Download Sagebrush - Rod Whitman

Rod Whitman - Interview with Brad Ewart, May 5, 2009
Sagebrush
Brad: Rod, before we get in to our hole-by-hole description youʼve got to be pretty proud
of what you have produced here at Sagebrush.
Rod: Well I am. Itʼs been a, you know, I thought it was a great opportunity to build a golf
course here in the Nicola Valley. the scenery here is unbelievable and Iʼve always
wanted to do a golf course in British Columbia. Given that it has some of the best
properties in the world really and just fortunate we could get this place funded and try to
do a good golf course.
Brad: Youʼve worked on and built golf courses in many places around the world and it
always comes down to the site. If you have a great site to work on and a great site to
create your art and your magic on - then you have a chance.
Rod: This golf course was built on some very severe ground. And I told Dick years ago
that you might want to look for another place. As pretty as this is this is a very difficult
site to build golf on. But he insisted and pushed me and we got the maps and walked
the property several times. I took that map with me down to the States and worked over
one winter just trying to find some flat spots to get the golf too. And in the end came
back, we walked the routing and said to ourselves that this was going to work.
From there we certainly refined it a little bit. It just took awhile to get going but we did
finally find a golf course out here and then we went to work creating on that canvass
afterward.
Brad: This course is built on the side of a hill. There is a lot of slope here.
Rod: It was difficult but there was certain points that we tried to get to, to try and get the
golfer too. They were flat, call them ledges or whatever and it was just a matter of
getting the distances right and the tee shots right to get to those areas where you could
play golf.
Brad: What is your definition of minimalist?
Rod: Certainly just try to move the least amount of dirt possible but at the same time
create good golf. But, if you need to move some dirt to make the golf better then you
shouldnʼt be afraid to do that. But at the same time we set out to basically lay the golf
course just on the land that was here and move a minimum amount of dirt possible and
still have a great golf course.
Brad: What are the other elements of minimalist?
Rod: Well certainly, just this rugged style where itʼs the exact opposite of something like
Augusta National where itʼs very manicured. Here you just want to leave it kind of
rugged lookinʼ and thatʼs a style that has been popularized by Alistair McKenzie. Coor
and Crenshaw in the States and we just adopted that style and it fits in with the property
here.
Brad: Can you describe the bunkering for me.
Rod: Well its almost a cross between the blow out bunkers that you might have at the
Sand Hills. This property doesnʼt have sand per se but the scale is big so we carved
these bunkers out, tried to make them look rugged lookinʼ and give that feeling that
youʼre in sandy dunes.
Brad: These bunkers were carved by hand with ax, pick and shovel and not smoothed
and sculpted out like most conventionally shaped and designed bunkers.
Rod: We did do that and certainly there was very little bulldozer work involved and
mostly, hand work and carved them out with a back hoe.
Brad: Was building this golf course more difficult than conventional design?
Rod: Well, thatʼs hard to say. I just build the golf. I donʼt know if itʼs harder or not. It was
a difficult site to work with just trying to tack our way around. The routing I think was key
to making this thing work on this property and I think weʼve accomplished that.
Brad: Your agronomy practices are going to be different here than other golf courses.
Rod: It is, I mean, itʼs the same sort of thing. Weʼve got fescue fairways which donʼt
need very much fertilizer and that sort of thing. I mean they play fairly fast. Itʼs exciting
golf where you can roll the ball here and whereʼs you canʼt on a lot of courses. It just
goes back to trying to do the least amount of maintenance and still have great golf and
thatʼs the philosophy of the whole project.
Brad: Dick (Zokol) talks about the ground game. Playing the ball along the ground and
thatʼs different from conventional golf.
Rod: It is. It actually goes back to the roots of the game. I just came back from Scotland
a few weeks ago and over there you are putting from 30 or 40 yards off the green
sometimes and they have these funky little contours that youʼve got to chip and roll the
ball up and over and you canʼt really pitch to them. And it was a fun game and you really
have to think about what you want to do with the ball and sometimes going on the
ground is an option and sometimes lobbing it in the air is an option and youʼve really got
to get familiar with that shot.
Brad: You have to be creative.
Rod: You have to be very creative. Out here weʼve got some holes where if you just put
the ball in a certain spot on the ground itʼs going to roll onto the green for you. When
you figure that out I think you are going to have fun.
Brad: The green sizes here at Sagebrush are enormous.
Rod: They are fairly big. Certainly not as big as the ones at St. Andrews but in that mold
and really when you look at some of these greens there is quite a bit of contour and you
need to have them fairly large if you are going to put that much contour into a greens. At
the same time there is a subtleness to ʻem that is hard to read. We are really pleased
with the way the greens turned out.
Brad: Do you think you will be building more golf courses like Sagebrush?
