Pitching areas in the Mid-West, good or bad idea.

[Dan_Belden]

 My home course, Brookside CC, in Canton, Ohio, has recently passed a sweeping restoration project that will include new tees on every hole, replacing lost bunkers, taking out misplaced bunkers, redoing all existing bunkers,recapturing lost green and fairway areas, and a new 4 row irragation system that better be having the course playing hard and fast.  It will also include several areas over greens and around them that would be considered chipping areas.  Many of the older members remember the days when the course would get hard and fast, especially during the summer months, and remember lots of bump and runs, and many unusual bounces.
 Sounds like a good thing to me.
   The reason I bring this up is that during a question and answer sessions at the club with Brad Klein, I specifically asked him about restoring pitching areas at BCC.  He told me that he was not in favor of it.  His rational was that the ground in the Mid-West, the clay in particular, wasn't suitable for pitching areas.  I was very suprised by this answer.  Even on wet days the are still plenty of options afforded with chipping areas. I'am interested in some other oppinions.  
  

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

Dan,

Are they claiming that these chipping areas and other changes are supposed to be returning the course to the original Ross plans?  Are the tee changes I imagine not original plans but trying to bring the course up to more "current" yardage standards?

I had the pleasure of playing the course in early October of last year.  Mr Logue paired me up with three great guys and we had a wonderful time playing the course.  I found the course playing 6876 from the back tees to provide a wonderful test of golf.  I thought the course was great, and I am interested in hearing what you have to say about the changes.

Again are they changes for changes sake? (I hope not) or are they going to be closely holding to Ross's original plans.  

Tell us more.

[Dan_Belden]

Turboe:

  Any time you are in the area let me know and we will go play.  
   I think the plan is supurb.  Probably the only thing lacking is replacing some of the original cross bunkers 50 to 100 yards of the tees.  But we are working on that.  We have some of them back, but not enough.
   We are adding a significant amount of length.  My thoughts on this were that we should be trying to restore the shots that Mr. Ross invisioned us playing. But in the process we are adding tees for more flexiblilty.  A great example is that the par 3 4th has not changed in length since it was built in the 20,s,  back in 1922 it was a classic par 3 and a half, unfortunately now it is a four or five iron.  If you want more examples I will be glad to go through them.
   The chipping areas were definitely part of the course.  I don't think they really called them chipping areas, but the course was predominantly fairway.  There were very few trees, and in the summer it could play really fast.  Unfortunately with all the trees we have now, it has really covered up some great bump and run areas.  If you can remember number 1, a green that runs away from you, the entire area over the green was fairway, allowing for some really great shots.  Eleven originaly had no green side bunkers, but was almost all fairway.  
   I am excited about the plan, and I think it is going to be great.  

[Evan Fleisher]

Dan,

I have not had the opportunity to play BCC although I make it to Cleveland area at least once a year because my wife's family lives there.

We also live in the midwest, so having epxerienced many area courses with differening topography and soil types...I believe that if there was once chipping/pitching areas on the course I see no reason to NOT restore them...especially if firm & fast conditions can be maintained.  If, however, current course conditioning prohibits such a desired effect, than maybe these types of green complex collection areas might not be the best thing going.  I don't think that clay ground soil is such a problem...but then again I'm no agronimist or soil expert!

[Chris_Clouser]

I've seen this feature on more than a few works here in the Indianapolis area, mostly on Dye courses.  So I think it can be done, but in the Cleveland area you may get more precipitation due to the lake effect.  So that may be the determining factor in Brad's analysis.

[JohnH]

I have not ever seen the course, but I can comment that a clay subsoil shouldn't have any bearing on whether to incorporate pitching areas or collection areas.  I have put many a French drain and tile in such areas with fine results.

John

[RJ_Daley]

Dan, could you tell us which archie is hired to do this remodel-restore work?  In my area of Wisconsin, the soils are very clayey.  That doesn't effect the quality of mowing down to fairway height for those decisions to provide chipping or collection areas off the green to afford the player options.  As John has stated, it simply is a matter of drainage design.

A newer course in our area by Bob Lohmann/ with great owner input in such design features, has some of the finest green surrounds chipping areas I have ever seen.  I hope this design concept is an example of everything old is new again.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

I have seen chipping areas on modern courses in the MidWest and have enjoyed some of them. However it was my impression that the ground was altered (not unlike a green) and there were additional drainage considerations utilized too I believe.

I agree with Brad. He no doubt knows if they were part of Ross's original plan - I would tend think they were not.

[Dan Belden]

Tom:

   I would tend to agree with you that pitching areas weren't part of the original plan, but the problem is that to a certain extent the whole course was a big pitching area.  It was built on a farm with hardly a tree on the course, ( good picture of this in Klein's book) and there were several areas around greens that in effect played as chipping and pitching areas.  
This comes from older members, who in particular remember playing bump and runs from over greens, and from the sides of a few greens.  With the advent of irrigation, and in particular rough, this feature has been lost.  And looking at the original fill pads it is easy to see some transitions from them that look like perfect spots for chipping areas.  And if there wasn't irrigated rough there, that is exactly what they would be.   With the rough it is a sand wedge, without it who knows.