Post by Royce on May 5, 2016 8:13:15 GMT -5
This is my attempt at recreating Oakland Hills Country Club (South Course)- Bloomfield Hills, MI. I've never created a course before, but this was always the one course I wanted to play in TGC so I decided to give it a go.
One of the world’s most recognizable championship venues, the Oakland Hills Country Club is located 20 miles north-west of Detroit in the affluent suburb of Bloomfield Hills, and was founded by businessman connected to the Ford Motor Company. It’s first course, the South Course, was designed by Donald Ross and opened in 1918. Ross later added a second North Course, but the South Course remains the club’s favored and most significant possession.
Built with championship play in mind, the South Course was always long and featured the most severely contoured set of greens Ross had ever built. Despite successfully hosting many major events, by 1950 the club felt it was no longer an adequate test of leading professionals and Robert Trent Jones was employed to modernize the layout. Jones strengthened the holes by growing thick rough, adding fairway bunkers and moving the greenside traps closer to the putting surfaces. Although he mostly left the tough green shapes alone, the fairways were narrowed considerably as width and strategic angles of attack were replaced by relentless difficulty and a desire to continually punish the slight spray.
Labeled a ‘monster’ by Ben Hogan in 1951, the new course proved popular with both the USGA and the PGA and continued to be tweaked and stretched in the subsequent decades. The opening holes are a great introduction to the challenge ahead; both the 1st and 2nd fairways are frighteningly tight and discourage a driver, even though each green was built to encourage a bold tee shot. The 1st green, in particular, is a superb piece of design with the putting surface leaning from back-to-front and featuring a central bowl and a wicked back tier all but impossible to hit from distance.
Another quality hole is the 5th, which is pinched tightly from the tee, cut by a creek and rises into a built-up target notorious for its large internal breaks. The hole marks the start of a fine stretch of golf, through to the 11th, with holes set across the best parts of the property. The climbing 8th and the side-hill 10th are both excellent tests while the 6th, with its superb Ross green, is still a fine medium-length par four despite Jones’s traps crowding the landing area and forcing a lay-up from the tee. The star attraction, however, is undoubtedly the 11th, which heads along a jumbled ridge but is best noted for a really cool approach shot uphill into a saddle green leaning steeply forwards and set atop a plateau. The finishing run is also solid, particularly the fantastic cross-sand approach into the 18th and the long par three 17th, which is played over a bunkered embankment that obscures your view of a wide green and its deadly right ledge.
South Course has played host to 16 Major Championships including: six U.S. Opens; two U.S. Senior Opens; U.S. Women’s Amateur; U.S. Men’s Amateur; Western Open; the Carling World Open; the 35th Ryder Cup in 2004; and three PGA Championships -- including the 90th PGA Championship in 2008 and plays host to the 2016 U.S. Men's Amateur in August. Some of the greatest players ever to play the game including Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Ben Hogan have competed and won on the famed South Course.
I have pinned the course to my personal liking. The greens are the primary protection against par here, and pins could be placed on more severe slopes, I tried for a mix of 6 easy, 6 medium & 6 difficult, while trying to mix up locations, but "easy" at South Course is a relative term. I pulled this tidbit of info directly from the superintendent and thought it prudent to include for anyone still reading.
WHY DO THE HOLE LOCATIONS ON THE SOUTH COURSE SEEM DIFFICULT?
As you walk onto the first green it can sometimes seem as though the green keeper has had a bad morning. The hole location is on a 45-degree slope, tucked in behind a bunker. No, we do not have a sadistic nature. There is logic to our madness.
We usually stick to a ‘six easy, six medium and six hard’ philosophy. (Of course, each person can have an opinion on what is hard or what is easy.) On the South Course, finding six easy pins can be a challenge and even the ‘easiest’ pins may seem unreasonable. And of course green speeds have an impact too: many hole locations become unreachable at faster green speeds.
Environmental conditions on any given day also play a role in hole selection. If an area seems weak, we will avoid that spot until the turf recovers. The prevailing wind at OHCC is westerly, so we will take this into consideration when placing tee markers. If the tee markers are set up a little short of the stated yardage to compensate for a head wind, we might use that opportunity to set a more difficult pin.
There are no rules regarding hole locations and there is no such thing as an "illegal" hole location. There are however some basic guidelines.
We try to be fair and allow the player to have fun and yet be challenged and see new and interesting holes. We keep the hole at least 3 paces from the edge, in a level area 5 to 6 feet in radius. This is more challenging on the South Course where every hole location can be considered difficult.
Hope you all enjoy playing it as much as I did creating it.
