I also remember riding across what is now Renny Gold 12 as part of the mountain bike trail. Now the trail goes through through the woods off to the left of 13. Huge improvement.
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Ask John Houck about Course Design & Development
- Thread starter HouckDesign
- Start date
For bikers and discers.
Sorry to post so much stuff after your post to John. You probably need to p.m. him or he may not find your question.
jsc430
Double Eagle Member
Selah Ranch - Lakeside being such a spectacular course I find myself looking for cons as i write my review. One thing that's glaring at me is the path from 17's basket to 18's tee as it cuts directly across 1's fairway.To me its one of the only negatives on the entire course.
How did you plan that when you finalized the design? Do you every see it being a problem during tourney play? Is riding around the back side of 1's tee box an option?
Thanks in advance John. My wife and i were just in Talco last week. We had an experience playing in the snow and we snapped some great pics of the snow covered courses.
How did you plan that when you finalized the design? Do you every see it being a problem during tourney play? Is riding around the back side of 1's tee box an option?
Thanks in advance John. My wife and i were just in Talco last week. We had an experience playing in the snow and we snapped some great pics of the snow covered courses.
Randy, I think you're right to be extra cautious, and I think you got some good advice from Stan. You mentioned that your course is wooded, so I would think 100' might be a little excessive.
The criterion I would use is that I don't want any shots to ever land on or across the bike trail. So make sure you have enough buffer to prevent any "magic" shots from going through and, as Stan says, plan on the possibility that you might lose some of your buffer at some point.
The best advice for these situations is probably just what you said up front: tee near the trails and throw away from them.
One other thing to think about would be where to have disc golfers crossing the trails to get to the next hole. Stay away from blind spots. Disc golfers and bikers should be able to see each other coming, so there are no surprises. Hope your course turns out great.
Jeff, I'm glad to hear that you're struggling to find things to criticize on Lakeside. That's a good problem to have.
Obviously it's not ideal when the walk between holes crosses a fairway. The design process always involves a series of choices, so the designer is constantly weighing the pros and cons of each decision. Obviously I had to think about this choice a little.
In this case, I felt like the cons were pretty small. I've used this technique before at places like Riverside Park in Victoria and in San Saba. I learned that if you have players cross the fairway well into a par four or par five hole, it's really not a big deal -- we had lots of big tournaments on those courses with no problems. In fact, that type of crossing creates fewer problems than things like having baskets too close too each other, tees too close to each other, etc. At Lakeside, it's very easy for the group going to #18 to allow someone on #1 to throw, and it's probably even easier for a player on #1 to let a group walk through before throwing.
I would be uncomfortable having players cross within 300'-400' of the tee, and I can't really imagine using this routing technique on a par 3. But the way it works on Lakeside, I really consider it no big deal, based on how well it's worked in the past.
There are two substantial benefits to this particular routing:
* #18 is a great finishing hole with huge potential for scoring swings.
* The balance of the holes on the lake is critical to the success of the course. You have a par five with water on the left (#7) and a par five with water on the right (#4). Then you have a par four with water on the left (#18) and a par four with water on the right (#2). I'm oversimplifying the complexities of the balance, but you get the idea. If you were to put #1 on the lake and bring #18 inland, you would decimate that critical balance.
So that was my thinking. And I think the tradeoff was absolutely worthwhile. Still, I won't mind if you give the course a 4.999 in your review.
I'm so glad that you're enjoying Selah so much and spreading the word. Sorry you had to play in snow, but I thought your pictures were great. The good thing about snow, of course, is that it melts and helps refill the ponds and the lake. At this point, we still need it. Thanks.
Hey John and Randy
There are a lot of "wooded" areas on courses around here where 100' of buffer would be more than sufficient and some where it might not. Woods can be sparse or dense, have thick underbrush or vines or can be mostly mature woods that are really porous. It would seem that designing with common sense would suffice, yet my common sense has failed me on occasion. Imagining how people will throw errant shots, or how often they will throw errant shots is a real challenge. I have had to adjust holes I had built after seeing the results of how people play (misplay) a hole. If you have the room, I would recommend as much buffer as you can afford. Plus, if you need to adjust your course at a later date it will provide you some wiggle room to move a tee or green.
As an afterthought, downhill holes probably need more buffer as shots can tend to glide on past, and uphill holes probably don't need as much buffer as shots don't usually go gliding past while fighting gravity.
Time for me to go measure and mark tee locations on our new beginner course.
Both good points. Thank you, professor McDaniel.
Ok, after grinding away on Rock Ridge #17 I have a question! Feel free to disregard this if answering gives away and proprietary business knowledge.
When designing a course should or do you consider the landscapes degree of difficulty? As in, do you look at an area and say "this has to be a short hole because to make a 500' hole through here will either take way too much time, labor or money."
Or, do you simply create the best design possible, and ignore the financial and labor considerations? Or does it depend on who's doing the labor and/or rotting the bill?
