some local kids were taking golf balls and hitting them with baseball bats, into his yard.

I'm still surprised that the judge ruled in favor of the homeowner at Essex County.
But, then again, the courts in Massachussetts and golf seem to be at odds with one another.

Everyone seems to want a golf course view, but objects when golf balls come into their property.
You can't have one without the other.

[Neil_Crafter]

Robin
I would be a bit concerned with a single hole corridor of only 100m, which is only 50m to the boundary from the centreline. On the slice side this is not nearly enough. Like you say 120 to 130m is the minimum these days.

[Robin_Hiseman]

Thanks all.  Keep 'em coming.

I should add that this course is not in the USA, but North Africa.  I don't know what the jurisdiction is there on such matters, but this would be a co-ordinated golf and housing community, so it may well be that the property deeds will make specific reference to the incurrence of golf balls onto the property, as Tom highlighted with the deal struck over the house at Essex.  Given that the corridors are only 100 metres wide, it would be prudent to do so.

I've been looking at Desmond Muirhead's book 'Golf Course Development and Real Estate', published in 1994, which prints the Nicklaus Design safety standards of the time.  For a single-fairway golf corridor they specify a minimum golf corridor of 350 feet adjacent to doglegs and greens (200 feet at tees) plus a 35 foot building setback.  So, that is 420 feet between the frontage of buildings to either side of the same fairway.  So where does this 300 foot template come from if Nicklaus Design were using 350 feet 17 years ago?  From what i've seen, this 300 foot is measured from wall to wall of the facing properties.  That is a long way shy of 420 feet.

My gut feeling, like Neil mentioned, is that 100m is nowhere near sufficient these days.  I managed to persuade one developer on one of our mothballed projects that 140 metres was necessary for a single hole corridor and the residential plan was laid out to respect that.  The additional width allowed me to bend the holes this way and that, engendering the design with strategic choices that the 100 metre corridor would squash.  The layout plan I'm looking at and the ones i've studied on Google Earth are pretty much all single file designs.  Keep it straight and avoid the flanking hazards. 

Clearly, one does not always have the ideal template to work with and there will be instances where risk to adjoining property is very hard to avoid, but we should be striving to minimise such instances.  I just don't think continued unquestioning adherence to this 300-foot margin is acceptable any more.

What do you think?

[Scott Warren]

A question for the architects from a punter, if you don't mind.

How much extra width can you create from a corridor such as that described above by placing the tee on one side rather than in the middle of the parcel?

[Robin_Hiseman]

A question for the architects from a punter, if you don't mind.

How much extra width can you create from a corridor such as that described above by placing the tee on one side rather than in the middle of the parcel?

Not a lot is the answer Scott.  It is taken into account by narrowing the tolerance at the tees, which gives you the ability to wobble the hole marginally from the straightaway.  Sometimes that is all you need to help make a hole interesting, but having a tee close to a boundary, with the line of play angled away is no guarantee that golfers will take the hint.  The ability to be creative with dogleg angles is very limited with narrow golf corridors.

[Ally Mcintosh]

A question for the architects from a punter, if you don't mind.

How much extra width can you create from a corridor such as that described above by placing the tee on one side rather than in the middle of the parcel?

Not a lot is the answer Scott.  It is taken into account by narrowing the tolerance at the tees, which gives you the ability to wobble the hole marginally from the straightaway.  Sometimes that is all you need to help make a hole interesting, but having a tee close to a boundary, with the line of play angled away is no guarantee that golfers will take the hint.  The ability to be creative with dogleg angles is very limited with narrow golf corridors.

Simon Gidman did a good paper on the tee at boundary (angling away) versus tee away from boundary (angling straighter) Robin... Taking the standard 15 degrees off the straight, he showed that it made very little difference if I remember... I'm sure you've seen this one?

If you actually take your 15 degrees and use a 250m turning point, you need 67m each side... 134m min total to be relatively safe... All based on flattish topography I guess but even raised housing / valley hole isn't going to make a big difference... Of course, I'm not sure who came up with the 15 degrees...

[Niall C]

Slightly off topic but while on the subject of Simon Gidman

If I remember a Simon Gidman tutorial correctly from a good number of years ago he advocated where you had the dangerous boundary on one side only, that you off-set the tee on the opposite side from the dangerous boundary on the basis that players would be more inclined to try and cut the dog-leg that was created and that even if they aimed at the middle of the fairway and sliced it would need to travel a hell of a distance to reach the boundary.

Before that I was under the impression that the perceived wisdom was to offset the tee on the boundary side so that you were playing away from the boundary more. In retrospect I see that didn't allow for the complete miscue such as a shank or whatever.

Robin,

There was a par 4 hole on Westerwood where you were obliged to play an iron off the tee because of housing either side. That was a Dave Thomas design that Seve put his name to if a I remember right. I think that hole disappeared when Jonathon Gaunt did a partial redesign.

Niall

[Robin_Hiseman]

Ally

I have that report here on my desk and helped Simon with some of the survey work that helped to compile it.

Niall

And here is the evidence of the true awfulness of the 12th hole at Westerwood.  The yellow line is 77 metres long. Niall is absolutely right.  There is a sign on the tee FORBIDDING the use of driving clubs.  The original tee  is down in the bottom corner by the Google copyright logo.  The new tee is in the middle of the picture.  The original hole predated the surrounding houses. 



