Tag Archives: Bill Amick

November 4, 2012 · 10:57 pm

Hillcrest Holes: As Remembered Or Not?

Bill Amick, as befits a recent winner of the American Society of Golf Course Architects’ Distinguished Service Award, wasted no time in responding to my post about 45th-ranked Hillcrest at Heartland GC.

You can’t know what a relief it is for me to read your latest blog with assuring evidence that the The Earlier Donald’s #9 green is being at least semi-restored at Hillcrest. I want to repeat what I’ve said to others about that course being truly outstanding. The way Ross utilized the rolling contours for great holes always made it a pleasure for me to visit. He seemed somewhat of a Picasso in that dirt.

Hillcrest's 14th green

The 14th at Kansas City’s Hillcrest: Who built the wall? (John Garrity)

But my closing question about Amick’s 1984 renovation work — How about it, Bill? Do you still have the blueprints? — left the Florida-based architect at a loss.

Certainly, I still have the plans for all the greens I redid there, just as I have all the course drawings I’ve ever prepared. They are safely in rolls in correctly-labeled slots. My only problem is that I have trouble remembering where the cabinets of those drawings are located. But that is no surprise, since after long flights from overseas I can hardly recall the city and house I live in.

I asked about Amick’s blueprints in the context of Hillcrest’s par-4 fifth hole, which I have come to admire for its understated difficulty and purity of form. But it was actually the par-3 fourteenth that made me want to rummage through his rolled-up construction drawings. That’s because my childhood memories of Hillcrest don’t include a water hazard.* Today’s Hillcrest, of course, has this very attractive water hole with reeds guarding the left side and a stone wall serving as a decorative bulkhead.

*My memories of some Hillcrest summers don’t even include water. Drought and a lack of fairway irrigation left some fairways as firm as sidewalks. I hit my first 300-yard drive when I was 12.

Amick didn’t need his drawings to confirm my memory of a waterless par 3.

Yes, I am to blame for the pond fronting and siding #14 green. But not the stone wall. I didn’t want to risk giving the great Ross indigestion, even in his grave.

Amick’s fourteenth, even with the mischievous masonry, is markedly superior to the original Ross par 3. Positioned as it was, well downhill from the clubhouse, Ross’s hole turned into a lake during downpours and was susceptible to erosion. Amick fixed that without changing the essential character of the hole. I’m sure Ross, after a hearty dinner in his grave, would approve.**

** “Within a couple of hours after fourteen was reopened from construction,” Amick recalled, “a member holed his tee shot there. Now that’s what I call proof of true reward over risk.”

Amick concluded with a plea to “please keep us sports fans informed about the new/old #9 green at Heartland GC. That should be another stone in the wall of progress for a great course.”

Top 50 on TV: Nothing this week, but Ian Poulter won the WGC HSBC Champions on the 51st-ranked Olazabal Course at Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzhen, China. The course is actually a Schmidt-Curley design, but the developers named it for the Spanish golfer because it’s fun to hear the Chinese pronounce “Olazabal.”

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October 21, 2012 · 12:24 am

Donald Ross Green Taking Shape Again

It has been quiet on the ratings front. Catch Basin’s new concrete parking lot was sealed last week, and the Bomar Brain is down for maintenance. It being election season, we’ve rented out the big ratings board to the local TV station that sold it to us. (I fully expect to see an election-night victory call of incumbent Rep. Emanuel Cleaver over tenth-ranked Royal Portrush GC.) On the competitive front, our South-Atlantic ratings chief, David Henson, won the MGA Individual Match Play Championship at 51st-ranked Palmetto Hall Plantation for the second straight year, and last week I teamed up with my Tour Tempo co-author, John Novosel, to run away with the St. Francis Xavier Celebrity Two-Man Scramble at 45th-ranked Hillcrest at Heartland GC.

Ninth green at Hillcrest/Heartland

In September, Hillcrest’s old ninth green was re-graded and drain tiles were installed. (John Garrity).

