A compact, flowing and elegant routing is worth losing 3 cool golf holes

[Peter Pallotta]

There may be some architects around who are willing to sacrifice one good golf hole for the sake of a closer green-to-tee walk or in aid of laying out the most compact, elegant and easily walkable routing possible. But I don't think there is an architect currently alive who, if push came to shove, would sacrifice what he believed were three good (i.e. better than the alternative) golf holes for the sake of that kind of routing. And the more I play golf and the more courses I play, the more I think that's a shame.

I am inclined to believe that architects a) don't give these potential alternatives the benefit of the doubt, and b) don't appreciate how many factors are involved if/when a walking golfer praises a particular hole(s); and I think the most pernicious consequence of our "18 postcards/signature holes" age is that it encourages the tendency in even the most thoughtful architects (and those most concerned with traditional routings) to conceive, evaluate, and design golf holes as if the quality of any one golf hole was determined solely by that one golf hole itself.

I'm suggesting that this is not the case -- that, in the playing of the course, a golfer's judgement about a given golf hole is actually a composite of all that has come before, including all the terrain he has traversed; and that when an architect deems a golf hole cooler/better than the alternative (on paper and on the ground), he/she is using a value system that is not the same as the one a golfer uses in walking to and playing that golf hole. 

In short, I'm thinking that the "alternative" might not only help foster the most compact and elegant routing possible, but might also actually be -- in the golfer's experience -- a better golf hole. 

After all, no matter how good a designer he is, and no matter how much golf he himself plays, no architect can experience the course he has built the way golfers will until the course is actually finished and open for play. And since this is the case, isn't it possible that the three cool golf holes he won't sacrifice for the sake of the most walkable routing possible won't in the end be worth the loss?   

Peter         

[Sean_A]

Pietro


I hear ya...the walker is most definitely not given the due he had 100 years ago.  I also believe that much of the decision-making depends on the hole being lost and how much the efficiency of the routing is sacrificed. That said, we are in an age now where archies mostly want to keep tees well away from greens anyway.  Three big reasons for added walking are nonsense about safety despite what 100 years of experience tells us, space for cart paths (blah) and any opportunity for a raised tee (more importance on visuals) is grabbed with both hands.  Archies probably think that if there is going to be a given 50 yard safety walk, 100 yards generally won't be considered a big deal if a truly better hole is on offer.  Perhaps this is where archie ego gets in the way.  When archies tell us that building the best hole is the presumed go to option rather than starting and finishing in front of the house then I think something has gone astray in the thinking process.  If that basic common sense approach can be sacrificed for what are often nothing special holes anyway...what difference does a longer walk make for the remainder of the course?


I may be wrong, but I think the idea of the good walking course (and I mean proper walking course...not those 6 mile hikes that people say are walkable) dominating the top 100 lists is slowly being eroded as more and more modern courses get ranked.  I think there is less concern from raters about walkability...practically no concern from punters about walking...in which case...can you blame archies for second tiering this aspect of design?  Just look at a place like Trump Aberdeen...a dreadful walk, but people make excuses for this rather than get down on the course. 


Ciao 

[Carl Rogers]

This thread reminds me of the entire Mid Pines routing (I do not know if Ross gave up holes or not).  Much of the charm of the course is its compact natural routing over fairly dynamic property.  I get tuckered out by carrying & walking 18, but MP, it is worth it.  The whole is way more than the sum of its parts.

[Tom_Doak]

There is much of note here, some good observations and some not so good.


The title of the thread is an excellent one.  Nearly all golf architects and developers would dispute its premise, because both positions include the need to call attention to oneself, and cool golf holes are generally the way that is done in the modern golf industry.  I have heard Mike Keiser stress the need for as many cool golf holes as possible; I have never heard him state a desire for a compact routing.


Indeed, the one thing that all modern award-winning courses have in common is that they are NOT compact; instead, they are all built at as big a scale as possible, with wide fairways, big views, and the "king of the world" sense that they use up a lot of land.  I'm as guilty of that as anyone else ... Ballybunion, for example, is way more compact than Pacific Dunes [or Bandon Dunes, or anything else at Bandon].  However, my point is that the raters of the world have proven themselves totally incapable of understanding the point of this thread.  I can't think of a compact course that has gotten any love from the raters in 20+ years.  Efficiency HURTS a course in the rankings, sadly.


