What distinguishes a Ross course?

[TEPaul]

Tom:

The water running into those areas has to do with the sogginess! The grass getting nasty in those areas has to do with the crew sitting in the maintenance building drinking beer and smoking cigarettes instead of mowing the grass!

Nevertheless the "ideal maintenance meld" is an extremely complex undertaking!

[Dan Kelly]

I do hear from Dan and Rick that you are still using that "bad back, need to hit the 3-iron, bunt, bunt chip and putt, oh, gosh that was a 4, wasn't it?! routine",  That may work above the arctic circle, but if we ever get to play at Myrtle Beach, bring along your personal trainer, or else.......

Rich -- If what I saw on the 17th tee the other day, just after he'd hit his tee shot, was a "routine," Mr. McDowell is America's answer to Laurence Olivier.

I thought -- and he said HE thought -- he was going to *break* that 3-iron, as he leaned on it for support. Good thing we're not using those old wooden shafts anymore!

Uff-da!

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

TE
MacKenzie is mystical, Burbeck is a conundrum, Tillie is intoxicating.....or is that intoxicated. What is the story with King of Siam?

[TEPaul]

Haven't you ever heard "The King and I"?

One of Yul Brynner's better songs was "It's a PUZZLEMENT!"

Tillie was both intoxicated and intoxicating! It all depended on whether you were talking ABOUT him or standing next to him!

[Steve Wilson]

He often, or so it seems to me, used the short uphill par four to deal with major elevation changes.  Leave the valley for the high country in one breathtaking climb rather than in a series of more moderate ones.  Admittedly my experience with Ross is a few major ones and a few minor ones, but this seemed to be a staple ingredient in his work.

And most of the courses had greens with serious internal movement.  I'm still dying to get to French Lick before they flatten them in deference to the Stimpfmeter.

[Mike Hendren]

Steve,

I played the Hill Course in March when the greens probably had not been cut in a week.  I suspect that's the speed at which they were originally intended to roll.  Limited resources at the resort are probably a blessing for the greens.  They are indeed a blast!

Tom McWood,

Slightly elevated greens are typical, but notable exceptions include the 10th at Holston Hills, where the green is slightly recessed and the world class 15th at Beverly which is at grade and open in the front to accomodate the length of the shot required.  

It seems as though Ross (or his associates) made numerous notable exceptions to his otherwise common practices.  

Regards,

Mike Hendren

[TEPaul]

Although Ross seemed to have a career penchant for routing greens in an elevated fashion as much as he could on various sites it certainly wouldn't be logical to say that all his holes are that way--not if you have an understanding of the exigencies of routing that is!

He might have had a penchant for those types of high tee/valley/high greens or some part of that type of thing but even Ross in his routings couldn't get around the immutable law of nature that what goes up must come down!

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Mike
Great points about his greens. Your observation about those exceptions got me thinking. Many of Inverness's greens are at grade, the 16th at Oakland Hills is a grade, the 4th is slightly below and one my favorite Ross greens - the 16th at Canton Brookside - is at fairway level. In fact many of his courses have greens like that. An emphasis on variety and practicality perhaps?

Also he didn't always place greens and tees on the highest points. One his greatest holes (and most natural) - the 11th at Oakland Hills - snakes around one of the high points of the course, kind of a valley effect to an elevated green in a saddle. And three of the most striking par-4s at Canton Brookside are up an over type holes, with greens sitting well below the approach. The enigma continues.

Another feature I've notices with many of his better preserved courses and also in some of his plans - are a lot of squarish or rectangularly shaped greens with four bulging or protruding corners - very unique.

[BCrosby]

I've always thought the "high spot to high spot" characterization of Ross routings was off the mark. I'm not sure he did any more of it than his Golden Age rivals.

Take East Lake, a course many know from TV. Ross rerouted an original Bendelow layout utilizing many sloping diagonals, rather than going station-to-station between high spots. See nos. 5, 7, 9, 14, 15, and 16, for example. All these fairways cant from one side to the other. Tees and greens on those holes tend to be in hollows (or are "concave," to use Mike Cirba's felicitous expression from another thread.)

Ross might have used the obvious high points at East Lake very differently and a totally different routing would have been the result.

The same might be said for Pinehurst No. 2. Not many elevated tees or greens. Ditto for Athens CC.  Athens is a fairly hilly tract, but Ross exploited diagonal slopes (a la East Lake) as often as he went from high point to high point.

