The Anatomy of a Fake Golf Course: Husker Dunes Golf Club

Back in March, I entered an amateur golf course design contest on golfclubatlas.com, called the Armchair Architecture Contest, 3rd Edition (AACIII). I entered the previous two iterations of the contests a few years ago and finished second both times. Always the bridesmaid...

This year's contest was set on a 1,000 acre site in the Sand Hills region of Nebraska, an area that I know well. I figured a treeless, linksy site would give me somewhat of a homecourt advantage. 25 people entered the contest, which was whittled down to 8 through a public voting period. The 8 finalists were subject to an expert judging panel of three golf course luminaries: golf course architect Mike Nuzzo (Wolf Point), Tommy Naccarrato (aka The Emperor) and Golf Digest Architecture Guru and Ron Whitten (who also has design credits to his name, including Erin Hills, site of the 2017 U.S. Open, and interestingly enough, the site of the first Armchair contest)

I made the top 8 -- the votes are in and the results will be published on Sunday. Win or lose, it has been an extremely rewarding exercise and has given me a better appreciation of the tough choices and tradeoffs that the professionals have to make when trying to come up with the best 18 holes that they can. Honestly, I'd love the opportunity to build my own golf course someday.

Since everything is final, I can go ahead and publish details of my entry. Please see the Google Slideshow embedded below. I appreciate all comments and feedback, good or bad, in the comment section.

Here's my entry from AACII: Ballyneo

Hole-by-hole pics after the jump...

Rules are Rules*: The Average Golf Fan's Guide to #Dropgate

Happy Masters Sunday! While Phil Mickelson and Rory Mickelson are out of the running, many big names will be on center stage today: Angel Cabrera, Brendt Shnedeker, Adam Scott, Jason Day, Tiger Woods and, of course, Fred Ridley.

Make no mistake, on a day when the world will be plopping their proverbial butts on their proverbial couches to see who will slip on the green jacket, the 2013 Masters will forever be overshadowed by this mess created by the Green Jackets. By all accounts, Fred Ridley is a stand-up guy -- U.S. Amateur champion, Walker Cup participant and captain, former president of the USGA, rules demigod -- with some name recognition by golf die-hards before this week. This weekend he's a household name...and that's not a good thing.

Saturday's telecast, which already starts an agonizing hour later than it should (the retro-fluff pieces they run before the telecast are probably very interesting on any other day of the year, but they are like nails on a chalkboard when you're clamoring for live golf), launched with ten minutes of Ridley trying to defend the ruling with Nantz in the Butler Cabin. In a tournament where the rules officials lay in the weeds instead of following every group, the fact that an emergency press conference and damage-control lead-off were necessary was definitely not a good sign (plus, the officials were already in the spotlight after the Tianlang Guan's slowplay penalty/international incident) The best case scenario is the tournament comes and goes without incident, without us ever seeing or knowing who Ridley is, other than a guy you'd really, really want to have as a golf buddy.

I tracked dropgate closely starting very late Friday night and all through Saturday. I even set an all-time personal record by watching more than five minutes of the Golf Channel. I watched Ridley's press conference in its entirety. I dusted off my copy of the Rules of Golf.  Here, in my humble opinion, is a summary of what transpired:

Tiger took a bad drop and played from the wrong spot. He signed for a 71, but should've signed for a 73. Normally this would be grounds for disqualification, however his 71 was actually the correct score at the time, because unbeknownst to him, the Rules Committee had already reviewed the drop and proactively gave him the all clear. So by little more than dumb luck, Tiger did not sign for the wrong score. It was only after Tiger incriminated himself that the Committee reopened the case and realized that 71 wasn't the correct score. His score was then changed to 73.

Got it?

In short, the only reason that Tiger is still playing today is because the Committee supposedly reviewed the footage and said no harm, no foul. If this review hadn't happened until after Tiger had made his comments in the press conference, then they would've had grounds to disqualify him. If Tiger had said nothing in the press conference, but had later realized his mistake while replaying the round in his head, then the right thing to do would be to disqualify himself.

I use the word "supposedly" in the above paragraph for all of you conspiracy theorists out there. I have to admit that as I was watching the press conference yesterday, my B.S. meter was making small blips. Now I freely admit that this is primarily a function of me being a former die-hard baseball and college basketball fan who has seen my once idolized views of sport tarnished beyond recognition. I'm also a guy who has a hard time separating Tiger Woods the golfer from Tiger Woods the man. The tournament founded by Bobby Jones had to be one of the last bastions of purity and integrity, right? Don't take that away from me, please. There's no way the Masters would cave in the name of TV ratings and the almighty dollar, right? They wouldn't just fabricate this whole review story in order to create the loophole for the meal ticket to drive through, would they?