Rod: Well, if we get some more sights like this we will. The philosophy is one that I hold
dear anyway, itʼs just trying to build good golf on great sites. You try to do each course
individually according to what the property dictates.
Brad: Rod, minimalist or conventional design, does it matter to you?
Rod: Thatʼs hard to say. I just try to build golf. The site usually determines what you can
put out there. Youʼve got to pick a style that certainly other courses may call for a
different style than what weʼve got out here and thatʼs the beauty of it. You donʼt want to
do everything the same all the time. Sagebrush has got itʼs own identity and the next
one will have itʼs identity too.
Brad: When designing a golf course you have to build a course keeping the prevailing
wind in mind all the time. Today this at Sagebrush is coming from all directions.
Rod: The wind does change here. The other day it came out of the east and some of the
holes played totally different than the following day when the wind was out of the west.
That was interesting because you can get a lot of variety that way. The par fives play
different and the carries are a little different. With the different tee placements you will
have to be able to judge your game on the day according to the wind. Learn about the
golf course and when you get a golf course that you learn about over time - those are
the kind of courses you like to play every day.
I think people are going to find that this is the kind of golf course they will want to play
every day. The weather out here is going to be almost ideal. You are not going to have
very much rain, sunny days, a little breeze and wide fairways - you couldnʼt ask for very
much more.
Brad: You have one fairway here that is 150-yards wide. Have you ever done that
before?
Rod: I havenʼt. Iʼve seen some at Sand Hills in Nebraska where they have very wide
fairways. We took a page from them when we were thinking about here. Especially with
the little bit of breeze and the slope in the fairway, we need that extra room.
Brad: Letʼs talk about your tee complexes. Every hole has four or more sets of tees?
Rod: Four and some cases five and six. It just depends on the carries. This goes back
actually trying to get to the flatter areas on the course. For different levels of golfers we
are trying to get them to strategic places on the course where they can play. That has
something to do with the number of tee boxes on different holes.
Brad: Is there a design philosophy for the tees here at Sagebrush?
Rod: We just tried to get certain angles on certain holes and tried to build tees that
would fit in on the side of this mountain. It all depends on the length and the wind and
whose going to be playing there. I think we have enough tees to handle all levels of
golfer.
Brad: I noticed that you have a forward set of tees at 4,800 yards and then stretch all
the way back to over 7,300 yards.
Rod: We call them forward tees and in some cases they are right at the very beginning
of the fairway. They are for anyone who wants to play golf, itʼs nice to be able to come
out here and not be forced to carry things if you are just trying to come out here and
enjoy yourself.
Brad: From the back tees at 7,300 yards with the elevation, the light air and hard
fairways it wonʼt seem to play as long as the card indicates.
Rod: It really depends how the wind is blowing that day or whatever breeze there may
be. It is long enough and short enough all at the same time to give you a good test of
golf.
Brad: Tell me about your theory on designing par threeʼs. You have a nice blend of par
three holes here at Sagebrush with a short, medium and long holes.
Rod: We do have a nice blend of par threeʼs. Actually the sixth hole was thrown in there
right at the very end. We had 17 holes for so long and couldnʼt figure out where the long
par three was gonnaʼ be. In the end it ended up being number six. That was a little bit
like Stanley Thompson used to do years ago. He always threw in 250-yard par three
someplace and people used to hit wooden clubs to those holes and thatʼs what we are
trying to do here. Get a good variety of holes with length on one of them is something
certainly that I aspire to.
Brad: You love your golf but you are also a sportsman or an outdoorsman as well.
Rod: I like to go hunting in the fall and fishing is a passion of mine. I took up fly fishing
10 or 15 years ago. Iʼm self-taught. It just looked like something I would like to do and
itʼs been great.
Brad: To have a fishing hole worked in to your golf course - thatʼs pretty special.
Rod: Thatʼs something Iʼve been wanting for a long time and we found some people that
actually wanted to do that. We managed to work in the fishing with the pond for the
irrigation all in one place and itʼs in a beautiful location. Iʼm very happy with it.
Brad: The other day we were out with Dick (Zokol) and he caught two fish for us almost
on command.
Rod: Well I was out the day after Dick and I caught four. Iʼve got him by two.
Brad: You canʼt really say you have one signature hole out here because you have a lot
of great holes.
Rod: I never like to call anything a signature hole because you get labeled that way. I
just think weʼve got a whole bunch of really good holes. We worked hard at trying to get
the routing so that each hole had itʼs own individual personality and view and look. And
still played good for golf. The key was to make sure that we got the golf first. Almost
every view out here is pretty and it was more by accident than by good luck because
Mother Nature gave us a spectacular site to work with. In the end it worked for golf and
thatʼs pretty cool.
Brad: Could you see some of the holes in the soil before you broke ground?
