Tom Doak in France

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74wXlpc2DKo

This is a nice link to Toms project in France.
Th eonly reason I post this is because whilst in Scotland I was able to spend alot of time with the project developer Andre Mourgue D'Algue and some of the family members.
Their combined passion for this project is simply off the charts, it was a total joy to sit across the table and listen to the passion in their respective voices as they talked about the project.
A wonderful family who really do "get it" when it comes to golf and architecture and if the final product is half as good as thier passion for it, it will be one of Europes golden courses.

Some early pictures of the project where previoulsy posted on here, but I was unable to locate them.

[Howard Riefs]

Some early pictures of the project where previoulsy posted on here, but I was unable to locate them.

Here's one photo.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,57271.0.html


And another video of Tom talking about the project and his design philosophy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJZs-9XSAro

[Garland Bayley]

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[Eric Smith]

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[Garland Bayley]

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[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Howard as always you are the man.

[Matt Bielawa]

That's Todd Gack....I believe he's Dutch.

[Patrice Boissonnas]

I had the privilege to visit Saint-Emilion last May this year.
Tom was on site that day and we spent a lot of time together discussing the course and interviewing for a French golf magazine I write for.

The Mourgue d’Algue family seems to be doing everything right from hiring a pretty good architect and limiting housing development on the property, to taking whatever time is necessary to let the course grow in before it opens. They are going for fescue which is quite a challenge on a clayish wine friendly soil. But such is their passion for golf and I find it so refreshing that people of their quality work so hard to build a new golf course in France.

I only visited the 9 holes which were already shaped and seeded, the rest of the course being work in progress under the careful supervision of Brian Schneider, Jonathan Reisetter and Angela Moser.
My first impression was that routing was excellent (not surprising with Tom Doak). The holes I walked were really flowing naturally with nice rhythm and balance paying good tribute to the beauty of this French region. It’s a very good skeleton although don’t get me wrong, it’s not spectacular, don’t expect a French Pacific Dunes or Cape Kidnapper.

The other thing I could already see was this: they are really building a course which will be easy on the high handicaps and tough on the good players. How is that? Simply with some extreme green contours where some pin positions will be really hard to reach for those hoping to make birdie. Wide fairways, no rough in the neighborhood of the greens but if the surface gets fast and firm as it should with fescue, good players will have a hard time shooting low numbers.

This benefit does have a downside though: I thought the severe green contours were sometimes breaking the sweet harmony of the site. What I mean by that is it was strange to see a heavily sculpted putting surface emerging from a rather flat surrounding. I would have expected more sculpting of the surroundings to fit the greens better into the landscape. This struck me particularly on hole 1. It’s not the case everywhere and will maybe vanish once the course has grown in.

Anyway, I am really looking forward to playing this French newcomer. The place obviously has good vibes.

[Tom_Doak]

I just got home from Bordeaux, on the heels of the Renaissance Cup.  Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of the site ... I was too busy working and giving interviews.  The nine holes that are grassed are still rough around the edges, but growing in nicely.

Eric Iverson made a working visit there just before we met in Scotland, and he accused me of "underselling" the piece of property to him, not realizing that I usually do that for any site.  It is not the French Cape Kidnappers, but it is a beautiful property with a bit of heather and gorse, ferns and giant oaks, and good undulation.  The scale of the contours reminds me of Sunningdale, and there is hardly a hole where you will play the approach shot from a level lie.

The greens are fairly difficult, but we have deliberately kept down the number of other hazards.  There are several holes where ditches or man-made streams come into play; these were made to collect all the drainage water from the site and recycle it to the irrigation reservoir.  [In Bordeaux, and maybe all of France for all I know, you are not allowed to drill wells so you have to collect all the water you can above ground; this is true for the wine industry as well as for golf, which is why vintages are so important for Bordeaux wine.]  There are only 32 or 33 bunkers in all, which I think is the fewest we have built on any course, but those we have built will present difficult choices and difficult recoveries.  [We didn't want more for maintenance reasons -- the bunker sand will tend to be contaminated by the clay subsoil in rainy conditions.]

