Rosedale National Toronto - Stadium Design Challenge Entry

[bauer1993]

Here is my entry for the Stadium Championship Design Challenge: Rosedale National Toronto

The true part:

Glen Abbey GC in Oakville, ON, designed by Jack Nicklaus, was intended as Canadian Augusta National of sorts, and has hosted the Canadian Open ~30 times. However, Glen Abbey is being redeveloped in part as housing, and will no longer be able to host future Canadian Opens.

The fiction:

A wealthy investor, a resident of the renowned Rosedale neighbourhood in Toronto, seeks to build the next Canadian Open mainstay, but this time, no Nicklaus, and the course will embody the stadium golf experience, while maintaining the "Augusta of the North" moniker. This means:

- A location in Canada's largest city - Toronto;
- Loads of elevation change;
- No heavy rough;
- Large, lightning-fast greens, surrounded by amphitheater seating;
- Lots of water, but only in natural places; and,
- Wide fairways that reward playing up the "correct" side for better angles into the greens.*

* Further to this point, each fairway has a red maple tree only on the preferred side, visible from the tee box. Hug that tree line for the best possible angle into the green.

The investor spares no expense building a stunning, challenging layout on the outskirts of Toronto (it may or may not be in the Greenbelt 💰), and names it Rosedale National after his revered home neighbourhood. Certainly, he hopes his neighbours will be enticed to become members at such a well-manicured and exclusive club.

The details:

There are 4 pins and two 7100+ yd tee decks -- many tee decks offer a variety of short and long versions of each hole. There's *a lot* of trees -- make sure you're keeping default lighting/weather, or you'll be dealing with shadows. It's a par 72 (4/10/4) and all 4 par 5s are reachable.

Explore the plot a bit as you play -- the course was designed as a Canadian Open set up, you'll find entrance gates, clubhouse/practice green, a food court, a full PGA Tour sized bidirectional practice facility, two works yards, as well as the owners mansion. You'll also notice, as was the goal of this design competition, there are many expansive seating and crowd areas with views of multiple holes, especially on 1/18, 2/5, 6/10, 7/11 and 16/17.

Finally, it wouldn't be a Canadian Open set up without "The Rink" -- check out 6 and 10, two par 3s with massive fan infrastructure surrounding them. 10 can play as short as 80 yards, good luck finessing a three quarter wedge with 500 fans over your shoulder.

Enjoy!

Photos of all 18 holes, clubhouse and practice facility here: www.facebook.com/groups/1053562378136193/posts/2703256236500124/ 

[bauer1993]

2nd green


4th green


10th green - "The Rink" hole


11th tee shot


14th tee shot


17th hole

[sandgroper]

Really lovely course with some great holes.

[bauer1993]

Thank you! Good luck to you as well. Also, I must have played the 12th 500 times but I can promise I've never played it like that..and a birdie too.. hilarious

Jun 20, 2024 21:13:26 GMT -5 sandgroper said:

Really lovely course with some great holes.

[bauer1993]

Over 1000 plays in 48 hours

[strangi17]

I'm not a reviewer, but it's been a while since I didn't make Tour Worthy courses, so here would be my bits of advice while playing the course.

There's heaps to like, but the main things to take the next step would be:
Options/Tactics tee to green
Keeping it simple with hole pars and tee manipulation
Minor tweaks of the sightlines.

You'll get more thoughts from the video below. Some of it is nitpicking, but I think that's what might help to make that next course TW. Hope it helps.

[bauer1993]

This is amazing, thank you!

