Design Notebook: Three New Tom Doak Courses

This week’s edition of Design Notebook reports back on Andy’s recent visits to three new Tom Doak courses: Sedge Valley, Pinehurst No. 10, and the revival of High Pointe. We also give some preliminary thoughts on (yet another) golf development on sandy soil in South Carolina, this one involving a King-Collins design and a re-creation of an unbuilt Alister MacKenzie plan. Intrigued? Read on.

Tour de Doak

Over the past two decades, it has been rare for an architect to have multiple new builds open within a year of each other, let alone three or more. So it’s striking that between now and this time next year, Tom Doak will see the debuts of his designs at Te Arai’s North Course, Sedge Valley at Sand Valley, the resurrected High Pointe Golf Club, and Pinehurst No. 10. It’s tough for lowly golf writers like myself to keep up.

That said, it has been a treat to check out some of Doak’s new work over the past three weeks. I got a quick tour of High Pointe and played all 18 at both Sedge Valley and Pinehurst No. 10. The latter two will be among the highest-profile golf course openings of 2024.

I picked up on a couple of commonalities among the designs:

Width with consequences – One thing I appreciate about Doak’s work is that he creates plenty of space for anyone to play while also defining some highly advantageous spots to get to, often associated with risk. A great example of this is the ninth hole at Pinehurst No. 10. This is a big par 4 with a centerline bunker that creates a wide right side and a narrow left side. I succeeded in squeezing it up the left side and was rewarded with a shorter approach from a better angle. The view from the right side is not nearly as appealing.

Aesthetics at Sedge Valley and High Pointe – These two courses have similar flora, fauna, climate, topography, and soils, so right now they look like siblings. Who knows how they will age and evolve, but I brought this observation up to Doak at the Renaissance Cup, and he agreed Sedge Valley and High Pointe share a lot of aesthetic traits.

Let’s get more specific about each course:

High Pointe Golf Club

High Pointe is a restoration of sorts—a recovery of Tom Doak’s first-ever design. The Michigan course closed years ago and became a hops farm, but in 2021, tech entrepreneur Rod Trump purchased some of the property, along with additional land. The project will bring back seven of Doak’s original holes (all from the old back nine) and feature 11 new holes. When he designed High Pointe in the late 1980s, he routed 27 holes but ended up building only 18. Nine of the 11 new holes are based on ones that he initially routed.

Of the three Doak courses I visited recently, High Pointe is the furthest away from opening: all 18 holes are shaped, but many are very early in the grassing stages. Eighteen-hole preview play will likely begin in the fall of 2024.

The course will begin with the holes that were routed but never constructed. The clubhouse will sit on a ridge overlooking several holes that, for the most part, travel either east or west. This rectangular portion of the property will feature Nos. 1-7 as well as 17 and 18. The topography has a nice roll to it that allows for dramatic bunkering and, in spite of the repetition in the direction of the holes, variety.

The under-construction new holes at High Pointe

The seventh is a dramatic short par 4 where the tilted land and centerline bunkers create a number of options. The hole also links the opening stretch with the seven restored holes from the old High Pointe. Anyone who visited the original course will recognize these landforms, fairways, hazards, and greens. In addition to the old holes, there are two new ones—10 and 11—that play out and back, connecting the ninth to the 12th.

{{content-block-design-notebook-three-new-tom-doak-courses-001}}

It’s exciting to see this design come back to life after hearing Doak talk about it on various Yolk with Doak episodes. I particularly loved seeing the tremendous 13th green, the subject of this delightful old video.

The 13th green at High Pointe

Sedge Valley

This par-68 design is delightful for a number of reasons. A major one is that the round absolutely flies by. Playing late in the afternoon at the Renaissance Cup, we took only an hour and 50 minutes to play the first 11 holes, even though we were waiting regularly. The course is packed with shorter par 4s and par 3s that can play a wide range of distances. A particularly rapid stretch of holes is 5-9, which contains three par 3s (short, medium, and long) and two short par 4s.

A big question for Sand Valley will be whether the pace of play at Sedge Valley will continue to be quick when the course is full of groups sent off at 10-minute intervals.

I’m excited to watch Sedge Valley mature, but at this point it is my favorite of the three 18-hole regulation courses on the resort property. Along with the Lido, it has taken Sand Valley to a new level of must-see golf.

{{content-block-design-notebook-three-new-tom-doak-courses-002}}

Pinehurst No. 10

With its opening date set for next spring, Pinehurst No. 10 is about 85% finished and will be an excellent addition to the resort’s offerings. It will also go down as an astounding feat of construction; it broke ground earlier this year and now has 18 holes playable just six months later.

Pinehurst No. 10 will stand out at the resort for its dramatic topography. The properties of the No. 2 and No. 4 courses, for instance, are really good, but they don’t have the consistent scale and elevation changes of No. 10’s site. This course is also far more secluded, a 10-minute drive away from the mega-resort hustle and bustle, and free of any houses. The lack of development adds to your ability to appreciate the land.

No. 10 is no pushover. In an era of golf construction when “playability” is a watchword, this course rides the line between fun and challenging quite well. There are some big par 4s, 600+ yard par 5s, and a mammoth 300-yard par 3 that would be categorized as a short par 4 most places. This aspect of No. 10 shows a difference in identity between Pinehurst and, say, Dream Golf. Pinehurst’s identity will always revolve around No. 2, its historic U.S. Open anchor site and one of the toughest courses in the world. Dream Golf’s identity is rooted in fun and appealing to the “retail golfer.”

