Trump International Golf Links

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jon & Niall,

I don't know why anyone would assume that the course will remain static.

Like almost every other course I'm sure it will be fine tuned as time goes by.

The expectation that the course should be perfect on opening day is unreasonable

[Tom_Doak]

The expectation that the course should be perfect on opening day is unreasonable

Patrick:

The suggestion that Donald Trump does not have very high expectations of the people who work for him is pretty funny, I will have to hand it to you for that.

Hardly anyone expects perfection, but the idea that many things will probably have to be changed in the first few years of a course's life is pretty unreasonable, too.  I know that none of my clients want to have to pay for big changes.

[Patrick_Mucci]

The expectation that the course should be perfect on opening day is unreasonable

Patrick:

The suggestion that Donald Trump does not have very high expectations of the people who work for him is pretty funny, I will have to hand it to you for that.

Tom,

I'm puzzled, when did I say that Trump doesn't expect performance from his employees ?

Hardly anyone expects perfection, but the idea that many things will probably have to be changed in the first few years of a course's life is pretty unreasonable, too.  I know that none of my clients want to have to pay for big changes.

Sebonack made a significant change to the 16th hole shortly after opening.

I also don't know what gave you the impression that I indicated that "many things" would have to be changed, when I stated that the "fine tuning" process would probably be no different than at many other courses, such as Sebonack, Friars Head and Hidden Creek.

It's one thing to make "wholesale" changes versus "fine tuning", "substantive" changes versus "tweaking"

[Jon Wiggett]

Niall,

would you consider filling in half the bunkers before altering the shape of many of the remaining on a course as fine tuning? Was it not Dr. Mac who said that good GCA is building courses that should be in a finished state? Gee, some people on this site have strange ideas. Still maybe it is because they have never seen what they are talking about

Jon

[Patrick_Mucci]

Niall,

would you consider filling in half the bunkers before altering the shape of many of the remaining on a course as fine tuning?
NO

Did they fill in half he bunkers before altering the shape of many of the remaining bunkers, as you recommend ?

I didn't know that Trump had retained your architectural services.

Was it not Dr. Mac who said that good GCA is building courses that should be in a finished state? Gee, some people on this site have strange ideas. Still maybe it is because they have never seen what they are talking about


Jon,

Dr Mac didn't have to worry about permitting and environmental issues.

Dr Mac couldn't have built that golf course in his best day, unless he worked for Trump, and then, he'd be handcuffed by the same constraints.

[Jon Wiggett]

Niall,

would you consider filling in half the bunkers before altering the shape of many of the remaining on a course as fine tuning?
NO

Wow, you agree, a first for this site. Normally you disagree with everything even when it contradicts an earlier post of yours

[Brian_Ewen]

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/09/19/Trumps-suit-to-halt-wind-farm-project-to-be-heard-in-November/UPI-39771379610891/

Trump's suit to halt wind farm project to be heard in November
ABERDEEN, Scotland, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- A hearing on U.S. business mogul Donald Trump's complaint about an off-shore wind farm project in Scotland will begin Nov. 12, court officials said.

Trump wants to halt the 11-turbine project near his golf resort at Balmedie, challenging the Scottish government's decision to grant planning permission, the BBC reported Thursday.

The goal of European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre project near Aberdeen is to provide enough energy for more than 49,000 homes, officials said.

"Research has shown that Scotland could meet its climate and energy targets using clean renewables and energy efficiency," Lang Banks, WWF Scotland director, said in a release Thursday. "In the end, just like the Scottish Parliament's own inquiry, we hope the court sees through his bluff and bluster and agrees that giving the go-ahead to this development was the right decision.

Lang said thousands of jobs in Scotland already are supported by the wind power industry and the offshore project could create 28,000 jobs by 2020.

Lang said it was a shame that Trump was "hell-bent on using his billions to try and undermine Scotland's ambition of becoming a cleaner, greener, job-creating nation. He may be happy wasting his own money. But, defending his legal action is likely to cost the Scottish taxpayer, too."

