We have decided that picking a winner won’t actually work.
Before you
roll your eyes and accuse us of being some of those ridiculous people who want to give every entrant a ribbon for participation, I can assure you this was not what we expected either. We all picked completely different entries. Not a surprise, since each entry had something each of us liked and we all recognized that even our first choice had some aspect that wasn’t ideal. So we immediately turned to each other’s second pick and not one matched anyone else’s fist picks. To complicate matters we now had new entrants showing up at 2nd and 3rd twice each too. So, no clear cut winner.
It was also interesting to see that not only did the entrants see the site differently, but so too did the judges.
Adrian and I seemed to spend quite a bit of time addressing spacing. Mike did as well, but I credit him with pointing the ideas out and judging each use of land. I think he had the right mindset in this regard. We all singled out holes placed too close together. I seemed to be the most concerned about the risk of running holes right up against the out of bounds. And all of us had all sorts of issues with greens, tees and fairways being beside each other.
The one fascinating issue where we differed was on where entrants had designed holes that doglegged in one direction where the land was falling in the other direction (known as a reverse cant). I thought the site was too severe to allow that choice. The other two felt that was not the case and went so far as to point to a few as standouts. As my wife will often point out, “Different is not necessarily wrong” (while rolling her eyes at my choice while I’m not looking).
So here are the picks:
Andy Gray (Adrian)
Adrian thought his layout used the contours effectively and managed the issues of safety. Ian pointed out holes like the 6th being one of the best choices in the competition. But he also questioned others that turned into the slope. Mike felt it featured awkward walks but that eventually helped address safety issues later on and justified the choices.
Ben Hollerbach (Mike)
Mike liked the tacking across the property and thought the use of the views on the site was excellent. He noted that holes would need to be shifted in the field to make it work on site. I found things too tight in the middle and questioned the use of multiple holes that dogleg one way while the land falls severely in the other direction. Adrian felt some holes were just too dangerous, but it was a layout that with some tweaking could work.
Bob Monte (Ian)
Mike thought it had excellent individual holes and utilized the coastline well. He said it could be a very fun course and possibly the best for the average market. Adrian thought it used the contours very well, but was on the short side. I really like the way it used the land and flowed around the site, but questioned whether six threes 130 yards and under met the original objectives … but it was a layout I wanted to play.
Honorable MentionsMatthew Rose Mike felt it made very good use of all of the property. He liked the five holes playing with coast as a feature. He said the more he studied it, the more he liked it.
Bob Brightly I thought Bill deserved full marks for trying so much including a reversible layout, that in the end it made him try to squeeze too much out of (or into) a small site.
Steve Lang Adrian said he managed the safety well and had a good grasp of the existing contours.
Special Mentions
Drew Groger for his presentation … wow
To all of the entrants:This wasn’t an easy site because it’s small and it’s quite steep.
Thanks for your thoughts, we had fun reviewing each.
Adrian, Mike and Ian