Rod: There was some holes out here that I donʼt think anybody ever saw. Iʼve been
kidding Dick, we had like 14 or 15 holes out here and some of them were like ʻWeʼve got
to get a hole here but I donʼt think if itʼs ever going to work. In the end if you need to
move some dirt then you do that on the holes that you canʼt quite see.
The routing changed over time. The golf course changed over time. We actually ended
up reversing 12 and 13. They actually played backwards at one time on one of our
maps. We came out here and walked around a few times and we just said ʻthis isnʼt
going to work.ʼ Especially when we were trying to get that trout pond in there. We
thought this hole is going to look good forwards or backwards and once we reversed it,
everything fell in to place.
Brad: As a designer sometimes you will go to a site and discover the best routing right
away. Other times you could do 9 or 10 routings until you come up with something you
and the developer like. How do you know when you have the correct routing?
Rod: In the end I think what happens is you go through that process of trying to find the
very best holes you can and then you gottaʼ have to have some fill-in holes to work in.
Those can sometimes change but in the end when you look at it, at least for me, that
this is the only way that this golf course could work. In your own mind at least. Other
people see different things. Certainly, usually there is more than one opportunity but
when I get done I kind of feel like that is the only way it couldʼa been.
Brad: Rod, youʼre the designer, Richard Zokol is the player and Armen Suny the
agronomist. How did the three components come together?
Rod: Pretty Good. We had some points that we differed on. But in the end Dick wanted
this thing to play a certain way and heʼs got expertise in that area and he pushed me to
do some things I thought at one time may have been a little out of scale but in the end
he was right on.
Brad: Did it have anything to do with the enormity of the site?
Rod: In some spots. I think it had something more to do with the par fives. Sixteen and
seven. He (Dick) definitely had his ideas about the green sizes there and fourteen we
worked out where we could have a smaller green. In the end it worked out good.
Brad: And then you add Armen Suny to the mix, an agronomist, he had different growing
practices than you do.
Rod: We certainly, the greens themselves we came up with uh, there is no drainage in
these greens. We built the base from the rock up so to speak and a couple of different
layers of gravel in there. And tried to just grow it more or less like you were going to
grow it on native soil and that worked out good. We did all the amendments that we
need to do to get good turf conditions and Armen in all fairness, he had some ideas
about design can work too and we certainly had some discussions about those.
Brad: Now, these greens donʼt meet USGA standards.
Rod: Theyʼre not USGA spec greens. Not at all. Just a mix that Armen came up with and
actually the way they are growing I think it turned out pretty well.
Brad: With the size of some of these greens it would be tough to build to USGA specs.
Rod: Not to keep to the tolerances that theyʼve (USGA) talk about. So basically we just
tried to build sand greens with whatever amendments are in there. Eighteen to twentyfour inches of sand on top of native ground.
Brad: From this location we are looking out at Nicola Lake and it would appear as
though there is no problem with water but water always will be an issue and you donʼt
need to use a lot of water here.
Rod: Armenʼs philosophy is to keep things lean and firm and fast and actually to keep
grass lean like that requires less water and thatʼs the way we are maintaining it. The
best conditions for golf are firm and fast and they are doing that here.
Brad: Once again letʼs got back to the minimalist discussion. We are looking around at
all of this untouched Sagebrush and land that has sat here for centuries and you have
built golf holes in and around it.
Rod: We do, itʼs a great look. Kind of a deserty, prairie look. The vistas are great and we
have tried to maintain the native feel, much as you may have in Scotland with the dunes
and the bents and different grasses of fescues that are out there. We have a similar kind
of look but totally different.
Brad: Would you describe most holes as wide fairway with almost no rough and then in
to the sage.
Rod: It is and they are just ribbons of fairly generous fairways through a dry, sagebrush
sort of look on the sides. You can find your ball out there - sometimes.
Brad: And you can play it too!
Rod: And you can play it and thatʼs the key to keep water off the native areas so that
they donʼt get too thick.
Brad: You know itʼs an old cattle ranch because there are cow pies in the rough.
Rod: We had some horses on the greens yesterday (chuckle).
Brad: Iʼve seen where the deer have made some damage on the greens.
Rod: Thereʼs lots of deer, thereʼs the odd bear out here, thereʼs cougar. Wildlife is
abundant out here and it just adds to the whole atmosphere.
Brad: You as a designer and builder have to be responsible environmentally.
Rod: We have and this just goes back to the philosophy of minimalist. From an
agronomy standpoint, water standpoint and just try to get it all to work with nature.
Exciting par fives are a little hard to build. Itʼs like building a four-and-a-half where you
have half a par. The excitement comes from trying to go for a green in two and
negotiating all the hazards or lack of that may be there. Any time a guy can put a three
or four on his card - that can be some exciting golf. You can also end up with a six or a
seven depending on what kind of trouble is around those greens.
