Greg Norman's typical course design characteristics?

[SilverDatsun]

Greetings,

 

Are there any common design characteristics of golf courses designed by Greg Norman?  I have never played a Greg Norman course.  I've played three Pete Dye courses and I found that they all had railroad ties, difficult bunkers, grassy mounds, optical illusions, and were very difficult courses.

 

Thanks for your opinions!

[WUTiger]

Greg Norman's El Camaleon course at Mayakoba Resort in Mexico features limestone caves on the fairway.

 

For more clues, see Golf magazine article Norman's Top 15.

[Buckeyebowman]

Oh man! That looks worse than the Road Hole bunker!

I don't know that much about Norman's design philosophy, but I'm sure designer philosophies do change a bit over time. I did read Nicklaus' comments about Norman's first big design job at a resort course in Hobe Sound, Florida. He invited a bunch of guys out to play and get their feedback. Nicklaus told him that the forced carries were much too long for the average resort golfer, and "as good as I am I have a hard time hitting a long iron to the hood of a car!"

The pic of the El Camaleon course shows a pretty wide fairway, well bunkered but no forced carries, and what looks like a fairly generous green.

[bkuehn1952]

I have only played one Norman course, Doonbeg (Ireland).  In my uneducated opinion, he did a nice job there.  I do not recall the layout being punishing although any links course will test an inaccurate player.  The only odd feature was a bunker in the middle of a green (like Riviera?).  I suppose every course builder who is trying to create some buzz succumbs to the need to add an unusual touch.

[tsdugger]

I was able to play the Norman Vidanta course in Puerto Vallarta, MX in March and remember it being very fast, but wide open fairways. Greens, if I remember correctly, were tough - lots of undulation.

This course is also home of the longest golf cart suspension bridge in the world... it was pretty wild!

[MSchott]

Played a few, I think one was Wente Vineyards in Livermore, CA. Nice course built on hilly property. The greens were very hard to read due to the nature of the rolling property. I'm sure they all broke in a certain direction but I couldn't figure that one out.

[Golfingdad]

Played a Norman course for the first time this week at PGA West.  Only one thing stood out to me as unique, and that was that many of the greens were very oblong.  One in particular was completely horizontal to the direction of approach and it was 50 yards wide by 10 yards deep.  Here's a picture from the side:

Others were long and skinny or at angles.

Otherwise, a very standard desert style course.

[1badbadger]

I'm not an authority on Norman's courses having played only one, but holy hell did he make a mess of that place. It was called The Creeks at Beechwood.  It's located next to The Texas Motor Speedway and is part of a 902-acre master-planned office and resort development. 

The first sentence of the course review on a popular Texas golf website when it first opened stated "The Creeks at Beechwood is tighter than a camel's rear in a sandstorm."  David Feherty played it and remarked "I feel like I was led into a circular room and told to go stand in the corner."

Here is a description of one of the holes from that same course review:  "Blind Man's Bluff may be the most interesting hole on the course. It's 406 yards suited for Stevie Wonder's game. First you drive up and over "the bluff", aiming at the dead "hangman's tree" to a spot you can't see. You need to draw it. Then the second shot is down over another bluff. There's a small target of fairway straight ahead, but those taking a direct route to the green situated off to the left, will be clearing non-fairway rocky terrain and the creek. You basically hit from the creek bottom up to a plateaued fairway, go left, and end up back down in the creek bed.  It's one of those holes where you don't have a clue the first time you play it.  Even with the yardage book it is hard to imagine."

I played it about 5 or 6 times (I really am not sure why), but the first time especially was brutal.  When I walked off the 18th green I literally felt like I had gotten in a fight...and lost.  The fun started on #1...what appeared to be a pretty straightforward par 4.  I hit a solid drive down the pipe thinking I'm in perfect shape, but when I get to my ball, there is literally a huge tree right in the middle of the fairway!  And I'm right behind it!

It was actually bigger than this hole diagram indicates.  I was too close to go over it, and it was too wide to go around it, and the branches came down lower than in the pic, so here I am trying to hit a chip/punch-out 150 yards from the dead center of the fairway.

The last 2 holes coming in play in the same direction with a creek that snakes all over the place.  #17 is a short par 4, about 340 from the tips. The creek cut across the fairway, but there was no way to tell how far it was to get to it, or how far to carry it.  I stood on that tee box and literally had no clue where to hit the ball.  Usually a hole has some definition or target to aim at.  Even if it's an unfamiliar course, even a badly designed hole has features that give you an idea what is happening, right?  Not this one.  I swear, if you magically appeared from thin air and were not told where you were, you wouldn't be able to tell it was a golf hole.  I usually don't like the aiming posts used on certain holes so you know where to aim your tee shot, because I've always felt like if an aiming post is needed, it's not a well designed hole.  Well, that day I would have loved one in that fairway. 

Anyway, it didn't take long before Greg removed his name from the course, they brought Jay Morrish in to redesign it and soften it up, it was renamed and they tried it again.  But not even Jay could fix it.  It was re-done again, another name change, and it's "take 3".

Other than that, it's fine.

I really like Greg as a player, so I'm not sure how this one got away from him so badly.  

[MarvChamp]

Concur with @1badbadger. I played the course about 3 times before the redesign. One was a tournament and the guests hated it. Same on the redesign though better. On top of that, there was a time it wasn't well-maintained. Anyway, it might be worth the trip now, but I can't even get there because of I-35 construction. Best, Marv

[xrayvizhen]

This will probably sound funny but I don't think he has a design philosophy. He's not an architect, he was a player and I don't think being the latter qualifies you to be the former.

I just recently played the "Pines" a muni in Pompano Beach, FL which, about 4 years ago, is supposedly the first public course in the country that he rebuilt/redesigned. According to the locals who I played with he was paid a small amount of money, something like $350K and he messed around with the first three holes, making a par 5 a 4, a 4 a 5 and relocated a par 3 then just cleaned up the rough on the rest of the course and knocked down some trees to speed up pace of play and that was that. For the money the city of Pompano Beach also gets to plaster shark logos all over the place, advertise themselves as a "Greg Norman" course and charge 20 bucks extra per round compared with the other course at the same location.

I last played there about 10 years ago and frankly, other than the first three holes I couldn't tell the difference between then and now and if the locals hadn't told me about the those first three holes, I probably wouldn't have noticed any difference at all.

 

Edited March 14, 2018 by xrayvizhen