Now, compactness and walkability are not necessarily the same thing.  I'm a big believer in walking, and I've built a bunch of courses where the greens and tees are pretty close together, yet there is a lot of land left over between holes.  This is not efficient from a construction standpoint, though some people would argue it is better from an environmental standpoint.  [It would be better to cram the holes together and leave 40 acres of nature on the outside, but if the 40 acres is on the inside it's less likely to be developed.]


I personally have a lot of admiration for efficient routings, the same way that computer geeks have an appreciation for efficient coding and use of memory.  One reason places like Merion and Royal Worlington & Newmarket and Whitinsville and Inverness [before Fazio] rate so highly with me is because all the holes fit together so perfectly and there is zero wasted space.  Of course, only some pieces of property allow this to work out with elegance, and there are many sites today where environmental areas and buffer zones make a compact routing impossible.


The poster child for the trade-off Peter is talking about is Mike Hurdzan's Bully Pulpit course in North Dakota.  Most of the course is relatively flat and efficiently routed and a great walk, but the 14th-16th holes ascend a 100-foot hill in "badlands" terrain to play a signature par-3 across a chasm, and then a big elevated tee coming back down.  This decision was made to put the course on the map, at the same time that it rendered the course unwalkable for all practical purposes.  It is easy to see the logic at work, but I do not think it improved the course in the end.  [But what do I know?  Ron Whitten called the 15th "one of the greatest par-3's I've ever played."  I thought this was a big stretch.]


Sean likes to bang on about the starting and finishing holes being right next to the clubhouse.  I love this feature of UK courses.  The reason you don't see it happen more in America is that the golf course is routed and built while the clubhouse is still being planned.  So we are obliged to leave a lot of room around the clubhouse for the architect to sort out his building and parking and all, and then the clubhouse architect comes in and builds the clubhouse away from the course, because he's worried about being criticized for not leaving enough room around the building for traffic flow, staging carts, and assorted other b.s.


I've only built three courses out of 35 where the clubhouse was an existing building that I could depend on -- St. Emilion in France, where the building is awkwardly on a hillside near a road, and the two at Stonewall in Philadelphia -- and the two at Stonewall plus the new one at Tara Iti [where I worked very closely with the architect after giving him far less room for a clubhouse than normal] are the only ones where I really like the relationship between clubhouse and course, because I was able to visualize it and maintain control of it.


Sean, I've noted a fair amount of abuse from readers of my book for placing too much emphasis on the walkability of courses in my number ratings of them ... so I think you are right, most people [even the well-traveled ones] are minimizing the importance of walkability in their estimations of courses.

[Sean_A]

Tom


Similar with housing developments, I think it is a good idea to leave many acres untouched in the centre of properties if the routing remains sensible, but that is often a luxury that developers understandably do not want to paid for.   


I too can't think of a compact course which has fared really well in rankings in recent years...mind you...safety stuff makes archies afraid to really deliver compact courses.  Rosapenna OTM front nine is fairly new and I think it is very good, but I doubt it makes any lists...although it was my favourite nine holes of the Donegal trip I took a few years ago.  That said, the back nine is more spread out and the walk between 9s is a shocker....it falls short of the mark as a cohesive design.   


Two good newish courses come to mind in the UK, Cumberwell Park Orange 9 and The Players Club Stranahan Course; while mostly treeless are quite compact designs...especially the Stranahan Course with lots of par 3s and cross over holes.  Neither will ever get any love from raters...though I think the more open with wider fairways Orange 9 almost makes my top 100 best GB&I...comfortably makes my top 50 favourites.


I hear you about houses and all the nonsense about cart staging...may as well stick a parking lot between the course and house...its a dreadful concept to showcase carts.  To my thinking, the house should be intimately connected to the course, not cars and carts. Best of all would be to have a buried parking lot for this stuff. 


