Some Of Our Best Loved Redan's (Guess The Redan)

[Tommy_Naccarato]

[TEPaul]

I don't know where that hole is, and I can't see the green very well but if the right side of it is higher or significantly higher than the left side I wouldn't even call the hole or the green a redan---not even in concept.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Tom Paul,

Are you saying the left side is higher than the right? It's hard to tell from the photo, but maybe that rise on the left is out of play and not the green. That ridge line looks sloping from right to left except for the ground near(?) the back trees.

No idea where it is -- somewhere in LA?

Kinda neat how the green is sited on that ridge that, if the pic is taken from the tee, runs from front right to back left.  Although wouldn't a proper Redan fall off front right of the green?

The bunkers appear banked into the front slope of that ridge. Nice!  And that bunker flashed up to hide the green is very intimidating visually.

Tommy, how does it play? Is that front bunker a visual deception or hard against the green?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/8503/saredanns8.jpg

Tom,
Trust me, this is a Redan, 100% Redan all of it from the tee, 227 yards to the center of the green. I'm taking this image from in front of the ladies tees just so you can better see the right fairway and slope (kicker) that fees into the green.

Mark,
Instead of one bunker in it's usually green side location for a Redan, there are two and one is situated to hide the left side of the other.

Does this Redan look like it's from New York or New Jersey? How about Chicago?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Hint Time:

If Seabiscuit was a golfer, then he would be playing this Redan....

If John Henry was a golfer, then he too would be playing this Redan....

[Michael Robin]

How about Trevor Denman?

[Jerry Kluger]

John Henry don't have the balls to play a 227 yard redan.

[TEPaul]

MarkB:

No, I'm saying it looks to me like the right side is higher than the left side and if the opening to the green is on the left side I can't see how that could play much like a redan. All the redans I've seen have greens that basically slope down and away from the opening and at a pretty good angle to the line of flight.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Tom,
This hole does exactly that.

Michael,
Exactly!

"The Redan's Have Reached the Starting Gate....And Away They Go ! ! ! !"

The God's Must Be Crazy, because Zeus and Callisto's son played this Redan.... or at least founded it!

[Terry Buchen]

Tommy,

I have some digital color photos saved on my laptop in My Pictures and was wondering if I can download them to this site - and if so - how would I go about doing it?

It was good seeing you at the GIS in Anaheim.

Thanks,

Terry Buchen, CGCS, MG

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Terry, Was just getting ready to email you after reading your post.  Feel free to email them to me at tommynacc@gmail.com and I'll fill you in on the rest.

Yes it was great seeing you too!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

[Mark Bourgeois]

Lessee, either a sixsome or double-bagging loopers; uh, either lowest-of-low muni or ritzy private course -- not helpful! US references -- guess that leaves out Royal Durban or Musselburgh.

Wait -- John Henry, not the horse but the owner?

[TEPaul]

TommyN:

Obviously I can't make out very well were that green surface is. It looks like there's some green to the left of those bunkers but there can't be or those boys would have their bags on it.  

[Adam Clayman]

Is this hole located near the zoo?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Good catch on the number of guys!

While the pace was slow, surely it wasn't them, but I think one of them might have been just walking with them because I never once remembered seeing six guys at once. The back nine actually played fast, and this hole was the 12th.

The pleasant thing, a walker to cart ratio, it was I'm going to guess around 10 players to every one cart! There was very few carts out there at all.

Tom,

This course was filled with golf holes that would have you thinking Seth Raynor. The entire place is a jewel that has simply been left pretty much alone other then major grass growth in areas that look like they were once not maintained. Some of the bunkers were over 8 feet deep!

But don't take any of this as just rudimentary information, you guys still have to guess this one!

Next clue:
--Lucky Baldwin was so generous!
--My favorite Marx Brothers movie was filmed across the way....

[Steve Lapper]

Somewhere near Santa Anita/Pasadena??

[Mark Bourgeois]

"10 players to every one cart": a "clown cart"?

The Biscuit ran out of Santa Anita.

A Day at the Races?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

We have a winner!

The course is Santa Anita, a public course built with WPA labor and designed by one John Harrison Smith, who after a year of intense study of the great courses around the world, designed on what is a completely flat piece of ground some of the most unusual movement I've ever seen on a golf course. While just over 6,300 yards long, it might be a tad short for those looking for the full experience of what a great golf course is all about. However, each hole was unique and fun to play. Looking at the movement and the shaping, it had me scratching my head in wonderment of how come I had never seen or played this course before. I mean people do talk about it and it's always been known just how fun it is and how it was built, but for some unknown reasoning, I never made it here.

