Was disfigurement an attempt at equalization ?

[Don Herdrich]

This is a great topic.........I would look at the issue from the other side, courses that were not disfigured.  A club like Myopia never was altered or disfigured throughout the 50s and 60s when a lot of this revision was going on.  I think a lot of these clubs were just trying to keep up with the Jones'.......Myopia and others were lucky  due to the fact they couldn't care less what everyone else was doing.  They also had other outlets for their members: tennis, hunts, polo etc.  Golf is now back to being king there, but wasn't for many a year.

What other clubs would be in this category of not being disfigured and why?  Crystal Downs?  SFGC?  Shoreacres?

[Patrick_Mucci]

The year was 1950 or so and it was at the suggestion of the USGA.

Who did the USGA suggest it too, the car parkers, locker attendents, caddies or the Board who ran the club ?[/color]

The USGA felt the course needed some alterations to hold a US Open which the club was anxious to do. (Our first US Open was 1955).  

So the Board-Club had an agenda that had little to do with daily membership play.  They approached the USGA with the express intent of hosting a USGA Open, and were willing to alter or disfigure the golf course in that pursuit.

I'll bet the average handicap of the club members and board members was in the double digits.

Those alterations couldn't be approved, funded and implemented without the express approval of the Board.[/color]

The club and RTJ did the same thing again in 1964  prior to the 66 Open.

Joel, it's the club that did it,  not RTJ.  
If RTJ had been hit by a truck they would have used someone else to do THEIR bidding, to satisfy THEIR agenda.

The Board and the Members got just what they wanted, so let's not blame the architect for their motives in altering the golf course.[/color]

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff,

I typed a response to your post, but, it wasn't accepted due to it's length and when I went back to edit, all was lost, so, I'll try again.

MAINTENANCE.  I SEEM TO RECALL A THREAD ON TILLINGHAST TOURING THE COUNTRY RECOMMENDING THE REMOVAL OF BUNKERS - WAS THAT DONE SOLELY TO MAKE THE COURSE PLAY EASIER OR TO BE CHEAPER TO MAINTAIN?

Again, you're looking at a different era, one borne of the great depression.   The last 50 years have been an era of the greatest prosperity America has known.[/color]

I HAVE MANY TIMES HEARD PEOPLE HERE TALK ABOUT HOW BETTER PLAYERS WANT FAIRNESS - NO BAD LIES IN BUNKERS, AND EVEN NO BUNKERS WHERE THEY THINK A GOOD SHOT SHOULD LAND.  WE HAVE COMPLAINTS AT MY PLACE ABOUT THE WAY SOME BUNKERS PLAY UNFAIRLY, AND THESE HAVE COME FROM BETTER PLAYERS.

Could you cite just five good golfers from this site who have lobbied for "fairer" conditions ?
I've never heard a good player on this site, or anywhere else,
plead that case.[/color]

EVEN IF YOU ARE RIGHT, PROVES MY POINT.  THESE WEREN'T DONE AT THE BEHEST OF WEAKER PLAYERS.

How do you know that if you weren't around in the early 60's ?[/color]

We have also seen "wild" greens and other features from classic courses posted here; do we know, for instance, that the 2 or 20 hole at Forsgate was taken out of play, or other features destroyed at the behest of weaker players because they were too difficult; or were some removed because better players thought they were unfair?  

You're wrong on this one as well.
NO member of Forsgate had any influence over alterations to the golf course.  Forsgate has never been a member owned golf club.[/color]

SURE, OUR SOUTH COURSE HAS A COUPLE OF UNIQUE GREENS - ONE HAS A FALSE FRONT MAKING UP ABOUT 35% OF THE GREEN.  BETTER PLAYERS HAVE A TENDENCY TO SPIN THE BALL OFF IT, WHILE FOLKS LIKE ME CAN RUN UP 5 IRONS FROM 130 YARDS.  THE ONLY PEOPLE PUSHING TO BUILD UP THE FRONT ARE BETTER PLAYERS BECAUSE THEY THINK IT'S BS.

I sense a "class" war at your club.
What is your handicap ?[/color]

TO LOWER MAINTENANCE COST,

But, with wonderful prosperity in America from 1955 to current date, lowering maintainance costs wasn't a substantive drive to the point that select features were eliminated to marginally reduce budgets[/color]

AS WELL AS HELPING HIGHER HANDICAPPERS.  