I want to believe Ridley's story that they reviewed the drop and concluded that there was nothing wrong. However, have you seen the video of the drop? In my opinion, Tiger clearly started with arm extended at "the spot" of his last shot, then took a full step back and dropped his ball. I just can't comprehend how somebody would review that footage and definitely say that it was fine. If anything, it would've warranted further investigation.

And guess what? Tiger was on the 18th hole when all of this was (supposedly) happening! If the Committee had just waited 10 minutes to ask Tiger about the drop, all of this would've been cleared up and we wouldn't even be talking about it today. I'm certain that Tiger would've given the same candid responses that he later did, the Committee would've said that's a violation, you need to add two strokes to your score, and we'd have a minor story instead of the major story.

So the Committee screwed up, and Tiger Woods is the beneficiary of their missteps.

We like to rail on the guys who call in these violations, painting them as dudes sitting in their recliners, bag of chips in one hand, Rules of Golf in the other, and 1-800-AUGUSTA on speed dial. My guess is the guys who called in are either other rules officials or other players, and that the switchboard lit up after that drop. I don't think the average viewer knows enough of the rules to recognize a violation or even know what to do or who to contact when they see one.

Couch potato or not, interestingly "the caller" might end up the one saving Tiger from himself. He may have cost him two strokes, but the timing of the call and the initial review are the reason Tiger is still in the tournament. If it happens 30 minutes later, he's DQ'd. If Tiger overcomes this four stroke deficit today, maybe he'll thank the phantom caller(s) (and Ridley) during the already awkward Butler Cabin ceremony.

Augusta Chronicle Photo Superimposed on top of each other (they didn't have the side-by-side lined up quite right, as seen by difference between 'first shot' and 'second shot' at the top): http://www.augusta.com/masters/story/blog/woods-receives-2-shot-penalty-stays-tournament

The USGA created that Harrington rule a couple years ago to protect the golfer against these phone-in violations. The intent of Rule 33-7 was to protect the golfer from things he never could've known about, like things only discovered via Konica Minolta Biz Hub replays in 1080p. There's one problem though, Rule 33-7 isn't meant to protect players against ignorance of the Rules:

"A Committee would not be justified under Rule 33-7 in waiving or modifying the disqualification penalty prescribed in Rule 6-6d if the competitor's failure to include the penalty stroke(s) was a result of either ignorance of the Rules or of facts that the competitor could have reasonably discovered prior to signing and returning his score card."

Oops. This excellent post by Ryan Farb describes how the Committee incorrectly applied Rule 33-7, or at least incorrectly attributed their actions to Rule 33-7. The media, like most of us when we hear a rule expert start talking in numbers and dashes and slashes, heard Ridley say 33-7 over and over again and just ran with it. It wasn't until closer inspection proved this rule to be problematic.

To all who don't get 33-7. Sorry. There's no cure for stupid.
— David Feherty (@Fehertwit) April 14, 2013

[Actually David, there is a cure for stupid. It's Rule 33-7!]

However, as Farb points out, the Committee's actions were in fact correct, using a different rule:

"The appropriate term for this is "Committee Error."  If you look at Decision 34-3/1, the Committee is entitled to correct an incorrect ruling in stroke play provided the competition has not closed.  They may do so by either rescinding an incorrectly assessed penalty or assessing a penalty not previously given.  That is exactly what they did in this case, but the explanations given have been very poor in terms of the Rules of Golf."

And that part of the rule only holds up IF you assume what the Committee did constituted as a ruling. Is a non-ruling still a ruling?

So in the end, the committee acted within its right, did what they thought was fair and Tiger ended up with the same penalty that he would've gotten had they talked it out before he signed the scorecard. We took the scenic route, but ended up with a 'nothing to see here'. Now hopefully we can enjoy the back nine on Sunday just like every other year. Time to go sit my butt on the couch.

4 for 40: My (Five) Hundred Hole Hike Plan for 2013

There are few things crazier than a man who is about to turn 40. Everyone seems to react to it a bit differently. One friend decided to get into "the best shape of his life," a fairly common reaction. I turn 40 this October, and had the misguided notion that I needed to dunk a basketball for the first time in my life, a plan that quite literally has not gotten very high off the ground. Is there something psychologically significant about approaching 40? Something that tells us that our best days are behind us?

