[George Pazin]

Can tweaking take a course from poor to average? Poor to good? Poor to great?

Or does it more often take a course from good to fair? Great to very good?

Maybe the most important question: How do you define tweaking?

(Actually, the most important question to me is when to tweak, but I've started that thread too many times....)

Please cite examples if possible to buttress your argument!

[Phil_the_Author]

George,

I would think that a good test of this tehory carried out in practice was Tilly's Course Consultation Tour for the PGA from 1935-37. The vast majority of work he reckomended was of the "tweaking" variety.

Though there is no practical way of knowing today as to how many of the courses carried out his recommendations, we are aware that a majority of them did and maybe even to being as much as Most of them did.

I have seen numerous letters sent to the PGA about his visits and recommendations and there was not a single complaint or disagreement among them. Rather, they sung his praises.

In the years since then most of these same courses have been "tweaked" further; in fact hasn't just about every single golf course been "tweaked" in its lifetime?

Pine Valley has, so has Merion, Augusta, The Old Course, etc... For the most part they certainly haven't suffered because of it.

[Adam Clayman]

George, I'd cite Cog Hill #4 as a course that was tweaked by the PGA Tour and it went from Very Good to just good. They altered some green shapes slightly but most importantly they removed the bunker sand that Joe J. was so proud of. It made those bunkers real hazards. Now, not so much. The timing of those moves (Late 80's early 90's?) only reinforces the affect of the dark age of design and how the Tour was the main perpetrator of all things bad for gca.

[Lester George]

I think "tweaking" has a relative term to different situations. 

In the case of the Old White, we think we more or less tweaked certain holes while others were completely rebuilt.  In the case of Willow Oaks Country Club, we changed every hole significantly but only tweaked the routing.

Lester

[Tom_Doak]

George:

Most of my opinion of golf courses is based on the routing (how the holes fit the ground) and the greens and their surrounds (which is the last thing people are inclined to tweak).  For that reason, I've seen relatively few courses where even a major renovation really changed my rating of a course.

Now, I'm sure most of the paying golf public appreciates better conditioning and gussied-up bunkers and all that.  Some of them may even care about whether the bunkers have been moved around to "better" positions.  And I know there are a lot of green chairmen and architects on here who are very proud of what they've done at a certain club.  But how much do any of those things really IMPROVE a golf course?  Not very much, in my opinion ... and that's the main reason we are spending less of our time on renovations these days.

My friend the professional at Walton Heath relates the story of James Braid being asked what he thought of the recent improvements to Walton Heath.  He answered with a question:  "You mean the alterations?"    It's all a matter of opinion in the end.

[PCCraig]

I think the tweaking of TPC Boston is about a good of an example as you can find. The course routing is essentially the same, except the greens and bunkers were changed to a different more rough around the edges style. Before it looked like a Florida course.

[George Pazin]

George:

Most of my opinion of golf courses is based on the routing (how the holes fit the ground) and the greens and their surrounds (which is the last thing people are inclined to tweak).  For that reason, I've seen relatively few courses where even a major renovation really changed my rating of a course.

Now, I'm sure most of the paying golf public appreciates better conditioning and gussied-up bunkers and all that.  Some of them may even care about whether the bunkers have been moved around to "better" positions.  And I know there are a lot of green chairmen and architects on here who are very proud of what they've done at a certain club.  But how much do any of those things really IMPROVE a golf course?  Not very much, in my opinion ... and that's the main reason we are spending less of our time on renovations these days.

My friend the professional at Walton Heath relates the story of James Braid being asked what he thought of the recent improvements to Walton Heath.  He answered with a question:  "You mean the alterations?"    It's all a matter of opinion in the end.

Interesting take. One of the things that popped into my head with this thread was your relating Darwin's tales of the tweaking of Woking. I guess it must have been a pretty good course to start out.

[John Moore II]

I think tweaking can be a good thing, as long as its done right. But it can work both ways. Can a course be 'tweaked' and go from poor to great? I hesitate to say no, because nearly anything is possible, but very likely not. In most cases, poor courses are poor because of a very poor routing or poor terrain, not simple things like green contours and bunkering. However, I do think its possible to take a poor course and make it average or even good. When trying to tweak a great course, or even a very good course, however, it is more likely that tweaking will result in something that is not as good as the original, depending on what motives are used to justify the work.

--How would I define tweaking? Something like a moderate change to greenside and fairway bunkering and perhaps a minor change to green contours. I suppose a new turf in the fairways and new tee boxes could be tweaking as well. Anything that goes much beyond that and into re-routing holes, changing fairway contours, extensive lengthening or any number of other things would get more into remodeling and renovation, or even completely redesigning.

[Dan Herrmann]

It sure helps when the guy doing the tweaking is the guy that designed the course in the first place.  We all improve on our own work every day.

[Peter Pallotta]

George - another good thread, with good posts.

I'm not sure it's a matter of "opinion" as much as a matter of "expectations".

Though I'm still far from sure that I even know what makes for a great golf course, I'd imagine that one that was considered very good could become even better with a tweak...and that there'd be diminishing returns from both above and below that benchmark (i.e. starting with a very good course). But while the returns may be diminished, they'd be returns nonetheless, the success of which would be measured by the expectations (conscious or not) that those involved had to begin with.

Peter

 

[John Sheehan]

George:

Most of my opinion of golf courses is based on the routing (how the holes fit the ground) and the greens and their surrounds (which is the last thing people are inclined to tweak).  For that reason, I've seen relatively few courses where even a major renovation really changed my rating of a course.

Tom,  
I'm very curious.  Can you elaborate on the relatively few courses where a renovation has changed your opinion (rating) of a golf course?  Why did those renovations work for you, while the others failed in your opinion?
Thanks,
John

[Kirk Gill]

Henry Fownes tweaked Oakmont continually, did he not? It would be interesting to talk to someone who played the course as it was upon opening all the way through to near the time of Fownes' death, just to hear their perception of how the course had been changed over that time. Fownes must have thought of the tweaking as an improvement, but I wonder how the playing audience felt about it.

Also, I've always wondered about how a super or someone else who is intimately close to a particular course might choose to create subtle changes to a green over time. What made this cross my mind was hearing people say that the top-dressing of the greens at Pinehurst #2 over the years was responsible for how they became more crowned (I've also heard the opposite, and I'm not really arguing that particular point). It made me wonder if a little sand were sprinkled repeatedly in certain places on a green, would this eventually create additional little breaks and mini-undulations? Are greens ever tweaked in this fashion, or is there some other method that those who watch over courses use to subtly alter greens over time?

[Tom_Doak]

George:

Woking did a lot more than tweak ... they rebuilt the greens one at a time and added a lot of interesting contour.  That's a lot different than moving bunkers around.  Other courses which have tweaked to similar effect over the years would include Pebble Beach, Merion, Rye, and Muirfield -- all of which changed several holes on the course over time, with new greens included.

John S.:

Of the restorations we've done, I think I would rate Camargo a point higher on the Doak scale for getting all the ugly distractions out of the way, and maybe Pasatiempo as well.  The only course which is two points higher is Yeamans Hall, which had completely lost the scale and flavor of their greens prior to the reconstruction.

For sure there have been some great renovations and restorations -- Indianwood and Oakland Hills in the Detroit area, for starters.  But Indianwood is mostly about regaining reasonable conditioning, and I wonder what Oakland Hills would have rated in The Confidential Guide before Mr. Jones saw it -- pretty highly, I'd guess.

[Tommy Williamsen]

It will be interesting to see what Dismal River will be like when they are through "tweaking" the course.

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