Strong test of driving vs. Harry Colt

[Tom_Doak]

While on the plane headed over to Milwaukee Country Club for a consulting visit yesterday, I was browsing Don Placek's copy of Colt & Alison's book, Some Essays on Golf Course Architecture, which I hadn't read for several years.

One particular quote stood out for me:

"On inland courses which are not in heather country, it is desirable that fairways should be mown TO AS GREAT A BREADTH AS FUNDS WILL ALLOW."  [my emphasis]

Of course, Colt didn't want the fairways without any hazards at the margins, but it certainly appears that he was no fan of 25-yard-wide fairways to test the driver, as the USGA sets up courses for championship play [and clubs then continue].

When the subject of restoring fairway width came up with the green chairman, this was a pretty easy tenet to apply:  the fairways should be extended back to whatever width you want to pay for.

[GeoffreyC]

Why would Colt make a distinction between inland and links and heather vs. parkland with regard to something as basic as fairway width?

Royal Portrush is one of the strongest test of driving I have ever encountered. It hardly had breadth and in the summer of 2000 with the drought it was screaming fast.

Were Colt's original plans for Royal Portrush in keeping with this idea?

ps- I know its a links.

[Paul_Turner]

I'll have a look at some of the Colt writings I have to see if he has any further comments on width.

Portrush is one of the few Colt courses I know of that gets criticised for being too narrow.  It's a while since I've been there so I'm not sure; it would be interesting to walk that course and examine it with the perpspective of wider fairways.  Some of the driving difficulty on that course is due to most of the holes turning to some degree.

I can't think of a Colt course that I've played that is very tight.  Perhaps Camberley Heath is a bit narrow?  Muirfield when they go nuts with the rough.

[Tripp_Davis]

Tom,

I just recited the same quote a few weeks ago during a consulting session at Fresh Meadow on Long Island.  Along this same line, bunker placement became a point of discussion relative to how they fit into an expanded fairway scheme.  Colt and Alison did a generally good job with bunkering their greens to create a variety of preferred angles from the fairway. In many cases, fairway bunkering was not necessarily needed.  During my discussion with the club, who wanted to remove a bunker (which was somewhat in play and somewhat valuable 50 years ago) and move it further down the fairway, I suggested there was no need to move the bunker due to the fact that it was on the side of the fairway players would strategically want to stay away from anyway (the green is set up with a predominantly front left to back right orientation - with bunkers on the inside).  I suggested that if they wanted to install a new bunker to challenge the modern player, it should be down the left and they should widen the fairway down the right, where they wanted to put the bunker.  Or, I suggested just widen the fairway down the right.  The strategic objective of bunkers, I believe, should be to challenge the player on the line that provides an advantage for the next shot, move the players eye away from the best line of play, or to visually establish the orientation of play.  When even a single bunker is used along with a "wide" option, where the wide option is not the best line to play the next shot, you have the simplest form of interesting strategy.  Tight fairway reduce options and therefore reduce interest.  I hope Milwaukee is "open" to the idea.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak,

When the subject of restoring fairway width came up with the green chairman, this was a pretty easy tenet to apply:  the fairways should be extended back to whatever width you want to pay for.

I certainly agree in principle, but the "realities" are that if the fairways have been narrowed over the years, trees were probably planted to seperate the holes and the irrigation system usually services the narrowed fairways and roughs.

Undoing what took decades to evolve, in one fell swoop, and then maintaining it on an ongoing basis is usually beyond the club's financial, cultural and philosophical resources.

But, it's certainly a powerful third party influence.

Would you therefore advocate widening out the 7th fairway at GCGC to its grand 1936 width ?  [/color]

[TEPaul]

""On inland courses which are not in heather country, it is desirable that fairways should be mown TO AS GREAT A BREADTH AS FUNDS WILL ALLOW."  

TomD:

Didn't Colt say any more, like at least some hint as to why? If not, what do you think his real point was with a remark like that?

[Mark_Guiniven]

Some people say keeping a fair percentage of a links property covered in long grass is important to its ecology, i.e. keeping the course largely self-sown. Cut all the grass and it never seeds. Though Colt could just be saying parkland rough tends to mat over and cause lost balls.

Tom Doak,
Greg Turner is working closely with our club now and all these things are being considered. Page 130 from your first book has been part of the discussion, but opponents say fairway width is tied to the throw of the irrigation system (ours is single row). Obviously golf was played before irrigation systems so what's the answer?