One of my playing partners, who shall remain nameless unless he wants to comment on the course even said it: "You put this course in Philadelphia and every GCA guy will be talking about it, just how cool it is..." and the truth is that he's right. In fact, I'm going to insist John Kavanaugh play it with me next time he is in town.

This as one of the more funner courses I've played in quite sometime.

[Mike_Cirba]

Oh c'mon Tommy...

You wouldn't have us believe that Smith and Brooks were able to study  and then build all of those templates on their own, would you?  
 


C'mon...tell us when Macdonald and Whigham entered the picture.    

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mike, It's just another missing piece of the puzzle......

With that, I dare you to look at Google Earth, Windows Live or any of the other aerial photo outlets and point to Arcadia, California. See if you can recognize the templates used there.

BTW, Answers to some fo the clues:

--Son of Zeus and Callistas was Arcas and his home was Arcadia, home of Santa Anita and the famed race horses, John Henry and Seabiscuit.

--My favorite Marx Brothers movie is A Day At the Races and when I was working at Santa Anita last year, looked for and found the box they filmed their scenes in.

--Lucky Baldwin was not only the founder of Arcadia, but was also the father of horse racing in western United States. He believed in speed over stamina, which is still the belief in Calbreds to this day.

His home was actually what is now the Los Angeles Arboretum, where many films and TV shows have been filmed, such as Fantasy Island and as Andy Lipshultz will attest, Meet The Fockers... (It was used as Focker Island, where "those" Fockers lived and where Pamela "Martha Focker" and Gaylord Focker got married) Santa Anita Golf Course is actually situated on land he formerly owned and set-up as the original Santa Anita Race Track in the late 1800's.

Lucky Baldwin


Trevor Denman is a beloved icon here in Southern California horse racing. A native of South Africa, his style of announcing a horse race may be the most unique of all-time, as his accent is sophisticated and he's quick and quirky with his comments, not unlike that of Vin Scully or Chick Hearn. His common phrase when it's close to post, The horses have reached the starting gate....and away they go!

One time I was at Santa Anita and had been given a hot tip on a horse called, Load The Wagon. By the halfway point of the 6 1/2 furlong race, Denman announced in his unmistakable accent, If you have your tickets in hand get your wagon and go to the booth and load it because this race is over........

The horse paid like 60-1 and it remains one of the bigger payouts I've ever won at races.

Santa Anita is one fun place--both the golf course and the race track!

[TEPaul]

"One of my playing partners, who shall remain nameless unless he wants to comment on the course even said it: "You put this course in Philadelphia and every GCA guy will be talking about it, just how cool it is..." and the truth is that he's right."

I wonder who that playing partner of yours is who made that remark. It's probably Moriarty and the statement lacks credibility like everything else he's said on here about Merion and Philadelphia golf and architecture. If you want to see if that course (Santa Anita) if put in Philadelphia would be talked about here for how cool it is, then the people to ask are those from Philadelphia who really know Philadelphia golf and architecture and not some one-time visitor from the left coast like Moriarty who doesn't really know shit about philadelphia golf or Philadelphia architecture.  

[Tommy_Naccarato]

"One of my playing partners, who shall remain nameless unless he wants to comment on the course even said it: "You put this course in Philadelphia and every GCA guy will be talking about it, just how cool it is..." and the truth is that he's right."

I wonder who that playing partner of yours is who made that remark. It's probably Moriarty and the statement lacks credibility like everything else he's said on here about Merion and Philadelphia golf and architecture. If you want to see if that course (Santa Anita) if put in Philadelphia would be talked about here for how cool it is, then the people to ask are those from Philadelphia who really know Philadelphia golf and architecture and not some one-time visitor from the left coast like Moriarty who doesn't really know shit about philadelphia golf or Philadelphia architecture.  

No Tom, it wasn't David Moriarty....It was someone you don't even know. It was from someone who also has lived on the East Coast and knows Philadelphia rather quite well.

[TEPaul]

"No Tom, it wasn't David Moriarty....It was someone you don't even know. It was from someone who also has lived on the East Coast and knows Philadelphia rather quite well."

Tommy:

That's good---fine, very fine indeed. It's important to know the area rather well to make that kind of comparison as the mystery man apparently has.

Very good, fine---very fine indeed. Fine, FINE, matter of fact perhaps SUPER-FINE or even SUPER-DUPER FINE.

[Mike_Cirba]

Ever notice how when a woman uses the word "fine" she means to emphasize exactly the opposite?