When Trees are An Appropriate Obstacle

[Phil Benedict]

I hosted a pair of GCA'ers at my club yesterday.  It was an interesting and fun experience.  GCA'ers evaluate a course differently than the typical guest, commenting on routing and other architectural features rather than green speed or course conditions, which is what most guests comment on.

While generally complimentary about our tree removal activities, one of my guests took issue with a tree on the left side of our 9th hole (a par 5), which he basically considered a gratuitous insult to the majority of players who have to lay up in front of the water hazard that crosses the fairway 90-yards from the green.  I told him that I am often behind that tree, which forces me to lay up rather than go for the green.  I think that's a good thing, because otherwise I would not be penalized for an off-line drive. 

My point is that sometimes a single, strategically placed tree can serve the purpose of penalizing wayward shots better than the alternatives, denser rough or a bunker (which is far more expensive to maintain).

[Kalen Braley]

Phil,

It would be helpful to have more information.  Is there plenty of space to layup to to avoid this tree?  Or is the green blocked from most parts of the fairway if choosing to lay up?

In general terms, I might agree with this otherwise on a medium par 4, but why penalize the shortkockers who can't reach the green in 2 and have to layup anyways, regardless of if they hit a good drive in the fairway or not?

[Phil Benedict]

Kalen,

I think the tree in question probably affects players like me who can reach the green in two far more frequently than players for whom it is nearly always a three-shot hole.  Longer hitters get close enough to this tree so that they can't hit over it on a direct line to the green, whereas shorter hitters are further back so it is less of a factor.  The other thing about this particular hole is that there is OB right, so trees along the left prevent favoring that side of the hole from being a free lunch.

My broader point is that a few trees here and there can play a strategic role that might otherwise be taken by fairway bunkers or higher rough.  The former is expensive to maintain and the latter is a blunt instrument that slows down play and affects everyone. 

[Kalen Braley]

Phil,

That seems to make sense, certainly in that trees are usually a lot cheaper to maintain.

I guess when it comes to trees, I like them like I like my courses.  Strategic over Penal.  If they are there to add strategy and options for going under, over, or around them, then its interesting.  But when its just a wall of trees and the only play is a pitchout, I'm not so much a fan of them.

So might equate that to wide fairways vs narrow fairways, and that may be code word for easier.  But having a play after a bad shot is always going to be funner than being completely stymied.

[Phil Benedict]

Kalen,

At the risk of GCA apostasy, Oakmont could probably achieve a similar strategic result by replacing all of its fairway bunkers (other than the Church Pews) with 5-10 trees per hole.  (Keep in mind you can't recover from Oakmont's fairway bunkers).  So we are talking maybe 100-200 trees on the entire golf course, which is nothing on a property of that scale.  Their maintenance costs would go down a lot, don't you think?

For the record, I am not advocating that Oakmont plant trees and remove bunkers.  The place is unique the lack of trees and abundance of bunkers are a big part of that uniqueness.  By they have a lot of revenue to care for all those bunkers.

[John Sheehan]

Phil,

In general, I'm not a big fan of trees as a design element.  I'd rather see them well off the lines of play.  That said, I think MacKenzie's take on them was pretty good.  If you are going to use them as a strategic element, he suggested planting (or clearing around existing ones) in groups of three.  That way, if indeed the trees played a strategic role in the design, if one goes down for some reason, the strategy is not lost and you can replace the downed tree.  He also suggested that they should be well-trimmed to allow for recovery shots.

I am not familiar with the hole that you reference, but if there is no reason to be near that tree (from a strategic perspective) then it sounds like its role is strictly penal.

There is an old MacKenzie design (a muni) in Sacramento.  One of the holes on the back nine is a par 5.  A tree sits on the right side atop a small ridge.  If you can sling a draw at that tree and hit that ridge, your tee shot will get a nice kick down the fairway.  The left side of the fairway, opposite the tree, has the exact opposite effect.  The ridge transitions into a depression that will effectively stop your drive dead.  Because the hole doglegs to the left at the very end of the fairway, being on the right side of that fairway has its strategic advantages.  A very good par 5 I have described on this forum before in more detail, many years ago.  The hole would still work without that tree, but it does make the hole a bit more risky with it being in that location.