[T_MacWood]

Tom D.
Wouldn't it be prudent to focus on Alison's preferences rather than Colt's? Although they shared similar philosophies, they were definitely distinct and wholely unique architects, and as you know Alison designed Milwaukee (and Fresh Meadow for that matter).

[ForkaB]

Let me throw in a mostly uneducated guess as to what Colt was getting at.  Linksland and heathland soils allow "roughs" to be grown which are random but largely playable.  Richer soils (i.e. at most inland courses) produce "roughs" which are thick and often unplayable.  The wispy roughs at linksland and heathland courses effectively increases the width of play, even at a course like Portrush (assuming that the character of its rough has not been cnaged through fertilisation).  Thus, in order to offer the golfer a similar strategic situation to linksland and heathland courses, inland courses need to be mown as wide as possible.  No?

[paul cowley]

yes.

[Tom_Doak]

Yes, Rich, exactly.  The part about "heathland courses" was Colt's way of separating them from inland courses where long grass meant searching after golf balls.

Mark:  In most cases, fairway widths were narrowed from original designs when single-row irrigation systems were first installed.  Some architects write of fairway widths of sixty yards; Colt is the only one I've seen to say they should be as wide as possible.  The truth is that the irrigation system should be designed according to the needs of the golf course, and not the other way around.

Milwaukee CC is currently installing a wall-to-wall irrigation system.  So they can irrigate and mow as they please, or as funds allow.

[Chris_Clouser]

I remember reading something about the 1941 Open at Colonial and they were describing the course and noted several times how narrow the fairways were at 50 yards across.  I was amazed at that.

[TEPaul]

Is or was (when Colt and Alison wrote that book) "heather country" and "heathlands" completely synonymous?

[Paul_Turner]

Tom

Yes they are the same.

[TEPaul]

In my opinion, the reasons so many (most) US fairways became narrower (app 35 yards) is pretty obvious and documentable. But the reasons they started out as wide as they were is still somewhat mysterious and is a story that hasn't been told yet--at least not in its entirety, I believe.

There were a ton of inland US fairways that were a minimum of 50 yards wide and often more from the old days (my course was typical) that were maintained on those "golden Age" courses and I think I can pretty much guarantee they were not all that way because Harry Colt decreed in his book that they should all be like the linksland or the heathland in breadth, whether light rough or not!!

They had to have been that way for other reasons---maybe a variety of other reasons. Were those other reasons to do with mowing only, architecture and strategies or some combination of both, perhaps including other reasons we aren't aware of any longer?

One thing that's interesting to consider is almost all the old fairways from that early era were much wider than they are today (all the old aerials show that without fail), so it should be logical to assume that it wasn't necessarily a factor of any architects design or strategic philosophy. That alone would lead one to believe it probably had more to do with the equipment back then (hugely wide tractor pulled gang mowers) and mowing practices back then than anything else.

[Patrick Hitt]

Tom,
I rode a tractor pulling a 9 gang fairway mower only 10 years ago. I don't think the tractors or the horse gangs before them dictated width back in the day. We did have interesting connecting points between fairways but the widths were 30-40 yards at the most.

[Matt_Ward]

Tom Doak:

I had the great fortune in playing Portrush last September (2003) and frankly while I love the Dunluce Links layout the extreme narrowness of the holes -- minus a few like the 1st, 17th and 18th -- can be a bit much.

I mean I'm talking about 25 yards wide tops with a small strip of rough and then big time HAY waiting to grab you. Let's not forget the wind that clearly plays a major role in influencing shot execution.

Yes, some of the holes do turn as Paul suggests but many were fairly straight.

I have no idea if this is what Colt intended or simply evolved over many years through efforts of those at the club. Frankly, I don't see how widening the fairways to 35-40 yards would take away one iota from the superb routing and hole variety that exists on the Dunluce Links.

A great driving test in my mind should tempt the player in using the driver on nearly all the holes -- save for the par-3's and unless one or two are that long and some that are not designed for such a play -- but if all the bulk of the holes are bowling alley width holes then frankly I believe that takes away somewhat from the overall character the course provides. It also increases the lost ball dynamic and add to the frustration playing search party for yourself and the folks in your group.

[paul cowley]

.....i think the ability to not lose a ball during a round to be an important element of good course design , regardless of the skill level of the player..... i am not suggesting a course be designed absent of penalty stroke hazards , just a tempered use of them.

   i know this is something that has been stated many times in many ways , but i just wanted to state it myself....but now i'm not sure why.....did you just hear that ?...i've got to go , i think my fingers are shrinking ....tom is that you?

