Feature Interview with Mark Fine is posted

[Ran Morrissett]

One definition of 'hazard' as defined by Webster is a place of danger. Of little surprise, the courses with the greatest variety of obstacles (The Old Course at St. Andrews, Cypress Point, Merion, Oakmont, Westward Ho!, Prestwick, North Berwick, Maidstone) are often considered the greatest courses in the world.

As Peter Thompson noted in the foreword to Grant's 1993 edition of Aleck Bauer's Hazards "How dull to have no obstacles to dodge, or need no 'escape' shots in one's repertoire.'

First published in 1913, the full title of Bauer's book was Hazards, Those Essential Elements in a Golf Course without which the Game would be Tame and Uninteresting. The title, though not perhaps the most concise  , concisely states the supreme importance of hazards.

And with much having happened in architecture in the past 90 some years, it is high time the subject matter be updated and expanded upon. Enter architects Forrest Richardson and Mark Fine and their just published book Bunkers, Pits and other Hazards.

Forrest's book entitled Routing the Golf Course was a big hit (see his March 2004 Feature Interview on this site). I first almost met Mark a few years back when I played Royal Ashdown Forest in the morning and he was a couple of hours later on a cold spring day. Talk about a perfect course to study on the subject of obstacles! Challenge comes from many diverse forms, many of which are so subtle that they 'lure you on to laugh at your own short comings' (to quote from Thompson's Foreword again).  

Mark's Feature Interview speaks as to many of the sections in Bunkers, Pits and other Hazards - the foreword from Pete Dye (an architect that never backed down from hazardous hazards), thoughts from all the great architects on the subject of hazards, Twenty Famous Hazards, their psychological aspects, how to maintain and restore hazards, a detailed glossary. You name it, the book covers it and I believe today is the first day that they are starting to be shipped.

This book is a timely reminder that hazards/obstacles can and should take on many diverse forms and that perfectly groomed shallow bunkers of today are a far cry from when the term hazard was first coined.

Cheers,

[Mike_Sweeney]

Mark,

1. I await your (off-line) instuctions for sending check.

2. I recently stumbled on the Bucknell GC website. What are you doing there?

[Michael Moore]

Mark Fine -

Your site also lists some work with Forrest Richardson at Colonial in Wakefield, MA. What's going on there?

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark, Forrest - congratulations. I look forward to reading the new book.

In the interview, Mark mentions 4 reasons for the demise of the hazard. One more (related one) struck me:

Never before has the amateur game, it seems to me, been so influenced by the professional one (as played on the PGA tour).  

We've taken on the ethos of the professionals' game: THEIR concerns with distance, green speeds, consistent and superb maintenance, fairness, and the value of par have become, more than ever, OUR concerns.

The trouble is, while those concerns are probably appropriate (or at least understandable) for the professionals, they tend to make AMATEUR golf more expensive and less challenging (and less and less 'tied' to the past, which ties are one of the pleasures of the game for me).  

Peter

[Mark_Fine]

First of all, let me thank Ran for taking the time to do the interview.  It's always a pleasure to speak with him and we had a great discussion about golf and hazards.  I should also note that Ran literally sent us seven full photo albums with hundreds of pictures of golf holes and hazards from all his travels.  They were not only invaluable in contributing to the 250+ images in the book, but fun to look through.  

Also on behalf of Forrest and myself, I want to thank many of you on this site for your help with our book.  We honestly could not have put it together without your support.  Many of you that participate here are mentioned in the book and those important names we somehow left out, we promise we'll get it right in the second printing (if there is one).

Mike,
Bucknell is an exciting project.  There was an article about the work and what is happening there in Philadelphia Golf Magazine's Winter Issue.  If you go to their website you will find it.  Hope this link works:
http://www.philgolfmag.com/PGM/pgm/2005/Winter_05/Winter_14.htm

Michael,
Forrest and I did a detailed facility plan for Colonial GC in Wakefield, MA.  It's an old Bill Mitchell course that had grown tired and needed a face lift.  Furthermore, there was development to take place on several of the golf holes that resulted in us having to do a complete re-routing of the design.  It will basically be a new course when finished with some of the new holes running in opposite directions as they are now.  We designed an innovative practice facility as well.  

The property is owned by Starwood and approvals, etc. to start constuction are running their course.   The whole property might even be sold and our new plan should add to the value.  That might even have been why they had the planning work done.  We'll see.  

Mark

[Mark_Fine]

Thanks Peter.  You make some excellent points.  When you get the book, you'll see we talk about many of these as well and even discuss their actual cost impact on maintenance budgets.  Guys like John Zimmers, Matt Shaffer, John Chassard, and many other Superintendents were gracious enough to share their numbers with us as well as their concerns.  