Ciao   

[Tom_Doak]

In reading my post from last night, I think what I am noting is the influence of Pine Valley being ranked #1, on what designers strive for as an ideal.  Pine Valley and Augusta are the two ultimate "large-scale" courses of the Golden Age.  If Merion and Cypress Point were #1 and #2, likely we would have different values with regard to new courses.

[Ben Sims]

Without question the biggest problem with modern golf course rankings is ignoring design intent. Trying to effectively compare Ballyneal with Wannamoisett leaves much to be desired. In fact, the differences in setting, size and scale are so stark that any objective comparison is inherently flawed. It's no different than trying to compare a meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant to a beloved neighborhood mainstay. They're just not designed for the same purpose.

A little bit on a tangent; Mike Keiser's "retail golfer" ideal is well-chronicled and lauded. But frankly, I'm not impressed. So when I read that he never stated the desire for a compact course, I'm not surprised. In fact it's sort of a "duh" moment. How many of us want to fly/drive into the middle of nowhere for a multi-day trip and take quick jaunts around a small and intimate neighborhood course? Toss a routing like Gulph Mills or Plainfield onto the Oregon coast and expect folks to come far and wide? Nah. Not happening.

I really appreciate this thread. I hope it gives me more opportunity to vent about how the camera, modern rankings, and the golf travel industry have unwittingly conspired to marginalize the compact, efficient golf experience.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, gents, and Tom for that detailed post. With so few responses, I was starting to feel that others might've thought I was trolling (with some outlandish theory) or simply re-stating the obvious yet again. I didn't think I was doing either.

I think a case could be made (indeed has been made almost a dozen times in the last few years) that the best golf courses are the ones with the highest number of cool holes.  But I also think that the idea of scale and spectacular holes has become now the ideal , and so dominant an ideal that few stop to ask what might have been lost.

The United States is a big country with a lot of space, and Australia is a big country with a lot of space, and so perhaps it is not surprising, and it's maybe even fitting, that the most talked about new courses in these countries are big, expansive courses.   (New Zealand is not a big country, but there are so few people there and so much water all around it that the aura is one of space and expansiveness.)  Conversely, England is not a big country and it has lots of people, and so it is not surprising that the courses there are, in general, much more compact.

Again, maybe that's the way it "should" be -- but I think we may have gotten to the point now where that ideal automatically over-rides other important considerations, and is the de-facto starting point and must-have of new projects. To use a poor analogy, it's as if every developer is saying to every architect: "I want you to build me a baseball stadium, and I don't really care what the left-centre-and-right-field dimensions are just as long as the overall footprint is the size of the Rose Bowl. Sure, Fenway is charming -- but they built it that small because they had to, and we have no such restrictions here."

Yes, in one sense that's perfectly true: there are no restrictions. But just because there is liberty doesn't mean there should be licence.

Peter 

[Sean_A]

Ben


Except...at their core...both Wannamoisett and Ballyneal serve the same purposes.  I would argue that the only reason why they shouldn't be compared is that most don't know how to go about the job.  In the right hands...its not an issue because they share far more traits than not.


I would also say a great many people travel the globe to GB&I to play intimate designs with expansive views....so it is possible to accomplish.  The trick is how to preserve those views if you don't own the land....   


Pietro


What you are forgetting is that design needs to fit the scale of the property.  It stands to reason that large properties with expansive views should be taken advantage of.  What isn't clear is why are many of these courses not the walk in the park they could be?  With expansive views, it isn't necessarily the case that more need to be created while sacrificing the walk or that might fine holes can't be found which are more easily walkable. 


I also think there is a difference of philosophy borne of different ages.  Big and brash is a modern concept (if we can consider the huge amounts of money earned by members of the East India Company and the McMansions some built as modern) embraced by many in the US and more specifically by many with money. 


