[Bob_Huntley]

JWL:

I can well imagine the restraints placed upon any activity in Mexico. You produced one beautiful golf course.

[THuckaby2]

Mike - you hit on the most exasperating part of out little local muni.  I guess the only answer is when you go about $15million over budget, you have to make up revenue somehow... It is sick how most people do ride at this course... I personally do take the Papazian/Meagher/Goodale Walking on Principle tack myself here - it's about the only place I do - hey, having selective principles is a wonderful thing.  

I'm pissed every time I cross that stupid bridge though!

TH

ps - Steve Lang - whilst I get the gist of your post, carts are also a great beer carrier... necessary for scrambles and at courses where one has to be there rather than wants to...  

[Mike Benham]

Us NorCal'ers, where we now have to shoehorn in courses that cattle won't graze on, have 3 courses within 15 miles of each other with anti-walking themes ...

Poppy Ridge - the most walkable of these three but with long between hole walks due to poor routing of 3 distinct 9's

Wente Vineyards - dare to say it is impossible to walk to the 1st or 10th tees ...

The Bridges at Gale Ranch - Johnny Miller design, enough said ..

[Gib_Papazian]

Huckster,
I believe the figure was closer to 20 million over budget - including a dozen or so reroutings due to government officials kowtowing to the local enviro-nutz.

The worst part is that even with all that money spent, the course sucks. The pacing is incomprehensibly bad, the routing a complete disaster and the person I feel sorriest for is the architect. He told us what they went through and if it was me, I would have told them to take the project and shove it into their posterior rather than have that horrible abortion on my design resume. Patient man he was.

His other work is rather good too, so Los Lagos will forever be his "Heaven's Gate," or "Waterworld" or "Stardust Memories."

The long walks across the bridge could be avoided by simply not having the nines return, but the key element here is the fallacious notion that the "protected wetland creek" was a habitat for all sorts of wildlife.

I dug into the history of the project and neighborhood and discovered it was really a habitat for every bum, wino, psycho and street person, all of whom who urinated and defecated into the water. It was full of trash, shopping carts, abandoned makeshift shelters, empty bottles and drug paraphenalia - all while being hysterically characterized to the public and government officials as a pristine wilderness area being destroyed by golf.

[THuckaby2]

Gib:

My figure for over budget was just different based on who's budget you believed!  And you described well what I was getting at re this "pristine" protected environmental area, that's for sure!

I wouldn't say the course "sucks" though.  I do hate the routing, as I described... and I'm not gonna argue the restrictions or wonder what might have been... I believe we can assume the architect did the best he could with the horrific restrictions he faced, can't we?  And as for "pacing", how are you gonna pace a course that has NINE par 3's?

I find what's there to be pretty damn fun.  Make 13-14 play as 8 and 9 and you have a pretty darn good little course.  There are quite a few good golf holes mixed in there...

No, it's never gonna make any "list", and on the Doak scale it can't be more than a 3, if it even gets that.  But it provides somewhere to play for our hellaciously overcrowded South Bay golf scene, it's relatively cheap, it's kept in good condition, and there are enough good shots there for me never to say the course sucks.  Yeah, maybe it could have been done differently... but hell, what's there is pretty good.

Summitpointe sucks.  Sunnyvale muni sucks.  Palo Alto muni borderline-sucks.  Los Lagos doesn't suck.  

TH

[Tony Ristola]

Tom:  I ran into a guy recently who played a lot of junior golf at Cape Breton Highlands 25 years ago.  Green fees for juniors then: $12.00.  He mentioned the walk but his enthusiasm for the course, its challenges and variety was palpable.  It seemed like a course he would have happily played for the remainder of his life if limited to just one. For you and him the walk was part of the adventure, its uniqueness, but I can't imagine a course succeeding with such walks connecting 18 bowling alley's...of course carts have taken care of this today.  Had Cape Breton Highlands been a mediocre design I wonder how long this Park owned (National or Provincial?) property would have lasted as a golf course before it would have returned to wilderness.

On courses without extremely steep grades, wouldn't the Segway Personal Transporter be the ideal?  No cart paths.  Less storage space. Less electricity usage.  Easier to control vandalism.  Higher profit margins per round.  Faster rounds. Does anyone know of a club using these things?



