How good was George Fazio?

[TEPaul]

I'm sure there are a ton of people who can answer that better than me. Although George Fazio came from my area and many of his courses are in this area, I really don't know that much about him.

I started thinking about George Fazio because the pro at my course, Terry Hertzog, is about to play in the Hershey Buy.com tournament and was telling me he thought Hershey East G.C. was a bit of an odd design--that most of the greens just sort of stuck up out of the ground and the basic surrounding landscape.

I've played a good number of tournaments and qualifiers and such at Hershey East G.C. and the course and the holes themselves are no more than a vague blur in my memory. I can remember the direction the course moves in and some of the general shapes and some features of the holes but that's about it.

And I told Terry that the greens may look like they do because during construction they may have reamed earth out for bunkers and such and just threw it up right there and made the greens instead of paying more to have it removed or moved to somewhere more meanful. And frankly I was wondering who designed Hershey East and sure enough it was George Fazio.

So I checked out George Fazio's bio and his architectural inventory in Cornish and Whitten. Pretty interesting really.

It seems to me that if George got a really good site he did very well in identifying some of the good landforms for golf and did some very good things with them as holes. With blander landforms on otherwise good sites and sometimes the blander general sites he really didn't do much at all to enhance them for golf.

It seems that the quality of his career inventory is very wide. Some really good golf courses and some very uninteresting ones too. And some that have very good holes and also some very uninteresting holes.

It also seems like George very much might have given an owner about what he paid for. If they didn't pay much they didn't get much--not much in quality golf holes and probably not a lot of effort from Geroge in doing anything about trying to make things better.

So from the little I know about him he seems to have an interesting inventory of courses. Some very good ones, some with some good holes and some not and a few others that aren't interesting at all.

So it seems like George had real talent or at least real potential. When he found a beautiful and interesting natural landform with good golf to it, he had the sense to use what nature gave him and really do it right. But when nature didn't give him much he didn't do much with it. And he didn't seem to do much for an owner who may not have given him much.

Interesting thing to his bio too. He was, for a time the resident pro at Pine Valley. I'm sure at the very least osmosis there must have had a benefical effect on his talents as an architect. They say that Jupiter Hills has some of the look of Pine Valley. I don't know about that, but that one par 3 down there certainly does or did--there's no doubt about that.

If I were to try to capsulize George Fazio's work, I would take that quote of, I think A.W. Tillinghast, who said (paraphrased); "Sometimes you have to take holes that don't have much to offer and knock some sense into them so they can hold their heads up in the proper company of the good holes."

George Fazio either never read that quote or else didn't take it very seriously.

[TEPaul]

Interesting side note to Terry Hertzog and Hershey East G.C. Terry is one helluva a player (current Pennsylvania Open Champ). Although he said he wasn't that crazy about Hershey East G.C., he also said he was expecting an exemption into this week's Buy.com tournament there but at the last minute he didn't get it so he went out there to qualify.

The second place qualifier shot 71. Terry shot 64 and set the course record! Hershey East generally, or at least last year anyway, was thought to be one of the hardest courses (because of it's set-up and rough) that Buy.com played all year!

[Mike_Cirba]

Paging Eric Pevoto...come in please  

Eric, the pro at Downingtown GC, a George Fazio design that was significantly enhanced by Gil Hanse, has some interesting viewpoints on the Uncle's architecture that he shared with me a few weeks back.  

[Wayne_Tucker]

Hey Tom,

Very interesting post on George Fazio -- I'd have to say based on my experiences that your assessment is pretty accurate, though I've never played two of his supposedly better tracks (Jupiter Hills and Moselem Springs).

Anyone who's ever played Waynesborough and Westover knows exactly what you're talking about here (even though I was not really that huge of a Waynesborough fan before Gil Hanse got there).  

Speaking of Moselem Springs -- my dad's played there a few times for GAP matches and says the course is fantastic.  Yet I hardly ever hear a word about it.

I'm pretty sure you've probably played it -- what did you or anyone else up in that area (Bill V., Mike C. or whomever) think of the course?

[S.MANN]

TEPAUL,

I AM THE HEAD PRO AT WOLLASTON GOLF CLUB IN MILTON, MASS., JUST OUTSIDE OF BOSTON.  IT IS A GEORGE AND TOM FAZIO DESIGN THAT THEY DID AROUND 1975.  MANY GOOD HOLES BUT ALSO SOME QUESTIONABLE ONES.  I THINK IT WAS A TOUGH SITE (MANY ROCK OUTCROPPINGS ETC.) BUT THE LAND IT SITS ON IS GREAT.  MOST NOTABLY IT HELD THE 1992 USGA JR. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP.  I AM IN MY FIRST YEAR AS THE HEAD PROFESSIONAL HERE AND THAT IS WHY MY TIME ON GCA HAS BEEN CUT DRASTICALLY.  ALSO, HAVING A 20 MONTH OLD SON AND 6 MONTH OLD DAUGHTER HAS PUT A DAMPER ON MY PLAYING.  HAS ANYONE OUT THERE PLAYED AT WOLLASTON AND IF SO WHAT ARE YOUR COMMENTS/CRITICISMS??  

