Pinnacle Ridge

[Deleted]

Welcome to Pinnacle Ridge, my entry into the World Cup of Design contest here at TGCTours.

The course is fictionally set in of Arizona amongst some beautiful peaks and valleys of the nearby mountains, routed and designed along the top of Pinnacle Ridge. The course is meant for golfers of many levels, but other than some tighter landing areas with the driver, will likely be most enjoyed by golfers on the Challenge Circuit.  There is no water on the course and no out of bounds except for the driving range to keep people from cutting the corning on the par 5 tenth hole.

Golfers will not experience a lot of excessive elevation change on the actual golf course, but part of the architectural concept is for a lot of the greens to be above the player's vantage point on the approach shots, which was an artistic choice made to mimic them being up on top of the "ridge." This is likely going to be a hit or miss feature for a lot of people, but it was an intentional decision to engage with a specific concept. There are also very little template influences on this course, as it was a bit more "freeform" in nature and meant to be routed around a dry barranca that weaves through the design.

Many people are likely to find the large dune bunkers to be polarizing as well, especially where they cut into the greens, and I'm okay with that.  Again, this course is set in a hot, dry climate, so it's meant to be a way that the course architects tied the holes together without the need for a lot of grass and planting that would need to be watered and maintained by the superintendent's staff.  Be prepared that on a windy day, you are likely to hit a lot of bunker shots.

I hope that this was a pretty different addition to my course catalog and you enjoy it and score really well.

As always, free memberships are being held at the front desk for karma4u , jimgem , and Avakrac, thanks for all you do for the designers!

[Heisenberg]

Congrats Eric. I loved how open it felt and of course the planting was perfect together with the dried up creek beds. 

As Terry mentioned in stream, I agree that the subdued lighting and weather was perfect for this course. 

My favourite holes were 9, 17 & 18. Congrats on yet another great publish.

[cd06]

Yeah, awesome work Eric. Tons of great holes and I really liked the narrow fairways combined with relatively large greens. Environment was lovely, as always - you've done quite the job with this one, so well done and good luck!

[scootmcgoot]

As I mentioned when you posted the pics of the dunes/waste areas, I was sure I’d be hitting a fair amount of it. I did not disappoint myself in that effort. The course looks relatively flat and lulls folks into thinking “ah this will be a piece of cake”...it’s not. The elevation changes are subtle but effective. Fairways narrow in the right places, greens are fair. And by 17 I found myself saying what Mayday did on stream “holy hell it’s 17 already?!” Well done sir!

[mayday_golf83]

[yeltzman]

Please Note i don't scroll about the course looking for things i just play what's in front of me

on my scoring system i gave it 74/100

Design-23  Enjoyment-16  Realism -17   Playability -18 

Just goes to show why scoring and reviews all down to the person what they enjoy i thought the lighting was too dark only enjoyed it when the sun popped it's head out the clouds. Also far too many forced lay ups of the tee for my liking to be really enjoyable. Design wise thought the course was excellent but got to be honest i did not enjoy the golf and that's the main part for me i should note i am not a TGC tours player so if this course is built for tours play completely understand the concept. 

[Deleted]

This is a tough backdrop for me to use. I have had several attempts to design a course with it, and they have all died on the vine. I think you pulled it off well, sir! The variance between Walking Stick, Pinewood CC, The Flamingo, and now Pinnacle Ridge is pretty impressive. I'm not even close to being an authority on golf design theory or architecture, so I won't touch that. However, I'm an eye candy guy, and this course gave me another eye cavity(that sounds terrible... but I'm sticking to it). Overall, well done bro! Good luck in your group!

[TeeeJ9798]

Mar 7, 2021 21:55:00 GMT -5 VctryLnSprts said:

Many people are likely to find the large dune bunkers to be polarizing as well, especially where they cut into the greens, and I'm okay with that.  Again, this course is set in a hot, dry climate, so it's meant to be a way that the course architects tied the holes together without the need for a lot of grass and planting that would need to be watered and maintained by the superintendent's staff.  Be prepared that on a windy day, you are likely to hit a lot of bunker shots.