Years ago, some enterprising 39-year old golf addict figured out that the 40th birthday is an iron-clad excuse to take a killer golf trip. Like most middle-aged men with young families, any golf trip requires a careful juggling act between spousal support and parental responsibilities. In my house, this usually starts by "floating the concept", which can be something as non-threatening as "Jeff's talking about going to Ireland again" or even more direct like "I got invited to play in this tournament". It's not as much about gaining spousal approval as it is about gauging the initial reaction -- determining whether it's something you want to pursue further. I have concept floating down to a science, though my success rate is driven largely by having an all-world wife (and the fact that I wait until she's half asleep to bring it up...yes, flights have been booked and tee times made based on groggy, incoherent grunts).

For whatever reason, that 40-year old golf trip is a different animal. Whereas most buddy trips require "cashing in some chips", generally wives are completely on-board with the special 40-year old trip. Some even do all the planning! A friend last year left us all speechless and completely envious when he was heading straight from our weekend at Ballyneal to San Francisco for a round that his wife set-up for him at Cypress Point! Other friends have set-up similar once-in-a-lifetime trips to Monterey, Australia, Ireland and Bandon.

With that as a backdrop, my beautiful wife Sue repeatedly asked me, "what do you want to do for your 40th birthday?" Immediately, I gravitated to some of those same popular golf destinations mentioned above. But eventually, my heart and head brought me back to Hundred Hole Hike and wanting to do something to raise awareness for the event in general and hopefully a lot of money for a worthwhile cause. Eventually, I had one of the single greatest moments of enlightenment in my 39 years and 4 months of existence: why not do both?

Today, I'm thrilled and slightly terrified to present the following...

Pinehurst.
Ballyneal.
St. Andrews.
Cabot Links.

Streamsong Battle: Red vs. Blue?

Streamsong: How do you split 10 rounds at Streamsong?

The (Nearly) 40-Year Old (PGA Show) Virgin

Over the course of a man's life, certain dates just stick out as landmark events. First kiss (Beth Weckler, October 23, 1989). First date with your future wife (October 9, 1993). 21st birthday. (October 20, 1994) Wedding day (September 4, 1999) First "time" (ditto). Kids being born. First 155-hole marathon for charity (June 22, 2011). First dunk (TBD).

Then there's January 25, 2013. After 39 years, 3 months and 5 days of anticipation, I finally popped my PGA Show cherry.

The PGA Merchandise Show is golf's Super Bowl. Every January, the Orange County Convention Center is filled with golf industry insiders, buyers, reps, media, celebrities and entrepreneurs looking to see the hot products for the upcoming year. For the Average Joe like you or me, this usually means being on the outside looking in. Our only glimpse of the action is from YouTube clips, GolfWRX threads or equipment blog posts. To me, the PGA show has always looked like a magical fairyland of golf gadgetry. Oh what I wouldn't do for one of those badges.

Thanks to my good friends at TRUE linkswear and my self-labeled 'Brand Ambassador' title, I bagged a badge. It was on like Donkey Kong.

One Divot Auction

On Tuesday, I launched a fundraiser auction to support The Midnight Golf Program in Detroit. Details are below. Please support this worthwhile cause by spreading the word, bidding on an item or maybe even donating a golf-related item.

One Divot Charity Golf Auction Fundraiser for The Midnight Golf Program

Online auction for rounds of golf at top courses and other valuable golf-related items

Proceeds to support Midnight Golf, serving young men and women in Detroit

One Divot matching 20% of auction proceeds up to $3,000

What is The Midnight Golf Program?

Since 2001, more than 1,000 young people have participated in The Midnight Golf Program. The Program teaches life skills, including personal and professional development, college preparation and giving back to the community along with learning to play golf. The young men and women come from across the Detroit area. Adult volunteers serve as mentors and golf is taught by Class A PGA professional instructors. The expectation is that the experience will develop empowered, socially responsible young adults prepared to maximize their potential. For more details, go to http://www.midnightgolf.org/

The Auction

The online auction begins on Tuesday, January 22nd and will continue until we run out of items! The fundraiser will be operated through eBay’s Giving Works, which ensures that 100% of the sale proceeds go to the nonprofit organization (in this case, One Divot). One Divot will funnel 100% of the proceeds to Midnight Golf and will match 20% of the funds raised, up to $3,000.

