Horschel Wants More "Great-Designed Courses" Like Harbour Town

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Titleist ambassador and former FedExCup champion Billy Horschel repeatedly takes the company talking points on the distance issue, so it was no surprise to see him call on architects to do more "great-designed" work instead of changing equipment to breathe new (old) life into architecture.

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From this week's After Further Review from Rex Hoggard, which is incidentally followed by an item on how fun it is to watch Brooke Henderson drive the ball despite her small frame. 

First, in Horschel's world, he's hoping we get driver-killing "great-designed" courses so the golf ball is not restricted, ensuring on-going payments to his and other golf pro accounts:

"I think the architects in today's game should come here and understand what this course is and why it's still challenging,” Billy Horschel said. “ Too much nowadays we're playing big, wide-open courses that really aren't great designed golf courses.”

If architects could import massive overhanging trees that restrict ball flight they might, but it's kind of hard to do that these days. Nor advisable on a number of levels, most notably because there is a desire by many to see the driver remain an important weapon. And even better, to see width presented to provide options off the tee.

All of this makes the second After Further Review item by Ryan Lavner more fun. He writes about the joys of LPGA winner Brooke Henderson and the skill on display as she uses a 48-inch driver.

Or perhaps it’s because she uses a 48-inch driver, drawing every little bit of distance out of her 5-foot-4 frame. She swings freely and aggressively, aims at flags even when she’s nursing a narrow lead and rolls in enough putts to contend in all of the big events.

The 20-year-old Canadian smashes every conceivable stereotype about the LPGA – in no ways a dink-and-dunker who relies on a hot putter. There’s no one in the women’s game I’d rather watch play. 

Sadly, the folks who want to combat distance through Harbour Town-style architecture do not appreciate how the ability to use driver in separating fields has been a cornerstone of the sport for a few centuries now.

Harbour Town is swell and all once a year, but narrow plod-fests that minimize the driver are not the model for the game. Particularly when the message is driven by corporate talking points from folks who've already made millions. "Great-designed" courses are not narrow, tree-lined and light on strategic decisions.  

State Of The Game 76: Zac Blair (@z_blair)

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Rod Morri, Mike Clayton and yours truly caught professional golfer Zac Blair before he was off to go play to talk the distance debate and various architecture subjects.

Thanks to Zac for taking the time and listening to old men grumble about distance and as always, to Lloyd Cole for the musical intro. 

If you aren't following Zac on Twitter, you can find him here.

The episode's permanent link is here. 

The MP3 link here.

The show's iTunes store link here.

Episode 76 on iTunes here.

Or the episode here:

Kapalua Getting Coore & Crenshaw Restoration After '19 Sentry TOC

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The Forecaddie with details of the Mark Rolfing reunion with Coore and Crenshaw to liven up and restore elements to the Kapalua they created in hopes of recapturing its glory years.  Even some of the original shapers are expected back. They're on a mission from God!

Golf.com's Joe Passov talked to Bill Coore about the project and I think we have a new classification of restoration with this:

From a design standpoint, Coore is "most fascinated" by the addition of a new tee box at the par-4 4th, close to the 3rd green. "We actually had it roughed in there from Day 1, but it was never put into use. Back in the days when many of the guys were hitting persimmon drivers, that tee was considered too demanding. Today, the guys are hitting it so far, well past the existing bunkers, that reviving that tee would be perfect. It's been sitting there all these years. We will just add some irrigation and cut back the native grasses."

Restoring a tee never built for the modern game. Wrap your head around that one.

Debating The Best At Streamsong

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I think you'll enjoy the different takes on the Red (Coore and Crenshaw), Blue (Doak) and Black (Hanse) courses at Streamsong compiled by Jason Scott Deegan, who also participated.

He is joined by Matt Ginella, Brad Klein, Brandon Tucker and Mike Bailey in the showdown. (Viewers/readers were polled and the unscientific results had the Red Course as clear winner). 

Instagram Roundup: Tiger's Swing Looks Tight, India's Deep Packed Bunker, Jimmy Walker's USGA Plea And Na Touts A Tour-Only Pro V1

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As Tiger Woods prepares for his first Valspar, his swing looks just that much more tighter and impressive, but as Dan Kilbridge reports, Wednesday's pro-am round did suggest (6 of 18 greens) that Woods is still adjusting to Innisbrook's tough approach shots. 