I like how they cut into the greens here. The sculpting in the dune area works well with how it goes down to a flat area before the raised dune. Not sure it will be judged the same way, but it works next to the greens. Additionally, I think raising the plot in the steppe theme should be done more even if it is a popular thing for all themes right now. Just the steppe theme works best because you don't have to fill all that empty space anymore. I was a big fan of hole 4 and 9 due to the way the dry waste area runs through at an angle. Good luck in the contest.

[robn]

I don't think you like the 295 driver!

Tricky driving course (this could be an absolute brute from the tips in high winds, I had a low default) but I liked the strategic element of there always (or certainly often) being a better side to miss on from the tee. Find the flattish sand and you weren't out of the hole.

Approach game and greens (pin 2) were more straightforward and offered up plenty of birdie opportunities. I managed a -6 with a few lip outs.

Lighting felt a bit lifeless to me which I wasn't overly keen on but I suspect was a very deliberate choice for the setting.

Tricky design to pull off well but I thought you did an excellent job of it.

WCoD has offered up plenty of variety so far.

[trailducker]

To everyone talking about Driving spots I believe (and Eric should correct me if I’m totally off base here) this course design is that boundaries hole to hole are pretty malleable to non-existent. Meaning the best spot to hit a driver isn’t always the straight ahead fairway but one to the side and sometimes other holes’ fairways.

Now this might mean you are required to sign a waiver playing this course in real life but that’s for Eric’s lawyers to figure out 😉

[robn]

Mar 8, 2021 15:25:14 GMT -5 trailducker said:

To everyone talking about Driving spots I believe (and Eric should correct me if I’m totally off base here) this course design is that boundaries hole to hole are pretty malleable to non-existent. Meaning the best spot to hit a driver isn’t always the straight ahead fairway but one to the side and sometimes other holes’ fairways.

Now this might mean you are required to sign a waiver playing this course in real life but that’s for Eric’s lawyers to figure out 😉

That is a very fair point but this is a direct quote from the designer himself, "but other than some tighter landing areas with the driver". So I think it was designed to be a challenging course for the driver (295 especially). You are correct though in that there were occasions when the straight ahead fairway wasn't the only option.

[Deleted]

I'll probably screw myself partly with this in the contest, but the judges are definitely smart enough to figure it out anyway... I screwed up!

I had so much tunnel vision for making the planting and barranca work and to keep the routing tighter because the steppe theme doesn't come with any help from base planting in the meter, and in all of that I never protected the holes from being "broken" by using the other fairways. I appreciate the confidence trailducker, but on this one I just messed up my routing and it'll definitely cost me points because some of the strategy on the holes as they are individually designed is negated by just hitting it to a different fairway.

Bottom line... fail.

[robn]

I did pick up on this, which I don't mind saying now that you mentioned it yourself.

(Personally, I don't intentionally use the 'wrong' fairway when playing, feels a bit cheaty)

[meyo]

You know if my swing meter didn't decide to take the night off I might have broken Par on this beaut. Loved the course Eric, great job on the planting and will have to go back and tame this track

[stubby3596]

VctryLnSprts


Is that helipad, an outhouse or a hotel for animals? Can't say I expected to see a moose in the desert but was a nice treat. Lol

The routing on this course was so well thought out, the way the dry creek snaked throughout the whole course and drained out into the lower canyon was genius. The planting was subtle but felt very complete to me and I thought the course played very fair. I played it in a pretty light wind so I think it would be more of a beast with a high wind.


My only feedback would be on fairway widths. I felt like there were at least 4 or 5 of them that felt really pinched in and didn't give me anything better to lay back to. I know that with the bunkers surrounding everything this is not nearly as punishing as if it was heavy rough so I don't think it impacted the play as much but still just felt closed in to me at times.

The look from front to back on the 12th green is incredible, I really felt like I was looking right down the canyon
.

Great course and a very strong start to Group C.