A few thoughts:

- 1 should be a par 4.. I moved the green site down and forward to improve the sight line, but I should've changed the par too. Silly on my part.
- The back tee on 5 is 491 meters.. I should've made the second tee block much less forward.
- Noted on the bridges, especially the comments on 14 which made a ton of sense on framing.
- On the tee shots, I completely agree, but would also highlight that with it being light rough bordering the fairways, some of the "tight" tee shots were alot wider and had more options if you were willing to play from the first cut. Not an excuse, I fully agree that I could've done a lot more with bunkering to make them more interesting.
- I chuckled on 14, 15, and 16 -- the strategy wasn't super obvious, but it burned you 3 straight holes -- bunker on 14 from a bad angle, too much/too little Club and bad stance on 15, and too aggressive a line on 16. I see what you mean -- if all 18 holes had those trappings, it would've been a much better course.

So yeah, I think I have a good list of things to work on now, so thank you!

Jun 23, 2024 0:23:14 GMT -5 strangi17 said:

I'm not a reviewer, but it's been a while since I didn't make Tour Worthy courses, so here would be my bits of advice while playing the course.

There's heaps to like, but the main things to take the next step would be:
Options/Tactics tee to green
Keeping it simple with hole pars and tee manipulation
Minor tweaks of the sightlines.

You'll get more thoughts from the video below. Some of it is nitpicking, but I think that's what might help to make that next course TW. Hope it helps.

[bauer1993]

b101 mattyfromcanada 

Asking this purely for the design contest, not for Tour Worthy purposes -- if I were to publish a Tour version i.e. Rosedale National (Tour), and the only changes I make are:
- Change Hole 1 from a Par 5 to a Par 4;
- Make the tees sequential, including a third set that is only the longest length of holes;

Would this be accepted as my contest entry, and/or updated in the course database? I think I saw Blackcomb do the same like a month ago, just curious if that's an option for me. Let me know, thank you!

[trailducker]

Jun 23, 2024 11:39:48 GMT -5 bauer1993 said:

b101  mattyfromcanada  

Asking this purely for the design contest, not for Tour Worthy purposes -- if I were to publish a Tour version i.e. Rosedale National (Tour), and the only changes I make are:
- Change Hole 1 from a Par 5 to a Par 4;
- Make the tees sequential, including a third set that is only the longest length of holes;

Would this be accepted as my contest entry, and/or updated in the course database? I think I saw Blackcomb do the same like a month ago, just curious if that's an option for me. Let me know, thank you!

I'll just step in and say. Usually that's a no for a contest course, because you have now received a lot of constructive feedback that others have not.

Now this isn't an official TGC Tour contest so some of the rules are more relaxed and for that I would defer to b101 and csugolfer60

In terms of Blackcomb. Mitch either waited before submitted and made a tour version with some changes before or when he submitted it was accepted as TW but he was asked to make some adjustments, usually pretty specific requests directly from a tour scheduler that would make it better suited for that individual tour. 

I know how frustrating it is to shoot something you worked hard out and get comments back that you either missed or seem like simple solutions and you want to jump back in and fix them. I would advice that that might not be worth the time. You aren't going to get Tour Worthy retroactively and it wont change the course in the contest (again unless Ben and Dario say otherwise as it's their thing for fun). I would suggest taking these lessons and applying it to to the next design. I haven't gotten to play Rosedale yet (I will at some point as I am the CDT scheduler and have it on my list to play) but it sounds like you are close. Keep it up and just keep absorbing what you can and developing that critical eye looking over your own designs (I still am working on that, I get tunnel vision).

[strangi17]

Jun 23, 2024 8:46:38 GMT -5 bauer1993 said:

This is amazing, thank you!

A few thoughts:

- 1 should be a par 4.. I moved the green site down and forward to improve the sight line, but I should've changed the par too. Silly on my part.
- The back tee on 5 is 491 meters.. I should've made the second tee block much less forward.
- Noted on the bridges, especially the comments on 14 which made a ton of sense on framing.
- On the tee shots, I completely agree, but would also highlight that with it being light rough bordering the fairways, some of the "tight" tee shots were alot wider and had more options if you were willing to play from the first cut. Not an excuse, I fully agree that I could've done a lot more with bunkering to make them more interesting.
- I chuckled on 14, 15, and 16 -- the strategy wasn't super obvious, but it burned you 3 straight holes -- bunker on 14 from a bad angle, too much/too little Club and bad stance on 15, and too aggressive a line on 16. I see what you mean -- if all 18 holes had those trappings, it would've been a much better course.

