Piping Rock, as CB MacD. Specimen Course

[TEPaul]

As long as I can remember the 17th at Piping could probably play up to 165yds maybe a little more. I seem to remember it that way well before Dye/Doak but maybe I'm wrong. But I don't remember it at any time as short as NGLA's "Short". I don't remember the green ever being in the same class as NGLA's "short" either. Adding length to "shorts" really is irresponsible in my opinion and the worst is the added length at Westhampton to about 190yds. That green has enough going on internally that 135-140yds would do just fine.

#7 always had that ridge in the fairway and many decades ago it was a sign of a real big hitter if you could get it over that ridge. I remember Tom Nieporte could do it but not many others.

I never saw the "nose" on #10 but I would have thought it was a great addition and I'm sorry the club didn't go for it.

[Tom_Doak]

Piping Rock is outstanding but hardly "pure Macdonald/Raynor."  As some have alluded to, Pete Dye lengthened the course in 1985 and made a couple of changes, with me supervising the construction work.  Rich Spears, the superintendent, has made a couple of further tweaks.

It's been a long time, but I think that the back tee on 17 was there when we started -- it had already been lengthened by someone else.  We chopped off about 30% of the area of that green to make it a bit tougher, and dug out the bunkers around the green MUCH deeper.  [The front bunker is perhaps ten feet deeper than Macdonald had it.]

I don't know who changed the 15th green or when, but we didn't touch it.  Those "snake mounds" running through the green are a delight -- never seen anything else quite like them.

[TEPaul]

I can tell you, I'm quite certain, that if someone changed #15's green they did it before about 1950-5, because the way it was then is the way it is now.

[George_Bahto]

The 13th Piping Rock is a "Knoll" hole and is nearly an exact replication of the 4th at Scotscraig in Fife, where Macsdonald saw it - there, there is no greenside bunkering. I believe the original 13th at PR also had no bunkering but some has been added, then removed, added again etc.

I think the original PN bunker complex as built by Raynor was on hole 1 - Tom planning to put it on 10 before getting shot down.