The Avalon Club, WIP by jft

[mvpmanatee]

The Avalon Club - by jft

This course is now completed, and the completed course thread is here. Thank you to everybody for the feedback, I really appreciate it!

This is my WIP thread for the Rookie Design Contest (2020). 

The Avalon Club is inspired heavily by the California Golf Club of San Francisco, which I am lucky enough to call home. I have been waiting for Cypresses to be included in this game since TGC1, and with them finally here, I am ready to go.


The Avalon is a par 72, which plays to about 7,360 from the farthest tees. The course is wide off the tee, with natural undulations and big green complexes. The bunkers are placed in what I believe are only the most strategic places on the course. I have even gone back and removed a few bunkers as I don't find them necessary. 

There are birdies to be made, but every green is unique and you have to stay on the right portion to make the putts. I did very minimal sculpting to the holes once I laid them down, and I believe it plays very natural.

The greens can be tricky especially when the wind is up, and the day's pin position and wind might entirely change the strategy of every hole on the course. This is something that I believe Cal Club has always mastered, and I made it a key design feature on every hole. I will be providing my favorite wind conditions as this course is meant to play into a strong Pacific prevailing wind.

In truth, Cal Club has much less natural slope (thanks Trent Jones JR) and the course plays through a lot more chutes of Cypress trees. I almost imagine this course to be Cal Club, if Tom Doak got his hands on the original property. The greens themselves remind me of Cal Club the most.

I am far from done, but I have all 18 holes laid out and sculpted. I still have to add a lot of planting around the holes, specifically in adding a neighborhood of houses right of the 4th, 5th, and 6th holes, a driving range, and a ton more Cypresses. The progress will continue as I go but my first goal was to get a playable course so I can start banging away drives in different wind conditions to see where they end up. Hopefully by October 5th or so I will publish a beta version of the course.

I am very excited about the progress made so far, and I will continue to update this thread as I go!

[mvpmanatee]

Here are some photos of the course so far..

First hole, tee shot:




3rd hole, par 3, green:





4th hole, par 5, green:




7th hole, short par 4, approach from left side:




11th hole, another short par 4, approach:

[cavacom]

great job so far.

[tdawgcincy]

Great stuff!!

(heads right back to course designer)

[mctrees02]

Looks good! I’m intrigued to see how you turn the countryside theme into more of a NorCal course. I was fortunate to play Cal Club a while back after the Kyle Philips renovation and it is truly a special place. At first we were a bit bummed when SFGC dropped our tee time the night before for a 16 person WGA outing...but after Cal Club and another 18 at Oly I knew I didn’t miss out on anything at all.

[mvpmanatee]

Sept 12, 2020 20:30:34 GMT -5 mctrees02 said:

Looks good! I’m intrigued to see how you turn the countryside theme into more of a NorCal course. I was fortunate to play Cal Club a while back after the Kyle Philips renovation and it is truly a special place. At first we were a bit bummed when SFGC dropped our tee time the night before for a 16 person WGA outing...but after Cal Club and another 18 at Oly I knew I didn’t miss out on anything at all.

Yeah I think the burned out look of the texture I found within Countryside works pretty well for a warm summer afternoon in South City.

I have unfortunately not had the chance to play SF in my life, it's that exclusive, but there are at least 40 members of Cal that are also members at SF, and they all regularly spend their afternoons at Cal, and use SF only to impress investors and clients. The course defines what a fun round of golf should be.

[mctrees02]

Sept 13, 2020 9:24:14 GMT -5 mvpmanatee said:

Sept 12, 2020 20:30:34 GMT -5 mctrees02 said:

Looks good! I’m intrigued to see how you turn the countryside theme into more of a NorCal course. I was fortunate to play Cal Club a while back after the Kyle Philips renovation and it is truly a special place. At first we were a bit bummed when SFGC dropped our tee time the night before for a 16 person WGA outing...but after Cal Club and another 18 at Oly I knew I didn’t miss out on anything at all.

Yeah I think the burned out look of the texture I found within Countryside works pretty well for a warm summer afternoon in South City.

I have unfortunately not had the chance to play SF in my life, it's that exclusive, but there are at least 40 members of Cal that are also members at SF, and they all regularly spend their afternoons at Cal, and use SF only to impress investors and clients. The course defines what a fun round of golf should be.

From everything I know and have heard about SFGC, it sounds like we have the same impression of the place.  IMO they are as concerned about remaining exclusive as they are with being the best golf club they can be.  My brother-in-law has been fortunate to play in their member guest a few times and has said that it's a great experience...but they aren't shy about making sure guests know how fortunate they are to be a part of such an exclusive event.  

[mvpmanatee]

A few more photos from the back 9..


Short uphill par 3 12th, trouble looming:




Redan par 3 14th:




Long uphill par 4 15th with trees blocking the left side:



Still lots of planting to do, and am going to put a little town bordering the north and east sides of the course, just like there is at Cal Club. Really happy with the progress so far.

[Leecey]

This is looking great - can't believe how much progress you've made already. I've just about managed to get my routing and rough hole layout/strategy sorted so haven't built anything yet. Love the bunkers on the 4th!

[mvpmanatee]

Sept 17, 2020 4:23:29 GMT -5 Leecey said:

This is looking great - can't believe how much progress you've made already. I've just about managed to get my routing and rough hole layout/strategy sorted so haven't built anything yet. Love the bunkers on the 4th!

Thank you!

I am usually pretty efficient when on the designer, I like to make decisions and go with it. I might change a hole or two later on but I would rather have a course that I can play test for hours and then change small things as I go!

[mvpmanatee]

Built the 17th hole last night, really loving the bunkering here. This is a flipped model of the 13th at Cal Club, one of the toughest par 4s you will ever play.

[admiralmurphy]

I love to design courses with lots of woods just because of what I play in real life but I really thought about going this route as I've thought about creating a course with a midwest country feel that felt wide open. Very excited to play this one and take on the great sightlines!

[mvpmanatee]

Sept 18, 2020 10:17:39 GMT -5 admiralmurphy said:

I love to design courses with lots of woods just because of what I play in real life but I really thought about going this route as I've thought about creating a course with a midwest country feel that felt wide open. Very excited to play this one and take on the great sightlines!

I am going to add a lot of Cypress trees as I go, but generally will be pretty open!

[ohheycat]

o_0

Yes

[grovey31]

Great job on this so far. I really like when someone has a specific vision for their course and what they want it to be and it looks like yous is coming along nicely. The undulations look great and the bunkers seem to fit into the land really well too.