The most talked-about hole will surely be the par-4 eighth, which plays through an old mining pit.

The eighth hole at Pinehurst No. 10

The preexisting mounds of sand were a bit severe for golf, so Doak’s crew, led by Angela Moser and Brian Schneider, had to soften them. They now inhabit the middle of the eighth fairway and create amazing terrain for golf. The tee shot is almost completely blind, and the preferred line over the right side of a particularly large knoll. Running down the center of the fairway is a series of massive hummocks that kick balls both left and right. Left leaves a blind shot into the green, fronted by another mining mound; right opens up a view and the best line into the shallow, angled green. It’s also possible for the ball to end up on top of the central mound ridge, where you’ll find a flat lie and a partially blind target. A visually stunning, strategically intricate hole.

I’ll be curious to see how No. 10 is received. I wouldn’t be surprised if it quickly became many golfers’ second favorite course at resort and even the preferred option for some. -Andy Johnson

More action in Aiken

Yet another eccentric golf-development project has popped up near Aiken, South Carolina. According to its tastefully presented website, 21 Golf Club will be “an invitation-only golf club in the South Carolina sand hills, just minutes from Augusta, Georgia.” The club’s first course, named the Hammer, will be designed by King-Collins, the architecture firm behind Sweetens Cove and Landmand; its second course will be an adaptation of an unbuilt Alister MacKenzie design called El Boquerón.

The Hammer Course, which will be dedicated to match play, will feature a wide range of teeing areas, allowing players to “alter each hole’s routing on the fly.” The design also contains three additional holes (hence “21”) that can be played in both directions and used creatively to settle matches. These plans reflect King-Collins’s well-established interest in experimenting with outré routing concepts.

King-Collins's plan for 21 Golf Club

El Boquerón, like the Lido, occupies a special place in the collective golf-nerd imagination. Alister MacKenzie designed the course in 1930 for an Argentinian client but never built it, and his plans remained undiscovered by the broader golf world until the 1990s. The routing is compact and idiosyncratic, featuring nine double greens and many shared corridors—like the Old Course’s out-and-back layout rolled up into a ball. (If you’re curious about El Boquerón’s history, I recommend this article by Tom Dunne.) There have been various efforts over the years to resurrect MacKenzie’s design, but 21 Golf Club, it appears, will be first to market.

Alister MacKenzie's plan for El Boquerón

A 30-minute drive from Augusta National, Aiken has long punched above its weight golf-wise, boasting an outstanding affordable public course (the Aiken Golf Club), a beautiful Golden Age club (Palmetto Golf Club), and a work of ANGC fan fiction (Sage Valley). So it may seem odd that so much additional golf construction has come to the Aiken area lately. The 18-hole courses at Old Barnwell and the Tree Farm—the former designed by Brian Schneider and Blake Conant, the latter by Tom Doak and Kye Goalby—opened this year, and Old Barnwell’s “holiday course,” the Gilroy, is in the planning stages. 21 Golf Club will be the third architecture-geek-friendly private golf facility built in the county so far this decade.

Why all the activity in Aiken? A few reasons. The city’s proximity to Augusta helps, as does its bounty of sandy, rolling terrain. But the most important factor, probably, is the demand for private destination golf in the South. Aiken is within a few hours’ drive of several metropolitan areas—not only Atlanta but also Charlotte, Charleston, Savannah, and Columbia. The owners of Old Barnwell, the Tree Farm, and 21 Golf Club believe those cities will provide a steady supply of well-heeled professionals looking for a unique, golf-focused getaway.

They may be right. But how many of this type of club in one region is too many? -Garrett Morrison

Golf sixes

In the comments below last week’s Design Notebook installment, our Alaskan friend Nate Carr asked, “Are there any examples of six-hole ‘courses’? In a world that is short on time, I would think a six-hole course (two par 3s, two par 4s, two par 5s) might be viable. Plus, if my math is correct, you could play it three times in a row and you’d have your ‘traditional’ round of golf.”

Who says English teachers can’t do math?

I love the idea of a six-hole course, but operating one for public play would be tricky. If someone wanted to play 18, for instance, they would have to hope for a lot of open tee times. Still, I’d be all for trying to challenge golfers’ notions of what constitutes a “round.” If we’re okay with playing nine, shouldn’t we also be open to playing six or 12?

As far as I know, there aren’t many six-holers in existence. A number of early Scottish links—including Leith, Bruntsfield, Musselburgh, Montrose, and Lanark—had between five and seven holes in the 1700s and 1800s, but most of those courses disappeared or were expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Just last year, though, an intriguing and somewhat mysterious instance of six-hole golf appeared in Wilson, Arkansas. The extent of what I know about the course is as follows: it’s called “the Tin House”; it was designed by Old Barnwell architects Brian Schneider and Blake Conant; it’s completely reversible; it’s quite private.

Also, it looks super fun. -GM

An aerial view of the Tin House (Google Earth)

If you have a question you want us to address in a future edition of Design Notebook, put it in the comments below!

A course we photographed recently

Pinehurst No. 10—designed by Tom Doak, will open in spring 2024

{{content-block-design-notebook-three-new-tom-doak-courses-003}}

Quotable

“Immediately when we attempt to standardize sizes, shapes, and distances we lose more than half the pleasure of the game.” -Harry Colt