Some pics, not the best since I'm on XB but I think it gets the point across. Would love to see what karma can do here
Approach view into 11 green
16th
10 green overlooking some of the course
Tried to get a view overlooking the entire course
And an example of where I was with a flat empty plot measuring out 18 so long ago
Cheers, Royce
One of the world’s most recognizable championship venues, the Oakland Hills Country Club is located 20 miles north-west of Detroit in the affluent suburb of Bloomfield Hills, and was founded by businessman connected to the Ford Motor Company. It’s first course, the South Course, was designed by Donald Ross and opened in 1918. Ross later added a second North Course, but the South Course remains the club’s favored and most significant possession.
Built with championship play in mind, the South Course was always long and featured the most severely contoured set of greens Ross had ever built. Despite successfully hosting many major events, by 1950 the club felt it was no longer an adequate test of leading professionals and Robert Trent Jones was employed to modernize the layout. Jones strengthened the holes by growing thick rough, adding fairway bunkers and moving the greenside traps closer to the putting surfaces. Although he mostly left the tough green shapes alone, the fairways were narrowed considerably as width and strategic angles of attack were replaced by relentless difficulty and a desire to continually punish the slight spray.
Labeled a ‘monster’ by Ben Hogan in 1951, the new course proved popular with both the USGA and the PGA and continued to be tweaked and stretched in the subsequent decades. The opening holes are a great introduction to the challenge ahead; both the 1st and 2nd fairways are frighteningly tight and discourage a driver, even though each green was built to encourage a bold tee shot. The 1st green, in particular, is a superb piece of design with the putting surface leaning from back-to-front and featuring a central bowl and a wicked back tier all but impossible to hit from distance.
Another quality hole is the 5th, which is pinched tightly from the tee, cut by a creek and rises into a built-up target notorious for its large internal breaks. The hole marks the start of a fine stretch of golf, through to the 11th, with holes set across the best parts of the property. The climbing 8th and the side-hill 10th are both excellent tests while the 6th, with its superb Ross green, is still a fine medium-length par four despite Jones’s traps crowding the landing area and forcing a lay-up from the tee. The star attraction, however, is undoubtedly the 11th, which heads along a jumbled ridge but is best noted for a really cool approach shot uphill into a saddle green leaning steeply forwards and set atop a plateau. The finishing run is also solid, particularly the fantastic cross-sand approach into the 18th and the long par three 17th, which is played over a bunkered embankment that obscures your view of a wide green and its deadly right ledge.
South Course has played host to 16 Major Championships including: six U.S. Opens; two U.S. Senior Opens; U.S. Women’s Amateur; U.S. Men’s Amateur; Western Open; the Carling World Open; the 35th Ryder Cup in 2004; and three PGA Championships -- including the 90th PGA Championship in 2008 and plays host to the 2016 U.S. Men's Amateur in August. Some of the greatest players ever to play the game including Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Ben Hogan have competed and won on the famed South Course.
I have pinned the course to my personal liking. The greens are the primary protection against par here, and pins could be placed on more severe slopes, I tried for a mix of 6 easy, 6 medium & 6 difficult, while trying to mix up locations, but "easy" at South Course is a relative term. I pulled this tidbit of info directly from the superintendent and thought it prudent to include for anyone still reading.
WHY DO THE HOLE LOCATIONS ON THE SOUTH COURSE SEEM DIFFICULT?
As you walk onto the first green it can sometimes seem as though the green keeper has had a bad morning. The hole location is on a 45-degree slope, tucked in behind a bunker. No, we do not have a sadistic nature. There is logic to our madness.
We usually stick to a ‘six easy, six medium and six hard’ philosophy. (Of course, each person can have an opinion on what is hard or what is easy.) On the South Course, finding six easy pins can be a challenge and even the ‘easiest’ pins may seem unreasonable. And of course green speeds have an impact too: many hole locations become unreachable at faster green speeds.
Environmental conditions on any given day also play a role in hole selection. If an area seems weak, we will avoid that spot until the turf recovers. The prevailing wind at OHCC is westerly, so we will take this into consideration when placing tee markers. If the tee markers are set up a little short of the stated yardage to compensate for a head wind, we might use that opportunity to set a more difficult pin.
There are no rules regarding hole locations and there is no such thing as an "illegal" hole location. There are however some basic guidelines.
We try to be fair and allow the player to have fun and yet be challenged and see new and interesting holes. We keep the hole at least 3 paces from the edge, in a level area 5 to 6 feet in radius. This is more challenging on the South Course where every hole location can be considered difficult.
Hope you all enjoy playing it as much as I did creating it.
Some pics, not the best since I'm on XB but I think it gets the point across. Would love to see what karma can do here
Approach view into 11 green
16th
10 green overlooking some of the course
Tried to get a view overlooking the entire course
And an example of where I was with a flat empty plot measuring out 18 so long ago
Cheers, Royce