[Bryan Izatt]

I know we're not allowed to have opinions or critique a course until we've played t multiple times, but let's have some fun looking at the plan and see what we can intuit and critique from the plan itself.  In two or three years time we can come back and check out our ability to interpret and evaluate plans against what actually gets built on the ground and how it plays.

To aid in the discussion here are some images.

The Hawtree plan.  Click through to the bigger version of some of these images (Photobucket seems to have taken away the ability to upload and link to larger images).




The Google aerial of the southern portion of the site.




The Hawtree holes overlaid on the Google aerial.




A look down from the highway to the property in question.  The pond in the distant middle of the image is the one between the 5th and 12th holes.




This picture is looking more or less at the 9th hole.




This is likely where the 8th and 10 will go.




Closer in to the 8th and 10th.




Looking across 10, 8, 7 and 6 to the 4th, 5th. 12th and 13th in the green field to the right of the house in the middle distance.




Starting with the plan for the 1st hole, it seems that the tees will need to be benched along the side of a fairly abrupt 50 foot drop from the upper fields to lower ones.  the fairway also runs fairly abruptly right to left and down towards the green.  Could this be graded to a two level fairway or benched into the bank?  Seems to me that most likely the location of this hole was dictated by their inability to move out the troublesome neighbour and the subsequent location of the driving range. Seems like a less desirable plot of land to begin on.

The 2nd looks to be similar to the 1st in that it traverses along the side of the ridge, albeit not so steep a ridge.  It also looks like a forced carry over a valley draining some wetlands uphill.  I wonder how they will differentiate the 1st and 2nd.

The 3rd looks to continue along the side of the ridge in the farmer's field, the ridge being more gentle still than the 2nd and then turn right and uphill maybe 10 feet to the green. The hole looks too long to be drivable and it turns uphill, so I suppose it will end up being a layup hole for many.  Presumably any interesting features on this hole will need to be created.

The 4th is a medium length par 3 over a low area to a bit of a knob.  It would appear that this hole will require some shaping to create something interesting.


To be continued  .....................

[Frank Pont]

Amazing they are allowed to build a golf course in there.....

[Thomas Dai]

Thanks for this post. You must have put in quite a bit of time and effort to produce this tread so thank you for doing so. Interesting developments.

Just a few of points without wishing to re-visit old pro-con arguments and re-open old wounds -

1) if you use Bingmap you can zoom in much more accurately on the area in question than with Googlemap (the B-map images seem to be much more recent than the G-map and also seem to show up greater finite detail)

2) by using Bingmap, and tracking a little to the north, you can view the impact course number 1 has made on the general landscape, including, for example, the amount of earth mounding constructed immediately adjacent to other local property owners houses/farms

3) the photo captioned "looking more or less at the 9th hole" shows a wooden pathway in the centre. This presumably leads from Balmedie Country Park to the beach. Using Bingmap it can clearly see that the Country Park buildings and particularly the carpark will be pretty close, maybe 100-150 yards from the 9th tee.

4) in the winter many Scottish links courses make you play from a small green mat made of, for want of a better description, astroturf. Would it be inappropriate to speculate that at this course and at it's older sister to the north you'll have to play in the winter from a yellowish coloured item that looks like a hairpiece - tee, hee, hee!

All the best

[Jon Wiggett]

Amazing they are allowed to build a golf course in there.....

Hahahahahah     

[Bryan Izatt]

Thanks for this post. You must have put in quite a bit of time and effort to produce this tread so thank you for doing so. Interesting developments.

Just a few of points without wishing to re-visit old pro-con arguments and re-open old wounds -

1) if you use Bingmap you can zoom in much more accurately on the area in question than with Googlemap (the B-map images seem to be much more recent than the G-map and also seem to show up greater finite detail)

2) by using Bingmap, and tracking a little to the north, you can view the impact course number 1 has made on the general landscape, including, for example, the amount of earth mounding constructed immediately adjacent to other local property owners houses/farms

3) the photo captioned "looking more or less at the 9th hole" shows a wooden pathway in the centre. This presumably leads from Balmedie Country Park to the beach. Using Bingmap it can clearly see that the Country Park buildings and particularly the carpark will be pretty close, maybe 100-150 yards from the 9th tee.

4) in the winter many Scottish links courses make you play from a small green mat made of, for want of a better description, astroturf. Would it be inappropriate to speculate that at this course and at it's older sister to the north you'll have to play in the winter from a yellowish coloured item that looks like a hairpiece - tee, hee, hee!

All the best

1)  I did look at the Bing map, but looked only at the bird's eye view which turns out to be older, but clearer imagery.  The aerial view does a much better job of showing the post construction of course #1 view.  Thanks for pointing that out.

2) & 3)  Yes, the 9th tee will be close to the car park.  There were many paths from the car park into the dunes.  I don't think the one in the picture is the main one which goes due east.  One wonders if there will be berms built at the park end to keep the local riffraff and the car park out of sight. Clearly there'll be less park for the locals to enjoy.

4)  Now, play nice. 

[Niall C]

Bryan

I made some comment over on the other Balmedie thread about how the island fairways and the abrupt turns are going to work on a links. Without repeating that point, I also be interested to see how the intergrate the public pathways into the site as presumably second time round the planners will insist that public access be retained. As you may know there is right to roam legislation in Scotland.

