"If you were to design your course..."

[lamebums]

Let us say, for sake of simplicity, that you owned 150 acres of land. Where would it be best for your golf course, what type of guests would you like to see there, and how would the course play? It's basically a giant "what if" question.

Personally, I would build a course in an area that is about to turn into subdivisions, but hasn't quite yet. The area around here is mostly woodland. I would put the clubhouse as close as possible to the center of the piece of land, and try to keep the nearby subdivisions out of sight as much as possible, basically, by making sure some trees seperate any golf holes from the edge of the property.

The actual course I would design would be fairly tight - not necessarily buried in trees, but you would be required to play smart, and probably be hitting a lot of irons off a lot of tees. I would put fairway bunkers about 220 yards out on the right of as many holes as possible (taking into account that most average duffers hit it 200-ish and have a slice), and I would put a few trees bordering each fairway. Not like in the deep woods, and not whole groves of trees, but enough to turn an errant drive into a really bad lie.

One hole I would be sure to design is a 500 yard par 5 (from the white tees - more for blue). I would put a lake in front of the green and basically dare people to try and drive the green in two with their 3 wood.

I'd keep greens fees as low as possible ($30-40), since it would be a public course (I am the "anti-snob" and have no tolerance for a rich person looking down at me with that look - thus I would try to reach out to the average joe instead). I wouldn't hesitate to kick someone off the course for slow play, and I would state clearly on the score card that if you can't play the hole in 15 minutes or less, you can be booted off the course with no refund.

In short, imagine a 5500-ish yard course (6,000 or so from the blue tees), which is pretty tight, uses more sand than Oakmont, and requires some serious shotmaking to break 80...not a long bomber's paradise (and even I am a fan of the long ball) but definitely a challenge for your iron and wedge play.

And I'd make sure it rated at least 12 on the Stimpmeter.

Anyone else got ideas?

[iacas]

Let us say, for sake of simplicity, that you owned 150 acres of land. Where would it be best for your golf course, what type of guests would you like to see there, and how would the course play? It's basically a giant "what if" question.

I'd put it up for sale and buy 250 acres somewhere else. 150 isn't enough. There are some great courses on less land, but they're rare and the modern course requires about 250.

I'd keep greens fees as low as possible ($30-40), since it would be a public course (I am the "anti-snob" and have no tolerance for a rich person looking down at me with that look - thus I would try to reach out to the average joe instead).

The maintenance costs required to maintain all the sand let alone greens that stimp at 12 would quickly force you to either give up on those or charge more.

You can't talk about what course you would design without seeing the land, because course design is about finding the holes nature has already laid out, not cookie-cutting some pre-determined design and forcing the land to fit it. A course in Florida is going to be different than a course in Colorado.

[lamebums]

Since this hasn't gotten anywhere, let me try to pose this question again, but in a different way.

How would you improve a course you're a regular member at? If so, describe what the course is like now, and what you would do to make it more exciting.

[iacas]

Since this hasn't gotten anywhere, let me try to pose this question again, but in a different way.

Unless someone reading this is intimately familiar with my course, my commentary is worthless. Same for everyone else's.

I'd close this thread, but it's basically doing that on its own.