Oakmont & Trees

[SWolffe]

This might be an old topic but I had the pleasure of playing Oakmont last week and was amazed at the tree removal.  After the initial shock, you hardly noticed and all your attention was on the routing, bunkering, green sites, which were all, laid out right in front of you.  It was a real joy and I left with a greater appreciation of the course.  

The majority of the older “classic” courses have been doing gradual tree removal.  After seeing and playing Oakmont, and mind you they are the extreme - I think most “classic” courses could go even further on this practice.  Please give thoughts on what Oakmont did and general tree removal on older “Classic” courses.  

[TEPaul]

Oakmont was a course that was designed and evolved for about 40 years primarily under William Fownes--the son of the founder H.C. Fownes. After William Fownes died in 1949-1950, the club began to plant trees. What they removed and what they intended to do with their recent massive tree removal is to return the course to the way it was just before Fownes died.

As for other classic courses and trees, one would do well to learn as much as possible regarding what the original designer intended to do with his course regarding trees. The other end of the spectrum from Oakmont regarding trees was and is Pine Valley.

William Fownes, by the way, was very central to the completion of PVGC after Crump died. Fownes was a fairly opinionated man about design and he made some very strong recommendations about the completion of that course but removing trees from PVGC was most definitely not one of them!

[Jeff_Mingay]

As we know, most older courses are cluttered with too many trees. Another problem is that the wrong species were frequently planted. Evergreens, junk maples, crab apples, ornamentals, and other non-indigenous trees make old courses look more like cemeteries.

For example, I was at CC of Detroit last week. There's an over-abundance of trees at CCD. But more than that, the ugliness created by a broad contrast of species really stood out in my eyes. Conversely, there are a few holes at my home course, Essex in Windsor, Ontario, where the junk trees have been removed, leaving native oaks to dominate. Those holes look so majestic, uncluttered, and generally healthy in comparison.    

[TEPaul]

"Conversely, there are a few holes at my home course, Essex in Windsor, Ontario, where the junk trees have been removed, leaving native oaks to dominate. Those holes look so majestic, uncluttered, and generally healthy in comparison."

Jeff:

That's so true. The very best way I know of to counteract  complete tree huggers is to tell them if most of the real junk trees are removed it generally exposes to THEIR view some of the really good looking and majestic trees they haven't really seen in years because of the forests of junk trees that've been hiding the beautiful ones for so long!