The Hero Indian Open at DLF Golf And Country Club features a bunker getting a lot of attention this week. 

🙏🏼 📷 @plarrazabal #HIO2018

A post shared by European Tour (@europeantour) on

Jimmy Walker is making a plea to the USGA on behalf of everyday golfers...

Kevin Na posted his improvement in ball speed with a new Pro V 1x ball not available to the public but on the conforming list. Presumably, if all comments over the last week are to be believed, this will not amount to more distance for him. The post is no longer on Na's account.

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"Fighting for a miracle: Course designer David Kahn and his wife, Karen, search for strength in the most daunting battle imaginable"

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Alan Shipnuck at Golf.com shares the heartbreaking story of Amelia and Makenzie Kahn, daughters of David and Karen who are battling one of the world's rarest disease for children.

Carve out a few minutes for this one. 

A Topgolf fundraiser for a research-based foundation related to Batten's Disease is this Monday. Shipnuck explains:

With such a tiny potential market, drug companies have little incentive to put resources into studying the disease and trying to develop a cure, or even ways to slow its symptoms. And so the Kahns are taking on this fight themselves, having formed the ForeBatten Foundation. "That golfy play on words with ‘fore' might be a little corny," says David, "but it speaks to our mission: Watch out, Batten."

This Monday, March 12, the ForeBatten Foundation will host its inaugural fundraiser at TopGolf in Scottsdale. The ambitious goal is to raise the $800,000 needed to fund a critical new research study. David has tapped his many friends and contacts in golf to assemble a dazzling array of auction items, including a pair of Berckmans Place tickets for the final round of this year's Masters; a dream trip for four to Bandon Dunes; tee times everywhere from Winged Foot to Riviera to Oakmont to Los Angeles Country Club; unique experiences, ranging from a private tennis lesson with Andy Roddick to a round of golf with Paige Spiranac; and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to play the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnyland Farms, the cultish, intensely private Dick Wilson design (restored in 2011 by Jackson Kahn) that has long been a private playground for ambassadors and Presidents.

Head's Up For Par-3 Course Fans: The Cradle By The Numbers

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Maybe your course, city or club is considering a par-3 course? Well, then say thanks the social media and golf professional team at Pinehurst for documenting early numbers on their new short course. 

Sounds like a lot of fun is taking place. If only golf had about 1000 more of these sprinkled across the land.

  • More than 6,100 rounds were played on the new 9-hole, 789-yard short course.
  • The busiest day had 174 golfers play, and the largest group was a 12-some.
  • With a $50 greens fee that includes replay rounds that same day, the average time to play one round was just over an hour.
  • In those first few weeks, more than 220 juniors under 17 played for free with a paid adult while Pinehurst Country Club members played 2,100 rounds and hosted 706 guests.
  • Since opening, more than 30 holes-in-one have been recorded, with aces coming from players ages 8 to 84.
  • In a unique event, Pinehurst teaching professional Kelly Mitchum played the short course from sunrise to sunset on the winter solstice – the shortest day of the year – and finished 26 complete rounds for a total of 234 holes. He shot 12 under par for the day.

Revamped Pine Needles Gets Another U.S. Women's Open

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Beth Ann Nichols at Golfweek with all of the details on new/old look Pine Needles getting a record fourth U.S. Women's Open, this time sadly without patron saint Peggy Kirk Bell around but featuring revitalized architecture.

As he did at the must-play Mid-Pines, 36-year-old architect Kyle Franz is bringing some fun back to Donald Ross’ 1928 Pine Needles design. Not that there was anything wrong with the course restored about fifteen years ago by John Fought, but as The Forecaddie notes, with everything going on in the neighborhood, Pine Needles was starting to lack a certain visual sizzle that you can only find in the sandhills of North Carolina.

Some photos of the recent work, starting with this before/after (arrow on right of image will take you to the after):

It’s Time For Pebble Beach To Commision A Master Plan

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As the restoration movement continues to reinvigorate tired properties, the power and clarity delivered by a master plan document is often forgotten as the long term key to a healthy design.

Understandably, the excitement over better playing and looking golf holes becomes the focus after a restoration. But these projects almost never commenced without a document evaluating the original design’s evolution or the changes necessary to improve things. They also provide a fine opportunity for vital “under-the-hood” improvements required to carry a course into the future.

