Robinson Overcomes Unique Design Limits

Golf course architect Ted Robinson has faced many challenges in a career that has included designing 170 courses worldwide.

Robinson, based in Laguna Niguel, has turned many flat pieces of land--Tustin Ranch, for instance--into challenging courses with a natural feel that belies the fact that they are totally man-made.

He has also capitalized on nature with impressive results, just check out the back nine at Tijeras Creek.

Robinson also used nature to the fullest advantage in 1969 when he designed Sahalee Country Club in Redmond, Wash. But the beauty of the course was a bit of a secret until this month, when the course hosted the PGA Championship and reviewed impressive reviews.

But Robinson said he has never dealt with anything as unique as the Lake nine at Los Coyotes Country Club on the Buena Park-Fullerton border.

Three of the holes were to be built over the infamous McColl toxic dump, where about 72,600 cubic yards of petroleum waste sludge were dumped from 1942 to 1946.

After years of legal battles, the area was finally cleaned up and an elaborate cap that includes 17,000 tons of protective rock, was installed.

There are several other protective measures in the ground, leaving Robinson with little to do but mold the holes on the surface.

“We would have liked to dug down but couldn’t,” Robinson said. “But I’m happy with the results. This is the most unique thing I’ve dealt with. I was a little apprehensive but it was interesting.

“It opened up some new avenues and it all worked out well.”

The first of the new holes, which is No. 6, is a dogleg-right par 4 that measures from 399 to 376 yards.

The seventh is a par three that is from 148 to 111 yards. The short hole over water with sand traps left and long, plays into the wind and it’s easy to come up short of the green.

The eighth is a par four (374 to 359 yards) that also bends to the right.

“The challenge here is to build a course so people don’t know what it was and hopefully [others] will forget what it was,” Robinson said.

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Robinson has five projects under construction, including ones in Costa Rica, Colorado and Las Vegas.

But the thing he is most excited about is a month away from starting in Santa Clarita.

It’s there that a 36-hole complex called Robinson Ranch (after Ted Robinson) will be built.

They are the first two new courses in Los Angeles County in 20 years, according to Robinson.

The mountain course will back up to the Angeles National Forest and the valley course will wind among about 1,000 oak trees.

“It will be like golf should be played, no houses,” Robinson said. “It’s the prettiest site in Southern California I’ve seen. In this case we have nature working for us. We don’t have to manufacture everything.”

Robinson hopes the course will be ready for play in late fall of 1999.

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New course: The county will soon have another upscale layout to call its own. The Aliso Viejo Resort and Golf Club, a Jack Nicklaus-designed 27-hole course, is shooting for a mid- to late-December opening.

The course, co-owned by Newport Beach-based AMHC Corp. and Club Corp, is on rolling terrain between two existing housing tracts near Leisure World. Sod has been laid on the fairways of about nine holes and seeding of the greens will start in the next couple of weeks, said Greg Currens, vice president of AMHC Corp.

Currens said the plan is to open 18 holes in December, and the final nine in the spring, but the opening could be pushed back if necessary. “We’ve said all along we will not open until the course is ready,” Currens said.

When it does, players will get to try out an approximately 6,400-yard, par-71 course with sweeping views of the Saddleback Valley and the Santa Ana Mountains.

The nines will be new but some of the trees might look familiar to local golfers. The project dug up and moved about 130 trees from the now closed Imperial Golf Course in Brea.

Eventually, developers will add a 406-room resort--the foundation is scheduled to be poured late this year--in the middle of the complex, giving the county its first true resort course.

Greens fees are expected to be in the Tijeras Creek-Strawberry Farms range, so figure at least $100 on the weekend.

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Longshot shot: The odds are enormous but the payoff is huge and the cause is worthy in the Million Dollar Shoot Out at Los Alamitos Race Course Sept. 21-26.

Here’s the premise: For $1 a shot, any amateur over 18 who hasn’t played in a professional event can take a crack at a makeshift 141-yard hole (tee box in the grandstand, green over the race track in the infield). The two players who are closest to the pin each day will advance to the final, which will take place between races on Sept. 26.

The 10 players will each have one shot at a hole in one worth $1 million.

All proceeds will go to the Senior PGA Tour for the Cure, which is fighting prostate cancer. Jim Colbert, who recovered from prostate cancer diagnosed in 1997, will serve as the host of the event.

For more information call Los Alamitos Race Course, (714) 236-4300.

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Kresal and Beck can be reached with comments or suggestions at (714) 966-5904, fax 966-5663 or e-mail Steve.Kresal@latimes.com or Martin.Beck@latimes.com.