Gotta tell ya, I am tired of looking at water

[JESII]

I had the exact thought as Tommy and was thinking of a thread addessing high stress golf with in your face hazards every hole,Bay Hill,Concession ,TPC and PGA national.


Such courses heighten anxiety -very little risk reward-just execute or else and the anxiety often produces shots youd never see on the range,or at an old school classic course not littered with hazards.


I guess those who think golf should be a pass/fail test of execution enjoy it.

I don't agree that these courses are pass/fail exams for the TV guys...and that's the focus of this thread I believe.


#16 was a prime example of risk and reward by the way Westwood played it. I believe he was 1 back and can only assume he wanted to win that tournament as much as any in his life. It was playing long so not the normal hook 3 wood and hit 4 iron on the green type of day. He stuck with his bread and butter high fade tee shot, leaving him way back and now with a very difficult 2nd. He still could have hit a fairway wood up into the green, but he chose the safer long iron aiming for the approach and hoping for a bounce. The tree gave him a bad break but I contend that the shots Thomas hit on that hole made the difference.


He took on some risk off the tee and did hit the high soft 5 wood or something into the green and two putted for 4.


#16 may be unfair to use because it is universally lauded as a great risk/reward hole but with these guys, the subtleties of many courses are lost on TV and I've grown to really enjoy them making birdies and doubles...

[Tommy Williamsen]

Kalen, 6-10 at PB is one of my favorite stretches in golf. It is hard not to be exhilarated by those holes. But isn't it nice that most of the rest of the course is inland, but still have the ocean in sight? It isn't that I don't like water holes, I just don't like them on almost every hole. I especially don't like it when both the tee shot and thd shot into the green have water.

[Kyle Harris]

I know there a bunch of courses with quarry holes but was wondering more along the lines of what Mosaic does.

I'm not aware of any other golf course being built on one.

Nearby Diamond Hill is on one.

It also has the best bunkerless 650-yard Par 5 in the world. Seriously.

[Kalen Braley]

Kalen, 6-10 at PB is one of my favorite stretches in golf. It is hard not to be exhilarated by those holes. But isn't it nice that most of the rest of the course is inland, but still have the ocean in sight? It isn't that I don't like water holes, I just don't like them on almost every hole. I especially don't like it when both the tee shot and thd shot into the green have water.

Tommy,

Absolutely agreed, I was mostly just joshing you! 

P.S.  I'm hard pressed to think of a PGA Tour venue I like less than this week's tournament.  Safe to say I wont' be tuning in, but that's certainly easier to do with a full slate of March Madness games to watch!

[Garland Bayley]

Another "Florida is home to all the Doak 0s" thread!

I play regularly with someone who was just a few years ago a single digit. We happen to have played two very contrasting rounds the same weekend. I played the Chambers Bay US Open preview at (if I remember correctly) 7670 yards. He played TPC Sawgrass at under 6000 yards. I posted 101 for my round, and he posted a fairly low number for his round. When comparing handicap differentials for the round, I slightly bested him. He hit iron from most tees, and managed to avoid the water. I hit driver from all par 4 and par 5 tees, and managed to avoid the water. At Chambers Bay the only place the water is remotely in play is on 16 on the right, and my lefty drives move left.

How would you rather play golf?

PS Notice the new signature below.

[Thomas Dai]

If a course requires irrigation, it requires water. And the water has to be acquired/stored somewhere. And ponds and on-course water features are one place to keep it.
I’d be interested to hear from an irrigation and drainage specialist what, given the apparently large amounts and quality of water needed to regularly/constantly maintain lush, green, manicured courses in unhelpful climates, would be economically and logistically appropriate alternatives to ponds and on-course water features when it comes to storing water around golf courses?
And, given the kind of sites courses are often built on, what are the drainage implications of not having ponds and water features especially in areas prone to big storms etc?
Atb

[Terry Lavin]

I had a chance to play Pine Tree recently and that is a flat Florida golf course where water is not a predominant feature - the fabulous green complexes are. 

Great reference to a great Florida golf course that is not dominated by forced carries over water. Hideout in Naples is another good example.

[Garland Bayley]

Dai,

If you look up Apache Stronghold and Stone Eagle on google maps, and then view the satellite view, you can see water storage for water challenged locales. At Apache Stonghold, you will see the water reservoir is out of play. At Stone Eagle, it is in play to the side of one hole. If watering is done for a few hours per day, then the supply can be replenished as needed during the remaining 24 hour period. So, it would seem that not that much area is required for irrigation even in locales where it is needed a lot due to lack of precipitation.

[Pete_Pittock]

and then there is evaporation to consider, especially in desert climates. IIRC, Belvedere in MI has its irrigation elevated so it is out of sight to the golfer, but visible to aerial view.

