Joshua Crane gets Mad…

[TEPaul]

"By the way Tom, in the "Ideal Course" list Crane published, with suggested changes...did you notice his recommendation for #1 at Pine Valley?"

Sully"

I certainly did and I don't agree with his suggestions at all. I do not feel that PV's #1 needs any architectural changes at all with the possible exception of some tree removal on the right and perhaps some consideration for the final inclusion of some of the things that Crump apparently wanted to do to the hole had he lived.



"Do you think we can gang up on Pat Mucci and his regular suggestion that they eliminate all of the trees on the property "like it was in XXXX..."? That would be fun..."


Pat Mucci's ideas for PV are not to be taken seriously, in my opinion.  


One final thing about Crane and PV---I was most surprised to see him include PV's #12 in the list of his 18 ideal golf holes with no suggested architectural changes. To me, that very well might mean that Crane was not the one dimensional "penal" proponent that some paint him to be.

RTJ mentioned that PV's 12th was the real weak hole on the golf course. That's one of the reasons I don't put much stock in RTJ's opinions on golf architecture!  
 
 

[Rich Goodale]

Can any of you techies out there find a way to tranform the URL in my post #169 to a real picture?  Adam and Sully will thank you.

Thanks in advance, Garland, and please misspell "offending" to let me know that you've receieved this message

[Garland Bayley]

You can delete your offend ing post now Rich.

[JESII]

"Has you opinion, or your views of golf and golf course architecture changed over the last 10 years? 20 years? Do you feel you have evolved, or where you spit out with the exact same opinions you have today?"


Sully:

As Mrs. Grundy might say in her English class, would you mind cleaning up those sentences and representing them to me?

If so, I'll consider answering you.  

Tom,

I'm not worried about you or Mrs. Grundy answering that question...I know the answer, and it's the basis for why Joshua Crane's next generation of this formula is interesting to me.

[JESII]

Crane's Ideal Course:

1.  #1 Pine Valley without trees[/i] and with improved contour in front of and on green.

According to some (Pat Mucci), the course should be returned to its original state of no trees...in 1926 there were enough to warrant improving the hole by removing them, according to Crane...

I think that's interesting, in a non-contrarian sort of way...

[TEPaul]

Sully:

In my opinion, the trees that need to be removed on PV's #1 are along the right side.

Crump worked hard on that bunkering along the right side on the tee shot (he added it about 2-3 years after beginning). It's a lot of rough ground (and bunkering) in there and I think the hole would be much better in play if one could get a real peak around the corner. I think that draws the golfer's attention and may even sort of tempt or con him into going right unintentionally.

Crump also had an improved scheme for the bunkering along the left side of the fairway. His friends said he considered those narrow litte "river" bunkers along there to be temporary. Unfortunately, he didn't get around to making those changes Carr and Smith said he wanted to make on that hole.

[Michael Powers]

Myopia's 5th green complex is a complete redesign.  The work was done in the early 80's when I caddied there (but I don't know who did the work).  The green was originally located closer to the cross hazard, and therefore, the hole played shorter back in the day.

This is a great tee shot hole that fits the terrain beautifully as designed by Leeds, and the length of the hole fits todays ball better.  I personally think the green does not quite fit here.  Unlike most of the other green designs (even the longer holes such as the 12th) the 5th is non-descript with subtle interior undulations.

[TEPaul]

Michael:

The fifth hole is one that Leeds and others always thought of as quite a problem for a variety of reasons. Have you ever read Mr Weeks' history book of Myopia chronicling some of these things?