[John Kavanaugh]

John K--

When did you play Bellerive? What did you think of the renovations?

I played before the renovations on one of those beautiful 60 deg February days.  At the time they had brass markers showing where the tees were for the 67 Open won by Player.  The thrill of playing from those markers is something that will be missed.  I would love to return but their unaccompanied rate is a bit to steep.

[PCCraig]

John --

Very neat. I was just there a couple of weeks ago, and from the looks of it they took a lot of those tees out. According to my father in law pointing in the direction of where the tees used to be, the course was probably harder in the 1960's!

[Jim Nugent]

Pat, I attended every day but one of the 1965 U.S. Open at Bellerive, including practice rounds and playoff.  The course was five years old, eight years younger than I was at the time. 

There were not so many trees.  e.g. my memory is that the only thing separating one and ten was rough and a trap or two.  Same with the lower holes on the front nine.  Pretty wide open as far as trees were concerned.  Maybe there were some saplings, but I recall nothing like I see on google maps now. 

Even when I was 13 years old, the course disappointed me.  The holes did not seem to have much character, or uniqueness, or interest.  Actually, a number of holes on the old Forest Park 18 hole course interested me more.  I only saw Bellerive from the gallery then, though when I played it five years later (snuck on during caddy day) I had the same reaction. 

What a difference the first time I saw Westwood, another St. Louis country club, a year later.  An excellent old classic course, it blew me away.  I knew nothing about golf course architecture, but I sure knew what I liked. 

Then a few years after the 1965 U.S. Open, I caddied one day at Old Warson.  They needed extra caddies for a tournament there, and recruited some of us from SLCC.  Warson is another RTJ design, that had a big reputation in St. Louis back then.  I was really excited to go see the course.  But I had the same reaction at OW as at Bellerive. 

Only two samples of RTJ architecture.  But two with good to excellent reputations, that held majors and/or big golf tournaments.  Both left me pretty flat.  It totally mystifies me that Bellerive is rated among the top 100 U.S. courses. 

BTW, I thought the dark ages started right after WWII, ushered in by RTJ, and ran into the 1970's or so. 

[Sean_A]

I don't know enough about GCA to talk about dark ages etc., but I always thought that The Event was meant to have started after the opening of the likes of Prarie Dunes & Old Town - shortly before WWII.

Ciao 

[BCrosby]

Sean -

I would take the opposite view. Those were the last courses of the Golden Age.

I see the kick-off for the Dark Ages was P'tree in 1948, though P'tree was arguably a transition course.

Bob

[Sean_A]

Sean -

I would take the opposite view. Those were the last courses of the Golden Age.

I see the kick-off for the Dark Ages was P'tree in 1948, though P'tree was arguably a transition course.

Bob

Bob

Its seems to me we are agreeing.  I was thinking DA happened as soon as WWII ended - not much was happening during the war.  So this makes Maxwell the tail end of the GA - late 30s.

Ciao

[Tim Nugent]

Guess I'll take a stab at this since there seems to be alot of nibbling around the edges. I think a book could be written on this subject.

When I go back and look at construction plans from that period, what I am struck with is the fact that just isn't very much fairway grading.  And the fairway grading you do see was done to mellow out the original land.

I remember about 10 yrs ago doing a masterplan for Pekin CC in ILL.  Original builder,  John Cotter - chairman of Wadsworth Golf Constr.  (it was one of the early Packard/Wadsworth  courses) was going around w/me and I made remark "looks like you didn't move much dirt here".  He laughed and said, "you kidding? We moved a hell of a lot of dirt here".  In disbelief I said "where - it all looks original to me?".  His response was that they cut down ridges and filled in valleys and ravines.  I remember thinking "Pity".  all those natural feature we would die to get our hands on today were just elminated to make it fair and easy to maintain with tractor pulled gang-mowers.

To guys like RBH, spending money to strip topsoil, reshape the caly and replace the topsoil was only done on an as-needed basis, rather than as a rule of thumb.  They believed that if a golfer could tell that earth had been moved, they failed in the design.  It was "Supposed" to look like they had been able to just 'lay the course on the land as they "supposably" had found it.
This is why many of the courses from that era don't look like much had been done to construct them.  In many cases, they were able to route the courses so no fairway grading was required.  As long as it drained, all was good. (That is first hand from dad - who worked for RBH).

This period also was the the beginning of the golf course community and the use of golf courses as ammenities to sell houses that lined the holes.  Views couldn't be blocked and most of the time, the fairways had to follow the same grade as the streets that flanked them.

In this period, we were in the early stages of mass earthmoving equipment.  It was big and cumbersome - designed in response to the housing and interstate building boom of the 50's.  Hence, it wasn't as adaptable to detailed design work as either the hand-work of the pre-war period or the modern era.
Same with maintenance equipment and as mentioned earlier - irrigation.

TV also played a big role as golfers began to be able to see "championship" courses every week-end.  TV, however, tends to flatten out the relief of a course (take ANGC - TV vs in person).  So everyday golfers grew up on a steady diet of flatish looking courses.

Finally, what I think you are seeing today is that courses are being built with much smaller and precise equipment and maintenance equipment has followed suit.  Todays course designs tend to regrade the entire site to the detail of greens of yester-year.  Computer design programs allow for every cubic yard to be accounted for so earthwork is balanced from the beginning.  Massive amounts of irrigation and drainage allow designers to do just about whatever they want - irregardless of the terrain or climate.

And golfers were led to believe that courses like Prestwick, Cruden Bay and North Berwick were "quirky". 
Luckily, through sites like GCA, we are able to start to get back some of the "quirky" (albeit in measured steps).

[Dan Herrmann]

Tim Nugent,
Boy - was that well said.  Nice job!

[Mark_Fine]

Muirfield Village, The Golf Club (Dye), Spyglass Hill, Laurel Valley, Cog Hill #4, Shoal Creek, Desert Forest, Butler National, Harbour Town Golf Links, Hazeltine National, Bellerive, Oak Tree, Congressional, Jupiter Hills, Stanwich Club, Crooked Stick, Eugene CC, Wilmington South, Greenville CC,  CC of North Carolina, Pine Tree, Sahalee, Bay Hill, Mauna Kea,.....just to name a few that I have played built between 1960-1980.  I'm not saying everyone of these is an absolute gem but those who think this period from 1960-1980 was "the dark ages" need to get off this website and go play some more golf courses 

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