Countless classics were guided by these documents and now swear by them, sometimes religiously clinging to the plan without some wiggle room to make modifications. But given the history of green committees, ironclad plans prove wiser than leaving leeway for amateur architects to leave their mark.

The latest addition to Pebble Beach demonstrates, in glaring fashion, the danger of not having a master plan or a genuine grasp of the architectural high-point of a course. The planting of South African gazanias on one of golf’s most beautiful locales needing no help suggests it is time for America’s national golfing treasure to commission a serious master plan. To not recognize the architectural and landscape malpractice suggests either too many or not enough cooks are in the Pebble Beach kitchen.

There really is no shame in having reached this point, as most of the best courses in the world were driven to consider their design past and future after some sort of gaffe. Nearly in every case it was not a general realization of architectural decline, but instead something as gaudy as a goofy gazania bed.

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Besides the non-native component, accentuated by seeing actual wildflowers sprouting randomly on the gorgeous cliffs of Pebble Beach, this “look at me” execution may be the most robust splash of color since Dorothy, Toto and friends were off to see the Wizard. (Only they waded through fields of poppies, the state flower in California that bloom in springtime.)

Taking a hard look at Pebble Beach’s design evolution and targeting the course at its peak would help the famed resort understand priorities in aesthetics, strategy and playability. There has been a sense that doing so would damage the grand story of amateurs Jack Neville and Douglas Grant, commissioned by Samuel Morse and concocting the masterpiece we know today. Their masterful routing will always be integral to the Pebble Beach story, however, design trends evolved over the decade following their effort and the course ultimately came together with touches from Herbert Fowler, Alister MacKenzie, and then most significantly, thanks to Chandler Egan and Robert Hunter's pre-1929 U.S. Amateur remodel. Egan reached the semi-finals of that amateur and is one of America's greatest amateur golfers.

A study of that 1929 effort would show larger and more intricate green shapes and a better attempt at injecting a sense of naturalness on a magnificent site plagued in early days by geometric and unsightly features. The old images below validate the unique qualities of the 1929 version and while the current ownership of Pebble Beach has taken the resort from hard times to grand stewardship, the golf course vision has fallen behind the clarity they've shown in maintaining the overall Pebble Beach community. It's time for the resort to consider restoration professionals who can identify the best features, understand how the course has evolved, and steer Pebble Beach in a direction that best embodies the course at its peak. Given the importance of the course, perhaps even a bake-off style process open to many architects will provide even more clarity.

From a strictly business perspective, I suspect such a plan would right the rankings ship, which has seen Pebble Beach slipping in all of the major magazine rankings. While this amazing place is not in danger of failing just because magazine panelists are giving lower golf course grades, they are sending a message: Pebble Beach is not as good as it should be.

As I argued this week on Golf Central, the design is actually underrated and should be the undisputed No. 1 course in America. Currently, it is not, and a bed of gazanias won't help make golf's most beautiful setting any prettier.  The flower bed merely highlights the need to commission a master plan.

Above the 7th hole, 1929 U.S. Amateur and 2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am along with more scenes from the old days:

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23's Latest Comeback: Hobe Sound Course Project Back On, To Be Designed By Weed

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Bobby Weed! He's a fine architect, even finer family man and great friend of the game.

And now he's the architect of record for Michael Jordan's Grove XXIII, the on-again, off-again, very much on-again exclusive answer to the Bear's Club. Originally thought to be Tom Doak's project to lose, Jordan has turned to Weed for what sounds very much like a course aimed at lure a few tour pros from Bear's Club.

From the Forecaddie:

The par-72 layout includes plans for tees ranging from 5,445 yards up to 7,470. Weed is excited about finding a way to challenge players, with bunkers planned deep into the fairway landing areas, some 330-340 yards off the back tees. Plus he’s got some special angles worked up.

“I’m going to be in their head,” he told the Man Out Front.

The full press release announcing the project that is scheduled to open next year:

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida (January 20, 2018) – Bobby Weed Golf Design (www.bobbyweed.com) has been selected to design the golf course at GROVE XXIII, an exclusive, members-only private club under construction in Hobe Sound, Fla. NBA legend and avid golfer Michael Jordan is the majority partner in GROVE XXIII. The golf course is scheduled to be ready for play in 2019.