So I'm not sure that Ross was quite as predictable as sometimes claimed. He didn't always pick out high spots for tees and greens and work out his routings from there.

(Seminole comes close to being the exception that proves the rule. Ross brilliantly used every high spot he could find on the property. But then Seminole truly sui generis.  It is less like any other Florida course I've ever played.)

But if "high spot to high spot" doesn't characterize Ross, what does? What makes you recognize a course as being one designed by Ross?

This is awfully subjective, but to my eye there is something about his courses that scales well. Their features are sized to the humans that play them. Greens are low key. Bunkers don't advertise themselves. They aren't huge, toothy maws looking to suck up balls. Water hazards are rarely used and if used, are used discreetly.

Yet at the same time these features are wonderfully strategic and much more punitive than they appear.

I think that is the connection between Ross's courses in the US and Royal Dornoch. Ross got from RD this sense of scale and proportion. Hazards don't shout or intimidate. Rather his features seem to flow together, almost like a musical score.

But hidden beneath this veneer of domesticity is - more often than not - a nasty monster that will gobble up unthinking shots.

Dunno. Just thinking out loud.

Bob    

[Tom Doak]

I hate to generalize about Donald Ross, just the same as I hate the idea that someone will someday generalize about me.

Donald Ross did a wide array of work over his career.  Some early courses have lots of fairway bunkers; some later courses have very few.  I used to think he liked raised plateau greens, but then I saw Kahkwa Club in Erie which has some plateaux, some greens at natural grade, and a couple of punchbowls!

One thing I can say -- Donald Ross never wasted a thing.

[Mike_Cirba]

Ross's blind, punchbowl green sitting adjacent to a quarry on the 8th at Lulu defies his characterization as "Mr. Elevation", as well.  

Coincidentally, on the other side of the road, Ross also created an effectively blind (only the flagstick is really visible) short, par three that plays over the quarry and sits on the far cliffside (site of one of the most remarkable pars I've ever seen courtesy of Tommy N).

Ross was nothing if not imaginative and site specific.  As Tom Doak points out, it's rare to see a wasted natural feature on a Ross course.  

[Paul Richards]

Great routing is what distinguishes a Ross course.

Both Bradley Klein and Ron Whitten have commented on how my home course, Beverly CC is a great example of the greatness of Ross and his routing ability.

[Paul Richards]

In fact, Ran Morrissett says the following about his visit to Beverly (from the "Courses by Architect" section of GCA):


The property enjoys ideal movement for a golf course and Donald Ross, more likely from working with a topography map than from site inspections, came up with a masterful routing with the holes constantly changing directions. Some Ross authorities like Brad Klein consider it amongst Ross's finest routings with Ross as usual doing a first rate job of locating the green sites.

The holes themselves are a sturdy lot, and the golfer is not surprised to learn that Beverly has hosted everything from the 1931 US Amateur (won by Francis Ouimet) to the 1967 Western Open (won by Jack Nicklaus). In addition, Chick Evans and Arnold Palmer have won here too. In addition, many a student of architecture, including Ron Whitten, has been impacted by their time at Beverly CC.

In particular, Beverly is an exemplary example of an architect getting the most from a piece of property. Though 87th Street divides the course into two rectangles, Ross's ingenius placement of tees and the angles that he created away from the property lines will impress every architecture student.  Furthermore, his use of the available natural features highlighted by the ridge that was the edge of Lake Chicago and the sand dunes create a succession of one fine hole after another.

In fact, the only undistinguished hole on the course is perhaps the 9th, which was modified to make way for 87th Street years after Ross's course opened. Other than that, each hole and each shot places an interesting demand on the golfer. With only a handful of exceptions like Pinehurst No. 2, the two or three weakest holes at Beverly are the equal or superior to any of the two or three weakest holes from any other Ross course that you care to mention. The constant demand for good, thoughtful golf at Beverly has long captivated the better golfer.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Paul
I've read your 'My Home Course' on Beverly and it sounds like the property was blessed with some very interesting natural features - is there a pattern to how Ross took advantage of those features?

From what I understand Ross's was involved around 1916 but the course began a few years earlier. What is known about the original golf course?

[MBL]

My exposure to Ross is only through reading and two rounds on No. 2 and one round at Pine Needles.  

My question: do his opening holes (typically) 'reach out to shake your hand, like an old friend' (I think that was the quote)...i.e. easing you into the round?

