What is the Best Routing Process?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Again, from  Melvyn Morrow, but the question is, do the "big houses" corrupt the routing process by having more than a single person route a golf course?  Should it always be done by only one person?

I told him that I always let my staff take a run at routing (usually a minimum of 3 each) in separate rooms (much easier now as my draftsmen/designers are spread all over the country....) and I take a few preliminary routings, as well. We then, with me in the lead, throw out the worst, save the best, and merge if we can.  Not sure I would be any better without several different perspectives.

What say ye?  One man job or committee?

[Lester George]

Jeff,

I evolved from doing it alone to letting others work separately as well.  Sometimes it has worked well, depending on the guys doing it.  I always make the final call. 

Since routing is my most cherished exercise, I really work through it from many angles before finalizing.  I always start on paper, then visit the site to look at tee and green sites, then finalize.

I am back to doing most of it on my own, however there are a couple of guys I would still trust to go it alone.

Lester 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Lester,

I agree on all counts.  But, I don't care who is doing the routing, they tend to fall in love with one idea, or tend to route to certain patterns they have learned, thus potentially losing some of the best solutions.  That is why I always require minimum of 3 from each router, usually giving them different criteria, such as clubhouse locations, just to get them thinking completely differently.

Sometimes, I think the public is taken in by the marketing of guys like Frank Lloyd Wright, who promoted the Master Builder idea.  In reality, he had his staff doing most of the work, too.  And, design is about problem solving, and as the old saying goes, "the more the merrier."  To an extent, anyway, as there is also the old saying "Too many chefs spoil the broth."

That is why I narrow down the options and finalize it myself, or with one trusted associate.  But, in the initial phases, nothing wrong with brainstorming.

[Lester George]

Jeff,

I like what you are saying and I agree.  I have had many, many instances where my guys have worked separately and I have changed their thinking (throwing curve balls) to encourage thought and creativity.  We have had a number of concepts make it all the way through final routing that way.

Examples:

Kinloch - 1 routing, 1 change, all mine.

Ballyhack - 20 routings, 50 changes, 1 routing combined ideas, changed 4 holes once construction started to maximize opportunity.

Just the way I roll.

Lester

[Jeff_Brauer]

Lester,

I have never kept count quite that way, but I have often illustrated the thoroughness of our routing process by the story that we used to letter our routings, but at the first Giant's Ridge course, we had to start over after Z, with AA, etc.  After that, we went to numbers, or a combo of letters and numbers like J (for Jeff) P (for prelim, R-2 for second revisions) and of course, a date, down to the hour, so we could keep track of which was the latest and greatest. 

We even went to one hard to please client with the color routing rendering labeled as "Final for Now."

[Thomas Dai]

I have been told that some manmade landscape features, when looked down upon from above, are laid out in such a manner as to spell out messages, rude words or even depict 'interesting' activities or practices.

Anyone herein care to nominate examples of routings, partial routings, golf or golf related features etc that when viewed from above or from certain angles indicate something interesting or unusual, whether deliberate or accidental.

Atb

[Jeff_Brauer]

Thomas,

My mentors always stressed that while we often design in plan view, we need to consider it from ground level view.  I would usually put my head on the drafting table and stare at the holes from the tee and at a worms eye view.

I have seen SC (for south Carolina) spelled out in Myrtle Beach, and Desmond Muirhead examples abound.  I did do a bunker pair in the initials JC (for Jim Colbert, but often mistaken for Jesus Christ, or JESUS CHRIST!   However, if it were the latter, my tendency would be to add an "F" in there, too.

All kidding aside, in feature design more than routing, the plan process has the limitation of basically thinking in an airplane view, which you need to be cognizant of.  For most architects, it leads to pretty shaped ponds, that have a lot of disappearing coves that end up being blind to the golfer.  However, some have said JN sort of designed in an airplane view and came up with point to point golf courses, which of course, is also how he played.  But for all of us, it does tend to make us think in terms of the target golf, aerial game, as a matter of the method.  It can be overcome, of course, and the benefits of paper planning are still numerous.

[Joe Hancock]

Thomas,

I don't like to participate in a thread-jack, but this time I will.

There was a joke told on site(maybe by DMK hisself) while building Huntsman Springs in Driggs, ID. Subsequently there was a feature (an island in one of the man-made wetlands) that was shaped in accordance to the jokes' punchline. I don't remember the joke(OK, I do, but am not repeating it) but if I were to make a reference it would be a book title to highlight your inquisition about shapes of features on golf courses...

"Anatomy of a Donkey"

Joe

[Tom_Doak]

I have been told that some manmade landscape features, when looked down upon from above, are laid out in such a manner as to spell out messages, rude words or even depict 'interesting' activities or practices.

Anyone herein care to nominate examples of routings, partial routings, golf or golf related features etc that when viewed from above or from certain angles indicate something interesting or unusual, whether deliberate or accidental.

Thomas:

I remember reading an old brochure of Robert Trent Jones, Jr., from the 1980's, when he was building a course near the Pyramids in Egypt.  It noted that the shape of the routing from the air looked like an ankh -- the Egyptian symbol of eternal life.    I'm not sure the course was ever built; probably not, seeing that Bobby has not died from the curse of the pharaohs.


As for the topic of this thread, I do most of the routing work for my courses, and I know that Bill Coore does most of his own, too. 

I've certainly borrowed good ideas from my associates [usually, late in the process] to improve a particular corner, and I am trying to give them the maps earlier on so I can teach them something about routing courses. But I don't like to see any work from them until I've had a chance to look a the site with a fresh mind, because I will get stuck on some feature of theirs that I liked, and have a hard time looking at that portion of the property differently.  [I don't like seeing what other architects have proposed, either, for the same reason.]  I don't want ANY golf holes in mind when I'm starting, I just want to see what I see in the contour lines.

I guess Jeff and Lester don't have that problem; from their descriptions, they like to look at a whole bunch of different alternatives.  I tend to focus on little pieces of the property at a time, find the solution for that piece that I like best, and then try to piece the sections together ... so I am always narrowing things down to an eventual solution, and you will usually find several holes from my first attempt at the routing in the final plan.

As I've mentioned before, too, I don't like to get feedback from the client on alternative plans.  I don't want them to choose one plan over another because they get stuck on one particular hole they like [or, one they dislike, that they don't really understand].  I want to be the one that chooses.  So, I'll just show them the plan I like, ask for feedback on it, and revise if necessary.  I have made some big revisions at that point in the process, with great results; it's funny how fast a new solution can come together once you really know the ground.  But you've got to get to know the ground first, and that's hard if you keep focusing on 100 different golf holes.

[Thomas Dai]

Thanks for the chucklesome examples. I was told of a flower bed, ghastly things on courses that the are, that was apparently originally laid out in the shape of a crown and anchor. Later changed, but not for the obvious reason.

Atb

[Niall C]

Since routing is my most cherished exercise, I really work through it from many angles before finalizing.  I always start on paper, then visit the site to look at tee and green sites, then finalize.
 

Lester

That's an interesting approach. Is there not a danger that you don't appreciate fully particular ground features and therefore don't utilise them fully in your initial routing if you haven't seen them on site first ? 

Niall

[Carl Rogers]

Jeff,
....................Ballyhack - 20 routings, 50 changes, 1 routing combined ideas, changed 4 holes once construction started to maximize opportunity.
........................

Lester, in the various Ballyhack routings, how many of them had what might be termed as the "unconventional score card" more or fewer par3's and par 5's unequally spaced?  For those of that don't know the course, the properties (yes, plural, because the course is divided by a road) and is over what I would call very challenging terrain.