[Mike McGuire]

Looking at the photos of the gorse in bloom at Bandon on a recent thread got me thinking. Do you like it?

What do you think of it near the line of play? I've never played on a course with it but it looks rather penal. Some of those holes at Bandon.....might as well have OB down both sides?

Is it grown elsewhere in the USA  ?

McG

[Bill Gayne]

The marram grass on the dunes in Oregon is not indigenous. I was told that it was introduced from Europe to the Oregon coast in the 1920s. The reason for the introduction was to stabilize the dunes and erosion.

[Bill_McBride]

Mike, gorse is not a hazard, it's a disaster!  When your errant tee ball heads toward that stuff, hit a provisional, it's usually unfindable.  That's true in the UK as well as Bandon.

Those photos are just wonderful.  I have some of Crail from last May that are just as brilliant, now where did I put them.............?

[Doug Wright]

Mike,

Gorse is the prettiest hazard you'll ever see when it's in bloom as in those photos. It's also the meanest, most noxious hazard, sort of like the Venus fly trap--any ball in there is not only unfindable, it's highly dangerous to even try to venture in. It'll rip your clothes to shreds, let alone your skin.

At Pacific Dunes and Bandon Dunes it's not in play too much unless the wind is really up, and then only on a couple of holes.

[Tom_Doak]

Mike:  We did leave a fair amount of gorse in play at Pacific Dunes, and it's possible for high handicappers to get in it a fair amount.  [Then again, I can't play to single digits anymore, and in more than 50 rounds on Pacific Dunes I think I've lost maybe two balls in the gorse.]

It's really pretty much a stroke-and-distance penalty because legally you can only take a drop if you find the ball, and if it's not right in the edge of the bush you're not going to find it.

By far the nastiest little piece of gorse we left is on top of the bunker just in front of the lower ninth green.  It's a small patch [maybe eight feet by eight feet] and you have to fly it in there, since anything running up to it will stop in the bunker.  But if you're in the bunker, you have to carry that bit of gorse to get onto the green!  It's a very scary little shot.

[Marty Bonnar]

Gentlemen - and Darva - I hereby present for your deliberation, the World's No 1 Gorse Course. The veritable 'Home of Ulex europaeus':

TOC!

The evidence:

1. OK
2. GORSE - Blind for 75 - 125 yards straight ahead!
3. GORSE - Blind drive over GORSE 50 - 100 yards ahead.
4. GORSE - at 100 and 150 yards on the right.
5. GORSE - right hand side of the Tee and extending down the fairway.
6. GORSE - MASSIVE hummock of it on the right at the Tee and a smaller Clump to carry before the fairway.
7. GORSE - the only genuinely Strategic GORSE on the GORSE COURSE - Carry 175 yards of it for an optimum Fairway position.
8. GORSE - small clump ahead of Tee.
9. GORSE - small clump on left.
10. GORSE - small clump on left ahead of Tee.
11-18. Pretty much GORSE-less so, OK (with the exception of 17 where The Old Course Hotel tries its hardest to do a fair impersonation of the spiky Shrub.

Furthermore, It is my contention that ALL of the GORSE in North America is actually self-seeded from a single plant taken there in 1904 by one Theophilus H. Dungbeetle of Intercourse, Pennsylvania after his brief sojourn as Professor Emeritus of Comparative Alcoholism at St Andrews U. and should be considered as our Nation's Finest Gift to you, our Dear Colonial Cousins.

Yours,
FBD.

PS Can you tell how much I'm missing this Place?!

[Bob_Huntley]

How about Dornoch.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Gorse is great..lets see those guys fulfill Geoffs stats out of the gorse  

That is what will bring accuracy back into vogue..grow it everywhere..just like in that John Cleese commercial

It is both beautiful abd horrendous ...along with heather and ice plant the best stuff you can have to make accuracy matter..lets see Vijay get out of that...

Gorse...Heather...Ice Plant...Firm greens...WHO CARES HOW FAR THE BALL GOES

[Bill_McBride]

Doug and Tom, re: gorse not much in play at Pacific Dunes --

If you duck hook one at the precisely correct angle off #3 tee.... voila!  You're in the gorse.  Ask me how I know!  Too bad it was in August, the bloom was off the gorse.

[Doug Siebert]

You wanna see gorse, the munis in Troon put everywhere else I've ever been to shame.  Or at least it sure seems that way in my memories of playing them in 1991.  Certainly neither TOC or Dornoch could hold a candle to them in sheer volume and inconvenient location of gorse.

[TEPaul]

Gorse is cool, as long as it isn't that near reasonable play.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I think the back nine at Conwy probably has the most penal gorse of any course I know, and that includes TOC and Dornoch.  It's rather like playing the 11th at Royal Troon 8 times consecutively. It has been thinned out a bit.  The problem was for visiting parties who kept taking 11 off the tee to get a ball in play, and therefore taking 5 hours for a round, holding everybody else up - it's about a 3-hour round there on average, a pretty fast membership!  What they've done is take a lot of it out up to say 240 yards, but have it continue to narrow the fairway in the 270-300 yard range where the big boys go.  The hacker can enjoy the freedom of a moderate slice or hook in the knowledge that he'll effectively lose a stroke as his next shot will have to find the fairway at its narrowest, or risk a long carry over gorse, probably with a wooden club....Say no more.