The greens and bunkers are all in place now but there is still much more to do over the next three months to get the remaining holes ready for play ... all best wishes to Jonathan and Angela and the crew there.  It will certainly be a fine place to have the Renaissance Cup one of these years.

[Patrice Boissonnas]

Here are some pics I took last may.

The 1st green seen in the distance from the fairway :


That same green from the side


The 18th green seen from the 1st tee


I really like the feel of this par 4


The 2nd green if I am correct :


A nice downhill par 3 with some really tough pin placements


An uphill par 3 this time


17th playing corridor seen form the tee with the clubhouse in the background


The 17th green complex (much better in real than on my miserable pictures)

[Tom_Doak]

Patrice:

Thanks for posting your pictures.  It's come a good way since then, but still rough around the edges.

The holes you didn't label the numbers for:  the third photo is of the par-4 4th; the two par-3's are the 3rd and 14th, respectively.

Scorecard for the course, which I just measured the other day [back tees]:

Front nine:  425, 369, 175, 419, 508, 441, 356, 310, 210 = 3213 yards par 35
Back nine:  520, 389, 248, 395, 151, 618, 484, 383, 403 = 3591 yards par 36 = total 6,804 yards par 71

The holes in bold are the ones closest to the clubhouse, which have been grassed.

Other tees:  6564, 6038, 5120 yards

[Patrice Boissonnas]

Sorry if I seem confused but I didn't walk the holes in numerical order so it's hard for me to remember which one is which except for the obvious ones close to the clubhouse.

Here is another picture I found, hole 12 I think.
A very long par 3 with a relatively small green, difficult to hold an interesting visual illusion which makes the green look closer than it actually is. A real par 3,5. I wonder how the public will welcome this hole. Very unusual to me.

[Tom_Doak]

Yes, that's #12, a very long (248 yards!) par-3.  When you carry the first bunker you are still about 25 yards short of the front of the green, most of which falls gently away from the player.  It would be a good hole to play to the back of the green and chip uphill, but it takes a very long shot to do that.

I would guess that hole will be a bit controversial; as we've discussed here many times, there are a lot of people who don't like a really long par-3, plus you can't quite see the green surface from the tee.

[Jeff_Lewis]

Would have been interesting to post a "where are we now?" quiz with some of these pictures. Who would have guessed Bordeaux?  Not me. Can't wait for this one to open.  Great reason to go to France and have some beautiful wine.

[Tim_Weiman]

Patrice,

I noted your comments about the green's contour relative to the surroundings. Based on the pictures posted, I just didn't see that as an issue, with the possible exception of #1.

Anyway, the course appears on its way to confirm my long held view that there is no such thing as a "Tom Doak course".  Stonewall isn't Lost Dunes. Cape Kidnappers isn't Barnbougle. Ballyneal isn't Common Ground. Renaissance isn't Rock Creek. Even Old Macdonald isn't Pacific Dunes. And so on.

Happy to see this course developing its own unique character.

[Patrick_Mucci]

The greens are fairly difficult, but we have deliberately kept down the number of other hazards.  There are several holes where ditches or man-made streams come into play; these were made to collect all the drainage water from the site and recycle it to the irrigation reservoir.  [In Bordeaux, and maybe all of France for all I know, you are not allowed to drill wells so you have to collect all the water you can above ground; this is true for the wine industry as well as for golf, which is why vintages are so important for Bordeaux wine.] 

Tom,

Were the man made ditches/streams there before you engaged in the project or did you construct them.

If they were there prior to the project, how did they influence the routing and individual hole designs ?

And, are you allowed to move them ?

There are only 32 or 33 bunkers in all, which I think is the fewest we have built on any course, but those we have built will present difficult choices and difficult recoveries.  [We didn't want more for maintenance reasons -- the bunker sand will tend to be contaminated by the clay subsoil in rainy conditions.

Would liners help ameliorate the problem ?

[Tom Bacsanyi]

Looks awesome.  Does that fairway cut flow into the next tee?  Is that why that tree on the right got left alone?