[Kalen Braley]

Kalen,

At the risk of GCA apostasy, Oakmont could probably achieve a similar strategic result by replacing all of its fairway bunkers (other than the Church Pews) with 5-10 trees per hole.  (Keep in mind you can't recover from Oakmont's fairway bunkers).  So we are talking maybe 100-200 trees on the entire golf course, which is nothing on a property of that scale.  Their maintenance costs would go down a lot, don't you think?

For the record, I am not advocating that Oakmont plant trees and remove bunkers.  The place is unique the lack of trees and abundance of bunkers are a big part of that uniqueness.  By they have a lot of revenue to care for all those bunkers.

Phil,

I'm thinking more along the lines of 1-2 well placed trees per hole max that really make you decide how to play the hole.

I understand that Oakmont has very severe bunkers and getting in one is more akin to a half shot penalty pitch out more than the typical american style bunker.  But at least when in a bunker, the aerial game is still a viable opten in 99.99% of the cases.  And that concept really carries over to trees for me.  As long as I have shot under, over, or around a tree, I think it works well.  Its the complete stymie thats no fun because no imagination is needed just chop it.  Kind of like unimaginative rough at US Opens. 

[Sean_A]

I reckon my thoughts on trees is much like how I feel about "restorations".  In the right hands it (they) can be excellent, but I always fear that whoever is in charge will carried away.  It is not very often that I see trees used intelligently and so I come across as anti tree.  In fact, I like trees, but they have to serve a few purposes and not be used as part of the design on more than a handful of holes.  In fact, my favourite use of trees is when majestic specimens are left on their own and meant to be admired.  We don't consider their importance strategically until one day we get too greedy and are caught out.  Its not so different from the stand alone bunker which is as pleasing as a peach to look at, but one day it will turn sour and remind you of why its there.

Ciao   

[Phil Benedict]

Phil,


I am not familiar with the hole that you reference, but if there is no reason to be near that tree (from a strategic perspective) then it sounds like its role is strictly penal.

My guess is that the original intent of the tree in question was cosmetic.  Somebody on the greens committee got the bright idea to plant a tree long after the architect (Ross) was gone.  However, due to the greater penalty of missing right (OB), the tree is strategic because the smart play off the tee is to favor the left side of the fairway, which brings this particular tree into play. 

I think the tree improves the hole because there should be something down the left side of the hole to punish a wayward drive.  This may sound a bit Calvinistic but I think driving accuracy should be part of the test.  Plus there is plenty of room to the right, with no trees in bounds, but it's the fear of OB that gets you thinking "don't miss right."

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Wasn't the 1st at Spyglass Hill originally designed round a tree which subsequently fell down?

I can think of a few English courses on which a single tree or small group of them is used to great effect.

There was an elm slap bang in the middle of the short par-4 17th hole at Lilleshall Hall (Colt) where I played as a boy. It was a semi-blind drive uphill over a crest, the tree giving you the best indication of the line. You could finish directly behind it, but after you've done that once you know that you must, in future, opt for one side or the other. I don't mind being asked to make that decision on the tee any more than I mind having to choose one side or the other of the bunkers at Woking. The point about that tree was that it was tall and had quite a lot of bare trunk (perhaps 30 feet) before the branches began, leaving plenty of opportunity for the shorter hitter, whose tee shot had not got as far as the tree, to play a low runner which was the best shot in to a green which sloped significantly from front down to the back. Long after I left the area the tree succumbed to Dutch Elm disease and the hole is probably now greatly inferior.

One of the most famous is the 17th at Fulford, on which Bernhard Langer had to climb into the tree to the left of the green in order to play his chip.

