To be honest Balmedie wasn’t the course that came to mind when I was thinking of courses where the aesthetics “trumped” other design issues. For all that Balmedie was built on sand, I still think of it as being less than ideal given the design constraints imposed by the huge steep dune systems and the wetland areas between. The general routing and the siting of greens nestled into the bottom of dunes seem to me to be purely a consequence of the site constraints. While there are a few raised tees, again in general they are a consequence of the site constraints. The further back you go to position a tee the more likely you are to back up into a dune system. I don’t see that element of the design being about aesthetics.
One thing I also noted was that the vast majority of views were internal to the course with few looking outwith the course boundaries. Then you have Hawtree’s penchant for perfectly circular pot bunkers, and his clients insistence on perfect regulation width footpaths and you could argue that both those characteristics are the antithesis of bling or at least the “natural” look we often get.
No, the course I was thinking of where arguably the design suffered in the pursuit of nice aesthetics is Castle Stuart. Many on here will remember the fun we used to have arguing over faux bunkers or was it faux sleepers ? Can’t recall which. Then there’s the twee looking eyebrows to the left of the green on 3 (?). I mean to say, bits of wood to stop the run up shot…….in Scotland
But that’s just window dressing. The real compromise came in the routing IMO. I’d suggest that the main issue in the design was how to transition in and out of the lower level along the water ? Bear in mind they didn’t have the same issues as at Balmedie so were fairly free to route the course in such a way as to achieve an easy in and easy(ish) out. Instead they decided to go with a routing that, despite the extensive mitigation work they did, left them with the mother of all climbs from the 12
th green to the 13
th tee. Common sense would suggest it would better to route the course the other way at that point, would it not ?
Why did they do that ? Don’t know for sure but I do know that they went to a lot of effort to create and frame views of the Bridge, Castle Stuart etc. It seems to me that they were that keen to create outward views all around, what you might call aesthetics, they were willing to compromise on the flow of the course or what I’d call good design.
David
Surely the soil and general landscape is the major factor in determining how good a site is ? By all accounts, the Ardfin site comprised peat and rocky outcrops and yet you refer to it being great. Even though, or maybe because that you acknowledge these “great” sites weren’t necessarily the easiest to build, it seems to suggest that aesthetics is much more of a determining factor in course design.
Niall