Speaking of Hillcrest, the venerable Kansas City track is making great progress on the restoration of Donald Ross’s original ninth green. Located for most of the club’s history at the end of the ninth hole, the Ross green was abandoned a few years back at the urging of a since-departed club executive. A miniature green suitable for a putt-putt course was subsequently installed at a random point in the fairway, fronted by a stone wall that has caused Ross to spin so vigorously in his grave that he has drilled down through bedrock and struck oil.

When I first brought up the Hillcrest project in a recent post, I unintentionally gave the impression that the bogus green was the work of GCSAA Hall of Famer Bill Amick, who oversaw a 1984 renovation of Hillcrest. “That was certainly not the case,” Amick informed me in a recent phone call, “and I don’t know why anyone would impose stone walls on a Donald Ross green. That’s anything but subtle.”

I heard from Amick again in response to my column celebrating Hillcrest’s par-4 fifth as my favorite hole of the summer. “You hit me in my professional pride, right where it hurts most,” he wrote.

For I don’t much recall Hillcrest’s fifth hole — and I spent a good bit of quality time on that course. The picture you included didn’t help, even though, as my wife says, I pay attention to golf holes, if little else. So I viewed Hillcrest using Google Maps, and that wasn’t a whole lotta help, either. I must confess that I recall more about Green Lawn Cemetery [across the road from and paralleling Hillcrest’s first hole] than the fairway of number five sloping to the left. Could I really be wrong in thinking that the “Carolina pasture-plower” concentrated more on getting players from the green of #4 to the tee of #6 than he did in making that a special hole? But there it all is in your September 7 blog, and you’ve likely messed up that hole enough times to know.

Perhaps Herbert Warren Wind was wrong when he wrote something like “One mark of a great course is that after a single round you can distinctly remember each of its holes.” I can still clearly visualize Hillcrest’s opening hole and several others, but not the fifth.

My purpose in this message, if I really have any, is this. I believe you might be misleading “a neighbor,” who just happens to be your grandson Jack, about your current favorite golf hole. I do agree with many of your other conclusions on courses and holes around the world, but on this particular selection, maybe you’d better stick to playing catch with Jack after dinner.

Yours, Bill (known to some of his friends as The Overbunkerer)

Hillcrest's new/old ninth green

October saw the first green shoots sprouting on Donald Ross’s original green site. (John Garrity)

I chuckled knowingly when I read Amick’s e-mail. Twenty-eight years have passed since he performed his miracles at Hillcrest; his memory will understandably be cloudy concerning a hole that was unremarkable back when Ronald Reagan was seeking a second term. But Hillcrest’s fifth, like a fine wine, has improved with age. It is one of those rare holes that, having long been bad, ripens into something sublime.

It’s possible, of course, that Amick doctored the hole in a way that led to its ultimate improvement, and he’s forgotten that. How about it, Bill? Do you still have the blueprints?

Top 50 on TV: Nothing this week, but a tennis injury has forced Ernie Els to pull out of next week’s PGA Grand Slam of Golf at 51st-ranked Port Royal Golf Club in Bermuda. I only mention it so I can remind everyone of my own first-place finish in the 2006 PGA Grand Slam Pro-Am at 15th-ranked Poipu Bay Golf Course on the island of Kauai. That’s the year, if you’ve forgotten, that three scramble partners and I carried Tiger Woods to victory. My trophy, a slightly smaller version of the crystal-spire-upon-a-walnut-base prize that Tiger has won seven times, greets visitors as they enter Catch Basin from our new and very expensive parking lot.

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July 20, 2012 · 8:09 am

Clearing Up ‘Dwarf Course’ Comment

A reader from Daytona Beach, Fla., gets right to the point: “You don’t know what a ‘dwarf course’ is? What a fool some folks are!”

The reader refers to golf architect Bill Amick’s remark, in my last post, that he was off to West Africa to build a dwarf course at an eco lodge. Or maybe it was an eco course at a dwarf lodge. But the reader, now that I look more closely, is Bill Amick. So I’ll let him explain the term.

I coined that label, dwarf course, because of my mother. She was a wonderful woman and I loved her very much, but she was short. For some reason, she was never fond of me calling her a dwarf. Hey, she should have known that life, like golf, is not always fair. For instance, she could not have become a member of the Augusta National Golf Club. Though that was not because of her limited vertical stature.

