Stability---"holding the course together"

[TEPaul]

This is a remark I just found again in the second of three history books written on Pine Valley (this one by Warner Shelly).

What did he mean by that? It's probably not that hard to guess. He meant the course in the beginning and for a number of years had a helluva hard time stabilizing areas of shifting sand and earth due to storms, wind blowing sand all over the place and water erroding earth and sand. He mentioned the 2nd and 18th green fronts were unstable and collapsed because of almost vertical faces (the same was true of the front of #10). He mentioned there were massive washouts going down #3, going up #4, in front of the tees on #6, to the right of #8 green in front of #9 tee and in the swale in front of #10 and the hillside left on #18. What did they do to correct this and stabilize those areas and the course? They did two primary things--

They terraced those areas and planted them by hand with many varieties of fast growing native grasses, along with poverty, blue stem, huckelberry, hawthorne, and laurel bushes, Scotch broom, blue lime grass from Scotland etc, all of which helped not only stabilize the terracing but also to keep the sand from blowing away. Shelly mentioned that at first this "terracing" looked fairly artificial until the vegetation grew in. We just found attribution that the "terracing" on the front of #18 green was done by Flynn.

And, second, with the help of the State Forest Service, between 3,000 and 5,000 seedlings were planted  EACH YEAR between 1927 and 1932 at a cost per 1,000 seedlings of from $6 to $8. Over 70 percent of these successfully flourished! It sounds to me like the tree planting was probably overseen by famous PVGC greenkeeper,  German immigrant Eb Steineger who came to the club in 1927 and was on that job for 50 years along with ultra dictator John Arthur Brown the whole time.

Shelly also mentioned that in Crump's day this problem of shifting and blowing sand was probably not imagined. It would appear the same was perhaps not exactly imagined at Cypress Point, at Pebble Beach (imitation sand dunes), at Indian Creek and probably at Shinnecock too. All those massive open sand areas seem to have been relatively quickly stabilized with vegetation or far more formalized bunkering.

We all on here seem to love that open sand wasty look of those courses but we probably don't understand the realities of trying to maintain areas like that any more than those early architects and constructors did.

I spoke to someone relatively recently at Shinnecock about re-establishing those massive so-called sand waste areas that were made by Flynn on #5, #6 and to a degree on #8. He's the type who'd ordinarily be very sympathetic to that look but he basically said; "No can do, it'd be an absolute maintenance nightmare."

I guess all this just goes to prove that no matter who you are, Crump, MacKenzie, Flynn or any of us, or what you like the look of, in the end you just can't f...with Mother Nature!  

[ed_getka]

You just clean up after her.  It is interesting to see pix of Sand Hills bunkering in a few spots and to see how startlingly different some of them are in the short time the club has been around.

[ChasLawler]

We all on here seem to love that open sand wasty look of those courses but we probably don't understand the realities of trying to maintain areas like that any more than those early architects and constructors did.

What's the big deal?

Dig a hole
Fill with sand
Apply Roundup twice annually
Let nature work on the edges

[John Foley]

How about Friar's Head after a few years? Are there any issues w/ the amount of exposed sand and maintenance/problem area's? For that case what about Pacific Dunes? I would thin if any courses would have issues w/ sand, stabilization & maintenance it would be them.

The early pics of Cypress Point and the current ones are dramatic. Not only cant you F w/ Mother nature, you can't hold her back if she wants something done!

[TEPaul]

"You just clean up after her.

Ed:

That's one way of looking at it but I'm glad you put a smiley at the end of that remark. Those on here who recommend seriously something like just cleaning up after Mother Nature  are generally those who either don't understand or don't belong to these clubs, who don't have to deal with the damage to the course and the down time year after year and most of all who don't have to pay for it!  

You know what they say---"Those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it!"

[TEPaul]

John Foley:

Having been to Pacific Dunes before the official opening that course didn't look to me like it had the massive amounts of open sand areas PVGC did in the beginning. Grade has a lot to do with it too. But if I were to guess, I'd say Pac Dunes will probably need to keep close tabs on all that sand on the right on #13.

In my opinion, Ken Bakst of Friar's Head has been very aware of this kind of thing right from the git-go and has hopefully been right on top of it since I spoke with him about it before the course opened for play. I'm pretty sure Ken wants to keep that open sand waste area look as much as they can but I don't think he has any illusions about what Mother Nature is capable of doing to it. The subject of natural vegetation has always been on his mind.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom P:  Pine Valley still has big washouts in places around the course.  I was out there taking pictures at dawn one morning (probably about ten years ago now) and there was a backhoe filling a 3-foot deep washout on the face of the hill in front of the second green.  I asked the operator how often he had to do that, and he replied, "Every time it rains an inch."  Their former superintendent told me years ago that he spent more of his maintenance budget outside the fairways than on them.