So we agree, equalization was a factor in altering golf courses.
What took you so long to come to that conclusion ?[/color]

OBVIOUSLY, I HAVE FAR, FAR LESS EXPERIENCE THAN YOU, BUT I HAVE SEEN IT AND READ ABOUT IT.  I HAVE ALSO READ IN OLD BOARD MINUTES AND CLUB MAGAZINES DATING AS FAR BACK AS THE 1920s ABOUT ADDING DIFFICULTY BY ADDING BUNKERS, MODIFYING PREVIOUSLY FLAT GREENS, AND MOVING FAIRWAYS CLOSER TO HAZARDS.  
The problem I have with records, especially the minutes from green committees, which rarely exist, and Board minutes, is that they tend to be sanitized.

In the global sense, I've seen far more courses eradicate or soften features to make the course easier, then I've seen courses add features or make them harsher in order to make the course harder.

I don't consider adding length, vis a vis elasticity, as a form of disfigurement, but, it does make the golf course harder.[/color]

I HAVE ALSO SEEN SOME ABOUT MAKING THE COURSE EASIER SO THAT SCHLEPPERS CAN GET AROUND BETTER, BUT THAT IS MOSTLY ABOUT TEES.

With an aging population playing golf, the addition of Senior tee markers is almost universal, but, I haven't seen any course construct a seperate set of forward senior tees.

Bunker removal or the softening of harsh or quirky features is more the norm.  Since better golfers are more capable of avoiding or extracating themselves from these features, I don't see them objecting to them as much as the higher handicap golfer.[/color]



You're again referencing current events, the knee jerk response to hi tech.
Lengthening is systemic, and in the context of elasticity, I have no problem with it.[/color]

I DO, IF IT CHANGES THE PLAY OF THE HOLE, AS IN A SHORT PAR-4 THAT BETTER PLAYERS WANT LENGTHENED BECAUSE IT PLAYS "TOO EASY".

This is a current event, a response to high tech and distance, and not germane to this thread.

I can't comment on a hole I'm not familiar with, but, are they lengthening the senior tees, the ladies tees the members tees or just the back tee ?[/color]

I AGREE ON THIS ONE, EXCEPT AGAIN ABOUT LENGTHENING SHORT PAR-4s BECAUSE THEY PLAY "TOO EASY".

Again, these are current issues caused by the advances in high tech over the last 15 years and not germane to the period commencing in 1955.[/v]

HOW DID THE COURSES GET TO WHERE THEY NEEDED RESTORATION?  

I'll start with the domino theory.

Once one green committee or Board made a change to the golf course, the golf course became fair game for agenda driven changes from the various ruling factions that followed.
Regime after regime altered golf courses.
In many cases this squeezed and removed the distinctive life out of the golf course, eroding and eradicating the original design integrity.

One of the things that Tom MacWood and I agree on is our reluctance to see clubs embark upon golf course projects  because we feel that any work will result in the loss of original features, concepts or designs, and that in most cases it's an interpretive modernizaton, at best.

If you sit at committee and Board meetings when the golf course and its component features are discussed, you'd be amazed at the number of propositions to disfigure the golf course, mostly with the hidden motive of personal agendas.

Few green committee and Board members view a golf course in a global context, the context of members of all playing abilities. choosing instead to view it from a position that they know best, their own perspective.   And therein lies the danger.[/color]

Pat, we really don't disagree that much, except it seems to me that you shouldn't generalize about something as broad as disfiguring golf courses.

Experience has been a good, if not a bitter teacher in this area.

The pendulum is begining to swing back, toward restoration, although it tends to be interpretive, rather than true restoration, but, the modifications that I've witnessed over the last 50 years were done at the hands of people wishing to influence the golf course to better accomodate THEIR game, to the exclusion of others, and with the total lack of understanding that the architect forges, overall, a balanced challenge to all golfers, even if certain components of that challenge may be unfavorable to a given players game.

Overall, the challenge is balanced, but, when green committees and Boards seek to alter that balance by altering a specific feature or a particular hole that they find objectionalbe, they erode the soul of the golf course, the design integrity and balance forged by the architect.

And, in most cases it's been done in the name of fairness, or agenda driven reasons[/color]

[TEPaul]

"How else can systemic or universal disfiguration be explained?"

Pat:

I sure can answer that question as it pertained to my own golf club and what happened there is probably little different than most other clubs of that general era.

The specific reasons why things were changed is a long one and probably and interesting one for such as us now. I can certainly tell you that very few back then, including the committees and the membership felt they were disfiguring their course. They felt they were making it better---and all the little and specific reasons why are pretty interesting to know today.

Of course, as a way for us to see better the truth of those early eras, I might rerun the story of the 97 year old man and the tree planting and what he said to us about that in the last five years.