[Tom_Doak]

I know there a bunch of courses with quarry holes but was wondering more along the lines of what Mosaic does.

I'm not aware of any other golf course being built on one.

Nearby Diamond Hill is on one.

It also has the best bunkerless 650-yard Par 5 in the world. Seriously.

I just looked that up.  Is the back tee built up on a triangular mound of earth?  That's taking the name to heart!

[Tom_Doak]

If a course requires irrigation, it requires water. And the water has to be acquired/stored somewhere. And ponds and on-course water features are one place to keep it.
I’d be interested to hear from an irrigation and drainage specialist what, given the apparently large amounts and quality of water needed to regularly/constantly maintain lush, green, manicured courses in unhelpful climates, would be economically and logistically appropriate alternatives to ponds and on-course water features when it comes to storing water around golf courses?
And, given the kind of sites courses are often built on, what are the drainage implications of not having ponds and water features especially in areas prone to big storms etc?

I used to think I had to build an irrigation pond somewhere for storage.  High Pointe had one, Black Forest had one, Beechtree had one.  At The Legends I managed to pawn it off on the second course.


When we started building Apache Stronghold, in the desert, I said okay, do we have to have an irrigation pond here?  We decided to build it out of sight, because a pond would be so incongruous out there.  So, from then on I thought to hide them wherever I could.  At Pacific Dunes, the irrigation pond is to the east of the golf course, over the dune from the 18th tee.  [No one ever thinks to ask.] 


In the last ten years, the only courses where I've built an irrigation pond in play were Memorial Park and St. Emilion, and both of those were because the pond is designed to collect runoff from the site.  At Memorial Park that cut the use of city water in half from previous years; in St. Emilion we are not allowed wells, so the water we collect is all we have for irrigation!


At Sand Hills they draw the irrigation water into an the tank of an old train car that's buried at the maintenance building and irrigate from there; at Dismal River they draw straight from the well to irrigate.  That's a little more risky if you lose power for a couple of days at the wrong time of year, but if you don't have power to the pump station it's not easy to get it out of the irrigation pond onto the greens, either.  I have done other projects where we talked about building a holding tank instead of a pond to minimize evaporation, but it's not inexpensive, so usually the alternative is to build a small deep pond and maybe cover it somehow.


That's a long way of saying you DON'T HAVE TO build ponds on golf holes for irrigation, although certainly the developers building homes around golf courses would disagree.  Of course, I'm an outlier.

[Tim Gavrich]

No one would deny that Florida has a lot of golf courses where water comes into play way too often. But one of the benefits of being a state with so many golf courses is that Florida also has a lot of golf courses where water *does not* come into play overly often.


Here's a list of ones that I've played and liked that seem notable for how relatively unobtrusive the water was by FL standards, especially considering the well-documented need for irrigation/fill ponds on practically every site:


- PGA GC - Dye
- PGA GC - Ryder
- Streamsong Black
- Winter Park 9
- Riviera CC (Ormond Beach)
- West Palm Beach GC (NLE, future iteration TBD)
- River Hall
- Ritz-Carlton Members Club
- Southern Dunes
- Deltona
- Hammock Beach - Conservatory
- Timuquana

[Tom_Doak]

Here's a list of ones that I've played and liked that seem notable for how relatively unobtrusive the water was by FL standards, especially considering the well-documented need for irrigation/fill ponds on practically every site:

- PGA GC - Dye
- PGA GC - Ryder
- Streamsong Black
- Winter Park 9
- Riviera CC (Ormond Beach)
- West Palm Beach GC (NLE, future iteration TBD)
- River Hall
- Ritz-Carlton Members Club
- Southern Dunes
- Deltona
- Hammock Beach - Conservatory
- Timuquana

That is not a *bad* list of golf courses, but not exactly a star-studded list, either.  Flat land has its limitations.

[Tim Gavrich]

Here's a list of ones that I've played and liked that seem notable for how relatively unobtrusive the water was by FL standards, especially considering the well-documented need for irrigation/fill ponds on practically every site:

- PGA GC - Dye
- PGA GC - Ryder
- Streamsong Black
- Winter Park 9
- Riviera CC (Ormond Beach)
- West Palm Beach GC (NLE, future iteration TBD)
- River Hall
- Ritz-Carlton Members Club
- Southern Dunes
- Deltona
- Hammock Beach - Conservatory
- Timuquana

That is not a *bad* list of golf courses, but not exactly a star-studded list, either.  Flat land has its limitations.

No doubt. Adding private courses would help things out, but I haven't played enough of them yet for that list to mean too much. Mountain Lake, Pine Tree, Boca Rio, Timuquana (not sure why I added it above) and Hawk's Nest come to mind.