[Bob_Huntley]

I last played Jupiter Hills in 1973 and thought it a splendid layout. The elevation changes for a Florida course were of great interest and the sense of Pine Valley was apparent throughout

[Adam_Messix]

Tom,

A great question about George Fazio....

I worked at Chester Valley for a season so I have some experience with Uncle George's work, especially now comparing it to the Tom Fazio design where I am now.  

I guess the thing that really stuck out in my mind were the severity of the greens.  I guess #s 5, 8, 12, and 14 stick out in my mind the most.  As you know, CVGC is a very hill site and for the most part the hills are used very well.  The exception is the 6th, where I'm just not sure what G. F. was thinking squeezing a blind, straight downhill tee shot tightly between two other holes.  And this before we talk about the up the mountain approach shot.

I also remember the flashy look of the bunkers from the fairway/tee.  They were very fair in the sense that you rarely saw a ball not go to the bottom.

The biggest problem Chester Valley faced in my mind was that it was terribly overgrown.  On a Hole like #15, you felt like you were playing a dogleg to a left hole location.  

I have always felt like as a rule, George Fazio courses always seemed to have one really bad hole on it.....examples of this are #6 at Jupiter Hills (snap hook required off the tee), #9 at Moselem Springs (blind tee shot with no idea of where you should aim...this is ok at some places, but not when you have moved a lot of dirt around like he did), and #6 at Chester Valley.....

[joe zaepfel]

all of us in lancaster,pa. are proud of Terry Hertzog.  15 years ago he accompanied a bunch of red necks from LCC on our annual pilgrimage to Ireland/Scotland and he     personally saved me thousandsin a better ball with another hacker and John Abernethy, @ the time the head pro at LCC.                                         Hershey East is a long and grueling 18 holes that has some repetitive features that are not always natural in their appearance, ie. the elevated greens.  It does not have any particularly bad holes and has nothing like  number 9 at Moselem Springs. It also does not have any need for a tree thinning program.  The man who knows most about this project would be Jay Weitzel, the former head pro or his immediate succesor Jim Reed.                      

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

Played Moselem Springs many times and the course is considered a good one! Typical of George Fazio though. It may be considered as good as it is because the course all in all is quite a challenge. Some of the holes are very good, well designed, very thoughtful and strategic etc. Some of the others though are extremely blah, particularly from tee up to green. #1 from tee to green is really blah or lacking in design, if you know what I mean--and it would take about two seconds to find a better first tee site than that one. The other tee to green holes that are blah are #2, to a degree, #4, #6 and he could have done many more interesting things tee to green with a basically well routed hole like #8. #9 as you said is very strange and if I was an architect and got that far in the routing, I really don't know what I would have done next but I wouldn't have done what is #9! I probably would have started again. If you think about Moselem's site it really is an interesting and probably very problematic one to route and one of the primary problems may be that the clubhouse, although in a nice setting probably made routing the course even more difficult than it should have been.

#6 Chester Valley is also a bizarre hole with not a real rewarding option to it except maybe to hit it as close to the stream as possible so the straight uphill approach is shorter. Not a lot of brilliance there! I think #5 is an excellent par 3 but where is an architect to go next?

[Craig_Rokke]

I've played about 5 courses that George Fazio
had a hand in. The one thing that struck me about his work was the variety of greens
between the course. Some had huge, gently
shaped greens. Other courses offered some with much stronger contours, while still others were very, very small and falling off on the sides. He also used some greensites
without any bunkering.

I've heard people say that Fazio had a knack for over-using his favorite holes, such as the downhill par threes at Moselem Spgs. I personally have not noticed that in the courses of his that I've seen.

They say he was most strongly influenced by
Merion and Pine Valley (where he had been club pro). That's good by me.

His work on the courses I've seen strikes
me as OK, but most of it was done early
in his career with average sites, and
probably limited budgets.

[TEPaul]

I went out to watch the Hershey Buy.com Tourney on Thursday at G. Fazio's Hershey East G.C. and I must say I was pretty impressed with some of the internal green contours on some of those greens. Many of them did fall off on the sides. I've played that course about half a dozen times in qualifiers and tournaments and I don't know what's the matter with me to not really remember some of those greens.