Brad: The key for you as a designer is not to make it too easy and not to make it too
tough.
Rod: Exactly right. Reward the guys that are aggressive and play the hole to the best of
their ability - and thatʼs cool. Itʼs trying to find that middle ground and trying to overcome
the subtleties of the game and your own fears in what you donʼt like to do. Make a guy
feel uncomfortable on the tee in subtle ways and just not beat him up with overly hard
carries or overly tight fairways. It comes back to giving a player a lot of different options
and most of the time they can confuse themselves
Brad: How frustrating is it for you when golfers donʼt play the tees that really suit their
game. Ego comes out on the first tee and some players head for the back tees where
they never should be. He shoots a million from the back tees and then accuses the
designer of not knowing what he was doing.
Rod: Golfers sometimes overestimate their own abilities. One thing about gettin older,
Iʼve figured it out and I need to move up. It would be nice if players would even think
about the weather that day and what their abilities are. If they move up they are going to
enjoy the day that much more. Sometimes theyʼre a masochistic bunch and itʼs hard to
get them to play from the proper spot. In some respects you need to tell the golfers
where they need to play. When I was overseas in Scotland the starter on the first tee
says you are playing the yellow tees today and everyone is playing from that set of tees.
that was a unique experience and most of the time the courses there are set-up fairly
short. Itʼs still fun golf and if you get real adverse weather conditions playing short can
still be fun, especially on a golf course of this nature.
Brad: It must irritate you when you play some of the modern conventional designs
where the architect gets a little carried away.
Rod: Well they do and part of the problem is from a design stand point is just trying to
build too much of the wow in to the golf and not paying attention to the golf itself.
Because if the site is good anyway, so much the better. The golf is actually the most
important and itʼs easy to get carried away and end up with bad golf.
Brad: The wow factor is something every designer tries to get and yet that wow factor
sometimes becomes too heroic.
Rod: It becomes too heroic and itʼs easy to get caught in that trap, you think you need it
but really at the end of the day the guy is out there to play golf.
Brad: Letʼs go back to minimalist. As we look around us we can see ribbons of fairway,
greens and bunkers. Plenty of sagebrush and plenty of untouched, native, natural land.
Is minimalist design the direction where all golf course design is heading?
Rod: Well it is. We were fortunate here to have this look. Itʼs open. Itʼs Scottish looking
even though your tucked in to the mountains here in B.C.
Brad: Even though, as you say we are tucked in to the mountains and the ranch lands
of B.C., this course is going to play like the links courses of Scotland.
Rod: Thatʼs exactly right. With the fescue grasses and the wide fairways, firm
conditions, itʼs gonna play like links golf and thatʼs great.
Brad: You often hear of impostor courses where people describe their course as a links
course or links-like but really in North America, other than the courses at Bandon
Dunes, Sand Hills and a few courses on Long Island, there are very few real links
courses in this part of the world.
Rod: There certainly isnʼt very much links golf in North America. One of the problems is
that they wonʼt let you build on the coast any more. Just finding good properties in this
day-and-age is hard to do. This ecosystem here, this land is part of the reason why it is
going to work here. The dry conditions, the weather here and the wind. The little
subtleties of this course is going to make it play like links golf.
Brad: True links golf are courses built on sandy, loamy soil. You have similar conditions
here.
Rod: We do, itʼs a fine soil. The watering is what is going to be here. The water and the
management of the grass. Itʼs just got that feel to it that you can play golf out here. Itʼs
open and itʼs just a special place.
Brad: When you leave the site and think back to what you have done here at
Sagebrush, what are your thoughts?
Rod: It was a challenging project. On what I call one of the harder sites that I have had
to work on. The team just got together and worked out their differences here and there
and just tried to get the golf course as our first priority and I think we have done that. Itʼs
going to be fun to play. I just think people will enjoy it and weʼll see.
Brad: Your an architect, youʼre an artist. Some people call you a genius. You like to work
alone but on this project you couldnʼt. You had to work with two others. What was that
like?
Rod: (sigh) It was good and bad. It was (chuckle) but in the end everyone was trying for
the same thing and thatʼs trying to make golf as best as it could be. When you get
people that work together and listen to each other, that was key, and that was why it
worked out.
Brad: This golf course should stand the test of time. It should be here for a long time.
You must be proud of what youʼve accomplished.
Rod: Just looking forward to the operations end of it now and get a little feedback from
the golfers on the things that we might need to improve. Just lookinʼ forward to the
future and I think that golfers will enjoy it but theyʼll tell us how it turns out.
Brad: How did you get started in this business as a golf course architect?
Rod: A good friend of mine named Bill Coor, down in Huntsville, Texas..I went down
there to play golf. He introduced me to golf course design and he got me excited about
old golf courses, good golf courses and what they mean to the game.