 “Knowing the caliber of the membership and Michael’s passion for golf, we are designing a forward-thinking, progressive layout,” said Weed. “Golf course architects are in the best position to address how technology has changed strategic design.

“This project is an opportunity to update how architects provide all players with a fun and interesting challenge. It will be a course for tomorrow, a course with a refined edge.”

Weed is living on site throughout the duration of construction in order to personally shape features and supervise the work.

About Grove XXIII

Set on the site of a former citrus grove, the golf course is routed with the south Florida trade winds in mind. The two nines wrap around each other while traversing the site in opposing directions. This dynamic layout ensures that golfers will feel the breeze from every quarter.

The routing also features a unique crossover at the 5th and 14th tees, where golfers can switch from one nine to the other and still finish out a nine-hole loop. This singular feature offers the membership four nine-hole permutations, significantly enhancing both daily set-up and member tournament format possibilities.

Weed continued, “We are using proprietary player performance data to help establish the dimensions of features and rethinking the tenets of risk and reward that have long guided strategic golf design, but are stagnant today, especially in the face of equipment technology.”

The Weed design team has been provided with these player performance data by Darren May, co-founder of “Every Ball Counts” and appointed golf coach and ambassador to GROVE XXIII.

“The team environment encouraged by Bobby Weed allows a free flow of very valuable information,” May said. “To see this information integrated in the course design, and be part of the process, is extremely exciting.”

An intimate, contemporary clubhouse will be elevated above the open and expansive 225-acre property, offering long vistas to every golf hole.

Updated Plans For Woods-Designed Chicago Park District Course

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The Chicago Park District presented an refined vision that merges Jackson Park and South Shore golf courses, reports Lolly Bowean for the Tribune. The project, with players from Mark Rolfing to Tiger Woods to Mike Keiser to Barack Obama, could be a future host of PGA Tour events if it happens.

Community concerns were behind the revised routing and presentation. Cost is still very much an issue:

For more than a year, there has been a push to transform the two golf courses into a PGA Tour-worthy course. Constructing the new course would cost about $30 million and it would take another $30 million to make infrastructure improvements, said Michael Kelly, Park District general superintendent and CEO. At the public hearing, officials said much of the money would come from private donations, but a firm spending plan was not presented.

And there was this, where I'm pretty sure the writer innocently left out the key word "public":

Beau Welling, who is helping design the course for TGR, said the reason Tiger Woods wants to complete the project is because he sees it as an opportunity to improve a course that serves the public, not just elite athletes.

“I’ve never seen him so excited about a project,” Welling said at a news conference before the public meeting. “Tiger Woods is really about meaningful projects that have impact,” he said later. “It’s really about the community. Tiger Woods grew up on golf courses … this is a very special thing (for him).”

The updated routing:

 

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Oakmont: The Shrinking Of Short Grass

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Ryan Farrow did an aerial overlay of the famed Oakmont Country Club from 1938 vs. 2017 and found that more bunkers have been added while there has been a huge drop in fairway acreage and width.

The club's tree removal program undoubtedly impacts the turf shift to rough, but that's not the entire story. Something else has happened in that time. Oh, right, the top players are hitting it about 80 yards longer.

Coul Links Fight: "The billionaire vs. the fly"

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Thanks to reader Steven for Chris Baraniuk's pretty one-sided take on Coul Links and the efforts to block this proposed Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design near Dornoch.

It was hard to forge through the piece after seeing the architects identified as "developers." And I am curious about branding Mike Keiser a billionaire, but mostly I was struck that the fight now seems to be over preserving the site due to a fly.

Now, I love all critters and never want to see golf invading a rare habitat but...

The specimen is a few millimeters in length, but it’s easy to make out the chunkiness of its thorax and the proud shape of its wings.

This is Botanophila fonsecai, Fonseca’s seed fly. It was caught in 1996 on a beach beside Dornoch in northeast Scotland, and it’s part of a collection being cataloged by Stephen Moran, an entomologist who lives nearby.

Presented in a box full of remarkably similar species, the fly does not look particularly special — and yet it is.

As far as we know, Botanophila fonsecai exists in only one place in the world: a roughly six-mile strip of coastline, adjacent to Dornoch and the nearby village of Embo. Its entire world is estimated to be less than a single square mile; its population size is unknown.

If this fine project dies because of a fly, then we know co-developer Todd Warnock was right, this was about the current American president and his course near Aberdeen.