I saw what Terry Hertzog meant though--many of the greens are pushed up from their natural surrounds and looked and played a bit like the approaches to some Donald Ross's greens.

Tee to green that course sure isn't much to talk about though.

[Craig_Rokke]

I played a G Fazio this past weekend (Pocono
Manor West) and it's unique enough that I think it deserves mention. Though it's a very average course, Fazio didn't seem to mind doing things a little differently.

First, the course has no bunkers. Despite that, the greensites are difficult. On average, they're the smallest greens I've ever encountered, with a number of them coming in at 2,000 to 3,000 sf., and most of them tapering off around the perimeter. (I'm guessing these were all larger in the 1960's
when he built the place.) And he seemed to formulaically place deflection mounds at the
4 "corners" of each green.

We played the whites at 6750 yards or so.
The par 5's were almost all potentially reachable, yet there were many lengthy par 4's, including a brutal 452 yard hole
up a steep incline.

From a strategic standpoint, I'd be surprised
if it's one of his stronger efforts, but it
shows that he was at least willing to mix
things up a bit.

[TEPaul]

You gotta be kidding, the course really has no bunkers at all? This I gotta see; I've always been interested in that idea and I thought I was going to have to go all the way to England to see that one that can't have any anyway because the Queen won't allow it--or something like that!

[BCrosby]

I've never payed a G. Fazio course, but the descriptions sound a lot like T. Fazio courses I have played.  Funky green contours and lots of blah holes tee to green.

As his uncle and the man under whom he apprenticed, G. Fazio was probably the single biggest influence on T. Fazio.

Anybody care to speculate on design similarities/differences?  

[C Rokke]

TE-
The quirk-filled sister course (Ross) has no more than a few bunkers that I would guess date from the original layout.

[BillV]

I haven't yet played Moselm, but will later this summer, I hope.

As for Jupiter Hills (Hills), it is a very strong, solid strategic course with several changes from the original that made it even better (Changes in the first 6 holes dropping some to the Village course, adding some).  The 7-8-9 stretch is particularily strong as is 10, 11 15 (Which Tom had the good sense to reproduce many a time (Despite his "Claim that he never repeated a hole")) and 16-a unique short par 4 straight uphill hole.  It has very remarkable elevation changes for south Florida and is worth playing over and over.

I think a generally under-rated and forgotten course, probably due to limited access and loss of glamour over time.  I remember one trip to SoFl a few years ago playing Old Marsh, Hills and Seminole in that order.  One course stood out negatively.  This is not to say that Hills=Seminole, no way, but rather Hills is quite good and Old Marsh is an abomination.

Butler National is also very solid, more demanding (Back vs back) and of the same general calibre as Hills.  The last two semi-permanent venues for the Western Open have been pretty good modern courses!

I hope that Moselm is as good as those two G. Fazios above, but I don't think it will be quite that good.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Tom,
   I've seen the Pocono Manor course (I think you can see it from I-80 or I-380) and can attest to it just as it advertises the bunkerlessness.  Witten just did a piece on GD online on some public parks course in Oklahoma that had no bunkers.  There's a course (dogtrack) a half mile from my house here in NC that has no bunkers.

[TEPaul]

When I say I'm interested in a course with no bunkers, I should say I'm interested in a good course with no bunkers, not a bad one. I'm sure even I could build a bad course without bunkers!

[cardyin]

I played Moselem Springs many years ago. What sticks with me is that you had to be below the hole on nearly every green or it was threeputtsville.  You don't hear much about the course because it was the exclusive private domain of Henry Queare, the owner of the Reading newspaper, who kept it mostly for himself and selected friends.  
I've also played Jupiter Hills and Butler National.  Jupiter Hills is one site in Florida which may be too hilly, with a series of severely uphill shots to greens. To get a flavor of George Fazio's challenge to golfers, just play the 9th hole, long par 3, uphill, all carry to basically a small island green surrounded by sand.  Butler National is a horribly difficult course.
Fazio also designed Pinehurst No. 6. Once a golfer reached the greens, he had to fight for his life to two-putt because they were so severe. I understand some of them have been rebuilt.

[TEPaul]

Cardyin:

There are a ton of holes on classic courses in the Philadephia area where you have to be below the hole or you might be in danger of 3 putting! It's a real theme around here. But #7 & #12 (the two par 5s) at Moselem Springs are a bit too much, don't you think? I hear they are thinking of softening the mountain.

The course is pretty hard to score on and I do think that #3 (par 3) is a very good hole and #10 is even better! #10 is an absolutely natural hole, that he probably did no more than build some tees, used that creek's diagonal really well and put in a very good green over the far end of the creek!