Brad: You were just in your 20ʼs then and a college student.
Rod: I was a college student but I got fascinated by that end of it and once introduced to
that thinking it just intrigued me. I wasnʼt a great player at the time but at least I could
play a little golf.
Brad: At the time were you not playing on a College golf scholarship?
Rod: I was playing at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville (Texas). It just gave
me a whole new perspective that would probably take you a lifetime to learn. Meeting
the right people who were my mentors really. We just got trained from the ground up.
Brad: You then went to work on golf courses?
Rod: I was introduced to Pete Dye and became what you called a construction
superintendent or a design associate for Pete Dye. In the 70ʼs and ʼ80ʼs he was one of
the leading architects in the world. Pete taught me a lot about golf courses and about
golf course design and construction and playability and all those sorts of things.
Brad: You worked for Pete Dye on a lot of different sites around the world.
Rod: Been around...Indonesia, France, Turkey and Mexico, that sort of thing. Had an
opportunity and canʼt have a better career.
Brad: We are standing here on the 18th tee with one hole left to go. How critical is it in
your design to build a finishing hole or one that distinguishes itself as a strong finish?
Rod: A finishing hole can be or maybe it should be the best hole on the course. It
doesnʼt necessarily have to be the longest. In this case #18 is on the shortish side but
weʼve got a small green in there protected by a bunker with the green sitting in a nice
little valley. Itʼs a tough par. Itʼs a good driving hole where the fairway sets at an angle.
Itʼs a good chance for a birdie if youʼve got a short game. Itʼs a cool finishing hole. Not
the longest hole on the course but certainly one of the best. We moved that green
during construction more than once. This is like the third rendition of the 18th hole.
Basically Dick and Armen wanted to it on the siting of this green and I didnʼt.
Brad: You canʼt always agree on everything.
Rod: No you canʼt. But from chaos can come great things and there was some
organized chaos out here some times and in the end it turned out pretty good.
Brad: You have to give Dick (Zokol) credit for what he has seen and done in his career
on the PGA Tour and around the world that he does understand playability.
Rod: He understands playability, the way it should be laid out and he understands the
ground game and leaving the ground the way it was. I think I have a talent for that too
and together weʼve done a good job.
Brad: And then you also have to respect Armen (Suny) for what he has done as well in
the game of golf and his knowledge of agronomy.
Rod: Armen is very well respected in the industry. He has brought a very natural and
playable look to the place. Heʼs done a good job.
Hole-By-Hole description - Rod Whitman
#1 - Standard Scratch (SS) 5
Itʼs a short par five. We needed to get up the hill and we did it on the first hole. The
biggest climb is on the first hole and after that you can tack your way around the course
without a lot of hill climbing. When I first walked this property you just looked up this hill
and you could see the way the land was how a fairway could just wind itʼs way up to a
little plateau that was at the top of the hill. The hole just fit in there and fit my eye right
away and it just seemed a matter of putting some bunkers out there and we would have
a golf hole and thatʼs the way it turned out. A good player can get home in two shots but
for the average players this is a three-shot par five. Uphill shots are not always the
easiest to hit but there is an opportunity to make a good score on this hole but you can
make a bogey or worse. The hole is fairly wide off the tee with a generous landing area
while the second shot is forced to carry a large fairway bunker and get to another
landing area for the third shot to the green. Thatʼs the beauty of this hole. You can try to
pick off as much as you want. Iʼve tried to go for the green myself and other times I am
just laying up, just trying to get a par.
#2 - Standard Scratch 4
This is a pretty hole and maybe one of the most natural oneʼs out here. We just found
this pretty little valley right off the side of this hill that just funnels down to a natural
green site. We did not move any dirt on this hole. It just laid in there and with the lake as
a backdrop it was just incredible. All I can say is that we found this one. The hole is
downhill and it will play a lot shorter than the yardage on the card. If it played too long it
might be too hard a hole but Iʼm really pretty pleased with the way this hole turned out.
We are getting the golfer to where he can play golf on this hole.
There was a natural flat spot where we put the green. You play over this hill with the
lake in the background - it is just one of those spots that begged for golf and we laid one
in here and it turned out very nice.
#3 - Standard Scratch 4
When we walked this property it was fairly level right across the landing area and the
hole plays downwind so we thought this would be a good place for a shortish par four. It
has a long green where you can run the ball on or it really calls for a pitch-and-run onto
this green. Itʼs long enough that there is two or three clubs different between the front
and back of this green. Itʼs kind of a neat hole where you can sling a tee shot off the
side of the hill to a generous fairway. I think this is a nice, short par four. All down the left
side of the hole is a collection of fairway bunkers. I particularly like the one up there on
the right that is sort of a carry bunker. If you aim at that with a slight draw itʼs a money
shot that brings the ball right back down to the middle of the fairway. This whole fairway
is almost like a big, old glove and if you hit it up on the right it works itself off the hill and
down to an ideal position. For a really strong player he could try to carry some of the
bunkers on the left and get near the green downwind.