[Jay Cox]

Great interview Mark!

Forrest and I did a detailed facility plan for Colonial GC in Wakefield, MA.  It's an old Bill Mitchell course that had grown tired and needed a face lift.  Furthermore, there was development to take place on several of the golf holes that resulted in us having to do a complete re-routing of the design.  It will basically be a new course when finished with some of the new holes running in opposite directions as they are now.  We designed an innovative practice facility as well.  

I'm looking forward to seeing the new Colonial.  I grew up nearby and played the old version a good number of times, but never liked it much.  I thought it had very few memorable holes and too much pretense / was too expensive for a Doak scale 2-3 course.  I'm glad to see they're trying to fix it, though, and I hope it turns out well.

Jay

[Mark_Rowlinson]

What an intriguing book!  I'll set about getting a copy right away.

[mike_malone]

 Mark,
     You are an inspiration. Follow your bliss !

[Mark_Fine]

Thanks Jay.  I agree with your assessment of Colonial.  Nothing really worth restoring there.  We did look but with all the other changes, a new design was the way to go.  It will however, have a classic feel (much more so than it does now).

Mark,
I hope you enjoy the book.  I'll look forward to speaking with you afterwards to hear your thoughts.  

Thanks Mayday!  You only live once!  

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mark,
In the interview you say: "Nail-clipper precision-Following the lead of places like Augusta National and other courses prepared for television broadcast, hazards became manicured and edged so there were no scruffy bits."
 
Other than TV's influence, do you and Forrest feel that the rules themselves have had an impact on the manicuring and edging of sand traps, i.e., the problems associated when applying the definiton to scruffy edges?


p.s. go here to read a few excerpts from Mark and Forrest's book: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471683671.html

[Mark_Fine]

Jim,
The rules have had an impact but at the same time the TV grooming influence has also been significant.  The "fairness" issue unfortunately comes into play as well.  We removed our
long rough grasses around our bunkers at Lehigh because too many people felt that sometimes they got an unplayable lie.  Sad but true.
Mark

[Kelly Blake Moran]

Mark,

I am curious about your statement regarding long rough grasses around bunkers at Lehigh.  Do you really think long grasses, I assume fescue, is appropriate at Lehigh.  Just looking at the pictures I don't see that look there.  Furthermore, is that typically a Flynn trait to have long fescue grasses around the bunkers.  One course I know of that had something like that removed it because of lost balls, in fact when the super finally cut it down he found 32 balls in it on one hole, one bunker, that was just the beginning, and it was only about 10" to 12" wide so it was not a wide strip.  The course is probably a little more rustic and bold in its features as compared to Lehigh.  Is that excessive or is that what you propose for Lehigh.  

[Mark_Rowlinson]

What a fine line there is between a hazard's being exactly right in one environment and totally out of place in another!  Who'd be a golf course architect for love or money!

[Mark_Fine]

Kelly,
The long grasses around the bunkers at Lehigh were put in by Ron Forse back in the early 90's.  It must have been his opinion at the time that they were representative of Flynn or I don't think he would have recommended it.  That said, my personal feeling is that if not overdone, the rougher look is more classic and one that Flynn would have approved of (again this varies from site to site).  

As you well know, a lot also depends on the selection of grasses used and those that were choosen for Lehigh did have some "pocketing" and "clumping" issues.  The edges of the bunkers were definitely hazardous and people didn't think it was fair.  I wish I had some old photos to show you what they looked like.  

One further point to remember about Lehigh is that many trees have been planted so what you are looking at today in the current photos is not what Flynn was looking at back in the 1920's.  
Mark

[Mark_Fine]

Mark,
As you know, aesthetics are very subjective.  For example, I have pushed to restore some of the out of play "native areas" at Cherry Hills but without much luck so far.  But also remember, change takes time.  It took awhile for them to change to highly manicured areas and it might take awhile to change them back.  
Mark

[Craig_Rokke]

Mark-

I saw the article in Phila Golf. Until then I didn't realize that you had gotten into the design field. What aspect of the profession have you found to be the biggest challenge or at
least more of a challenge than you anticipated?

Good luck!

[Mark_Fine]

Craig,
It’s a good question.  I’m not sure I have a good answer.  I guess thinking about it, the biggest challenge for me was probably learning to be patient.  Many of these projects take time and progress much slower than you would think (and that I would like).  Patience was not (and still isn’t) my greatest strength, but I’m learning.  