The 18th at Ganton uses the tall trees on the left of the fairway to perfection in punishing the over-ambitious tee shot. The trees to the left of the 16th fairway often cause players to drive too far to the right where the ground runs away towards trees, potentially cutting off their approach shot on this tough par 4. You know as you stand on the tee that you must not drift right.

The Oak Tree to the right of the 18th fairway on the Hotchkin course at Woodhall Spa dominates strategy whatever your handicap level and whatever the tee you are playing from.

There's a mischievous tree on the right of the dog-leg right 16th at Wilmslow. You can't really see it from the tee. You know you can run out of fairway if you drive too straight, so you decide to go down the right, where a prominent bunker appears to say 'I'm here to prevent you going down the best line.' Probably you go with a fairway metal or a longish iron. Even if you clear the bunker you now have 170 yards to the green which is just too far to reach with a club high enough to clear the tree which you now discover is exactly in the way. That tree turns what would be a simple hole into quite a trategic hole.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Phil,
Correct me if I am wrong, but that tree doesn't come into play at all if you hit your tee shot into the 35(ca.) yard wide fairway, and as you said, there is plenty of room on the right.

How is that not appropriate?

[Joe Bausch]

Anybody got a picture or two of this hole and said tree?  I know I would find that helpful.

[Phil Benedict]

Anybody got a picture or two of this hole and said tree?  I know I would find that helpful.

Due to my woeful lack of technical skill, I can only paste the link from our website.  The tree in question is in the distance down the left side.  It's probably about 310 yards from the tee, which is quite elevated so the tree is a factor for long hitters.

http://www.ccwaterbury.com/09p.php

[Jim_Kennedy]

Joe,
Looking down the left side in this photo you'll see a rather well formed maple impinging on the fairway, it looks like there's a pond 'growing' out of it.
The tree in question( I think), is left of this one.
 

....it's the one on the left that's 158 yards out from the green in this shot, is that right Phil?

[Joe Bausch]

My point is that sometimes a single, strategically placed tree can serve the purpose of penalizing wayward shots better than the alternatives, denser rough or a bunker (which is far more expensive to maintain).

I would agree with that statement.  And just recently I experienced a nice example of this, on #5 of the P.B. Dye course in Lebanon Valley.  It is a dogleg right par 4 with trees left and right off the tee and really for most of the hole.  If you try to cut a tee shot and chew off some of the dogleg, you end up having a tree to deal with about 75 yards short of the green.  This photo shows what I mean pretty well, the tree being to the right in the pic:



I was in the right rough and had to figure out how to negotiate that big tree.  It was too tall to hit over, so I tried a cut a little shot around it but missed the rather narrow green and the up and down was very difficult.  I took my bogey and acknowledged the tree won the battle.

[Bill_McBride]

Phil,

In general, I'm not a big fan of trees as a design element.  I'd rather see them well off the lines of play.  That said, I think MacKenzie's take on them was pretty good.  If you are going to use them as a strategic element, he suggested planting (or clearing around existing ones) in groups of three.  That way, if indeed the trees played a strategic role in the design, if one goes down for some reason, the strategy is not lost and you can replace the downed tree.  He also suggested that they should be well-trimmed to allow for recovery shots.

I am not familiar with the hole that you reference, but if there is no reason to be near that tree (from a strategic perspective) then it sounds like its role is strictly penal.

There is an old MacKenzie design (a muni) in Sacramento.  One of the holes on the back nine is a par 5.  A tree sits on the right side atop a small ridge.  If you can sling a draw at that tree and hit that ridge, your tee shot will get a nice kick down the fairway.  The left side of the fairway, opposite the tree, has the exact opposite effect.  The ridge transitions into a depression that will effectively stop your drive dead.  Because the hole doglegs to the left at the very end of the fairway, being on the right side of that fairway has its strategic advantages.  A very good par 5 I have described on this forum before in more detail, many years ago.  The hole would still work without that tree, but it does make the hole a bit more risky with it being in that location.