[Rich Goodale]

Brian

I personally take anything that the WWF says with a very large grain of salt.  Trump is a world-class bloviator, but he deals with facts much more rationally than do the bloviators at WWF.

Rich

[Brian_Ewen]

[jeffwarne]

Brian,
awesome picture.
stunning.
How cool would that hole have been with the green (or much of it) right of (or left as you look at the photo)  the pot bunker
 (without the pot bunker ) ?

as always, I could be wrong simply looking at a (fantastic) photo.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff,

Wait a while, I'm sure someone will find something wrong with it 

[Adam Lawrence]

I'm currently sitting at Aberdeen airport waiting for a flight home having spent the day at Trump.

Everything that has been said about overseeding with ryegrass is correct. I will write more about this when I am home, but at the moment there are huge issues with the turf. I have been told today how they propose to solve those issues, and I believe they're serious, but nonetheless the issues are major. At the moment, you have a links course that, from tee to within 50 yards of the greens, is grassed like a parkland course. It is a huge problem.

[Jon Wiggett]

Adam,

not wanting to be sceptical but if they are willing to go through the transition to solve this problem then they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place

Jon

[Adam Lawrence]

Jon

I said exactly the same thing. The proof of the pudding is in the eating...

[Bryan Izatt]

Brian,
awesome picture.
stunning.
How cool would that hole have been with the green (or much of it) right of (or left as you look at the photo)  the pot bunker
 (without the pot bunker ) ?

as always, I could be wrong simply looking at a (fantastic) photo.

Seems I got the short end of the weather stick when I was there on Tuesday.  It was pouring rain when I got to that hole.  I think it would have proven tough to move the green further right given the routing of the fairway as a dogleg right around the dunes, and there is some interesting topography short and left of the green.  Two pictures, one from the left edge of the fairway where I drove the ball and then one closer in, also from the left side of the fairway.

[Bryan Izatt]

Adam,

For context for your point about the rye/fescue situation, here are a couple of pics from Tuesday.  It was foggy and rainy so they are not as clear as possible, but they do clearly show the rye to fescue transitions around the 1st and 2nd greens.  It was sort of reminiscent to me of Arizona courses in the winter with dormant Bermuda around bunkers, albeit on a much larger scale around the greens at TIGLS.

Could you clarify what you mean by "huge" issues with the turf?  I thought the turf on the fairways and greens was perfectly conditioned for what it was.  When I was out there, there were probably more maintenance staff working the course than there were players.  I saw one guy hand scissoring the edges of the fairway next to the burn crossing the 2nd fairway.  There were a few small areas where they appear to have resodded areas that maybe didn't take, but all-in-all I'd say the conditioning of the course was first rate.  

The greens and surrounds played firm, if not real fast and I assume that that is all fescue.  The fairways seemed mowed quite short for rye grass and seemed quite firm to me, albeit not terribly fast.  I did get some decent roll out on the fairways although certainly not like Cruden Bay or North Berwick.

If by a huge issue, you mean that the fairways are not fescue and therefore are not "true" links, I would not argue that point, but I wouldn't want to leave the impression that there is any conditioning problem at all with the turf such as it is.  I think the vast number of golf tourists would come away thinking that the course and the turf is in fantastic condition.  For us few around here, the fact that it's not fescue wall-to-wall certainly detracts from the expected links experience.

I'd certainly like to hear further on here, if and how they'll get to an all fescue sward.  I looked closely at some of the fairway areas and I didn't see a whole lot of fescue in the rye, but then I'm not a grass expert by any means.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bryan,

You've played the courses at Streamsong and I'd imagine, a wide variety of courses.

Your post above seems to indicate that you enjoyed your play at Trump's new course and that you found nothing substantive to interfere with your play of the course.

Is that correct ?