The items set for auction include (click each item to be taken to the eBay auction listing or click here to be taken to a list of all open auction items):

A threesome of golf with Tom Doak at Crystal Downs in Frankfort, MI

A threesome of golf at Oakland Hills Country Club (South Course) in Bloomfield Twp., MI

A threesome of golf at The Olympic Club in San Francisco

A foursome of golf at Ballyneal Golf Club in Holyoke, CO

A threesome of golf with P.B. Dye at Urbana Country Club in Urbana, OH

A threesome of golf at The Course at Yale in New Haven, CT

A threesome of golf at White Manor Country Club in Malvern, PA

A foursome of golf at Paramount Country Club in New City, NY

A signed and personalized copy of The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses by Tom Doak

For more information, or to donate a golf-related item for auction, please contact Jim Colton at jim@onedivot.org or David Gamlin at dgamlin@midnightgolf.org

About One Divot

One Divot is a non-profit organization that, through creative, golf-related fundraising events like the Hundred Hole Hike, brings together passionate golfers seeking to make a positive impact on the lives of others. Specifically, money raised through direct donations and corporate sponsorship will go into one of two key areas:

1. To provide support to individuals in the golf "family" who are in dire need of medical or financial assistance;
2. To develop and provide support to "grow the game" initiatives, particularly amongst youths in traditionally underserved areas.

One Divot's directors and other active participants are all unpaid volunteers seeking to fulfill One Divot's above mission out of a shared respect and passion for the game.

Incorporated in April 2012, One Divot is a non-profit public charity exempt from Federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code.

Rbzdiculous

One of the best golf purchases I made this offseason is a Players Club Plus pass at the local PGA Superstore here in Chicago. For $99, you get to use their simulators and practice bays as much as you want for 30-minute increments (and as long as no one is waiting, you can keep rolling over session after session). I've been able to go about twice a week since November, usually with one of my kids in tow. It's been a great way to stay loose over the offseason, spend time with the kids, and hit a bunch of golf equipment.

The PGA Superstore uses simulators from AboutGolf (http://www.aboutgolf.com/) and though I really have no idea as to the accuracy of the numbers, they seem to be in the ballpark and there are a bunch of them. Numbers and golf are probably my two favorite things, so I'm like a kid in the candy store with this software. Until I can convince my wife that we need to install one of these in our basement (it's an investment in our kids, honey!), I'll keep making the 15-minute drive to Lombard to hang out with my boys Milo, Steve and the gang who roll their eyes and graciously start setting up a bay whenever they see me walk in the door.

Earlier this week, my buddy and fellow lefty Wego and I hit the Schaumburg store together and took turns testing out some of the demo clubs. Being left-handed, it's generally hard to test new equipment. As a result, I generally don't buy clubs that often. When trying to find Wego a driver to test out, I stumbled on a demo set of TaylorMade Rocketbladez (non-tour) irons in lefty, something the Lombard store didn't have yet. I grabbed a 6-iron in both regular and stiff shaft and took them back to the simulators.

The Rocketbladez are the next big thing (or 'this little thing' if you follow their marketing and social media campaign) in TMAG's arsenal of clubs. Similar to the Rocketballz hybrids and fairway woods that have a speed pocket in the sole, the irons have some sort of magical flubber injected into a slot in the clubhead to increase ball speed and thus distance. The early buzz on these clubs and distance claims were almost too good to be true, though it's difficult to know what's marketing schtick vs. true performance. As details started coming out, we came to realize that the lofts are 3* strong, with lighter and longer shafts. That combination was almost guaranteed to make the ball go farther.

So after explaining all of this to Wego, I stepped up and let the bulky, offset 6-iron fly.

It carried 227 yards and 236 yards total. Whoa. As in Brent Musberger Whoooooa!

Next ball: 226 yards carry, 235 yards total. 6-iron!

The next five balls were all about the same, averaging around 225 yards. We were laughing about the distance and the ridiculousness of the all. While Wego took a couple cuts, I grabbed a 4-iron and PW to see how far those went. I hit a 4-iron 265 yards. Pitching wedge 180.

But despite those distances, I still wasn't a believer. They felt pretty solid, but who wants to hit a pitching wedge 180 yards? I just got three new wedges for Christmas. I'd have to get two more to fill in all the gaps between 105-175 yards.

One caveat: these demo clubs were graphite shafts. I'd never hit graphite-shafted irons before but initially thought that was all they had. It wasn't until we were leaving that I saw some steel shafted demo irons. So I vowed to come back and test them out side-by-side with one of my current clubs, a Mizuno MP-32 (these are my backup clubs. I play with old Mizuno MP30 irons that I keep out in Colorado. I got these MP32's on ebay a few years ago. I believe they have Project X shafts, but the stickers have come off so I don't know the stiffness.)

