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TEPaul

Re: Oakmont Stories
« Reply #25 on: January 23, 2003, 05:20:14 AM »
mdugger & Chris Hervochon:

Sorry, I missed your questions to me from about a week ago.

As for the aesthetic look of Oakmont's bunkering, particularly fairway, I would say it's very unique, maybe even one of a kind. Why? Good question but it may just relate to the Fownes family, particularly William (the son), as it's pretty clear to me that Oakmont, as much as any course anywhere, is an expression of personal opinion in so many ways--look, intent in play etc, etc! If the Fownes's intended to copy some architecture or some architectural prinicple, I'm really not aware of what that is!

I think I can see (from some Pine Valley material) that William Fownes was a man with a very strong will and very unique ideas about golf. He believed, as did some of his contemporaries and close friends (the Philadelphia School particularly), in very high demand architecture in some cases and on some courses, certainly Oakmont, his lifelong project.

Fownes was a very good player and clearly believed in super high testing of very good players. He believed in rewarding extremely good and clever play though. Fortunately or unfortunately, he also believed, as did his friend Crump, in really really penalizing anything less, even from good players.

They (Crump and Fownes) did depart from each other in certain instances such as Fownes's recommendation on the redesign of PVGC's 1st green. This was as much concept and principle as anything else.

But as to Chris's question of how the Oakmont bunkers relate to placement and the contours of the land---in both cases the Oakmont bunkering, through the green, is about as well and tough-placed in a center directed fashion as you can find on a golf course. Basically the overall bunker placement (through the green) with other supporting features counterbalances a good deal on the opposite sides of fairways with things like drainage swales (rough) etc and is super demanding.

The reasons it's super demanding is because some of the bunkering is placed in such a way as to filter the ball using fairway contours and slope directly into the fairway bunkering (often bunkering placed on the low side below sloping fairways). #13 is probably the best and most acute example of that. On many other holes the angles used with fairway and bunkering often accomplishes the same things altough those angle can be very subtle sometimes. The bunkering also accomplishes the same intensity often simply using psychology since recovering from most of the Oakmont fairway bunkers is often just a short shot of necessity due to their penal architecture.

Basically Oakmont is what I would call a "center directed" course strategically but inside that center direction is some of the most nuancy options concerning the bounce of the ball using little fairway contours and slope also speed.

Last night I was talking to D Moriarty about the differences in what he calls vertical options vs horizontal options. I call the same effect distance vs accuracy (width) options.

In this way Oakmont doesn't really use a lot of width options in its design--it is very much center directed. That kind of thing for the pros will clearly get down to much more club selection everywhere than decisions of which directions to play the ball.

But again the look of the bunkering at Oakmont is very unique, old fashioned looking and quite man-made looking in some cases (like the church pews).

I would like to answer your question about the bunkering greenside at Oakmont but that's something I didn't pay quite so much attention to when last there for a number of days. So I won't comment on that.

One thing Oakmont does do, though, happily, is consistently maintain about the most perfect "maintenance meld" for its overall design as one can find consistently anywhere.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Forrest Richardson

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Re: Oakmont Stories
« Reply #26 on: March 14, 2003, 06:17:37 PM »
based on the recent Oakmont thread, I've moved this up so it might be aviailable to those interested. Enjoy.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »
— Forrest Richardson, Golf Course Architect/ASGCA
    www.golfgroupltd.com
    www.golframes.com

Dan Herrmann

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Re:Oakmont Stories
« Reply #27 on: June 01, 2007, 01:38:11 PM »
bump - good reading here with the Open on the way.

Kalen Braley

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Re:Oakmont Stories
« Reply #28 on: June 01, 2007, 01:48:44 PM »
Pardon my ignorance here, but I have a question about furrowed bunkers.

Was the practice "invented" to make bunkers more difficult, or was the furrowed rake just one of the early bunker raking tools?  I guess what I'm really getting at is was this practice intentionally done for playability, or was it just a matter of inventing new rakes for bunkers that made the old furrowing ones "obsolete"?

The implications for me are that if it was just obsoleted by newer rakes, then it seems like a big component of reverting to using the furrowing ones is simply a "return to traditional golf values on the course, etc, etc" in the face of the onslaught of techincal advances in golf, both for playing equipment and maintainence equipment.

However if they were invented specifically for this, then its a better arguement, at least in my mind, to return to using them again.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2007, 01:50:29 PM by Kalen Braley »

Forrest Richardson

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Re:Oakmont Stories
« Reply #29 on: June 01, 2007, 10:54:55 PM »
Kalen — They were invented to make Oakmont stand apart — and to add difficulty. The furrowed trap had to be mastered. Jack Snyder used to say that it was easy to hit out of the bunkers once one realized that it allowed sand to buffer the club and ball.
— Forrest Richardson, Golf Course Architect/ASGCA
    www.golfgroupltd.com
    www.golframes.com

John_Cullum

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Re:Oakmont Stories
« Reply #30 on: June 02, 2007, 09:26:05 AM »
Untilreading through this thread, it never dawned on mewhat a maintenance headach the church pew bunkers present. Do they mow the benches with a weed eater these days?
"We finally beat Medicare. "

Forrest Richardson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Oakmont Stories
« Reply #31 on: June 02, 2007, 10:49:56 AM »
They were called "sand traps" in Western PA, not "bunkers" !
— Forrest Richardson, Golf Course Architect/ASGCA
    www.golfgroupltd.com
    www.golframes.com

Tommy Williamsen

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Re:Oakmont Stories
« Reply #32 on: June 02, 2007, 10:54:28 AM »
I always knew that the greens were fast and firm, but I did not realize how firm they were until I took my son there when he was about 12 years old.  As he was putting on the practice green on the back of 9 green, he turns to me and says, "Dad my spikes (yes metal spikes) don't go into the ground."  Now that's firm.
Where there is no love, put love; there you will find love.
St. John of the Cross

"Deep within your soul-space is a magnificent cathedral where you are sweet beyond telling." Rumi

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