[Bryan Izatt]

Bryan,

You've played the courses at Streamsong and I'd imagine, a wide variety of courses.

Yes and yes.  The conditioning was comparable to Streamsong but with two different swards which is unlike Streamsong.  Both were in excellent condition, albeit with different grasses and different climates.

Your post above seems to indicate that you enjoyed your play at Trump's new course and that you found nothing substantive to interfere with your play of the course.

It's always interesting to play new courses.  It was cold and wet and windy, so I'm not sure I'd say it was enjoyable.  I'm don't understand what you mean about finding "nothing substantive to interfere" with my playing the course?  I'll have more comment on playing the course as I find time.  All I was trying to say here was that course conditioning and the use of rye grass wasn't the issue I thought it might be given comments I'd seen here and elsewhere.  The conditioning of the rye grass is excellent as is the conditioning of the fescue.  if you don't mind the transition from rye to fescue around the greens you'll probably like the grass.  It struck me as the American quest for perfect conditions unlike the normal links conditions from Cruden Bay to Carnoustie to North Berwick to TOC.  There is no real comparison between TIGLS turf and the traditional links turf.

Is that correct ?

Your proposition is too broad and vague to answer with a yes or a no.  Can you get more specific?

[Brian_Ewen]

If by a huge issue, you mean that the fairways are not fescue and therefore are not "true" links, I would not argue that point, but I wouldn't want to leave the impression that there is any conditioning problem at all with the turf such as it is.  I think the vast number of golf tourists would come away thinking that the course and the turf is in fantastic condition.  For us few around here, the fact that it's not fescue wall-to-wall certainly detracts from the expected links experience.

From what I am hearing locally, the issue is, with the course not playing like a links course, its unlikely to get Mr Trumps wish of a Pro Tournament being held there any time soon.

[Ally Mcintosh]

If by a huge issue, you mean that the fairways are not fescue and therefore are not "true" links, I would not argue that point, but I wouldn't want to leave the impression that there is any conditioning problem at all with the turf such as it is.  I think the vast number of golf tourists would come away thinking that the course and the turf is in fantastic condition.  For us few around here, the fact that it's not fescue wall-to-wall certainly detracts from the expected links experience.

From what I am hearing locally, the issue is, with the course not playing like a links course, its unlikely to get Mr Trumps wish of a Pro Tournament being held there any time soon.

That's an interesting point of view Brian...

My experience is the less like a links it really plays, the more the professionals want to go there... And the more the pros don't kick up, the more The European Tour are likely to oblige...

R&A and The Open may be a little different of course...

[Niall C]

The expectation that the course should be perfect on opening day is unreasonable

Patrick:

The suggestion that Donald Trump does not have very high expectations of the people who work for him is pretty funny, I will have to hand it to you for that.

Hardly anyone expects perfection, but the idea that many things will probably have to be changed in the first few years of a course's life is pretty unreasonable, too.  I know that none of my clients want to have to pay for big changes.

Tom

Interested to hear whether or how you raise the topic of post-completion changes with your clients ? Do you suggest at the outset that you may want (need ?) to make some minor changes in due course after its finished ?

Niall

[Niall C]

Niall,

would you consider filling in half the bunkers before altering the shape of many of the remaining on a course as fine tuning? Was it not Dr. Mac who said that good GCA is building courses that should be in a finished state? Gee, some people on this site have strange ideas. Still maybe it is because they have never seen what they are talking about

Jon

Jon

Good question, what constitutes minor tweaks and what constitutes structural change ?

I'd suggest filling in bunkers would be minor tweaking although obviously the more you fill in the greater the work. In my opinion you could quite readily fill in about half the bunkers at Balmedie International and depending how you do it you could add to the character of the course. As you know at Lossiemouth an awful lot of the old bunkers are now grass bunkers and just add to the character of the place even though not many of them come into play. In contrast the two bunkers at the 2nd at TOC that recently were filled in it looked as though they tried to remove all trace of them which is a shame.