Having cleared that up, Bill comments on the rankings:

I was extremely pleased that Ridgewood Golf Club [formerly Chestuee Golf & Country Club] made it into your latest top 20. And I’m proud that, after looking it up, I know it by its current name. It has always been a rule of mine that a golf course architect should at least know the names of the courses he or she has designed. Not knowing would be almost as bad as the over-the-hill touring pro who, having put his signature on a course, had to be pointed in the direction of the first tee for the ceremonial opening round.

And I find Grand Reserve a welcome addition to your aqua-range list. I can’t think of a better use for treated sewer water.

Turning to the new, Bill drops a tidbit or two about his detour through Scotland:

As you know, I made it up to The Trump in Aberdeen [No. 51] to share the ceremonies with my friend Martin Hawtree. And here’s what really burned me. As my taxi was delivering me down the entrance road, The Donald was leaving in his long black limo. He did not wait for me at the clubhouse nor even wave as we passed on the road. I guess some Americans are just rude.

I did get a tour of His course by the Hawtree team, so my visit was not a complete bummer. I was impressed by it all, and in a later message I’ll attach what I write for ByDesign with my impressions of the course.

When I got to Ghana, I’m happy to say, there was no rude American passing me in his long black limo as I entered the property. But I did think of my dear, late mother. Have I ever mentioned that she was not a particularly tall person?

Shipnuck and Bamberger Putting

Shipnuck putts and Bamberger tends the flag on a course not unlike Royal Birkdale. (John Garrity)

Top 50 on TV: Nothing this week, but on Wednesday afternoon I joined my Sports Illustrated colleagues, Alan Shipnuck and Michael Bamberger, for a lovely round at 17th-ranked Royal Birkdale Golf Club. We were playing hooky from our British Open assignments, but Alan made it kosher by writing a broadly-comical yet deeply-moving GOLF.com column about our round. (Deeply moving when he describes me as a “premier ball striker”; broadly comical when he pegs Michael as a “crafty” links player.)

About which Amick, in a follow-up e-mail, complained, “All you golf writers ever seem to do is play great courses. And now we have to read about it?”

No, but I’m sure Bill will want to read this legend that was on the wall of the first Royal Birkdale clubhouse:

“As the earth is not meant to be carted away The divots you cut in the course of your play Should be neatly replaced by your caddie or you, With their roots to the earth and their blades to the blue”

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July 16, 2012 · 9:14 am

‘World’s Best Course’: Where Does It Rank?

“Save five or more spots on your next list for the new ‘Best Course in the World,’” writes golf architect Bill Amick, a Top 50 fixture. “That’s according to it’s developer, one of the world’s most humble persons.”

Filtering out the sarcasm, I infer that Amick wants us to take a look at the Trump International Golf Links of Aberdeen, Scotland, Donald Trump’s latest and most-ambitious golf project. But unbenownst to Amick, Trump-Aberdeen debuted last month at No. 51 on the strength of Travelin’ Joe Passov’s GOLF Magazine review, which was grudgingly favorable. “For all the hyperbole,” Joe wrote with gritted teeth, “Trump Scotland might turn out to be as good as advertised.”

No course cracks the Top 50 until it’s been rated by myself or by our ratings director, Gary Van Sickle. Neither of us, sad to say, has been able to get up to Aberdeen for a walkaround. In the meantime, we’re waiting to hear from Amick, who was invited to the grand opening by Trump Scotland’s designer, Martin Hawtree, who was celebrating the 100th anniversary of his firm.*

* Hawtree, known for his renovation of Royal Birkdale Golf Club and other Open Championship venues, has not been around that long. The firm, which describes itself as “The World’s Longest Continuous Golf Architectural Practice,” was founded in 1912 by Martin’s grandfather, Frederic George Hawtree, and carried on by his father, Frederic William Hawtree.

