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Tour 18

I played Tour 18 Dallas about 3 years ago, and Tour 18 Houston last fall. They both have their bright spots for sure. I enjoyed the Agusta hole's better at the Dallas course, along with the blue monster. The Houston course has some great holes though like #6 at Bay Hill and the Disney Magnolia #6. The main difference I felt is the Flowermound course was truely more of a "tour" of the holes where as the Houston course feels more like a club that happens to be copies of famous holes. I also found the Houston course to play much tougher than the Flowermound counter part, but they are both pretty nice. With all the water east Texas has gotten lately I'm sure they are both in decent shape.
 
Tour 18 - Dallas TX

Tour 18 - Dallas TX

In my newbie-ness, I'm always trolling the web looking at the courses my bro-in-law has booked for our weekly outing, but this one I found on my own and wondered if any of you have ever played it?

Website is http://www.tour18-dallas.com/ and it looks really interesting, difficult and IS pretty pricey. They've replicated famous holes at famous courses...

What cha think?

spazzdog
 
Merged with a recent thread.
 
TY Smallville!
 
I forgot this thread existed! For those that want to know more about the lawsuits, here goes:

Basically, an attorney in North Carolina thought that copying the course designs should be considered trade dress or copyright infringement, so he started contacting the effected courses to see if they wanted to file a suit (potential ethics violation there, but we never made anything of it). The private courses that were the subject of copied holes were not interested in joining the suit, because they weren't damaged at all. Highly unlikely that the quality of a replica hole would have any impact on someone's decision to join a famous club like, for example, Oakmont, or even choose to not buy an Oakmont hat or shirt, or to boycott a major tournament held there. The private courses took the high road, with Augusta National issuing a statement to the effect that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

The public courses, on the other hand, argued that using their unique holes to attract customers was unfairly trading on their good will, so Harbour Town, Pinehurst and Pebble Beach all joined in on the suit.

At the time, our copright laws did not protect architecture very well. The Tour 18 guys did not buy any actual course design blueprints, but instead usedadvanced survey techniques, including aerial surveys, to measure exact dimensions and elevation changes of the holes. In most instances they asked for and received permission from the course staff. Copyright infringement just was not a viable cause of action.

The courses also asserted trademark infringement, and we lost that part of the case although there was no money involved. The Tour 18 guys went a little overboard in using the registered trademarks of the clubs to promote their own course, and even had menu items such as "The Pinehurst Club sandwich" which really seemed to indicate they had some approval or affiliation with the other clubs. They agreed to change their ads and eradicate the registered trademarks from their course.

Finally, the courses argued that copying the hole designs was something called "trade dress" infringement, which is essentially copying the look and feel of someone else's business in a way that causes the public to think you are somehow associated with or approved by the copied business. "Trade dress" is not a very well settled area of the law, and this was clearly the first time anyone had applied it to golf course architecture. They essentially had two arguments: 1) that Tour 18 was benefiting financially by confusing the public; and 2) The copies were not very accurate, and therefore gave people a poor impression of the copied courses. The second argument was kind of strange, as they were actually claiming someone would play Pebble Beach #14, not like it, and therefore decide to never visit Pebble Beach.

To address the confusion issue, Tour 18 now includes clear statements that they are not affiliated with or approved by any of the copied courses. Their tee boxes announce that the hole is "inspired by" hole X at course XYZ, but they do not claim the holes are exact replicas.

Regarding trade dress, the judge decided that copying a golf hole might be trade dress infringement, but only IF you copied a signature hole from a course that people readily recognized as being part of that course. Even then it might not be trade dress infringement, but copying a signature hole was the first step in the analysis. This left Pebble Beach and Pinehurst nothing to complain about. Tour 18 copied the 14th hole from Pebble, and their signature hole is the 18th (Houston does not have a Pacific Ocean handy, so copying 18 would have been pretty lame). Pinehurst actually argued during the trial that its #2 course did not have a signature hole. They claimed that the uniqueness of Pinehurst #2 was the way all the holes fit together. So Pinehurst was out.

With respect to Harbor Town, the judge said the hole would need to be changed so that it did not immediately call to mind the 18th hole. Harbor Town wanted them to rebuild the whole thing, but it seemed rather obvious that taking down the lighthouse was the way to go. A lighthouse has nothing to do with golf, and the only reason it was there was to make the hole look more like the original. Actually, early on in the trial I suggested they take down the lighthouse and replace it with an oil derrick, but I didn't get any traction with that idea.

So, net result was they did not have to move any dirt, and that was a win. They also got the court to declare some guidelines on what type of holes they could copy without fear of repercussions, so that was very helpful with opening future sites. Their insurance company was not pleased with our bill, though.
 
Yeeks! Folks will sue over anything these days.

I saw the course online and never once assumed any connection to the courses where holes were replicated... Its kind of a golfers version of Disneyland.

Oh well - still looks like a fun place to play.

spazzdog
 
That's very interesting. I've always wanted to play one of those type places. How much do they run?
 
The one in Flower Mound is $75 per 18 in season, $59 winter. Includes green fee, cart and range balls (and maybe something else, can't remember). If you register online with them they do have a couple of coupons available... One for before 8 am and another for after 2 pm, both take $20-30 off the cost.

spazzdog
 
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