Structural change on the other hand would be something like rerouting part of the course or an individual hole. Now I think that would constitute a mistake by the architect provided the change wasn't required by subsequent events that could have been anticipated. At Balmedie I suspect you weill see structural changes on no. 10 at least, sooner rather than later.

With regards to Mac and finality and all that, you've got to remember back then it was the norm on a lot of courses to make wholesale changes from one season to the next and indeed when he started out it was conventional to lay out the course first and then put the bunkers in after. What he was saying (I think) was you shouldn't have to do that as you should be able to more or less produce a course that's fit for purpose straight off. Not sure he ruled out minor tweaks. Just my opinion.

Niall

[Jon Wiggett]

Niall,

I know Dr. Mac stayed around at Alwoodley post construction and made a few tweaks. He also included a few major would be nice to have in the future such as the 11th green. I am aware a lot of his courses were built in stages but he did have a finished concept from the beginning which he hoped the club would work towards as far as I know.

Jon

[Adam Lawrence]

Bryan - I agree the rye is very well conditioned for what it is; it just doesn't belong on a links. The turf on greens and surrounds is lovely, firm, tight, just as it should be. But the fairways, or at least the majority of them that have been overseeded, are simply not appropriate for a links course. You might well be right that a fair proportion of golfers would come away feeling it was perfectly conditioned, but you and I know it's not.

The other thing about the rye is that its visual effect accentuates one of my complaints about the course, which is that the fairway shaping is rather gentle, with mainly long, flowing contours, while around many greens there are much more severe undulations. It's visually jarring - to the extent that one golf architect said to me 'it's almost as though they used different shapers for fairways and green surrounds', and it also reduces the practicality of playing a run-up shot. Take the fifth hole - fairway fairly gentle, green elevated, foregreen hugely contoured. You'd be nuts to try and run the ball through those undulations. The seventh is the same, as is the twelfth.

The course has grown on me. I played it in a southerly breeze, rather than the nor'easter we had last summer, and that seemed to help the course. Certainly the tenth hole plays far better downwind than up. The split fairway is still completely pointless, but you can knock your drive past the really narrow bit, and there's a chance to play a heroic second over the corner of the dune and onto the green (the greensite has always been lovely). I also thought the seventh was better downwind - one member of my group was through the back with a three wood, and generally I felt the hole more interesting with the drive the green option being on.

The flipside is that 1-4, plus 16-18 are brutes into any kind of wind. There are still far too many far too elevated tees, which accentuates the effect of the wind and ruins the visual scale of the course (they do give some amazing views mind).

I was told in some detail the sequence of events that led to the mass overseeding with rye, and about the plan to reduce/eliminate it. They believe that in two years time they will have a properly fescue dominated sward. I hope so.

[Bryan Izatt]

Adam,

Good point about the differences between the shaping of the fairways and surrounds.  The use of a series of depressions around many elevated greens was also very noticeable to me.  It reminded me of similar features at the Osprey Valley Heathland course that was built by Doug Carrick/Ian Andrew 20 years ago.  It was manufactured out of farmland.  TIGLS has that same manufactured feeling in the surrounds despite being in the massive natural dunes.  I did manage some run up shots, especially on downwind holes, although there were holes where an aerial approach made more sense.

I played in a north-east wind, which the starter said was atypical.  Eight, nine and 10 and 14 seemed especially difficult in that wind.  The 10th was as goofy off the tee as I expected.  I let one of the pros and his guest play through on that tee and overheard the pro explain how and where to drive the ball.  He essentially said you'd have to be an idiot to go the right hand fairway.  Perhaps they will plow that fairway under as part of any fine tuning of the course.

The elevated tees weren't that much of an issue to me as I played the white tees and there didn't seem to be all that much climbing.  There were also fewer views.  In fact the North Sea wasn't visible very many times at all.

I was left with a sense that I'd like to try another round, but that isn't going to happen at their prices.