Unfortunately that wonderful elderly man died about a month ago. Just out of interest he was longest term member of PVGC by a mile!

I can tell you that guy was one helluva gem---and I very much doubt you or anyone else on this website could've ever stood in front of him and told him you think he was disfiguring that golf course for some nefarious reason. You just could've have done that--I guarantee it. I wish all of you could've known him---he was the best---his life over all those years in that club and in the end in that committee meeting when he finally spoke to us about what he and all of them back then were thinking and doing was probably the best, most honest and the truest message I've ever heard on this entire subject. It was a crystal clear window into understanding the past and we all should know it like that if we want to go forward now the best way we can.

Blaming those people back then is just not the way to go now---it accomplishes absolutely nothing except to create problems and friction today that none of us need if we want to keep going on some really good restorations.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

He might have been the nicest man in the world, but, he was misguided, he was wrong, but, at the time, I bet he wasn't so sweet and charming.  I bet he was firm, if not adamant about his concept of improving the golf course through the planting of trees.

The next question that arises is, why did he remain silent all of those years after he recognized the error of his ways ?
And, that's at the core of many of the mistakes made at golf clubs.  Those that made the mistakes, upon discovering their error, don't seek to remedy them, they leave them to lie quietly, rather than admit to and correct them.  
That's called EGO.

Those that don't learn from history are condemned to relive it, and understanding how golf courses were disfigured in the past can help prevent the process from taking hold again, today and into the future.

I'd prefer to reflect on my life as Spencer Tracy did in his last line in the movie, "The Last Hurrah"

[mike_malone]

 My research of my home course uncovers a few motivations, none were bad. They just lose the concept of remaining true to the original design.

   Pine Valley--separate holes with trees to isolate holes

   Hole is too easy to par---plant trees in likely landing area to remove recovery shot

   Monument-- build up first tee to enhance its status

   Safety--- plant trees to attempt to prevent straying into another fairway

   Beauty--dogwood and cherry trees enhance backdrop

    Maintenance---bunkers get rough buffer; greens shrink

   Watering systems---standard fairway width


    The good news is that now people are more likely to ask " How does this relate to the original design?"

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Malone,

I don't think that the safety feature can be ignored, it's a valid concern, and sometimes plantings are the best solution.

The narrowing of fairways was a by-product of the new irrigation systems introduced in the 50's and 60's,
not a deliberate attempt to modify the golf course for any particular reason, other then, perhaps, cost.

At some courses I'm familiar with the buffer of rough around bunkers was just that, a buffer to stop the errant ball from entering the bunker, more so than a maintainance issue.
The same can be said for streams and ponds which suddenly had rough buffers fronting them.

Could you expound on the "monument" item ?

[mike_malone]

 We built a stone wall around the tee and raised it up 3-4 feet. While the initial reason was to deal with bad drainage, it became a srtructure foreign to the course, like a monument to the course.

   I  agree with the safety aspects, but it does disfigure . It may just be worth it.


   I can understand a club deciding to do something to disfigure the course as long as they know it.

[TEPaul]

"The next question that arises is, why did he remain silent all of those years after he recognized the error of his ways ?
And, that's at the core of many of the mistakes made at golf clubs.  Those that made the mistakes, upon discovering their error, don't seek to remedy them, they leave them to lie quietly, rather than admit to and correct them.  
That's called EGO."

Pat:

You can say that about someone at your clubs you know but you sure can't say that about the man I'm talking about. Of course you can say what you did about him but the point is you are just flat-ass dead wrong.

Why did he remain silent all those years after he recognized the error of his ways? How many times have I posted on here the story about what that man said in that committee meeting in the last five years? Two, three, maybe even four of five times? I guess you didn't read what I wrote each time, did you?

He said he did not understand what the effects on agronomy, strategy, original intent etc was when he did that. He said no one in the club back then did. He said he'd listened carefully to what we'd been saying for about a year in about 15 committee meetings for the restoration and that he did understand now for the first time. That was around 2000. At that point the man was 92 years old.

He followed that up by telling us that if we wanted him to he would go in front of our entire membership and tell them back in the 1950s and 1960s he just didn't know what he knew now because he listened and learned from what was being said by most all of us in 2000. He was willing to tell our membership that he'd made a mistake and never understood that until he listened to what was being said now. And you're trying to tell me that we should've acted like he was lying to us or something? That he really did know or should've known somehow he'd made a mistake all along? Are you crazy? Or should I say how crazy are you really?

