Golf Sim Clubhouse Forum

Jeez Pye, I love reading your posts, but sometimes I have to go there 3 or 4 times to get what you are saying!
You write with eloquence my friend!

Pyecraft wrote: ↑August 3rd, 2023, 8:06 am But, I enjoy engaging the Architect most when following Polslad's way of working a small group of holes around a particular feature - I'd say that Augusta's Amen Corner has a lot to answer for here, but perhaps it's magnificence is due purely to familiarity.

It's been a recent revelation, but I think 6, 7, and 8 at Pebble Beach are another shining example. During the recent US Women's Open there, I heard it described as golf's truest Amen Corner, and I have to admit, I agree. The Augusta version has seen more drama, more television, and many a tournament make those three holes come into play. But as far as raw natural drama, a place on this earth that was simply meant to host a golf course, and dramatically so, maybe only the 15-17 at Cypress Point could match 6-8 at Pebble.

After the invention of using real terrain data in the game, I’ve never worked with anything else. My previous work from flat plots was not as good. Part of that was inexperience. I think I could do a good job starting from a flat plot now, but I think it would be way harder and less fun for me.

Probably most great courses started with great sites but great courses have been built from nothing in the real world too.

C.B. Macdonald’s Lido was essentially built on a flat site from his mind’s eye. They filled a low lying area with sand from the bottom of the Reynolds channel to build the entire course. The routing of Lido is an outer loop of holes around the perimeter for the front nine and an inner loop on the back plus some back and forth in the inner space at the end. This routing suggests to me deliberate thought to how the holes should be arranged separate from his decisions about contouring and bunkering. A plasticine model of the course was built prior to construction and we have evidence that they followed this model closely when actually building the course.

A lot of sites Pete Dye worked with started as nothing special as well. TPC Sawgrass was an untraversable swamp before construction. Whistling Straits was a former artillery range for the military and pretty much flat other than the drop off to the lake and the creek that separates the nines. Pete famously didn’t like to draw plans and frequently went off script from any plans that were made, preferring to figure it out as he built it.