Pacific Dunes has some issues with sand blowing around, but not nearly to the degree that Sand Hills and the other new courses in that region will have.  At Sand Hills they move massive amounts of sand every spring to refill the bunkers which have blown out over the winter ... the lack of snow cover and irrigation combined with high winds really changes things around there.  Dick Youngscap told us not to worry too much about the edges of our bunkers in Bandon, because they would all change to natural edges quickly enough!

I don't think you should assume that these problems weren't anticipated by the architects, just that they might not have appreciated the full magnitude of the problem, OR that they understood and just decided what they were building was worth the maintenance hassle.  Bernard Darwin noted the maintenance problem of having a large area of open sand in describing Dr. MacKenzie's prize-winning design in COUNTRY LIFE back in 1914.

[John Foley]

How much of the metamorphis of Pebble Beach was due to the fact that Eagan's design (faux links) had too much exposed sand and Mother Nature could not be held back?

[paul cowley]

TomD ...I played PD last July and enjoyed the right greenside bunker on 18....I imagine that has been one work in progress, or am I wrong?.

[paul cowley]

John F....Pebbles problem is that grass grows there with less effort than the maintenance staff wants to expend.

[TEPaul]

"I don't think you should assume that these problems weren't anticipated by the architects, just that they might not have appreciated the full magnitude of the problem, OR that they understood and just decided what they were building was worth the maintenance hassle."

TomD:

I'm not exactly assuming that. That's one of the reasons I posted this thread---so the subject of whether or not they may or may not have understood it could be discussed. What I did is report what Warner Shelly said about it that perhaps it was something Crump just didn't think about. In practically the next sentence, though, Shelly said the solutions they came up with at PVGC would probably be something 'the great man' (Crump) would've been proud of them for.

I posted this to have a discussion if those on here think those architects back then did or didn't understand that and also to see how many contributors to this site think it doesn't matter and a course like PVGC ought to restore the course to all that open sand area anyway. It's easy for them to say that when it's someone else's time and money.  

It's also easy for some of those architects to assume that what they built looked so cool the club should constantly fix it year after year. That kind of thing completely flies in the face of one of Behr's tenet's explained in his philosophy of "Permanent architecture"----that architects should study how the forces of Nature really work on land so as not to build architecture that's not designed to withstand Nature's forces.

[Willie_Dow]

Kittansett:  The rock mounds, found when they tried to clear the ground.  Big rocks on the ground, smaller rocks above, then pebbles and loam on the top !  Per Flynn, its 8 foot high, per drawings.

Hurricane, 1938, 6' 8", a washout of those mounds.  But only the tops ! l

[John Foley]

Paul,

You would think @ $425 a round it wouldn't be that way.

[paul cowley]

Tom...I can tell you that many, many times I have been tempted to throw out ideas that I knew would be temporal but nonetheless satisfy the short term rush of the  immediate.... but all the while knowing that it would be fleeting and lack permanence....and no, I'm not talking about my personal life but the design world.

I think alot of the looks of times past were as much calculated as naive as to whether they were, or could be permanent.....my gut feeling of the faux dunes at Pebble is that they were either built for immediate effect, knowing they would evolve into something different, or they naively thought that they might be maintained as such.....and I probably have to go with the former because they probably have as much chance of growing sweet corn on that little spit of #7 as they would have in maintaining a sand dune.

...I think in this instance they were building more for the immediate effect while knowingly passing along a maintenance problem.

[TEPaul]

Paul:

It would be nice to know what they thought they were doing that way back then although I'm sure we'll never be able to find out. Actually, there probably is something in those Mackenzie/Morse letters that might give us some hint about that.

Just look at those bunkers on the 7th at Pebble. The sand to the green is so low profile it almost looks as if they pasted it on. It looks so flush that you could putt the ball out without it even hopping. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that sand is going to blow all over the green unless they kept it soaked 24/7 and you know they didn't think about doing something like that back then.

I don't see why we're even giving those guys the benefit of the doubt on this one. After all they were the ones who kept harping on economy as well as the importance of hiring a professional architect so mistakes wouldn't be made and the club wouldn't have to do something all over again and basically cost themselve twice as much.

[ForkaB]

I was under the impression that all those granly looking bunkers at Sand Hills were found rather than made.  Was I misinformed?

If they were "found," they ought not to move around very much, as their position and shape would be a result of prevailing wind patterns and soil conditions.  No?

[Tony_Muldoon]

About a month ago there was a link on here to a BBC R4 programme on the links at Portstewart.  They had a bunch of experts talking about how they were formed over the past 4000 years and how they would develop.

From the discussions I concluded that barring man made changes most links courses would be broadly recognisable in a thousand years time but all of them would have different micro undulations and certain features would definitely change due to the various natural forces acting upon them.  However we can't be sure that one or more of them won't be radically changed or suddenly destroyed by natural forces.

Canute setup his throne and ordered the waves to stop approaching to demonstrate to his subjects that his powers were limited.  If we want to preserve these courses exactly as they are today are we are as dumb as his subjects?