Ciao

[Ben Sims]

Sean,

Sure, there's no way to deny that premise. That said, even though you're consuming fuel for your body, I could make a good argument that McDonalds and a Michelin-starred restaurant serve far different purposes. Sure, a compact neighborhood club is far different than a destination club/resort in a geographically separated locale. But it's more than that. I think that they do serve far different purposes. Recently I lived in a place where I could make these comparisons. Playing Fircrest GC one day and Chambers Bay the next is a wild contrast. Especially for courses only minutes apart. One is designed to be a big, bold, jarring test. The other is smaller, intimate, compact, and far more walkable. In the end, they ARE designed for different purposes.

It's interesting to me that a course like Hidden Creek isn't higher on my list. It's a great example of how a course can be walkable, with green and tees in close proximity, and still feel like a collection of separate holes. I know I should like it more. But there's another course of similar regard in New Jersey that I appreciate far more. Plainfield. The individual holes stack up against each other well. And the walk is equally relaxing and easy. But it's the compact neatness of Plainfield that really gets me excited. There are heaps of Doak 6-7 courses in urban areas of the US that do the same.

What I wish we would see in our country is a push to make these classic, compact, but compelling courses in areas outside the urban core. The suburbs and small towns don't need housing developments. They need a Wannamoisett down the street with decent sized fairways, an easy walk, fun greens, and a caddy program.

[Tom_Doak]

I think we may have gotten to the point now where that ideal [building big, expansive courses] automatically over-rides other important considerations, and is the de-facto starting point and must-have of new projects.

Yes, that's the facts, sadly.


Where you notice it most is on the tee shot.  Older courses [and especially the early links courses] did not care much at all what the hole looked like from the tee.  On lots of links the bunkers are hidden from view or so small you can easily miss them; on most modern designs that won't do, which is why almost every developer [including Mike Keiser] wonders aloud about having more elevated tees.


One of the good things about The Loop is that in trying so hard to make the course playable from both directions, we had to give up on a lot of these modern expectations.  The Loop doesn't look like much from the tees, either.  You can see the bunkers that should be in play for you, but they aren't framed for you and they aren't especially pretty, and there are only a couple of elevated tees.  [Most of the tees are part of the fairway for the hole going the other way.]  There is a lot of cool, small ground movement, but you only really start to appreciate it when you get out in the fairway and then look ahead to the green ... which is really a lot like St. Andrews.  That's one of the reasons I didn't think the course would be an award-winner, apart from pulling off the overall concept ... the visuals aren't terrific, as they are with so much of our other work.  But having played a few holes last weekend, I think the holes are going to PLAY very interesting, and shouldn't that be what really matters? 

[Ally Mcintosh]

Well Peter, I've often said that the overall flow of the routing, its compactness, walkability and feel, mean more to me than the greatness of individual holes.


But it's easy to say that when you've had sites with loads of dramatic land and potential great holes anyway.


It might be harder to sacrifice the great holes on a site that otherwise has bland, natural features.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, gents. I enjoyed reading all these posts. The picture Ben paints, i.e. "a Wannamoisett down the street with decent sized fairways, an easy walk, fun greens, and a caddy program" is a very appealing one, to all of us I'd imagine.

It reminded me (an aside): when I was writing and editing creative work years ago, I learned an important lesson, i.e. that despite the often-heard writer's complaint that the audience "didn't get/appreciate" our work, the truth is that an audience will follow wherever you lead them, and in fact wants to follow you and wants to accept whatever story you're telling them -- as long as you don't betray them or that story by veering off (either on purpose or accidentally) in another direction.

If you've signalled that the story will be an intense Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe-style examination of marital strife set in an New England college town but then half way through (for the sake of added excitement) you put George and Martha in a couple of fighter jets machine-gunning each-other 15,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, the audience will at first be confused and then will be annoyed, and finally would have every right to blame you for your failings and say that either you don't know your craft and/or that you have lied to them, undercutting both their experience and the story itself.

A poor analogy, but which is to say: the trouble/challenge with this new "ideal" and with never sacrificing a cool hole or two for the sake of elegant compactness is that you are telling the golfer where you're going to take them, i.e. to the land of the spectacular....which means that you are then almost forced to ensure a steady diet of nothing less than great/cool/spectacular holes, one after another, courses after course, lest the "audience" (and especially the critics/raters, who love to find fault) start to feel that you're not keeping your promises and are betraying them.