You kind of have to grade on a curve in Florida, IMO. The relentless flatness near the coasts makes the use of water a little more understandable, though it's definitely used as a crutch more often than not. One course I didn't mention above in my public list is Fort Myers, where a canal bisects the property and comes into play a few times. Ross used it really judiciously; even though it really comes into play on five or six full shots, you only have to take it on in a do-or-die way once, and it's a tee shot: on the short par-4 3rd. A canal is far from the sexiest golf course feature in the grand scheme of things, but it's what we've got here.

[jeffwarne]

I had the exact thought as Tommy and was thinking of a thread addessing high stress golf with in your face hazards every hole,Bay Hill,Concession ,TPC and PGA national.


Such courses heighten anxiety -very little risk reward-just execute or else and the anxiety often produces shots youd never see on the range,or at an old school classic course not littered with hazards.


I guess those who think golf should be a pass/fail test of execution enjoy it.

I don't agree that these courses are pass/fail exams for the TV guys...and that's the focus of this thread I believe.


#16 was a prime example of risk and reward by the way Westwood played it. I believe he was 1 back and can only assume he wanted to win that tournament as much as any in his life. It was playing long so not the normal hook 3 wood and hit 4 iron on the green type of day. He stuck with his bread and butter high fade tee shot, leaving him way back and now with a very difficult 2nd. He still could have hit a fairway wood up into the green, but he chose the safer long iron aiming for the approach and hoping for a bounce. The tree gave him a bad break but I contend that the shots Thomas hit on that hole made the difference.


He took on some risk off the tee and did hit the high soft 5 wood or something into the green and two putted for 4.


#16 may be unfair to use because it is universally lauded as a great risk/reward hole but with these guys, the subtleties of many courses are lost on TV and I've grown to really enjoy them making birdies and doubles...

You picked  the best hole on the best course of the Florida swing....
The "Bear Trap" isn't pass/fail?
Of course on every one of these hazard strewn courses  you can find a great strategic, risk/reward hole...but the plot gets lost by the sheer number of them, to say nothing of the endless "out of play" hazards that torture the average golfer.
It's a numbers game with that many lost ball hazards.The strategy becomes "find your ball" and produces tight, not fun golf for all but the elite at the top of their game.(failing the "test" due to one element lacking)
Someone struggling with technical aspects of their game can tack their way around Rivierra or ANGC, and hopefully survive via course management, short game, putting.(passing the test despite one element lacking if excelling at other elements)


Not happening at any of the last four courses on the Florida swing-which no doubt have some select great strategic holes, nullified by their proximity to repetitive penal same old-same old.


That's kind've a  whole 'nother thread.
Is a great test one that simply rewards great shots? or one that severly punishes marginal play with penalty shots?
The poster child for one would be a routing of holes intertwined through and around bunkers ,rough, broken ground and limbed up odd trees,where recovery was often an exciting option and the other would be a course with the supposed "strategy" neutered by water and/or on both sides of the fairway-like we've seen for 4 weeks....(with noteable exception holes)


I guess I'm saying I prefer a "Stableford" design(where you can only go forward), rather than the stupid format they play here in Pro Stableford events, where a double bogey is -3, completely defeating the purpose of a Stableford in the first place!

[Bruce Katona]

Since most, if not all, of the easy to construct sites in Florida with some landform movement or other naturally occurring hazard have either been built on, or are protected by environmental rules; the flat land slightly above the flood line are what remains for the canvass of golf course and other construction.


Since the land is flat, fill is required to promote contouring of the land and proper drainage.  In most of Florida, the subsoil immediately beneath the topsoil or organic layer is sand; and sand on your site is far less expensive to use for construction than importing sand or fill in from off-site. As I recall, one can only go so deep beneath the surface in Florida before there is a vey hard layer of something that the Sate does not want one to crack as it may cause sink holes, so fill for construction must be generated from a larger number of relatively shallow ponds and lakes; not one large open pit mine,  This creates the myriad of lakes seen on many of the courses hi-lited on the Florida swing. 

[Wayne_Kozun]

Are either of you guys aware of other courses that were built on a former mining site? All three at SS get the benefit of some terrific land forms.

Cabot Links.

[David_Tepper]

Jack Nicklaus built Old Works in Montana on a former mining site:

http://theaposition.com/jeffwallach/golf/461/old-works-new-tricks-turning-a-superfund-site-into-a-super-fun-golf-course

[Phil Burr]

Having never played across the Atlantic, I have a fondness for the New Course at Grand Cypress, where water comes into play on only three holes and only in the form of burns rather than massive lakes.