[TEPaul]

"If they were "found," they ought not to move around very much, as their position and shape would be a result of prevailing wind patterns and soil conditions.  No?"

Rich:

No, definitely not. Even if there was no golf course where Sand Hills is I'm pretty certain that land would continue to mutate to some extent. They say the bunkers were "found" at Sand Hills and many of them were of course but others of them were sort of there but obviously enhanced in various ways for golf. The latter are the ones that probably mutate most for obvious reasons.

This mutation of bunkering and sand areas on that course is not exactly something unforseen or unwelcome. I think Coore and Crenshaw and Dick Youngscap are pretty fascinated by the whole phenomenon and are both extremely interested and are having some fun trying to decide what if anything to do about it---ie continue to fix it to some extent or just let it go. The only real problem is when sand blows all over fairways or greens. A green such as #17 has been a problem that way as it just sticks up in the wind with those bunkers surrounding it which have definitely mutated and grown larger and higher.

[ForkaB]

Tom

In my experience, natural sand bunkers on largely grassy spaces do not mutate that rapidly, if left alone.  There are a number of them (outside of normal golfing areas) at Brora that are roughly in the same place with the same shape as they were 25 years ago.  Of course, once you start putting them in the line of play and infest them with people carrying sharp implements, things will probably change!

One of the fascinating things about Kinsbarns, is that they hired THE expert on this sort of thing, Robert Price who not only told them how to create natural looking bunkers and hillocks, but how to site them so that they would not mutate and evolve naturally in the place where the architect wanted them.  The great and relativley ancient links courses also found this sort of thing out by trial and error.  Youngscap, et. al. seem to be happier with this latter strategy of leaving things to chance!  More power to them, but it may well be a losing battle in the long run, as Tony Muldoon implies above with his King Canute analogy.......

[TEPaul]

Rich:

Wind working on loose dunes sand and such is a truly amazing thing to actually watch. I've done a lot of that while down in Amelia Island at a stretch of about three miles of natural dunes on both sides of old A1A. If the wind is really howling I've gone down there and sat and watched what may be referred to as "Nature's architecture" working on these areas. If there's no resistance at all it's incredible to watch these beautiful and sharply defined formations and parabolas the wind makes before your eyes out of loose fine sand. The thing that alters that basic action of wind on sand is the eventual weight that then breaks it down and the resistance the blowing sand runs into when it catches on natural vegetation and such. The latter is what makes the sand build in those areas and creates some really interesting formations compared to those areas where there's no resistance. This is the type of thing a bunker genius like Jeff Bradley may go watch for hours on end with some of his own enhancement or not.   And then he applies that on what he actually makes which is about as natural as anyone you can find in golf architecture.

[TEPaul]

"Tom
In my experience, natural sand bunkers on largely grassy spaces do not mutate that rapidly, if left alone."

Rich:

Obviously that's true and it's also the whole point and message of this thread. This is precisely why a golf course like Pebble, or Cypress or Shinnecock or Pine Valley does not have the massive open sand areas it once had on opening. This is why vegetation was so dedicatedly planted on a course like Pine Valley as I said above. And if some area of a course such as Pine Valley has some real slope and grade on those sand areas they planted trees to stabilze it even more. Don't forget, in the beginning Crump removed 22,000 trees from that sandy undulating site. Obviously planting fairways and greens with grass stabilized those areas to some extent but in those areas of open sand that were created by Crump off those fairways that once had trees on them had to be stabilized again. That's obviously what Warner Shelly meant by "holding the course together".

Some on here obviously love that open sand waste area look that some of these courses had on opening but like anyone else those contributors on here have to realize what the way of Mother Nature is when somebody changes it's natural mechanisms and balances.

That is the point of this thread.

[ForkaB]

Tom

You are yet again "teaching your granny how to suck eggs" on this one.

Rich

[TEPaul]

Rich:

What are you talking about? When you learn something just admit that you learned something and just admit who you learned if from. You have an odd way of learning something from me and then just repeating it a few moments later as if you thought of it yourself. But what the hell, I guess that's just a sign of an excellent teacher.  

[ForkaB]

Tom

"Satire is a glass (mirror) in which one sees everybody but himself."

Jonathan Swift (who never tried to teach his granny how to suck eggs).

[A_Clay_Man]

"We all on here seem to love that open sand wasty look of those courses but we probably don't understand the realities of trying to maintain areas like that any more than those early architects and constructors did"

Tom,
 Having never been to Clementon, and only from your descritption above, it does sound like an elevation change is the one factor that is congruent with all the problem areas, you cite? Is that correct?

As I read your thread, I was reminded of sandy areas that do work, and require absolutely no maintenance. Grant it, these areas are naturally dunsey, and in very windy spots.

Maybe their molecules are heavier? or, they are flatter and less exposed.