And that's one pretty tall order and very particular (and particularly high) benchmark...and the more that this becomes the expectation and the measuring stick for quality, the less likely it is that the little Wannamoisetts down the street with decent sized fairways, easy walks, and fun greens will ever get built.

Is that important?  Is that loss worth the majestic and top-flight courses that are being built instead? Is it even a question worth asking? I think so ...and for my tastes and temperament, and as I get older, I'd like to live in a world with dozens of little Wannamoisetts down the streets.  But I guess that is a homely, old-fashioned and almost socialistic little dream...and the world is certainly going in a much different direction.   

Peter

[Tom_Doak]

If you've signalled that the story will be an intense Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe-style examination of marital strife set in an New England college town but then half way through (for the sake of added excitement) you put George and Martha in a couple of fighter jets machine-gunning each-other 15,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, the audience will at first be confused and then will be annoyed, and finally would have every right to blame you for your failings and say that either you don't know your craft and/or that you have lied to them, undercutting both their experience and the story itself.

A poor analogy, but which is to say: the trouble/challenge with this new "ideal" and with never sacrificing a cool hole or two for the sake of elegant compactness is that you are telling the golfer where you're going to take them, i.e. to the land of the spectacular....which means that you are then almost forced to ensure a steady diet of nothing less than great/cool/spectacular holes, one after another, courses after course, lest the "audience" (and especially the critics/raters, who love to find fault) start to feel that you're not keeping your promises and are betraying them.

The last paragraph is the very thing Mr. Dye used to complain out loud about, that owners would not be satisfied with anything less than "18 postcards."  Of course he did as much as anyone to set that expectation in people's minds ... though the set of 18 postcards he referred to was the one they sold in the pro shop at Pine Valley.


The other paragraph I copied is the perfect description of that Bully Pulpit course I mentioned earlier.  14-16 is the fighter jet scene. 

[Mark Pavy]

 Is that loss worth the majestic and top-flight courses that are being built instead? Is it even a question worth asking?

Has there been a sub $40 green fee course built in the last 10 years?

The market dictates the type of courses being built and of recent times it's all been about the "destination" course.

The BIG question is, How many of these "destination" courses will survive? I'm already noticing a trend where a new "destination" course will have it's day in the sun for 5-10 years and then slowly lose trade to the latest and greatest.

You'd need to be a very clever businessman to build a course, as you describe, close to the population. The numbers don't stack up, mainly because of the cost of land.

[Josh Stevens]

I suppose if you are driving a cart, then being compact doesn't matter.

Do we value the whole experience or do we want "moments"

My course is not too shabby, but often it is said that while it is a good track all round, it lacks a "great" hole.

I would agree with that, but what does that mean.  Are 18  good solid holes of less value that say 14 ordinary holes and 4 gems?

Muirfield surely is the poster child of 18 good solid holes, while Pebble is perhaps the other end member. 

Apples and oranges.

[Tom_Doak]

Has there been a sub $40 green fee course built in the last 10 years?

The market dictates the type of courses being built and of recent times it's all been about the "destination" course.

The BIG question is, How many of these "destination" courses will survive? I'm already noticing a trend where a new "destination" course will have it's day in the sun for 5-10 years and then slowly lose trade to the latest and greatest.

You'd need to be a very clever businessman to build a course, as you describe, close to the population. The numbers don't stack up, mainly because of the cost of land.

There have been a couple of $40 courses built deliberately in recent years -- Common Ground is one, though they have eventually raised the green fee to $50 or $52 for outsiders.  But it was built by a non-profit entity dedicated to growing the game in Colorado.  Most developers want to make a profit if they can, and if they only charge $40, they will never pay off a new course and all the infrastructure that supports it.


There have, of course, been lots of new courses that can only charge $40 in the current economic climate if they want to play at full capacity, but that wasn't the plan.


You are correct that the destination courses, ultimately, all compete against one another.  But they don't all lose trade after 5-10 years; some have more staying power than others.