So yeah, I think I have a good list of things to work on now, so thank you!

Jun 23, 2024 0:23:14 GMT -5 strangi17 said:

I'm not a reviewer, but it's been a while since I didn't make Tour Worthy courses, so here would be my bits of advice while playing the course.

There's heaps to like, but the main things to take the next step would be:
Options/Tactics tee to green
Keeping it simple with hole pars and tee manipulation
Minor tweaks of the sightlines.

You'll get more thoughts from the video below. Some of it is nitpicking, but I think that's what might help to make that next course TW. Hope it helps.

Certainly got myself into trouble on those holes, no doubt! To be fair I'm never trying to moose it with a high cut on that par 5 in an actual tournament, but when doing a video, of course I am! Glad the video is helpful!

[bauer1993]

Agreed on all fronts, just figured I'd ask! Definitely no expectations. Looks like for Blackcomb the course was changed significantly .. greens and fairways reduced, length added, etc. For this I just wanna swap a par and reconfigure tee order -- no length added or new tee decks.

I'm good with whatever, I'm excited to get going on my next course now

Jun 23, 2024 12:04:02 GMT -5 trailducker said:

Jun 23, 2024 11:39:48 GMT -5 bauer1993 said:

b101  mattyfromcanada  

Asking this purely for the design contest, not for Tour Worthy purposes -- if I were to publish a Tour version i.e. Rosedale National (Tour), and the only changes I make are:
- Change Hole 1 from a Par 5 to a Par 4;
- Make the tees sequential, including a third set that is only the longest length of holes;

Would this be accepted as my contest entry, and/or updated in the course database? I think I saw Blackcomb do the same like a month ago, just curious if that's an option for me. Let me know, thank you!

I'll just step in and say. Usually that's a no for a contest course, because you have now received a lot of constructive feedback that others have not.

Now this isn't an official TGC Tour contest so some of the rules are more relaxed and for that I would defer to b101 and csugolfer60

In terms of Blackcomb. Mitch either waited before submitted and made a tour version with some changes before or when he submitted it was accepted as TW but he was asked to make some adjustments, usually pretty specific requests directly from a tour scheduler that would make it better suited for that individual tour. 

I know how frustrating it is to shoot something you worked hard out and get comments back that you either missed or seem like simple solutions and you want to jump back in and fix them. I would advice that that might not be worth the time. You aren't going to get Tour Worthy retroactively and it wont change the course in the contest (again unless Ben and Dario say otherwise as it's their thing for fun). I would suggest taking these lessons and applying it to to the next design. I haven't gotten to play Rosedale yet (I will at some point as I am the CDT scheduler and have it on my list to play) but it sounds like you are close. Keep it up and just keep absorbing what you can and developing that critical eye looking over your own designs (I still am working on that, I get tunnel vision).

[b101]

We'll happily amend the name on the database entry to a different version if you republish it, but wouldn't re-review.

[jensson]

This course is amazing.

Will you release a ”tour” version soon?
I really would like to see the changes you propose.
- Hole 1: Par 4
- 3rd set of tees (back tee)

[bauer1993]

Its been published -- Rosedale National (Tour)

Jun 23, 2024 15:56:58 GMT -5 b101 said:

We'll happily amend the name on the database entry to a different version if you republish it, but wouldn't re-review.

[bauer1993]

Done! Rosedale National (Tour)

Jun 28, 2024 1:43:06 GMT -5 jensson said:

This course is amazing.

Will you release a ”tour” version soon?
I really would like to see the changes you propose.
- Hole 1: Par 4
- 3rd set of tees (back tee)