[A_Clay_Man]

If the courses referenced weren't links or heather, is there an implied tree filled terrain?

How do you'all think this philosophy corrolated to the original design principles at Augusta Nat'l.?

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

What would Colt or for that matter Dr Mac think about the width of fairways in the current era of technology?
Could it be that they would modify their thinking?
Clearly both were great proponents of strategy, which many believe is being somewhat removed from the game in this current era of huge driving distances and a straighter ball.
I grew up playing many of Colts desingned or co designed courses in England, and it is clear that the original fairway widths have become adjusted to fit the irrigation systems and their respective range.
Bunkers that one could imagine were at one time in the fairway are now surrounded by rough, thus changing their strategic value...even before you consider the changes in driving distance.
 I am intersted to hear what Mr Doak decides to do in his current situation, does this become a compromise between original layout and modern golf?

[TEPaul]

"TEP
Did the tree-planting mass dementia come before, after or coincident with narrowed fairways?"

redanman:

Once again another sort of thoughtless generalization on your part that too easily probably goes from an inaccurate assumption to a wrong conclusion. "Mass dementia"?

Tree planting most certainly began on many courses well before the almost universal narrowing of fairways. But the reasons for that initial tree planting is quite different than the reasons for tree planting following the narrowing of fairways.

Why don't you give the differing reasons in either era a shot and if you can't figure something out I'm more than willing to help you out!    

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
I rode a tractor pulling a 9 gang fairway mower only 10 years ago. I don't think the tractors or the horse gangs before them dictated width back in the day. We did have interesting connecting points between fairways but the widths were 30-40 yards at the most."

Patrick Hitt:

That's a most interesting post and information. Why do you think some of those very old fairways were almost universally as wide as they were? Noone on here, at least, seems able to come up with a logical reason for that! The point about the horse drawn mower (much narrower) as opposed to the vastly wider tractor pulled gang mowers is really something to think about and would certainly seem to indicate that the reasons for the wide fairways of the very old days were not merely a function of super wide tractor pulled gang mowers---that logically came later.

The real reason(s) almost all fairways in the beginning of the last century were really wide may never be completely known.

[paul cowley]

tom ....i would think the reason all fairways were wide early on was because that was how the game was played from inception......why change the model just for local ?

  single row irrigation ,tree planting and reduced maintenance explains the shrinkage that occured later on and i feel these experiments are hopefully over.....i think strategies based on .wide is good will increase in the future

[TEPaul]

"tom ....i would think the reason all fairways were wide early on was because that was how the game was played from inception......why change the model just for local?"

Paul:

That's interesting and it sounds logical and I bet you're right about that. But if so here's another interesting thing to consider. Just as so many American fairway basically all became about 35 yards wide as a standard after WW2 it seems that ALL of the old fairway were about 50+ or more. Why were they ALL of similar width back then too? Any of us can look at some of those holes and see those wide fairways on some holes really didn't have much of any strategic consequence but they were that way anyway. It makes me deduce that you're exactly right about what you say. The architectural standard fairway width became 35 yards post WW2 but back before WW2 it was just wider everywhere even if it had no real meaning. Although different widths pre and post WW2 standardization seemed to be the name of the game.

My feeling is any hole should be analyzed individually to utilize fairway width which is optimum for that hole only whether it be 80 yards or 30 yards and so on through the course.

Perhaps for the first time standardization of fairway width whether it be wide or narrow should be a thing of the past and the new philosophy should only be any hole should have a fairway width that did nothing more than maximize it's individual strategic concept and strategic ramifications.

[Tom_Doak]

Matt:  When I first saw Portrush 20 years ago the fairways were a bit wider, and much more of the rough was mowed.  They "took them in" about the time they started hosting the British Senior Amateur.  Someone needs to send them a copy of Colt's book.

Tom P:  I think all the fairways were wider in the old days because
a)  That was the standard, just like 30 yards is today, and it was difficult to buck the trend; and
b)  With no irrigation, an off-line shot tended to bound away to the sides of the course much more easily, so the fairways had to be much wider to contain marginal shots.

Bill V:  The tree-planting craze took over just after the single-row irrigation was put in.  All of a sudden, there were brown, unkept areas of rough next to beautiful, green swards of fairway, and everyone felt the need to landscape the roughs.  This period coincided with the start of Dutch Elm disease and the loss of the trees which had been there.

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