It’s also a challenge and takes time to establish some kind of credibility.  But that is a hurdle that most anyone starting up something new has to overcome.  I was prepared for that, still deal with it and probably always will.  But I’ve had a lot of good people supporting me and I’ve always believed that you need that to be successful.  This business is no different and I sure couldn’t do what I’m doing all by myself.  The book Forrest and I wrote is a excellent example.  It was a great team effort.  
Mark

[T_MacWood]

Excellent interview....7.5

Mark
What surprised you the most when researching the book? And what advise would you give those interested in writing a book?

[Mark_Fine]

Thanks Tom!  I think 7.5 is way too high (unless the scale is 1 to 100) but I’ll take it

The biggest surprise with the research was probably just how time consuming it turned out to be.  There can be a point of diminishing returns and eventually you have to stop and go with what you have otherwise you’ll never publish anything.  We found that some things were easy to uncover while other things were extremely difficult.  Working in the rare books section of The Golf House for example is fascinating but at the same time not researcher friendly.  You can’t scan anything and you can’t copy anything.  That makes it much more difficult to extract the information you need in a timely manner.  

However, for me the whole research process was very rewarding and I learned a lot.  You can’t help but learn going through all that stuff let alone all the contacts we made talking and communicating with so many knowledgeable individuals.  For example, we’d research things about Perry Maxwell then have conversations with guys like Chris Clouser (who has a book coming out on him soon) just to double check our findings.  Ian Andrew and I went back and forth numerous times comparing notes on Thompson and Travis, etc. and the list goes on.

As far as advice about writing a golf book (or I assume most any book); be prepared for more time and effort than you think.  One of the toughest aspects of our book that I didn’t think about at first was the need to get a one page long permission form signed for every image we used (I can’t remember the number but it must be over 250).  And we got these images from all over the world.  This took a real team effort but Valerie (Forrest’s wife) was amazing and extremely well organized.  The book wouldn’t be close to being finished without her!  

Editing is another fun task.  A book like this (again most books) need to be an interesting read.  We tried to make ours detailed, but somewhat fun and humorous as well.  I hope we succeeded.  

The last thought is if you are going to write a book, do it because you are passionate about the subject.  Otherwise you will probably give up before it gets done.  Golf architecture books as we all know have a limited audience so you don’t do it for the money.  
Mark  

 

[Mike Nuzzo]

Super interview, congratulations on Hazards.
If you didn't already, I hope you'll include the Jans National Backwards as a Hazard in the 2nd edition.
Cheers

[Mark_Fine]

Thanks Mike.  We missed that one but we'll think about it for the 2nd edition.  

I just got your email and sent you a response.

[Kelly Blake Moran]

As you well know, a lot also depends on the selection of grasses used and those that were choosen for Lehigh did have some "pocketing" and "clumping" issues.  

What grasses would you recommend?

[Mark_Fine]

Kelly,
I’m running out the door but quickly, 100% fine fescue was what was put in around the bunkers.  As you know, from a root strength and traffic standpoint, that can present some problems especially depending on how you maintain it.  The edges of our bunkers started to collapse and the pockets, etc. started forming.  

I think it was done (and other courses have done it as well) because it has that “classic more rugged” look.  Flynn liked that look so it does make sense.  Older photos of Lehigh showed the course with a fairly well manicured look so it is a matter of taste but the bunkers were kept a bit rougher around the edges.  

For Lehigh, I’d recommend a mix of fescue and blue.  In fact we just re-sodded a number of our bunkers with sod we found in RI that is 30% blue and 70% fescue.  I think (we hope) that should hold up better and John will keep it “as high as he can get away with”.  The blue will provide some more root strength and traffic resistance and the fescue will be good for drought conditions, etc.  It should be a good look.  We’ll see.
Mark

[wsmorrison]

I don't profess to be an expert but in our area I really like the look and playability of turf type tall fescue and K-31 on the bunker surrounds.  The K-31 adds a nice fingery look to the border between the grass and the sand.  On Flynn courses, I prefer the grass be rolled over the edge and stapled with the sand brought up to the grass.  The soil margin between grass and sand doesn't look appropriate to me.  Take a look at the bunkering at Philadelphia Country Club and around many of the bunkers at Huntingdon Valley.  These are some of the best bunkers in our parkland region.  Other great looks of Flynn bunkers in different locales are TCC in Brookline and of course, Shinnecock Hills.  To me, these are some of the finest bunkers in classic era golf.

Mike McNulty (PCC) told me about a new type of Turf Type Tall Fescue that does not need any Bluegrass to knit together the sod since it has risomes (sp?) that act like hooks to keep things together.  Have any supers seen or used this new type of TTTF?