John, what are the chances that tree was there when MacKenzie laid out the course 80 years ago?  Most likely some green committee chair decided it would be a great idea to have a tree there.

Unless it's a monstrous oak from days of yore...........

[Phil Benedict]

Jim,

The tree that I was alluding to is the one that looks like it has a pond growing out of it.  (To be honest, I wouldn't bet the ranch that this is the tree my guest was talking about at the beginning of this thread, since there are guite a few trees to choose from.  He didn't like the one that sticks out on the right either, which I agree with.)

This tree hugs the left side of the fairway as is evident from the photo.  You can miss the fairway by a few yards and have your line to the green impaired.  My point is that you ought to have to hit the fairway to have a routine shot to the green.  We could put a bunker there, but that would be expensive to build and maintain, or we could grow the rough, but that means time wasted looking for golf balls.  The tree serves the purpose of challenging you to hit the fairway.

BTW, I've been well to the left of the area we are talking about on many occasions and had a clear shot to the green with a great angle.  Who said golf is supposed to be fair?  Sometimes a bad miss is better than a near miss.

[CJ Carder]

This is the 18th hole on my home course and I've always thought the tree on the corner of the dogleg was very appropriate.  As you can see, the green is to the extreme left of the picture where the red arrow is.  The preferred play is out to the right (see two balls in this picture) to give the best angle into the green.  Any drive left is likely blocked out by the tree unless the player can hit a going draw under the branch.  The fairway does bend that direction and encourage that type of shot should the player find himself in that position.

That said, I think MacKenzie's take on them was pretty good.  If you are going to use them as a strategic element, he suggested planting (or clearing around existing ones) in groups of three.  That way, if indeed the trees played a strategic role in the design, if one goes down for some reason, the strategy is not lost and you can replace the downed tree.

Unfortunately, I think John hit the nail on the head.  Despite my picture being taken in January, the changing of the seasons has revealed that this tree will likely not make it through the end of this year, which is sad because it will really open up the left side a lot more and reduce the shotmaking skill that makes this finishing hole difficult.

[John Sheehan]

Phil,

In general, I'm not a big fan of trees as a design element.  I'd rather see them well off the lines of play.  That said, I think MacKenzie's take on them was pretty good.  If you are going to use them as a strategic element, he suggested planting (or clearing around existing ones) in groups of three.  That way, if indeed the trees played a strategic role in the design, if one goes down for some reason, the strategy is not lost and you can replace the downed tree.  He also suggested that they should be well-trimmed to allow for recovery shots.

I am not familiar with the hole that you reference, but if there is no reason to be near that tree (from a strategic perspective) then it sounds like its role is strictly penal.

There is an old MacKenzie design (a muni) in Sacramento.  One of the holes on the back nine is a par 5.  A tree sits on the right side atop a small ridge.  If you can sling a draw at that tree and hit that ridge, your tee shot will get a nice kick down the fairway.  The left side of the fairway, opposite the tree, has the exact opposite effect.  The ridge transitions into a depression that will effectively stop your drive dead.  Because the hole doglegs to the left at the very end of the fairway, being on the right side of that fairway has its strategic advantages.  A very good par 5 I have described on this forum before in more detail, many years ago.  The hole would still work without that tree, but it does make the hole a bit more risky with it being in that location.

John, what are the chances that tree was there when MacKenzie laid out the course 80 years ago?  Most likely some green committee chair decided it would be a great idea to have a tree there.

Unless it's a monstrous oak from days of yore...........

Bill,
Yeah, I probably didn't explain that very well did I. LOL!  That is what I meant by "The hole would still work without that tree, but it does make the hole a bit more risky with it being in that location."
In fact, that tree might be number 3 in that exact spot over the last 80 years.  