#4 - Standard Scratch 3
This is a downhill par 3 where you can hit on to the fairway and the ball will feed right
down on the green and Iʼve seen some players try to hit it all the way to the flag but
usually those shots will release and go to the back of the green. It depends on what you
are trying to do and where the pin is. Hitting a ground ball here more often than not the
best way to play this hole. Even when the wind wonʼt appear to be blowing the thermal
currents will come up off the lake from behind and it will actually play in to the wind a
little bit instead of a cross-wind. I love this par three and not only because of the length
of it and the views but the way the wind will affect it will make it play different every day.
#5 - Standard Scratch 4
This hole starts with a challenging tee shot but it really comes down to the second shot.
This was one of the hardest holes to build out here. There was a small plateau out there
and then it dropped severely down over the bank to the green site. We had a lot of
trouble trying to work this hole out. At one time we were going to dead-end the fairway
where the fairway just stopped and you pitched over to the green. We worked on this
hole and that didnʼt seem like it was going to work or actually be fair or any of those
things. We ended up running the fairway right through down to the green and it ended
up being a great opportunity for a pitch-and-run where the ball will just funnel right on to
the green. This is a hole where you can play the ground game and hit the ball up and
along the back ridge of the green to get to the top, back left pin position. At the same
time the hole does play in to the wind do if a guy wants to fly the ball in there he will
learn not to maybe do that especially in the wind. The ground is actually the safest play
and the trick is to just get in to the right spot and let it funnel on to the green. This is a
fun hole to play.
Thatʼs what makes golf cool is when you have those options and people can make up
their own mind on how they feel comfortable hitting the shot. Really in todayʼs world, as
good as some of the players are, the more options you give them the better it is to get
them to choose the wrong one. (chuckle)
You know what I mean. If you just say hit it here, no options. A lot of time they will just hit
it there but you can say hit it anywhere and face these tricky little angles and such,
thatʼs when they (good players) get in trouble.
This hole you can pitch it back up the hill and let it roll down and youʼve got a good way
to play it along the ground rather than going over the bunker.
#6 Standard Scratch 3
This has a forced carry from the back tee over the sage and from the memberʼs tees itʼs
a little bit shorter. Here again you can hit the ball on the fairway and let the ball roll onto
the green. The green fits in there like a glove and it gathers the ball rather than rejects
it. Itʼs kind of a cool hole. The prevailing wind is from behind on this hole so it basically
plays downwind. At 260 yards from the back tee the best players will still be hitting a
long iron. There are no bunkers on this hole with plenty of room in front and around the
hole. Being a long hole you wonʼt have to carry the ball all the way to the green. The
contours funnel the ball onto the green for you. It looks harder than it might actually be.
It looks terribly hard but it is going to play a bit easier than that. Itʼs like a big glove and
the land was like this. This is one of those places down here in a hollow where
everything gathers in to the center.
#7 Standard Scratch 5
A long par five albeit it downwind. You can always see the fairway playing up over the
hill from the tee and then disappears at the ridge line, it sort of banks in to you and calls
for a left-to-right draw. I could always see this hole. The green site at a 600 yard par five
is downhill to a plateau. Beautiful, beautiful site for the green. It was a natural hole that
was always here. Itʼs fun to play. The key is on the second shot whether you play long
and try to get to a short pitch or you can leave it on the hill with an eight or nine iron in to
a pretty good green. You have couple different options on how to play this hole. The
drive goes uphill, bunkers left which force you to keep the shot a little bit more to the
right. At the same time the contours will help you a little bit if you get it out there to the
right far enough. It will bring it right back in to the middle of the fairway.
The landing area is not just one spot. Itʼs a length of golf. From here you try to get them
to hit to the top of the hill or down the hill with a sand wedge to the green. Youʼve got a
couple of fairway bunkers down the left hand side that steer you to the right and they tell
you where the green is. The other one is almost like a little carry bunker or an aiming
bunker if you are trying to get to the landing area on the second shot.
Downwind there will be opportunities to go for the green although it will be blind on the
second shot. For an aggressive player they can go for the green in two and have a
reasonable expectation of getting there in two. The green is almost an acre-and-a-half
almost two acres down there - itʼs big!