Good points about the first two holes, my reaction when I first saw the contours was why and then concluded as you do that below is a wetland. The benefit is we may see some lateral movement in the fairways which is something largely missing in Balmedie I.

I'll be interested to see how they treat the large tract of sand. I note they seem to have kept the amount of mown grass to a relative minimum on there however for the sake of avoiding having to sweep sand of their greens and tees every morning, I suspect they may be looking to plant all over with marram as they did on Balmedie I rather than leave it as a large sandy waste. If I recall they already have outline consent and this is for full planning (?). It will be interesting to see if the planners object to that.

Niall 

[Bryan Izatt]

On plan, the 5th looks like a very curious hole tome with what looks like a hop, skip and jump target golf dual fairway.  The left fairway would seem to preclude going for the green in two on this long par 5. The existing pond seems to provide some risk on what seems to be the safer left route.  And, going left appears to leave a quite lengthy second if you want to carry the constructed wetland/pond to the fairway short of the green.  The left and right options appear to be separated by a drainage ditch/fence which provides a punitive central hazard.  The first right fairway pad appears to be too close to the tee to be useful, while the second fairway pad looks a bit too far and has the pond beyond if you are really long.  It does shorten the second to the green but at what appears to be a very significant risk off the tee.  The green appears to sit in what is currently wetland, so will probably need to be filled, presumably from the creation of the pond beyond the second right fairway landing pad.  It'll be interesting to see how this hole gets built and how it plays.

The 6th heads south across the flattish part of the desert with a driving zone that looks very narrow and routes along the side of a hill dropping from left to right.  Perhaps the sand will be graded flatter for the fairway.  The green is built into the right side slope of a dune and could provide an interesting green site.

The 7th reverses course and goes north in a flat part of the desert.  There appears to be a knob in front and behind the green with a necklace of bunkers.  Could this turn out like an archetypal Scottish short par 3 surrounded by bunkers.  Wallasey comes to  mind, but it's a drop shot.

I wonder what they will do in this desert stretch with the off fairway sand areas.  This area must define the moving dune system that provides the unique nature of the site.  If they leave it alone, it seems likely that it will move.  If they stabilize it with marram grass or whatever, it will detract from the natural charm of the site.  I'm glad I saw it in its native state.  We shall see how it turns out.



 

[Bryan Izatt]

Niall,

Thanks for the comments.

I assume that the public paths that currently exist on the golf property will cease to exist and that the "public" will be "encouraged" to use the purple path along the dune ridge next to the beach.  I presume that that is what the purple path is for.   It'll be interesting to see how the right to roam works at this particular site.  It is certainly quite obviously used at other courses from TOC to North Berwick to many many others and is part of the charm of the Scottish golf experience for us tourists.

Re the first few holes, I wonder if the differing soil types between the rapeseed fields and the moving dunes will in any way affect the playability?  Would they sand cap the fields on 1 through 4 to get consistent playability?

[JMEvensky]

 As you may know there is right to roam legislation in Scotland.

 

Could you explain this please?

Is it only for land that was originally in the public domain? Are there exceptions?

[Jon Wiggett]

 As you may know there is right to roam legislation in Scotland.

 

Could you explain this please?

Is it only for land that was originally in the public domain? Are there exceptions?

Here in Scotland you have the right to walk across any ground private or not so long as you do not damage anything. Exceptions include private gardens but there are other exceptions. On golf courses you are expected not to interfere with play and keep of the greens. There is no special exception for Mr. Trumps course.

[JMEvensky]

Thanks.

[Niall C]

Bryan

I'm no solicitor but I think there is a difference between right to roam and public rights of way. The former is relatively new legislation and Jon has basically described the essence of it. The main point being no need to stick to paths. Public rights of way are defined routes that have acquired some legal standing through prescription. Prescription being the legal process in this country where a legal right is acquired through unchallenged use/claim over a period of time. I'm sure that's not entirely accurate but that's the gist of it anyhow (or at least I think it is  ).

At older courses such as North Berwick and St Andrews, the course was/is publicly owned in any case so access perhaps wasn't an issue so much. Clearly though, the Links Trust and the R&A have the powers to effectively make it private when the hold an Open at St Andrews but then I'm sure someone will point out St A's is held in trust. All I can say is that property law in Scotland an't always straightforward.

With regards to achieving consistancy in soil types, it will be interesting to see what they do to do that or even if they try. At Kingsbarns they went to a lot of effort to mix the soil on the top site with the sandy loam on the bottom part of the site and while there is a consistancy, the soil is pretty gritty and not quite what you would hope for from a links.

Niall

[Bryan Izatt]

The 8th is a very long par 5 starts in the desert and ends in the dunes.  Looks to be downhill off the tee with a knob protruding from the right just past the fairway bunkers.  The second should be interesting - to lay up or go for the second fairway over 3 bunkers built into a fair sized ridge.  Will thy be in the face, on the top, or on the backside?  It looks like the hole could have an Alps look to it.  The contours on the second fairway don't look all that friendly, if they survive the construction.  Could be an interesting hole.

The 9th appears to have a drop shot off the tee to yet another target patch of fairway that looks to be a forced layup, probably with an iron.  I suppose the alternative is to go for the green although that looks to be a very long carry over intervening dunes.  When the wind is out of the south it might be an interesting choice.  Otherwise it looks like a blind second shot from the first fairway to a green in a dell between two dunes. 

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