And you're telling me a guy like that should be BLAMED? I'm telling you that serves no purpose whatsoever, other than to feed the egos of people like some of the participants on here that they are the only ones who understand these things and everyone else just doesn't "get it" or they're all idiots or egomaniacs.

That is just not the way to go. If I know anything at all at this point I surer than hell know THAT now!

Some of the worst impediments to accomplishing some really good restorations are on this website. You want to know why some on here are such impediments?

Because they unnecessarily PISS OFF the very people they do not need to being pissing off at this point if something constructive is going to get done.

People like us need to be educating those people nicely because it's not as hard to do as most on here think it is and the bottom line is it can work a whole lot better than just unnecessarily pissing people off. What are those people going to do for you or for me if you and I and people like us continue to just cast blame all over the place and piss people off? They're going to continue to argue with us and fight us just on general principle, that's what.

Is that what you want to do?

[Patrick_Mucci]

I don't think you're cabable of objectivity when it comes to GMCC, PV or other courses where you have personal connections [/color]

You can say that about someone at your clubs you know but you sure can't say that about the man I'm talking about. Of course you can say what you did about him but the point is you are just flat-ass dead wrong.

Why did he remain silent all those years after he recognized the error of his ways? How many times have I posted on here the story about what that man said in that committee meeting in the last five years? Two, three, maybe even four of five times? I guess you didn't read what I wrote each time, did you?

He said he did not understand what the effects on agronomy, strategy, original intent etc was when he did that. He said no one in the club back then did. He said he'd listened carefully to what we'd been saying for about a year in about 15 committee meetings for the restoration and that he did understand now for the first time. That was around 2000. At that point the man was 92 years old.

He followed that up by telling us that if we wanted him to he would go in front of our entire membership and tell them back in the 1950s and 1960s he just didn't know what he knew now because he listened and learned from what was being said by most all of us in 2000.

He might have been the nicest individual in the world, but for
40-50 years his ideas, the concepts he supported and implemented at your club were wrong.

He was misguided until, according to you, the year 2000.
So, for 40-50 years he championed altering the golf couse because he didn't know any better.  Whose fault is that ?

Stop defending the individual and start focusing on his flawed ideas.   This is exactly what I'm talking about.   This is exactly how clubs go astray.[/color]

He was willing to tell our membership that he'd made a mistake and never understood that until he listened to what was being said now. And you're trying to tell me that we should've acted like he was lying to us or something? That he really did know or should've known somehow he'd made a mistake all along? Are you crazy? Or should I say how crazy are you really?

But, for the previous 40-50 years he was championing just the opposite.   Stop viewing this in the context of a nice fellow who suddenly saw the light, and examine his views for the 40-50 years where he had influence at the club.[/color]

And you're telling me a guy like that should be BLAMED? I'm telling you that serves no purpose whatsoever, other than to feed the egos of people like some of the participants on here that they are the only ones who understand these things and everyone else just doesn't "get it" or they're all idiots or egomaniacs.

Yes, the issue of accountability is important, irrespective of how nice or unpleasant members are.  For if there is no accountability the golf course will become the cadaver for experimental surgery that can result in the eradication of the design integrity of the golf course.

Tampering with a golf course is a serious matter IF you want to preserve the design integrity and features that the original architect intended for the members to interface with.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.[/color]

That is just not the way to go. If I know anything at all at this point I surer than hell know THAT now!

Some of the worst impediments to accomplishing some really good restorations are on this website. You want to know why some on here are such impediments?

Because they unnecessarily PISS OFF the very people they do not need to being pissing off at this point if something constructive is going to get done.

People like us need to be educating those people nicely because it's not as hard to do as most on here think it is and the bottom line is it can work a whole lot better than just unnecessarily pissing people off. What are those people going to do for you or for me if you and I and people like us continue to just cast blame all over the place and piss people off? They're going to continue to argue with us and fight us just on general principle, that's what.

Think about what you just said.
You said that even if the errors are pointed out to those embarking on a project, they're going to fight for a misguided cause, just on principle.  EGO ?  Inflexibility ?

And to that I say, scrutiny and accountability are more important.  If a project has merit, it will withstand the spotlight and criticism.  Those that are the most misguided seem to be the most sensitive to "Constructive" criticism.

And, don't forget, once the project is in the ground, it can take 20 or more years to undo it, if ever.

You seem willing to accept alterations in blanket form, as if everything is hunky dory.   If that was the case why are so many golf courses undertaking restorations to fix what green committee after green committee and Board after Board disfigured over time ?

Those that don't learn by history are doomed to relive it.[/color]

Is that what you want to do?