Judging solely from photographs, I’m inclined to put TIGL in the upper echelon of modern links courses, close behind sixth-ranked Castle Stuart, the eighth-ranked European Club, and 40th-ranked Kingsbarns. Had Trump not spent $155 million on it, I might even compare his Aberdeen track to the incomparable Askernish and Carne links, currently rated one-two. (Old Tom Morris designed the former for ten shillings per hole, while the great Eddie Hackett gave Carne seven years of his attention in return for a few expense checks, which he was loath to cash.)

“After Aberdeen I go to Ghana,” Amick concludes, “where I’m designing a dwarf course at a new eco lodge.”

Unsure of what constitutes a dwarf course, I Googled the term and found a YouTube video called “Dwarf Course 1,” which shows British teenagers running a playground obstacle course. “Eco Lodge,” meanwhile, linked me to a number of “green hotels,” including a treehouse lodge in the Australian rain forest. I could speculate on what Amick has in mind for West Africa, but I think I’ll just wait for his next e-mail.

Castle Stuart

Castle Stuart was built for windy conditions. Note the whitecaps on the Moray Firth. (John Garrity)

Top 50 on TV: Nothing this week, but Castle Stuart just concluded its second hosting of the Scottish Open with Jeev Milkha Singh claiming the trophy. “After three opening rounds of very low scoring, Castle Stuart finally bared its teeth,” reports the Associated Press. “A fierce westerly wind and heavy rain at times proved too much for top-ranked Luke Donald (73) and Phil Mickelson (74), who both finished tied for 16th at 12-under.” The AP doesn’t quantify how “fierce” the wind was, but I’ve played Castle Stuart in gusts of up to 65 mph, which blew my bag over, shattered my umbrella, and caused my ball to roll of its own accord on the back of the 12th green. That aside, the course was both playable and enjoyable. Castle Stuart deserves its sixth ranking.

It’s on to Royal Lytham & St. Annes (No. 132) for the Open Championship. Wet and windy weather is forecast.

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June 29, 2012 · 5:49 pm

Florida Aqua-range Plunks in Top Five

E-mails that open with “I was extremely pleased to learn” are always welcome here at Catch Basin. So is correspondence from any of our Top 50 course designers, living or dead.* Both attributes attach to this nice note from Bill Amick, designer of 20th-ranked Ridgewood Golf Club and renovator of Donald Ross’s 45th-ranked Hillcrest Course at Kansas City’s Heartland Golf Club.

*Before you submit an error alert, please revisit my “Golf Ghost” series of interviews in SI Golf+, which included lively chats with Donald Ross and Alister MacKenzie. 

Hillcrest CC No. 5

The fifth at Heartland reflects the collaborative efforts of Donald Ross and Bill Amick.

Amick begins, “I was extremely pleased to learn that Casserly Par 3 Golf Course has finally broken into your Top 50. It has been neglected far too long in this regard.”

But I’m still disappointed to see that two highly-regarded aqua-ranges — the one at the Mike Beebe-designed Grand Reserve Golf Club in Bunnell, Fla., and mine at Meadow Oaks Golf and Country Club in Hudson, Fla. — are not on your Best Aqua-ranges list. [See right sidebar] The Grand’s range is filled with greywater, I think. (I can never remember if it’s greywater or graywater, although both seem to come out of a sewer pipe.) The Meadow’s is a plain old Florida sinkhole filled with stagnant water.

Treating Amick’s concerns with the proper sense of urgency, I immediately called Gary Van Sickle, our aqua-range ratings manager. Van Sickle listened to the Florida-based architect’s critique before issuing a decisive “Whatever.” So, as of this afternoon, Grand Reserve is No. 4 in the Aqua-range ranking, passing Imperial Lakewoods GC of Palmetto, Fla. Meanwhile, the aqua-range at Meadow Oaks remains unranked despite Amick’s puffing it up as “a plain old Florida sinkhole filled with stagnant water.” That’s because I never allow friendship, reputation or inadequate monetary considerations to influence our rankings.

Amick had more to say in his e-mail, including his role in celebrating the upcoming opening of the so-called “Best Course in the World” in Scotland. I’ll address that, as well as Amick’s plans for a “dwarf course” in Ghana, in my next post.