Itʼs a huge green and itʼs got some nice contour to it. Itʼs large, subtle and overwhelming
all at the same time. Itʼs unique in itself. The green is almost an infinity green at the
back. Itʼs an exciting third shot and thatʼs a tough to come by in golf
#8 Standard Scratch 4
I knew I felt like I could put a nice long par four in here. Banked in to this hill. A right-toleft tee shot with the mountain in the background. I realized that it was going to take a
little bit of dirt work and it contravenes the minimalist theory just a little bit but Iʼve never
hesitated to move dirt a little bit if in fact it is going to improve the hole. And in the end
the decision was made to blast the rock and build the fairway the fairway the way I
wanted and I really like this hole. A very receptive, huge fairway that all banks in to you.
I think it's just a good hole. The hole plays right-to-left and the tee shot calls for a sling
hook here or a draw at least. It plays slightly quartering or slightly downwind where you
can run the ball on this green too.
#9 Standard Scratch 4
This hole just slightly climbs up the bench land. Itʼs not as steep as number one. We are
trying to tack our way around this mountain and youʼve got to go up at some point.
There was a great green site with a little hill in the background. This ledge that we were
trying to get the players too for the second shot makes for a pretty natural hole. Off the
tee you want to shade the fairway a little to the right, try to carry the bunkers out there
and there is a nice little plateau landing area with an opening to the green.
This is an interesting green complex. Itʼs almost a horseshoe green with bunkers tucked
almost in to the left side. The whole thing was to have a green out front where the very
back pin would be behind the bunker. We tried to work out a green where you could
actually putt to that back position or chip to it. Kind of like at Riviera (Los Angeles, CA)
where the bunker is in the middle of the green and sometimes you have a guy chipping
from on the green to the hole. Or, thereʼs an option to putt it so here again even on the
greens weʼve got a couple of different options trying to get to the various pin positions.
We had to cut out the back and fill in the front to make it fit in here. In the end it worked
out. Especially that little flip up at the front. That little Scottish false front really helped us
accomplish that.
#10 Standard Scratch 3
This is one of those things where you walk the ground and you find this spot and you
look at it and say why donʼt I have a green down here, thereʼs a green site here and
now which way am I coming from and where can I put a tee. This hole was another one
of those holes that was always there. We saw it. Itʼs got this cool little ledge benched in
to the side of this mountain. The views off the back are spectacular. Thereʼs an old tree
on the right hand side. It just begged for a real short par three. Just one of those sites
that you knew there was a hole here and it ended up working with the rest of the routing
too. The target has a funky angle that goes against the grain actually instead of with the
mountain. Just an interesting opportunity for a par-three. Spectacular like you might find
at Pebble Beach or something like that. It reminds you of a Cypress Point-type hole.
Any time a golfer can hit from a high spot down to a green below is an exciting shot.
There is a drop of about 50 or 60 feet to a green that has a back g ground almost like an
infinity green again. The ball against the hills in the background and the big old rocks on
the right it is just a spectacular site.
#11 Standard Scratch 4
Number 11 with the mountain in the background and a pretty cool green site. People
were wondering whereʼs the hole and I said itʼs there. It was a real steep drop off that
we had to soften up. I really liked the angle of this hole and how it sat out there with kind
of a cross angle. Put some bunkers in there and it ends up being one of the best holes
on the golf course. The green is beautifully framed sitting up against the mountain
backdrop.
Right now we are getting to the golf course that is a little bit different from the desert
look that we had lower down. We have some rocky outcrops, some big pine trees, the
lake is back here and you kind of feel like you are almost in a valley here and itʼs really
cool.
I always wanted this hole to play long. I was hoping that most of the players would stay
on the top and carry the valley between with a long iron. The longest players given
certain wind conditions or weather they can carry the bunkers and go to the bottom of
the hill where they may end up with a short iron. It depends on how much you want to
cut off and itʼs going to be up to the golfers how aggressive they play the hole whether
they play short or long.
The fairways on number 11 and number 14 are connected and spread about 150 yards
wide. This is a pretty hard fairway to miss. At one time I had these, at least in my own
mind, as separate corridors. Dick came out here and we talked about it, disagreed.
Talked about it and disagreed and finally it was agreed that we were going to do this.
Scales wise, I mean this is big country out here and from a scale point of view weʼre
trying to get the golf to match up with this big landscape and it needed to be that wide.
When you look at it from the tee it just doesnʼt look out of place. Itʼs good for golf. You
can keep your ball on the short grass and donʼt need to be in the tall stuff.
This is a big green with quite a bit of slope but it just seemed to fit in that little valley.
Weʼve got the bunkers that will help you more than punish you on this particular hole.
The bunkers actually save you from going down the hill. Itʼs a big green with quite a bit
of contour and a little bit of a false front at the front and I think it leads to some
interesting golf here. If you donʼt quite hit it to the top of the green it could roll back to
you.
#12 Standard Scratch 3
This hole plays 130 yards from the very, very back. Itʼs a nice pitch up to a two-tiered
green with a nice bunker on the right and a little one on the left. With the mountains and
the cliffs that surround this hole you have all that texture and color up there. This is a
special part of the property.
