Best new course for 2018

[Scott_Burroughs]

Mike Young,

Is Ohoopee Match Club on the same site that was once going to be Victory Lane, a DLIII design?

[Ben Malach]

I did some work up at K-Country last year. It is a great site but I think that compared to the others I do not think it will stack up.


I also saw some of Mickelson National. I think that there are some cool concepts in the dirt but I am not sure about the state of the project right now. I heard that there were some stoppages last summer. I also think that it will suffer in the rankings due to it being in a residential community.   

[Howard Riefs]

2018 previews...


Golf Magazine
http://www.golf.com/courses-travel/2018/01/11/travelin-joes-10-most-anticipated-golf-courses-2018
 
Golf Advisor
https://www.golfadvisor.com/articles/2018-new-golf-course-17590.htm

[Conley Hurst]

It will be interesting to see the Coore/Crenshaw project at Big Cedar Lodge. I'd imagine they would have to move a fair amount of dirt to fit a golf course into the Ozark Mountain ridges up there.


Possibly the hilliest site C&C has worked on? Kapalua also comes to mind

[Ryan Farrow]

Conley,


The course was mostly built on the old John Daly course at Murder Rock and extended to some unused land. I would call it gently gently rolling on ridge tops. The golf is not very hilly but there are some shots over deep canyons, still very walkable. The C&C course in China occupied much more severe land. Most of the dirt work at "Ozark National" was importing topsoil to layer on top of the rock so we could build a golf course. 




Ben C., I am partial to the new par 3 course opening up at Sand Valley, to say any course is the obvious favorite for 2018 is silly since most of the courses listed haven't hosted a proper round of golf yet.

[Jake Marvin]

It won't be the best course to open with Mammoth and Arcadia South and all the others coming along, but The Royal GC is opening just east of the Twin Cities, and it looks like it'll be among the best publics in the area. Annika Sorenstam-designed front nine, while the back is the last Arnold Palmer design credit, I believe. Thus, we get "The Queen's Nine" and "The King's Nine." Cringe. That said, it's on an interesting site (formerly Tartan Park GC), and the pictures look good so far. Nice and close to StoneRidge, too.


I'm more excited for Richard Mandell's redesign at Braemar across town. Sadly, it sounds like that's been pushed back to 2019.

[PCCraig]

It won't be the best course to open with Mammoth and Arcadia South and all the others coming along, but The Royal GC is opening just east of the Twin Cities, and it looks like it'll be among the best publics in the area. Annika Sorenstam-designed front nine, while the back is the last Arnold Palmer design credit, I believe. Thus, we get "The Queen's Nine" and "The King's Nine." Cringe. That said, it's on an interesting site (formerly Tartan Park GC), and the pictures look good so far. Nice and close to StoneRidge, too.


I'm more excited for Richard Mandell's redesign at Braemar across town. Sadly, it sounds like that's been pushed back to 2019.

Jake,


Braemar should be really interesting once complete. It's a pretty nice piece of property, and condensing the course from 27 to 18 holes was a good idea. The pictures and the routing map I've seen look great.


The Royal GC looks pretty 'meh' to me.

[Forrest Richardson]

Baylands Golf Links in Palo Alto is being considered new (I think) by most of the panels. I believe Whitten feels "new" is a better classification because we brought in 500,000 cubic yards of soil and re-routed everything. I guess this will get interpreted depending on who is doing the interpretation 

http://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/content/new-baylands-golf-links-course-set-to-open-in-spring-2018

We are organizing a tour (and play) day in early March. If anyone wants to come our and walk it (with a few clubs) please let me know. A date is not set yet, pending my schedule. Probably March 1st, 2nd or 3rd.

[Jeff_Brauer]

We will open Tempest in Gladewater, TX.  Should be nice, and Golf Trip Advisor listed it as one of the courses to watch.  Like Forrest's course, the old Southern Hills was on the site, but we added new holes on previously unused land, keeping only 6 of the original 18 hole corridors, and changing all the holes dramatically.  I think most will consider it a new course.


For our 6th, we widened the corridor from 150 to 300 feet by convincing the owner that we could pull back the surrounding lot lines.  Our 10th and 18th was originally occupied by 3 holes, when it was barely wide enough for 2.  Just two examples to show just how bad the original "design" was. 

[Forrest Richardson]

150 feet!! That must be some sort of record 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Believe it or not, I have seen worse.  When working for Dick Nugent, he visited a CC in Temple, TX that had 3 holes in only 300 or so feet, or 100 foot per hole.  Similar deal on a country club somewhere in Kansas (Atchison, maybe?)


That said, this original course was laid out by an engineer and local golf pro.  Someone must have told the engineer that fairways were about 40-50 yards wide, and he, not knowing, figured that was all the width they needed.  I imagine the pro  mentioned that he never missed a fairway, so no safety buffer was needed.  Because, of course, we all know a pro is most qualified to design a golf course!

[Jim Hoak]

Maybe this has already been clarified--the new Kidd course at Sand Valley, Mammoth Dunes, will not officially open all 18 holes until after July 1, so as I understand it, it will not be eligible for New Course of the Year in 2018.  We saw 12 holes of it this summer and it looked terrific!  But it will need to wait a year to receive the honor.
Not to be sacrilegious,  but I think that the overall experience at Sand Valley will meet or exceed the experience at Bandon Dunes.  The course and-a-half that we saw are comparable, the accommodations are equal, and the weather (except in the dead of winter) and access are superior.  Another triumph for Mike Keiser.

[Garland Bayley]

Maybe this has already been clarified--the new Kidd course at Sand Valley, Mammoth Dunes, will not officially open all 18 holes until after July 1, so as I understand it, it will not be eligible for New Course of the Year in 2018.  We saw 12 holes of it this summer and it looked terrific!  But it will need to wait a year to receive the honor.
Not to be sacrilegious,  but I think that the overall experience at Sand Valley will meet or exceed the experience at Bandon Dunes.  The course and-a-half that we saw are comparable, the accommodations are equal, and the weather (except in the dead of winter) and access are superior.  Another triumph for Mike Keiser.

It seems to me that claiming weather almost anywhere in the northern US being better than at the beach in Bandon, OR is quite a stretch.

[Scott Weersing]

If we say a course has to open before June of 2018 to be considered, then we would have to say that Streamsong Black, which opened in September of 2017 as best new course for 2018.


I would say the best new course for 2018 would be any course that officially opened in the 2018 calendar year.


New ones to add to the list


Rolling Hills CC, new design by D. Kidd
Bayland Links, Palo Alto, new design by F. Richardson