AAC III- Public Voting Results are IN!

[Steve Lang]

   What is considered a short 1 or 2 shot hole?   Without combing every scorecard, some may be missing discovery?

[Dieter Jones]

  What is considered a short 1 or 2 shot hole?   Without combing every scorecard, some may be missing discovery?

Good point, I guess even that is a little subjective. Relating to my lament at the lack fo short 1 and 2 shot holew earlier - To me a short par 3 is 120m or less so thats 132 yards. A short par 4 would be up to low 300's (yards) say 330. Of course typical wind and slope of terrain could also affect that number.

[Jim Colton]

[Alex Miller]

Since it really is a maze to figure out, I'll comment that I'm surprised there are as many common greensites as there are.

I had 8 unshared and 10 shared greensites. Incredibly interesting to see this! Thanks Jim!

[Brett_Morrissy]

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[Anders Rytter]

I dont see anyone saying your list is funny, just that it is funny that his favorite wasn't among your top ~20


As for E12 - 16, I assume that the green isn't flat, that all parts of the green can be reach from all part of the green, and hence a running approach might make more of the green reachable even though you'r not on the extreme edges of the fairway. I agree that maybe the bunker is too big and a smaller one would make the hole better.

[Steve Lang]

THE SPAGHETTI PLOT, how many hours Jim?   THANKS FOR THIS AND THE BLOGS

[Steve Lang]

  What is considered a short 1 or 2 shot hole?   Without combing every scorecard, some may be missing discovery?

Good point, I guess even that is a little subjective. Relating to my lament at the lack fo short 1 and 2 shot holew earlier - To me a short par 3 is 120m or less so thats 132 yards. A short par 4 would be up to low 300's (yards) say 330. Of course typical wind and slope of terrain could also affect that number.

and do all the tee yardages have to fit into a given "short" yardage? 

[Jim Colton]

THE SPAGHETTI PLOT, how many hours Jim?   THANKS FOR THIS AND THE BLOGS

Steve,

 It really wasn't that hard. The only thing was I didn't save the green map correctly so I had to start over. It prob took 45 min total.

[Neil White]

Regarding 'short' par 4's I for one in my course design notes explained that during normal day-to-day play that a golfer can decide for themselves which tee to use.  This wasn't a point I was able to make when submitting my course overhead as I believed that this was to be as basic (tees / fairways / greens / bunkers) as possible.  

Whereas a hole may read 420 yards from the rear tees and only 290 yards from the front the decision of the golfer provides the flexibility for playing the hole as a stiff two shotter or as a drivable par 4 option depending on how they felt on the day or what the prevailing wind / weather conditions were.

My own design - and that of many others - have a number of holes that can be approached in a variety of ways if we can take it upon ourselves to not be strictly held by the yardages provided.

I have looked at nearly half of the courses in detail and am trying to look at how the holes relate to the topography and where a basic hole diagram is provided see what strategy the designer is trying to achieve using both the topography and bunkering etc when rating the routing.

As an aside - the work that has gone into all of the entries is to be applauded - well done to all.

Neil.

[Josh Tarble]

I agree with Neil, my design was supposed to be similar to say Ballyneal in that its very elastic and not necessarily for tee marker usage.  In fact, one of my holes plays 460 from the tips but next closest tee is roughly 290...set up could be dependent on player or weather that day. 

I also had a bit of a hard time working with the scale of the plot.  For some reason it just seemed like the good features were a bit farther apart than they should be.  I wanted to include more short holes, but just couldn't really work well with the scale.

Also, you have to remember this is at 3000 or so feet, which is a significant difference in elevation and would cause the ball to fly a good bit further.

[Bill Brightly]

Like Josh said, our design team had to balance a desire for more short par 4 holes against our goal of keeping green-to-tee walks minimal. It was a surprisingly difficult challenge, given the number of cool spots we wanted to reach on the property. We decided that the owners might well choose to use the forward tees on a few of our holes to make exciting short par 4's.

[Neil White]

I agree with Neil, my design was supposed to be similar to say Ballyneal in that its very elastic and not necessarily for tee marker usage.  In fact, one of my holes plays 460 from the tips but next closest tee is roughly 290...set up could be dependent on player or weather that day. 

I also had a bit of a hard time working with the scale of the plot.  For some reason it just seemed like the good features were a bit farther apart than they should be.  I wanted to include more short holes, but just couldn't really work well with the scale.