I shall be very interested to see Jonathan Gaunt's new work.  The redesign of Westerwood was one of my projects in Scotland, before I got shafted on the fee for the work I'd done for a previous owner.  The only client who ever defaulted on a fee.  I guess I should consider myself lucky, but it left a bitter taste at the time.


One of the things we concluded during these various safety surveys is that there is really little substitute for distance, hence the recommendation to keep tees away from vulnerable boundaries.  There are lots of mitigating circumstances of course, which is why there is no single template solution.

[Adam Lawrence]

I went to Westerwood while Jonathan was doing the work, during the week of the Carnoustie Open in 2007. It was, without a doubt, the muddiest site I've ever been on. It had rained constantly for the previous 24 hours and I ruined a perfectly good pair of boots sinking knee-deep into the mud. I'd like to go back and see the finished work, certainly the original course was pretty uninspiring.

[Robin_Hiseman]

Gosh!  I'm getting fed up with these pictures importing from photobucket too large.  Even when I resize them they import too big.  Can anyone help?

Update.  Think I sorted it.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Ally

I have that report here on my desk and helped Simon with some of the survey work that helped to compile it.

There you go - Asking the guy who helped compile the report whether he's seen it!

It seems that you know more than most how to answer your original question? Even if you've yet to work out that 100m does not equal 300 feet

[Robin_Hiseman]

100 metres or 100 yards.  What's 28.084 feet between friends Ally .  Just being thoughtful to our stateside colleagues, but please note the title edit.  I'll stick to metric from now on

[Adrian_Stiff]

Robin like many things it depends on the situation, if it is just fields then I think in a 100 yard width you can get two holes, ie 10 yards of semi, 30 yards of fairway then 20 yards of semi, 30 yards of semi followed by 10 yards of semi. In the UK we dont really have the houses thing but we do have footpaths, railways, roads and of course motorways. Angles are the key things, parts of a hole (the tee) can abutt but at 200 yards, I reckon you need 120 yards from the centreline, ie 100 yards of rough in various forms (but mainly lost ball rough) if its a major road. For lesser roads and footpaths 50 metres from the edge of the fairway has been a rule I have worked to and is a guideline with several councils although some have no rule as such.
My take on housing would be that the maximum corridoors should be at the 200 yard zone and onward, but could encroach much tighter toward the tees, ie if you took the centre line at 200 yards you might want 140 yards but at the 50 yard centre line you might only want 60 yards.

[Tim Gerrish]

300' for a short par 3 maybe! 

Starting at 150 yards from back tee, at least 200' from centerline on both sides and continuing through the green.  Then message with topography.

Sneak it closer behind and around tees and behind green.

Inside doglegs... run a optional centerline from tee to green and go another 200'.  This also gives yo a little room to open up the hole.

The developer will always push back.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Interesting news followup report on a housing course in Denison, TX last night.

Apparently, back in April a golfer let his dog wander onto a surrounding homeowners property.  The homeower shot the dog in the leg with a rifle and wounded it.  Golfer goes to get his dog back, and in anger, says "if you shoot my dog, why not shoot me?" The homeowner then shot and killed the golfer.

Homeower posted $200K bond and is out, but won't answer followup questions on advice of attorney while case is pending in court.


Only in Texas, I presume.

[Tom_Doak]

I've been looking at Desmond Muirhead's book 'Golf Course Development and Real Estate', published in 1994, which prints the Nicklaus Design safety standards of the time.  For a single-fairway golf corridor they specify a minimum golf corridor of 350 feet adjacent to doglegs and greens (200 feet at tees) plus a 35 foot building setback.  So, that is 420 feet between the frontage of buildings to either side of the same fairway.  So where does this 300 foot template come from if Nicklaus Design were using 350 feet 17 years ago?  From what i've seen, this 300 foot is measured from wall to wall of the facing properties.  That is a long way shy of 420 feet.

My gut feeling, like Neil mentioned, is that 100m is nowhere near sufficient these days.  I managed to persuade one developer on one of our mothballed projects that 140 metres was necessary for a single hole corridor and the residential plan was laid out to respect that.  The additional width allowed me to bend the holes this way and that, engendering the design with strategic choices that the 100 metre corridor would squash.  The layout plan I'm looking at and the ones i've studied on Google Earth are pretty much all single file designs.  Keep it straight and avoid the flanking hazards. 

Clearly, one does not always have the ideal template to work with and there will be instances where risk to adjoining property is very hard to avoid, but we should be striving to minimise such instances.  I just don't think continued unquestioning adherence to this 300-foot margin is acceptable any more.

What do you think?

Robin,

I always thought the 300 feet was property line to property line, not building to building.  There would always be some additional setback for the building itself, but if somebody is in their backyard and takes an errant shot in the head, that's a lot more of a problem than a broken window.

I am sure that Nicklaus got to 350 feet 17 years ago because his lawyers advised him to go beyond the accepted standard, just to be safe.  He's probably at 400 feet now, for the same reason.  But there comes a point where it is just getting silly, and where the client will refuse to devote that much real estate to safety buffers.

You are right, also, that if you keep the buffers on the narrow side, you are stuck with a lot of straight holes.  The only times I've been consulted about a lawsuit over one of these type of courses [not my own], the whole case rested on the architect having built a bit of a dogleg hole instead of playing right down the centerline of the corridor.  I never heard how that case turned out, but I told the attorney if he won anything to call me, so I could get out of the business!