[Michael Felton]

What a great question and what a great discussion it has triggered.


One thing I found interesting reading through it is the difference between expansiveness vs compactness and walkability. Two courses, one that I know very well and one that I know a little. The Old Course at Sunningdale is very walkable, yet basically every hole feels like you're in your own little world. Compare that with Walton Heath, where with the exception of the 1st on the Old, every hole is surrounded by other holes. Both courses are very good indeed IMO and have quite different feelings of expansiveness, yet both are about as walkable as golf courses can be.


As to the original question, I assume that in reality there is a continuum and you have to balance everything. How good does a hole have to be that you would put two mediocre holes in to permit its existence? How detrimental to walkability does it need to be before you'll give up a "perfect" hole. Carts have definitely made it easier to create the 18 postcards and have no nod of the head to walkability. There is a course in Connecticut called Lake of Isles. It's about the least walkable course I've ever seen. Looking at it on google earth, it looks like each hole is just dropped randomly on the ground.


The other thing I was thinking as I read through this is something that people commented on when there were more of the hole by hole match ups of courses. There were comments along the lines of comparing two courses hole by hole misses a big piece of the picture, namely how the course flows. It feels like this question is which is more important - the hole by hole match up or the flow of the course? IMO they both are. Striking that balance is the architect's job.

[Tom_Doak]

I don't think this discussion is about "flow," or at least not for me.  A "big" course can still have a great flow to it.  I've built a few, as did others before me.


For that matter, I need to go back to the original premise.  At Rock Creek or Ballyneal or Cape Kidnappers -- three "big" courses with some spectacular holes -- I did not ever consciously trade off better holes vs. a better flow or walk. 


I guess maybe you could make the case that the walk from 6 green to 7 tee at Cape Kidnappers is too far and I could have built the green away from the ocean and closer to where the next tee would be.  But that would have been a clearly inferior golf hole, putting the view aside.  In fact, I did present a more compact design originally, which didn't get out to the present holes 15-17, and the client specifically asked us to work on getting out there.  But we didn't accept some indifferent holes in order to get some spectacular ones ... that's the fallacy we have to avoid here.


What we did was ignore the "compact" part of the thread title, in search of the even more spectacular.  A compact course has an entirely different feel, and one that I admire.  In fact, at Ballyneal, where very big dunes precluded having the holes next to each other even if you wanted to, I made a point to have some intimacy between the 4th fairway and the 7th green, and between the 5th and 6th holes, so that golfers didn't feel like they were alone out there all the way around.


Whether the different feel of a compact course is better or worse than a "big" course, I don't have an opinion ... I appreciate both.  I am just agreeing with Peter that the former is undervalued in the present day, to the point where many architects and many raters don't even consider it an option.


P.S.  There is no question that the advent of housing-development courses, which spread golf holes apart from the classic "core" routings, contributed to this phenomenon.  Hardly any of those courses are intimate or compact ... indeed some developers deliberately stretched them out to create more opportunities for housing with golf frontage.  Those are the worst of the worst.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Peter,

Great topic and nice follow up  discussion.  Of course, the answer can only be given on a case by case basis, along a continuum.  As TD points, out, ocean view trumps short walk.....if not in the eyes of the gca, then certainly in the guy who bought the property in the first place and signs your checks......

And, you could argue that an elegant routing is made up first and foremost of elegant golf holes, so sacrificing one to three doesn't often give equal value in return in terms of short walks.  As noted, short walks are not the same as intimate scale, even if they are usually related.

I guess you would have to mark me up as a <1 hole sacrificed kind of guy, but participating here for a decade, I can recall several cases of moving tees closer to previous greens to increase walkability based on these discussions.  I have also learned that lesson in other ways.

25 years ago, when designing Highlands for City of Lincoln, NE, we had over 300 acres of rolling land at our disposal and first chose to use it.  When we took a first look at quantities of mainline and cart path and saw they were 25-30% more than normal, on a typical muni budget, we brought the outer reaches of the course back in tighter.  We still used over 200 acres, very generous, especially when the course just tipped 7000, and didn't need to stretch another 300-600 yards to meet any expectations  Really can't recall, it might only be 6800.