It was also to illustrate that MacKenzie's belief, that having a single tree as a strategic design element was risky, was a wise observation: lose the tree, lose the strategic intent.  Having a tree in that location on the Muni (Haggin Oaks) does make it more difficult and risky to try to navigate that slope, hence back to the original question of the thread.  BUT, if they lost that tree tomorrow, the hole would still work because I doubt the single tree was an original strategic design component.

I need an editor. 

[John Sheehan]

BTW, I've been well to the left of the area we are talking about on many occasions and had a clear shot to the green with a great angle.  Who said golf is supposed to be fair?  Sometimes a bad miss is better than a near miss.

Phil,
I think you would have most of the Golden Era designers on your side of this argument.  I think they often penalized the marginal shot much more than the truly bad one.  I think they had good solid reasons for doing so. 

I can't remember the exact paragraph that describes it, and unfortunately I am way too lazy to go look it up, but MacKenzie had a wonderful story in one of his books. My apologies in advance for paraphrasing it.  But it does illustrate the point rather well.

MacKenzie goes back to some club that he designed years before and is playing with a few of the members.  They get into the round and one of the members proudly shows off a new bunker that they had installed since MacKenzie had last visited the club.  He asks MacKenzie what he thinks of it.  MacKenzie replies something to the effect of, "Why on earth would you put a bunker so far to the right?"  The member replies, "Well, to penalize the golfer who slices his drive."  And MacKenzie's retort is something like, "My god, man.  Anyone who slices that badly has enough problems already!"

[rchesnut]

I thought about this thread when I was playing Pasatiempo this past weekend and saw something that I had not seen in my 10 years playing the course.

The 11th hole at Pasatiempo is a very tough, uphill par 4 requiring a carry (usually) on your second shot over an arroyo.  On opening day at the club in 1929, Bobby Jones hit it over the arroyo on his tee shot and made par, but over the years trees have grown up next to and in the arroyo, making such a shot basically impossible.  Nor is such a shot desirable from a design perspective, since the next hole's fairway is on the other side of the arroyo.

On Sunday, from the back tee, I saw a lefty line up his tee shot way left, and he drove the ball directly over the 12th green flagstick with a big draw, around a tree that sits behind the 12th green, and around the arroyo to the left, basically avoiding the arroyo by going around it.  It was a terrific shot, requiring a long, big draw from a lefty, but it was clear this guy was a player.

Normally, the trees in the arroyo and the tree behind the 12th green would discourage anyone from trying this shot, but it's funny how a lefty with a big draw could pull this shot off when I've never seen (nor thought of) anyone being able to do it.   It's not something that the club would like to see repeated very often, given the danger it poses to players on 12.  The tree behind 12 is clearly going to have to get bigger.

[Kalen Braley]

Rob,

That must have been some kind of shot.  During the last KP Spaulding took a go at this, with a draw, using an extra ball and didn't make it, and he's damn long off the tee.

While I agree, the trees are needed for safety, it sure would be cool as an additional option otherwise...not for me mind you, but the big hitters. 

[Tom Huckaby]

Kalen  - remember this was a lefty with a big draw (more like slinging hook to make it really work).  THus as Rob says he started his ball over 12 green - ie very little carry over the barranca.  The shot Spaulding and others tried had a LOT LOT LOT more carry over the barranca.

And as Rob described this to us Monday, the shot is pretty darn reasonable.  The same effect could be achieved by a huge right-handed slice.

Remove ALL the trees and choice of barranca side is open to one and all... on 11 and 12.  Oh how I have pined for this for YEARS in here.  But of course it never can be done, for safety reasons in our overly litigious society.  Darn.

TH

[Mike Hendren]

I cannot recall a tree relocating between the time a shot is aligned and the time the subsequent shot must be played.  Perhaps others have witnessed such a miracle.

Mike

[mike_malone]

 The more tortured the argument is to keep a tree the more it needs to go.

   I tend to think that clumps of trees or even forests that create doglegs are the only valuable use of trees THAT COME INTO PLAY.   When separating holes or providing a backdrop trees that are indigenous add value.