Also interested in the collective wisdom of the DG regarding  his use of optical illusion or deceptiveness vis-a-vis lack of framing behind greens.  Seemed as if depth perception was an issue on a number of approaches due at #2 and Pine Needles due to 'unframed' greens.

[Paul Richards]

Tom:

From what I can gather, the original course at Beverly was laid out by Tom Bendelow and/or George O'Neil, who was Beverly's original golf pro, and went on to design a handful of courses.

Some of the routing was left intact by Ross, but quite a few changes.

For instance, the opening hole played to a green some 20 yards left of today's green and the second was a short three par of some 125 yards or so to a punch bowl green.  The Ross second is a 535 yard par 5 that takes a similar route to the original third hole, and so on.  There are parts of the course that we cannot reconstruct based on the description we have from a magazine dated 1908.  

#18 was also a par 3 that played to about the center of our pool today whereas today the 18th is a stout 594-yard five par.

[BCrosby]

MB -

You are right. Ross used a lot of optical illusion. He was a master at designing "foreshortening" bunkers to hide (or partially hide) the putting surface. These bunkers were often placed some distance from the green (say 20 to 30 yards), but viewed from the fairway they appear to be built into the green pad. Even when you know they are distorting the perception of the true distance to the green, they still get into your head. Ross sometimes used ridges to the same effect.

Interestingly, at least on the Ross courses I know well, the greens guarded by these foreshortening bunkers also tend to have bunkers behind them. This confirms, I think, that Ross was quite consciously trying to mess with the player's depth perception.

But there's another twist to these bunkers that isn't talked about often. Most strategic choices are east/west. Hazards are usually to the sides of the fairway or green.

Foreshortening bunkers present interesting north/south strategic choices. You can lay back for a better view of the green but pay the price of having a longer shot. Or hit it closer to the bunker, obtain the benefits of a shorter shot, but you will see even less of your target. No architect I know matches Ross in creating these north/south strategic choices.

(Sometimes foreshortening bunkers are lumped in with "fore" or "carry" bunkers. But they ought to be viewed as a different bunker type, I think.  Carry bunkers lack the unique north/south strategy of the foreshortening types. Carry bunkers aren't so wonderfully multi-dimensional; they are there simply to create a forced a carry.)

I've not seen another archie that uses foreshortening bunkers as often or as well as Ross did. Along with his elevated greens, one of the most important arrows in Ross's quiver was undermining a player's ability to gauge the distance to the putting surface.

Players these days seem to have less tolerance for these kinds of features. They want to be able to see everything. As I recall "seeing what's ahead" (or something like it) is one of Rees's mottos. But he's not alone. Few modern archies will dare to design bunkers that create similar north/south choices. A shame, I think. And a testament to how good Ross was.

Bob    

[Bradley Anderson]

I have a theory about the elevation of Ross' greens.

It is certainly obvious that he utilized every knoll as his natural green sites, and probably devised his routes around them. But in the land that remained where we find these artificially raised fill pads, I believe that the height of the putting surface may well have been engineered to be just inches above the 100 year flood plain elevation.

I have taken note of this on every Ross course that I have played: that the elevation of the raised fill pad greens, seem to coincide with what I percieve to be the pre-war engineering flood plain.

If this is so, than it would suggest that raised fill pads were not essentially a Ross paradigm, but merely a means of protecting the most sacred and sensitive turf from flooding. The older bents would simply not survive being submerged for too long a period, and the time and sophistication to regrass was too much to risk on his clients.

Ross was indeed parsimonious.

Just a theory, but there you have it.

[TEPaul]

Bob:

It's odd to me that you mention the deceptiveness of Ross's "foreshortened" bunkers. Almost all those bunkers on Ross courses in this area and even Gulf Stream G.C. in Florida are basically on uphill slopes (20-40 yds) before elevated greens and really don't hide the fairway space behind the bunker (to the green) at all. The only one on my course that even remotely does that is a long downhill par 3 and it's not particularly deceptive that way! But of the uphill slope variety there are at least eight on my course.

[Mark_Fine]

One of the problems with Ross's varied style is you often don't know for sure what he really did on site vs. what others after him did to his courses.  I just played Brookside in Canton.  Half the bunkers are sand faced and half are grass faced.  Some holes like #10 for example, have a grass faced bunker one on one side and a sand faced one on the other.  

And talk about severe back to front sloping greens, many of the holes have extremely limited pin positions.  

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Bradley
Interesting theory. Would that information be easily accessable to Ross?