Royal Portrush Golf Club

Tenth-ranked Royal Portrush is a gold-medal track. (John Garrity)

Top 50 on TV: The Irish are holding their Irish Open on one of my personal favorites, the 10th-ranked Dunluce Course at Royal Portrush Golf Club. I played there last July on the finest afternoon County Antrim has ever seen, so my perceptions may be rose-colored. But I think not. While there, I got to see Darren Clarke’s Open Championship medal in a clubhouse display case previously devoted to 1947 Open champion Fred Daly. “For me this is the best golf course in the world,” Clarke had said earlier in the week. “I am very privileged to give Royal Portrush the gold medal.”

Others must rate Royal Portrush almost as highly. With roughly 27,000 spectators per day, Clarke’s home course is the first European Tour venue to completely sell out for every round.

 

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July 2, 2011 · 2:52 pm

Golf Gadfly (Bill Amick) Gets His Due

“You made a joke in SI about Heritage Classic winners looking ‘bad in plaid,’” writes a reader from the Vatican City. “The proper term is ‘tartan,’ but that’s beside the point. You shouldn’t ridicule a garment that symbolizes achievement or high attainment.”

Two sentences, two complaints. Yes, I “joked” about the gaudy blazer using “plaid” instead of “tartan”, but that’s because the rhyme for tartan wouldn’t have gotten past my editors. As for the argument that tartan blazers should command respect, I say, “Only if it’s the Donald Ross tartan worn by members of the American Society of Golf Course Architects.”

Bill Amick at ASGCA meeting in Denver

Bill Amick, left, can wear plaid.

The Ross tartan, modeled by former ASGCA president Bill Amick in the adjoining photograph, is a particularly distinguished variant of the Highlanders’ weave. The man wearing it, I might add, is a particularly distinguished member of the ASGCA, inasmuch as he is shown receiving the architects’ Distinguished Service Award in Denver at their 65th annual meeting. Amick, in his 52nd year as a golf architect, is only the fourth pasture-plower to receive the DSA.

Amick is well known to followers of the Top 50. Gut Heckenhof Hotel und Golfresort, in Germany’s Rhein-Sieg National Park, is currently No. 20, while his tasteful redesign of Ross’s Hillcrest Country Club in Kansas City, Mo., is 45th. The second 50 pays tribute to four more Amick courses:  No. 53, Killearn Country Club, Tallahassee, Fla. (longtime venue for PGA Tour, Champions Tour, and LPGA events); No. 68, Sky Meadow Country Club, Nashua, N.H. (deemed the best course in New Hampshire by Golf Digest); No. 89, The Vineyards Country Club (South Course), Naples, Fla. (a former Champions Tour site and Golfweek honoree); and No. 97, Mangrove Bay Golf Course, St. Petersburg, Fla. (a Golf Digest Top-50 public track).

But it is Amick’s contribution to the debate about golf’s future that is his real legacy. For decades he was the lonely gadfly waving the red flag while his peers poured billions of dollars into courses that were too long, too hard, too remote, too exclusive and too expensive to maintain. When Jack Nicklaus proposed a shorter version of golf using his limited-flight “Cayman ball,” only one architect answered the challenge by building an 18-hole course for its use.* That man was Bill Amick.

* Eagle Landing Golf Club, Hanahan, S.C. 

German golf course Gut Heckenhof

Amick's Gut Heckenhof is plenty goodenof.

“In these times of a slower economy and lower golfer participation,” Amick told his colleagues in May, “many areas have enough championship courses. However, the game could use more courses that are easier, faster to play, and which have lower fee to encourage and keep new golfers of all ages. Smaller courses will not replace the standard 18-hole par 72 model, but will compliment and supplement those larger courses.”

Those smaller courses, Amick was too polite to suggest, could be built on the fallow land left by bankrupt golf developments.

But I digress. The reader is right, honorific garb should be given a pass by the fashion police. I might even slip on a green jacket, if offered the right incentives.