Also, you have to remember this is at 3000 or so feet, which is a significant difference in elevation and would cause the ball to fly a good bit further.

Whilst I didn't feel that 'good' features were too spaced - we had to work with what we were given - there were times when I extended the walk to the next tee location for the desire to utilise a specific green site.

I estimated my average walk time from green to tee to be in the region of 40 seconds at normal walking speed - I'm not sure that 20 or so more seconds walk would detract significantly from the round provided the architecture of each hole and its use of natural features was solid.  Given that there were very few killer uphill climbs a majority of the walks were on land with very little gradient + / - to hamper the golfer.

I also tried to ascertain the effect of playing at 3000+ feet elevation and came up with some figures - it would be interesting to see if others had a similar thought and what effect they felt would be seen?

Neil.

[Alex Miller]

There are a few short 4's and one fairly short 3 in my design.

When I designed them, I not only looked for what fit the land, but when I did find a short four I built the green with slightly more defense/interest than some of the longer ones. I think some of the best designed short 4's in existence have greens that are more interesting, and in the drawings I did of the green contours the short par 4 greens add huge amounts of strategic interest to the hole. Whether I am in the final 8 or not I will post them (as I would encourage others to do if they have more material) as I think after routing green contours create the most strategy on a golf course.

As to playing at 3,000 ft, I compared my yardage to Sand Hills in the end and was in the ballpark. I hear SH is no pushover so I felt ok with my scorecard.

[Josh Tarble]

I also included a couple for sure ones in my design...and two that could possibly play as short ones depending on wind and tee choice.  I have one in mine that is 380 downhill, with a speed slot at 310...potentially driveable depending on conditions, it was one of my more favorite holes.

I also factored in elevation.  I considered 300 was probably more like 290 at that elevation.

[Anders Rytter]

Jim, Alex,
any reason not to share all comments? Would be fun to read the comments written about the other layouts?

I guess that people have written so far under the impression their comments were somewhat confidential, is the only reason i can come up with.

[Jim Colton]

Anders,

 I didn't want to muck up the open voting or judging period, but provide an avenue for contestants to get feedback while it's still fresh in the mind of the voters. That was my main reason. I think once those periods are over, contestants should feel free to create a thread with their entry and have it be open season.

  Jim

[Anders Rytter]

Anders,

 I didn't want to muck up the open voting or judging period, but provide an avenue for contestants to get feedback while it's still fresh in the mind of the voters. That was my main reason. I think once those periods are over, contestants should feel free to create a thread with their entry and have it be open season.

  Jim

Of course, i was to eager, waiting until after the voting makes sense.

[Gary_K]

My shortest par plays downhill and between 235-325 yards.

If there is a comment made on an entry, is there a way to respond to the comment/question that was asked?

[Matthew Rose]

I ended up building one of the longest courses in the contest but I felt like the expansiveness of the site sort of made it happen that way. I did put in one par four under 400 on both nines which I felt was important. But I felt like I had to build a lot in the 450-480 range to provide those ill-spoken of connectors between land features I wanted to use.

[Bill Brightly]

I would love to see Jim put together a map that shows clubhouse locations only. Looks to me that many picked the same site. Hope that is not too much trouble.

[Jim Colton]

I would love to see Jim put together a map that shows clubhouse locations only. Looks to me that many picked the same site. Hope that is not too much trouble.

I spent about 2 minutes on this, so it might not be uber precise. I had to guess on some of them.

[Bill Brightly]

Thanks, Jim. Pretty cool grouping.

Also, thanks to the guys who posted very detailed (and on the money) comments on your blog.

[Jim Colton]

My shortest par plays downhill and between 235-325 yards.

If there is a comment made on an entry, is there a way to respond to the comment/question that was asked?

Gary,

  Not unless the commenter entered their name and/or e-mail on the form. I would hope that the other contestants would be willing to provide that (I have), in order to spark some healthy debate.

[Thomas Dai]

Jim/Alex,

Has there been any actual feedback to the contestants yet? When I look at all the submissions under the link - http://golfaac.blogspot.com/?view=sidebar - there doesn't seem to be any feedback, or am I missing something?

Some really interesting routings and the maps summarising all the holes plus clubhouse locations etc are most interesting.

Thanks for all the time and effort you've put in.

All the best.