[BCrosby]

Tom -

Interesting. The Athens CC has two foreshortening bunkers of the type I described - nos. 2 and 14. Both are about 25 yards short of the green, both are on ridges, both block (at least partially) a view of the putting surface. A foreshortening "ridge" blocks a full view of the green on no. 3. All are wonderfully effective at messing with your mind.

At East Lake it's hard to tell what is Ross and what isn't. Especially with respect to bunkers. But on no. 15 (par 5) there is a bunker about 75 yards short of the green (it predates Rees). You hit your second from a valley below the bunker. Again, the bunker (and the ridge it sits on) hide the green and do a great job of messing with your depth perception. I recall that before Rees got his mitts on East Lake there was also a foreshortening bunker that partially blocked the left side of the 7th green.

I had always assumed that these were trademark Ross features.

As with your course, you also see the placement of these bunker in upslopes. At Athens, for example, they show up in Ross's drawings for nos. 7. 9 and 15. Only the one on no. 7 still exists.

But I think the version that hides the target is much more interesting strategicaly. I think they are fantastic and no one did them better than Ross.

Bob

P.S. Totally off topic, but I've come across a scorecard for East Lake from about 1930. I also have a drawing (not done by Ross) of the original Ross routing from about the same time. I have also confirmed that aerials are available of East Lake from the early 1930's through the US Archives.

My point?

Rees was given a more or less free hand to "restore" East Lake on the premise that Ross's original drawings for the course were lost. (If the foreging sentence is non-sensical, it is no more non-sensical than the club's own desription of Rees's work at East Lake.)

While it is true that Ross's drawings appear to be lost, it would have required only a modest effort to reconstruct a fairly accurate picture of how the course appeared soon after Ross finished his work. There is little doubt that neither Rees nor anyone at East Lake made that modest effort.

Now that we know some of the basics about the original Ross design for East Lake, it is now abundantly clear how different the "restored" course is today from the course as designed by Ross. To call it a "restoration" is to empty the term of any meaning.        

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom MacWood,

When I first got into the business, I was told to use nearby railroad grades (especially the bottom of bridges crossing major creeks, which are said to be 2 feet above the calculated high flood level) as a guide to 100 year flood elevations.  That data was probably available, as most track building in the US started iafter the civil war, and peaked in 1917. And, although more sophisicated now, the railroad engineers (the kind that draw plans, not the kind that run trains) had some data and used it conservatively.  

Ross could have used that, or local knowledge from the old guys (Yeah, Mr. Ross, in the flood of 1888, the water got to the top of the first floor of the farmhouse, and that's the biggest flood I've seen in my 76 years on this planet)  I still use that kind of field data, albeit with a bit more fear that some lawyer some day will argue that the Owner should have paid an engineer $100K to do a study to prove theoretically what actually happened in the real world!

However, as I have said before, Kris J. graciously allowed me to look at hundreds of Ross plans, and I never saw that mentioned, although I may not have been looking at floodplain courses.  Many, many green plans in the Tufts archives call for getting fill to raise the back of the green from bunkers in front.  It was the closest haul.

I also saw Ross filed notes for Franklin Hills in Detroit with Jeff Mingay, and on the par 3 third, he lowered the green for vision and also lowered another one in a side hill (Hole 2) to balance cut and fill, according to his field notes.  All in all, pretty modern, and practical thinking.  And evidence that, as Tom Doak says, Ross used all of a property.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Bob
That is a very interesting report. I've wondered if East Lake should be considered on Modern or Calssic course on GolfWeeks ranking - I perdsonally think it should be on the Modern.

There are a number of those foreshortened bunkers on courses around here. A course I played quite a bit as a kid -Granville - really played with your head. Bit I've also found some courses that have seen courses where the greens are built in back of a ridge where those bunkers are built short into the ridge line. Perhaps to different circumstance and two different rational albeit related rational.

Jeff
Based on your research would you consider Ross avanced for his time? It also sounds like he was focused on visability.  What's your take on the a foreshortened bunkers being partially to create an optical illusion?

Speeking of optical illusions, I played Westbrook early this year on a sloping site and they were among the most difficult greens I have ever tried to read - a constant optical illusion. The most difficult greens I have ever encountered - The Broadmoor.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bradley Anderson,

I too, find your theory intriquing.

Has anyone uncovered any information that would indicate that Ross's organization used this as their modis operendi ?

His archives, the Ross Society ??

It is a very interesting theory that should be looked into.