#13 Standard Scratch 4
The shot here is to hit it down the left hand side and let it kick off the hill and let it roll
onto the green. Its drive able. A big, deep bunker on the right hand side of the green and
anybody bailing right theyʼve got that pitch to a narrow green from that angle and it runs
away from you. Itʼs a tough par and a tough birdie from anywhere on the right hand
side. At the same time there is an opportunity to make a two or a three with a good shot
by chancing it down the left hand side looking for a good bounce right.
The key to building this pond was to make it big enough to actually take care of all the
fish and still work it in to the golf hole without making it look awkward and try to get the
angle just right the way it fit in there and aesthetically I think we did a good job of that.
We needed a pond somewhere as storage for our irrigation. There was a natural pond
down here in this basin to begin with and it was perfect for the irrigation set-up that we
need so we just expanded on that existing lake.
Dick and Armen wanted to follow the philosophy of having a drive able par four. A hole
like the 10th hole at Riviera (Los Angeles, CA) that you could go for off the tee or lay up
on the strength of your game. At the same time it is not a gimme birdie. You still have to
hit good shots.
#14 Standard Scratch 5
On the tee we are at one of the highest points on the golf course with a spectacular
view of the lake and the ranch below. This is a spectacular par five where the fairway is
extensive and it actually links up with number 11. Itʼs just a beautiful look off the tee
with bunkers all down the left hand side to a well-protected green sitting in a little valley.
The same philosophy of trying to get to the flat spots on the golf course and with a
natural green site tucked in behind those two hills up in there. The fairway just sort of fit
in here.
This is the widest fairway Iʼve ever built. I guess itʼs just as wide as the 1st and 18th
holes that join at St. Andrews in Scotland. Thatʼs a cool look and weʼve got it here.
For most players this is a three-shot par five. The second landing area is very wide. Itʼs
a generous fairway sloping quite a bit from left-to-right. When you get here you look up
towards the green and youʼre going to see the flag stick. Itʼs a fairly narrow green that is
well-protected on the right and the left by bunkers. The green is a narrow, little green
that fits in to a little hollow. You can pitch it on here, thatʼs one way to play it, or, hit a
little roller there that will curve left-to-right and the ball will cruise right up onto the green.
#15 Standard Scratch 4
This hole is short on distance but not short on stature. You can almost drive the green in
certain weather conditions but at the same time the prudent play might be hit a little
shorter club and a full pitch in to the green that sits up on a plateau. There are a couple
of different options again on how you want to play it.
#16 Standard Scratch 5
From the very first time we walked the property this was always the mystery hole. We
had a hole laid out on the map but I didnʼt actually know if there was a hole here. Itʼs a
very large green with a chance to make a birdie or an eagle here. There are no bunkers
around the green so you want to get your drive to the first bank off the tee with a chance
to reach the green in two. The second shot can be played safe down the right side and
take it gently in or heroically go for the green. This green is 70 yards deep and without a
doubt this is the biggest green I have ever built. It works for this hole. The scale of it
doesnʼt look bad against the big hill on back side. It doesnʼt look overly big and it turned
out okay. The subtlety of this green is surprising for as big as it is. Itʼs got a lot of contour
in it but it doesnʼt overwhelm you either.
#17 Standard Scratch 4
What I like is that it has a generous fairway but itʼs framed in with the lake in the
background and the mountain behind the lake. A bit of a heart-shaped green. If you
drive it left you can get in at the right side without going over any hazards. If the pin is
on the left and you drive it to the right you can get at the pin without crossing any
hazards. So itʼs got a little bit of strategy built into it too. The bunker in front of the golfer
off the tee is more or less an aiming bunker. Itʼs semi-blind off the tee but a good look
and thereʼs a generous fairway just beyond that. This hole was built as if it was always
sitting here. This was one of the flattest parts of the property. The greens sits in a little
saddle with bunkers left and right. Itʼs a big green. Kind of heart-shaped. The strategy
here is if the pin is on the right you can drive it left up against the bunker and have an
open shot in to the green. And then on the other hand if the pin is left you can shade
your ball down the right side and can get in at the green and the pin from there. The
fairway is pretty wide.
#18 Standard Scratch 4
A finishing hole can be or maybe it should be the best hole on the course. It doesnʼt
necessarily have to be the longest. In this case #18 is on the shortish side but weʼve got
a small green in there protected by a bunker with the green sitting in a nice little valley.
Itʼs a tough par. Itʼs a good driving hole where the fairway sets at an angle. Itʼs a good
chance for a birdie if youʼve got a short game. Itʼs a cool finishing hole. Not the longest
hole on the course but certainly one of the best. Itʼs a small green and a good target.