Lesson learned. Generally, expanse equals expense in those two line items.  No way around the fact that long connectors add up in pipe and path, just as they do in housing projects.  Of course, in that and many other cases, the land was good, but pretty even in quality everywhere, so no design quality was really sacrificed.  We played off a different small rise or into different valleys, etc., but the effect really wasn't any different.

[Michael Felton]

P.S.  There is no question that the advent of housing-development courses, which spread golf holes apart from the classic "core" routings, contributed to this phenomenon.  Hardly any of those courses are intimate or compact ... indeed some developers deliberately stretched them out to create more opportunities for housing with golf frontage.  Those are the worst of the worst.

They might not be compact, but some of them (a lot of them) are very claustrophobic. I agree on the worst of the worst. Houses that are within the normal range of my shots are not something I am ever happy to see on a golf course and it happens quite a lot (my shots have quite a wide range of normal sometimes).

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Jeff - good post, and your last paragraph reminded me of a point Sean made earlier, i.e. "many people travel the globe to GB&I to play intimate designs with expansive views....". When you reference that "we played off a different small rise or into different valleys, etc., but the effect really wasn't any different" it seems to be the same thing, i.e. a way to keep the views and the expansiveness (and the apparent 'scale') while staying more compact.

Peter

[K Rafkin]

Great topic, and great discussion so far.


The compact course is DEAD.  In reality the choice to build a compact course is already decided before the architect sets foot on the property.  If the developer purchases a 500 acre piece of property and tells the architect to build an 18 hole course, its pretty obvious right off the bat that the course is not going to be compact.  I've spent an hour or so combing through Top 100 and Best Moderns lists and I've found that the overwhelming majority of "great" modern courses have been built far away from major population centers on large pieces of land.  Inversely the majority of the "great" classic courses were built on smaller properties closer to population centers.  The truth is that the sites that occupy the great classic courses would never of been developed as golf courses today, and if they were they probably wouldn't be considered "great".  The compact course was the product of overcoming a problem (usually a small piece of property), not an intended design element.  Sadly, greatness points are no longer awarded for overcoming a problem, they are rewarded for cool golf holes and pretty views.  As golf courses moved away from the cities where land was expensive their was no longer a need for the compact course.


When the Hanse team was awarded the Black course they were given 800 acres to choose from to build the best possible golf course.  What incentive is there for the architect to build a compact course especially when their are no restrictions on space?  As previously stated compact and walkable are not always the same thing, so if an architect can build a course thats just as walkable as a compact course that is spread all over the place to best take advantage of the natural terrain what would be the point of building a compact course? 


I love a compact course just as much as next guy, but i don't see it coming back in style until someone starts developing 120 acre plots in major population centers.  Even if Cypress Point and Merion were number 1 and 2 on every Top 100 list, I still don't think that compact courses would be all that common in our modern times.  Anyway, most of the time when i hear about architects trying to copy Augusta or Pine valley they end up missing the point completely. 


In response to the title:I do think that cool golf holes should be sacrificed for a flowing, elegant, and walkable routing, although i would have a hard time quantifying the exact number of holes that should be sacrificed.  I imagine that it would be different from course to course, and in reality there is very clearly no correct answer. 

[Sean_A]

Can we actually think of a few modern expansive designs that are as walkable as the good compact courses?  I think this is a bit of a red herring. Using more space will almost inevitably mean more walking unless the archie makes a concentrated effort not to do so.


Ciao

[Ben Sims]

Can we actually think of a few modern expansive designs that are as walkable as the good compact courses?  I think this is a bit of a red herring. Using more space will almost inevitably mean more walking unless the archie makes a concentrated effort not to do so.


Ciao

Sean,


I'm inclined to disagree completely. I can rattle off five beloved modern courses just as walkable as any classic compact course. It's no coincidence that all of them are designed by C&C or Renaissance. These courses don't feature too many holes in close proximity to one another, but the flowing nature of the routing over terrain and the the very short green-to-tee walks makes the walk every bit as easy as classic compact courses.