Top 50 on TV: Nothing this week, but the U.S. Public Links Championships (Golf Channel) for men and women are drawing to a close on Mike Keiser’s 55th-ranked Old Macdonald in Bandon, Ore. Old Macdonald shares the four-course Bandon Dunes Golf Resort with 26th-ranked Pacific Dunes, Tom Doak’s contribution to Keiser’s dream of an American linksland.

Next week, the cameras descend upon No. 7 Castle Stuart Golf Links, the new home of the Barclays Scottish Open. Castle Stuart is the eighth course in the current Top 10 to serve as a venue for elite-level competition and the first course to achieve that recognition on the strength of our Top 50 imprimatur. So we’ll be watching.

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January 24, 2010 · 4:16 pm

Where’s the Post-Panic Golf Boom?

I’m not often wrong, but I definitely misread this Great Recession thing. “Hot damn!” I told my golf-architect pals last winter. “You’ll be up to your armpits in federal funds! You’ll go down in history for Pinehurst No. 12, Pebble Beach New and Bethpage Mauve!” I even advised one of my designer friends, Bill Amick, to invite New York mayor Michael Bloomberg to Tavern on the Green to discuss a new muni in Central Park. I told Bill, “You could call it The Links at Strawberry Fields!”

My mistake was in assuming that our current financial crisis would lead to a national consensus on stimulus spending and jobs programs. The Great Depression, remember, was good for golf. New Deal programs such as the WPA and CWA spent millions of dollars on ball fields, boat ramps, hiking trails and golf courses, which allowed taxpayer money to trickle down to the likes of legendary golf architect A.W. Tillinghast, who used it to build classic public courses like Long Island’s Bethpage Black (site of the 20002 and 2009 U. S. Opens) and Kansas City’s Swope Memorial (host to the 2005 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship).*

*For a thorough exploration of the New Deal golf boom, read Jeff Silverman’s terrific article, “Going Public,” in the June 15, 2009 issue of Sports Illustrated Golf Plus.

This time, however, a perfectly good Financial Panic will be wasted. The wimpy $787 billion stimulus package that Congress passed last year explicitly ruled out funding for “basketball courts, tanning salons, swimming pools, wineries, bordellos, puppy mills, sweat shops, cockfight arenas, sidewalks or paved areas within 400 yards of Keith Olbermann, and golf facilities.” Golf, in other words, will not be allowed to benefit from 10% unemployment and trillion-dollar deficits.

I raised this sorry state of affairs a few months ago in North Carolina during my six-courses-in-one-day golf outing with famed golf architect Tom Fazio. “Politically, it’s a different deal,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “You and I would like for this country to be like Ireland and Scotland, where every community has its own golf course. But there’s a lot of people who don’t play golf, and they don’t want that. And they don’t want an art studio, either. They want jobs for the industry that they’re in, or they want ‘economic development.’”

Tom, while searching his bag in vain for a driver that would hit the ball 290 yards with a two-yard draw, came up with an even better reason for our lawmakers’ indifference to golf course development: “The difference between now and the thirties, if you think about it, is we have enough golf courses out there.”

Enough courses? We have sixteen thousand of them, actually, in the U.S. alone. A non-golfer might argue that we have more than enough, given the fact that courses are going out of business, declaring bankruptcy or otherwise giving every indication that they might better serve their communities as dog parks or frisbee fields.*

*I would argue that we suffer from a golf-course shortage. That will become apparent in the spring, when the millions of golfers who normally stay home on weekends to watch Tiger Woods rush, en masse, to the links.

If a municipality really wants a golf course, Tom went on, it can acquire one for far less than it costs to build one. “But where are they going to get the money from? You look at every state and municipal budget — they’re broke! And if they’re not broke, they won’t spend on recreation. They’re shutting down recreation.”

The upside, Tom admitted, is that he can now play golf almost any day of the week. Which is easy to do, since Tom’s winter office in Tequesta, Fla., is right across the highway from the Jupiter Hills Club (No. 10), designed by his tour-player uncle, George Fazio.

For more of Tom Fazio on the plight of the golf industry, check out my feature, “Back to the Drawing Board,” in the February 2010 issue of GOLF Magazine. Or simply click here, saving yourself a few bucks and pushing my former employers that much closer to insolvency.

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