When designing a course should or do you consider the landscapes degree of difficulty? As in, do you look at an area and say "this has to be a short hole because to make a 500' hole through here will either take way too much time, labor or money."
Or, do you simply create the best design possible, and ignore the financial and labor considerations? Or does it depend on who's doing the labor and/or rotting the bill?
Cgkdisc
.:Hall of Fame Member:.
Yes-No-Yes
You're not John!
Cgkdisc
.:Hall of Fame Member:.
I was spilling his "proprietary" secret.
Ok, after grinding away on Rock Ridge #17 I have a question! Feel free to disregard this if answering gives away and proprietary business knowledge.
When designing a course should or do you consider the landscapes degree of difficulty? As in, do you look at an area and say "this has to be a short hole because to make a 500' hole through here will either take way too much time, labor or money."
Or, do you simply create the best design possible, and ignore the financial and labor considerations? Or does it depend on who's doing the labor and/or rotting the bill?
Fair question. If I know you're on the construction team, Mr. Sloppy, then I'm confident that we'll be able to do whatever needs to be done.
Seriously, you know I appreciate how hard the volunteer team has been working on this one, especially you, Jeff, and Noah. And that's why I always try to ask before I widen a fairway or add a PITTSBORO: "Do you guys think you can handle this, and will it be worth it, or should we dial it back here?" I was shocked when I heard that you had cleared the last 150' on left side of #1, because I told Jeff that it could be something to do down the road. You have all been amazing, and I hope that every time you play the course you'll have at least one instance where you can say "if I hadn't cut down a couple trees here, I wouldn't be in the fairway right now."
The bottom line answer to your question is that it wouldn't make sense to disregard financial and labor considerations. If a city or landowner couldn't foot the bill, then the course would never be done properly. If I asked for more than the volunteers were willing to handle, then again the course wouldn't get done, or it would get done with hard feelings, and that would not be good outcome.
The truth is that, especially on a wooded course, I could always make fairways wider in spots, but you have to draw the line somewhere. So that's a conversation that I have with the client up front, so I understand where they think the limits are. And often we have that conversation again in mid-project, when I find something that I think would really add to the course but would take more dollars and/or effort. Then they have to decide if they think it's worth it. A good example is the bridge to the island on #7 at Selah Lakeside. That was a very expensive bridge, but it allowed us to create on of the coolest holes in the world. I had that same conversation several times with owners of Hillcrest Farm in Prince Edward Island, too. And the volunteers at Austin Ridge come to mind.
It's far more common, at least in my experience, that the design limits have to do with the size, species, and/or number of trees we can remove. Those concerns more often have to do the with aesthetics and health of the forest than with financial considerations.
Hole #17 at Rock Ridge is a good example of extra labor versus finished project. I know it's been brutal for you guys, but I'm hoping the enjoyment you and everyone gets from that hole will be worth it. And I hope players will take the opportunity to thank everyone who has worked so hard.
I plan to have at least one day on this upcoming trip to haul some brush myself, so please make sure you save some for me. Talk to you soon.
OK, now that the proprietary cat is out of the bag, "Yes-No-Yes" is basically right.
Now, let me see if I can think of an appropriate secret of Chuck's to spill. Hmm. Can't really think of any. Help me out here, Chuck.
Now, let me see if I can think of an appropriate secret of Chuck's to spill. Hmm. Can't really think of any. Help me out here, Chuck.
jsc430
Double Eagle Member
Thanks for all your answers John! We all appreciate your time!
Was just curious how much it plays into your thought process. I could see a situation where either labor limits, or it simply taking so much time and effort to create a great hole in an area, that a designer could get forced to make a weaker design as a compromise. Even without money being an issue. And I could really understand if someone simply said let's just make that a tight little par 3, cut a small path though the tough area, and then create another hole after. And things like rocks, elevation or extremely rugged landscapes could really make the thought process interesting.
Don't worry about 17. It put up a good fight, but in the end we were victorious. The only problem now is that I foresee a lot of double bogeys or worse on that hole in my future. :wall:
Don't worry about 17. It put up a good fight, but in the end we were victorious. The only problem now is that I foresee a lot of double bogeys or worse on that hole in my future. :wall:
Cgkdisc
.:Hall of Fame Member:.
I think most designers think in terms of designing cool holes tempered by their doability. If the hole is worth doing but not with the current budget, we might try to break it into phase 1 and a later phase 2 so we can eventually get it done.
All great courses involve compromises. Part of my job is to make sure players are so happy that nobody ever suspects there was a compromise.
Victory! That's going to be a great hole. And don't worry about the double bogeys -- we'll just make it wider...
Yes, sir. My pleasure. Thanks for reading.
Sadjo
* Ace Member *
This is really the way to go with a heavily wooded course. We did this at Shaver Rec in Seneca SC. We bought additional sleevs and o ver time added 2nd pin placements on 7 holes. One of those required a bridge...and that was a big project.
Doing it this way allowed the course to be played sooner and allowed to see what was working and what wasn't.
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