  

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Tony
I agree Cape Breton is a unique and rare situation where the long walks are acceptable. The strength of the idividual holes, the tranquility and beauty of the walks, and the severity and  natural beauty of the site. Since they have added cart paths and carts, to be honest, even though I love the golf-course, I'm hesitant to go back for fear it will never match my first experience.

I don't know about personal transporters but Kirtland has a train-like lift from the 17th green to the 18th tee; and Bel-Air has an elevator from ninth to tenth tee. I also believe Manoir Richelieu has a similar contraption.

[TEPaul]

I've certainly heard lots of people on here say that there's something special about Cape Breton despite some really long green to tee walks. I don't doubt that but I would hate to see Cape Breton become some sort of example of why this sort of thing should be done!

It shouldn't!!

[Forrest Richardson]

I don't know about personal transporters either. But it makes for some interesting thoughts!

[hoggmeister]

A bizarre string to say the least.

Somewhere in there I saw a "any course is walkable" comment. Do I have the course for you--Country Club of the Poconos.A Fazio course with some very odd holes that goes up onto the hills and back.  It has something like 7 miles of total riding between holes.  Personnal transporter or Satanic slug will not replace the cart there.

I recall that most of the dirt paths at Highland Links are still there.  I played with a 75 year old woman who had been walking the course for 40 years and I suspect never hit a shot over 100 yards in all that time. She was a great guide and pointed out walks that most people miss, including a walk along a small stream that was over a mile long  (betwen 12 and 13, I think).  Point is you have a choice. I rode one day and walked the next.  Great great course.

[Mike_Cirba]

Hoggmeister;

Amazing that you mentioned "Country Club of the Poconos at Big Ridge", by Jim Fazio.

I like to think that ANY course is walkable.  After all, men have ascended Mount Everest on foot, so certainly anything short of the Red Sea between holes sans Moses should be walkable by some healthy of body golfers.

Yet, the CCOPABR (the pretentious name begs an acronym) proves to me that such optimistic thinking is dead wrong.  Cart rides from some greens to the next tee take 5-10 minutes, through some of the most inhospitable terrain.  

That course is also the home of the absolute WORST golf hole I've ever seen, a par four that requires a layup of about 140 yards from the tee, followed by a totally blind 200 yard shot over reeds and wetlands to a smallish green surrounded by woods on the other 3 sides.

You'd think after covering half the state of Pennsylvania with the routing, that Jim Fazio might have been able to avoid such a ridiculous hole.  You'd think wrong.

If CCOTPABR were ever an Aerial of the Day (AOTD), we'd each need about three computer monitors to fit it all on our screens.  Just amazingly abysmal!!  

[hoggmeister]

Dear Mike,

Ah yes, the legendary #4 at CCOPABR.  I was going to mention the very hole, but I did not want to admit on such an erudite website that I had actually played the course. In fact, our company had its outing there twice. Double the pleasure, etc.

I agree. #4 is the worst designed golf hole I have seen. And one year, it was the most memorable. After laying up with 8 and 9 irons in a scramble format, our BEST second shot over the marsh bounced into the portapotty that sits dramatically up on the hill to the left of the green. Took our drop and made the four.

There are a number of holes, however, that give old #4 a run for its money. A par four we dubbed "the vocano hole", a downhill semi-blind par three ( you have to walk 30 yards forward to see the green), a 220 yard flat par four, and a dramatically downhill par four where the landing area for a driver, or a three wood, or a long iron, is a large marsh.

I also recall that one year they put the pin on the side of a hill so severe that we four putted in a scramble format.

And some of those 5-10 minute drives are not through inhospitable terrain, but out on the road betwen the vacation houses.

CCOPABR   Memories Memories

[A_Clay_Man]

Mike, Did you say blind shot with reeds and wetlands?

AH HA we found one for Mucci.


Now we need #2

[Mike_Cirba]

Hoggmeister;

If there was ever a perfectly-placed-porta-potty on a hole for totally symbolic purposes, it sounds like the 4th at CCOTPABR is it.

Oh yes, there are many other "interesting" holes there, as well.  

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