I was able to do the side-by-side showdown earlier this evening. I don't really know what all these numbers mean, other than it's a good thing I have a decent short game! The Rocketbladez were about 14 yards further on average, with slightly lower launch angle and lower spin rates. I can miss +/- 15 yards with the best of 'em no matter what bat is in my hand.

I'll be making my virgin trip to the PGA Show in Orlando in a couple weeks, and hope to get my hands on some of the Rocketbladez Tour irons with less offset and more traditional topline (Dustin Johnson just won with them in Hawaii). I'll be interested in comparing those numbers side-by-side. For now, my long-term marriage with Mizuno's is still intact. But the Rocketbladez are a little bit like A.J. McCarron's girlfriend. Part of me wants to take them to get wings and then to King of Diamonds after a sim session.

Champion: Mizuno MP-32 6-iron

Challenger: TaylorMade Rocketbladez (non-tour) 6-iron

The Shot Chart

New Golf Digest Rankings, America's Greatest 100 Golf Courses 2013-2014

The Dell Hole didn't survive, but that didn't stop Erin Hills from debuting at #10 in the 2013-14 America's 100 Greatest Public Courses

With its February issue, Golf Digest updated its definitive list of America's Greatest 100 golf courses. You can see the full-list with write-ups on the top 100 overall and public courses below.

• 2013-14 Ranking: America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses
• 2013-14 Ranking: America's 100 Greatest Public Courses

For the first time, the magazine provided a glimpse at the courses in the next 100, with its "Second 100 Greatest". You can see the list here.

For a historical perspective, check out this google document that has a list of all of the Golf Digest rankings going back to 1975.

If you're really into numbers, I put together this spreadsheet survey (it's hosted on Google Drive, but you need to download it and open in Excel) that helps you determine which of the seven Golf Digest ratings criteria is important to you, then provides a more customized top 100 list. The survey will ask you to select amongst groups of 10 courses, based on whether you feel one group in collectively underrated or overrated relative to the other group. In the first tab, you can select the courses you've played (or paste in '1' for all rows to have the survey select all the courses).  You need at least 20 courses selected in order for the survey to work correctly. Once you're done scoring the 21 questions in the survey, the results tab provides the customized results. Please let me know what weights you come up with in the comment box below.

#savetheoldcourse

We've recently encountered golf architecture's version of Occupy Wall Street: #savetheoldcourse. In case you haven't heard, the St. Andrews Links Trust, the charitable organization that exists to manage the courses and protect the history and spirit of the Home of Golf, recently announced that it was making significant changes to the Old Course. All of this seems to be motivated by making the course better suited (tougher, sloggier, able to accept faster green speeds, etc.) for championship play in preparation for the 2015 Open Championship.

Martin Hawtree, who comes across as Smithers to R&A Chief Executive Peter Dawson's Mr. Burns, has earned the Old Course commission. A press release went out just last Friday outlining all of the proposed changes, some of which have already begun. The work includes expanding the Road Hole bunker and altering the slopes leading into the green and softening the undulations on the par 3 11th, perhaps the most replicated but never duplicated one-shotters on the planet.

Changing contours that have been untouched for years (if ever) has a number of people up in arms, including many leading architects in the industry. My BFF Tom Doak wrote a letter to American Society of Golf Course Architects asking them to join him in taking a stand against these changes. You can see a copy of Doak's letter here. Here's hoping that other big names will follow suit and take a stand for something worth fighting for.

There are other grass roots efforts going as well. A change.org petition has been started, and is nearing the 200 signature mark in its first day. Twitter is ablaze with back and forth chatter both adamantly against and frustratingly flaccid on the topic. I started the #savetheoldcourse hashtag a few days ago, and it is slowly gaining steam. Feel free to join the fray.

The timing of this issue is particularly interesting given the USGA/R&A's joint conference-call to ban belly-putters tomorrow. Once again, it seems the powers that be are focusing on the wrong issue. The advancements in equipment and golf ball have rendered a lot of classic courses moot -- either they have to find room for more tee boxes or they get left behind. Why are we carving up the most historic golf course of them all in order to appease the R&A for a tournament held four days every five years? Just because Louis Oostihuizen obliterated the course (and the field) two years ago?

Certainly, the belly putter will get plenty of airtime on GolfChannel's Morning Drive this week. But isn't there a bigger issue here? Desecrating the Old Course proves that nothing is sacred any more. Where do we go from here?

[For a running gallery of construction pics, check out this golfclubatlas.com thread]

Introducing: Can Jim Dunk?

A little side project to keep me busy during golf's offseason. Can Jim Dunk is about one man's quest to slam dunk a basketball before his 40th birthday. Check it out!