There are still plenty of compulsory carries over gorse - 120 yards minimum, 180 yards maximum, and the 17th remains the hardest 17th of any in my knowledge - just under 400 yards but the fairway narrows from about 200 yards between incredibly thick gorse on both sides and the tee is set at a slight angle to the fairway, so the tee shot must be shaped - almost invariably into the wind.  It's a great place to watch the plus-handicappers, to see whose nerve stands and those who crack.  I remember seeing some great play on this hole in the boys' home internationals a few years ago when the likes of Nick Dougherty, Zane Scotland and James Heath were playing.  Fabulous skills and great composure.

Somone said that gorse is like water.  It can be far worse.  Water will generally only cost you a single penalty stroke.  Gorse may cost you many strokes if the ball is visible but unplayable and is more than 2 clubs from a playable lie.  I know from bitter experience.  

[Brian_Gracely]

My brother and I were out walking Prestwick at around 1am after spending some time in the local establishments.  We met up with some others than were on a similar stroll and while I was talking to one of them, I hear this faint "help".  Apparently my brother had decided to go take a closer look at the Alps bunker but had a mis-step and fell backwards into the gorse.  Needless to say, it's not something that you can relieve yourself from by yourself, and it takes a few people if you don't want to get completely scratched up.  He came out looking like somewhat of a heroine addict on his arms, and the rest of us had a good laugh.  

Oh the things that some people will do to study golf architecture

[Mark_Rowlinson]

If you are going to try to go into gorse, or to play a shot on which your body is touching gorse, put on your waterproofs.  make sure they cover your shoes as prickles getting in through your socks can make a mess of a foot and take care not to get spiked in the finger.  It can end a round then and there.  Some people are allergic to gorse and I've known fingers, hands and wrists swell up.  

There's an Irish saying that when the gorse is in season 'tis the kissin' season.  It's almost always in bloom in Ireland, so it makes sense.

[Andy Levett]

Dornoch has been mentioned a few times on this thread but the curious thing is that the use of gorse  is considerably more penal on the Struie than the 'big' course.
A number of holes in the middle of the Struie (geographically rather than in playing order) are lined by gorse on both sides of a not especially generous fairway.
I preferred the holes closer to the clubhouse, where the topography provides the interest, and out by the firth, where Robin Hiseman has built spectacular new holes  with big undulating greens.
The 'big' course offers good examples of when gorse works and when to cut it back. The 6th would not be the hole it is if the hillside were bare (and would be a dismal drag on the round if covered by long grass, with the hope of finding your ball and the certainty of time spent looking for it. Pull into the gorse and you reload on the tee, quick and simple as that). The next hole, on the other hand, is far better for the policy of cutting back the gorse that used to line both sides. Miss the fairway now  and you will need one or more outstanding shots to make a par - what more penalty is needed? See Rich Goodale's great write-ups on this site for the architectural history and playing guide

[ForkaB]

The gorse at Dornoch ain't what it used to be......

Beginning in the early-mid 80's a systematic program to cut back the gorse was instituted for two reasons:

1.  to help speed up play (particularly for visitors)
2.  to deny refguge to the rabbits who were infesting the course at the time.

The most significant changes that I can remember were:

1.  The left hand side of holes 3-5.  The whins used to come down the hill almost to the fairway.  Today, a mild hook off the tee can usually be found.

2.  Short and to the left greenside at 6. As Andy says, it still comes very much into play, but not as much as it used to.

3.  Right and left at the 7th.  I would guess from 10-20 yards have been cut back from both sides of the fairway, mostly to the right which now offers a bail out option.  In the good old days, the drive on this hole really tested one's sphincter muscle...

4.  To right of the 8th, over the hill.  Once a sea of gorse and a re-load, now there is an "Elysian fields" of heavy rough.

5.  Right of the 9th and 10th.  For the former, again relief for the weak slice.  For the latter, 5 yards of green side space for the ball carried away by an offshore wind (or semi-hosel...)

6.  Past the fairway bunker on 11, some extra space to save the power fade.

7.  On 17, 5-10 yards yards cleared back from the left hand side on the top, 10-25 yards cleared back from the right and center of the bottom fairway.  Far less intimidation, far less chance of driving through the fairway into the gorse.

8.  10-15 yards cut back from the left hand side of the fairway on 18, particularly short (180-220) left.

The effect of all this is that while gorse is still very much a part of the Dornoch experience, it is not nearly as architecturally important as it was 15-20 years ago.  Dornoch has been transformed from being "penal/strategic" off the tee to purely "strategic."  Or, to put it my way.........the penalties are both gentler and more subtle now for a well-thought out but poorly executed strategy.

Dornoch is probably an easier course today than it was in 1981, particularly for the average/below average golfer.  However, because of the great green sites, the course still  holds its own against the best players.  As Rosanna Danna Danna used to say, "It's always sumpthin'!"

One could grow the gorse at Dornoch back at will (that randy little plant needs very little encouragement to reproduce...), but why?  It would surely be a "tougher" course, but a "better" one?  I think not.

[Jim_Coleman]

    I am amused by gorse lovers revealing themselves on this cite.  (Add me to the list, by the way.)  These same scholars who praise the planting of gorse would decry the planting of a tree in the same place, as the tree would "take away options," rendering it architecturally deficient.  But the tree provides far more options than the gorse, although both effectively penalize the wayward shot.  I continue not to get it.

[Tom_Doak]

Rich:

The last time we were at St. Andrews, Jim Urbina casually asked the head greenkeeper there about his gorse-control program.  He excused himself and returned later with a four-page write-up of everything they do.

Gorse is extremely aggressive and most people wouldn't believe just how much work some courses do to keep it from completely swallowing the golf course.

[Bill_McBride]

Jim, I really only like it when it's in bloom!  So it's an aesthetic thing.   Gorse is to trees as the ocean is to casual water!  Maybe not the best analogy but you get the idea.

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