Sorry if I seem confused but I didn't walk the holes in numerical order so it's hard for me to remember which one is which except for the obvious ones close to the clubhouse.

Here is another picture I found, hole 12 I think.
A very long par 3 with a relatively small green, difficult to hold an interesting visual illusion which makes the green look closer than it actually is. A real par 3,5. I wonder how the public will welcome this hole. Very unusual to me.

[Tom_Doak]

Patrick:

There was a bit of a stream down the center of the valley, but it was very ill defined and only ran seasonally.  We gave it some shape in front of the 2nd and 3rd greens, and dug the other ditches to bring water to it from the higher reaches of the property.  They are a drainage solution that we turned into a nice feature, but I didn't really route the holes with them in mind.


Tom B:

Yes, that fairway cut goes over toward the start of the 13th fairway, which plays back toward the 12th.  The tees are way back in the corner of the clearing, with the back tee maybe 50 yards behind the 12th green.

[Sean Walsh]

Tom,

That 12th hole looks a little like a mirror image of the 4th on the Eden.

Is this the longest hole you'd ever call a par 3?

Given the lack of a 280-300ish short 4 any thoughts (or ability given the routing) to add an extra 30-40 yards and make it a short 4?

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

That 12th hole looks a little like a mirror image of the 4th on the Eden.

Is this the longest hole you'd ever call a par 3?

Given the lack of a 280-300ish short 4 any thoughts (or ability given the routing) to add an extra 30-40 yards and make it a short 4?

Sean:  It's a very long par-3.  I've built a couple of others that length, and I like them even if some others don't.

There really isn't room to lengthen the hole, as the current tee is already a bit dangerously close to #11 green.  But that would not be a very good hole anyway, in my opinion, because then many people would not be getting past the bunker and would have a blind short second shot.  As it is, though the hole is long, the key is just to get past the bunker which is about 205 yards from the back tee; if you can get past it and relatively on line, it's not too hard a hole from there.

The eighth hole is 310 yards from the back.  I don't feel the need to build a par-4 shorter than that, unless I find something in the ground that really calls out for a shorter hole.

[Tom Bacsanyi]

That's Todd Gack....I believe he's Dutch.

I got it.  Well crafted.

[Jon Wiggett]

But that would not be a very good hole anyway, in my opinion, because then many people would not be getting past the bunker and would have a blind short second shot.  As it is, though the hole is long, the key is just to get past the bunker which is about 205 yards from the back tee; if you can get past it and relatively on line, it's not too hard a hole from there.

Tom,

can you explain your thoughts behind why you think a short blind shot into the green is less desirable than a long blind shot into the green? Of course in the old days the problem of a long par three was solved by calling it a bogey 4. Bit of shame the bogey score is no longer in fashion.

Jon

[ward peyronnin]

Will this be a resort course or private club? I am guessing the former by reference to less skilled golfer.

Opening Date?

[Tom_Doak]

Will this be a resort course or private club? I am guessing the former by reference to less skilled golfer.

Opening Date?

There will be a membership, but they will also allow visitor play to the extent it doesn't disturb the members.  There are plenty of visitors to the nearby wineries and to the town of St. Emilion who might want to bring their clubs.  In fact, some of the winemakers have accommodations, and they have been some of the first to buy in as members.

It's too early for an opening date, we like to get all the holes planted before we start predicting.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

can you explain your thoughts behind why you think a short blind shot into the green is less desirable than a long blind shot into the green? Of course in the old days the problem of a long par three was solved by calling it a bogey 4. Bit of shame the bogey score is no longer in fashion.

I still build a handful of holes on every course where the "bogey" score would be higher than par, whether it's in fashion or not.

As to your question, I don't see it the same way as you describe.  For me, the par-3 is not really a blind shot to the green, just because you can't quite see the surface of the green.  However, from fifty yards short, you would be staring up at a bank right in front of you and couldn't be certain what direction to go.  The latter is the sort of blindness that I think more golfers object to.