Piping Rock's original 8th hole (their "Road" hole).

[TEPaul]

I remember this one too from over fifty years ago. The 8th was always a pretty short par 4 (maybe 350 yards at most) with the back tee sort of in a perpindicular line with the midde of the 7th green.

Not until the last few decades do I think people started talking about lengthening it to make it a really long par 4 like TOC's 17th is today and like the 8th is now!

The reason for that in my recollection is Macdonald did not have room to have that length on the 8th because when he designed and built that hole there were two side by side polo fields where Piping's massive range is today.

Some say Macdonald got into a fight back then with Piping's really strong polo interests because he wanted to use their polo fields for golf holes and they definitely were not going to let him do that. Over time some assumed that's why the 8th was so short for a traditional road hole (short par 5 or long par 4).

But get this----in that really wonderful old article from 1913 by Devereux Emmet that The Creek's George Holland just found (George, you amazing motor-mouth, by the time I get finished with all that's in that article you found, YOU are going to be GOLFCLUBATLAS.com's most expert and famous researcher and not some people on here who try to make themselves that and play games with information! )---there is a great photo of that original Biarritz in that article and in the background in the area that would be about where the back tee for #10 now is and all the way over to perhaps the right side of the 8th fairway there looks to be something of a miniature grandstand!!!

Obviously, that must have been for the race track that apparently once encircled the old side by side polo fields (that're now the massive practice range)!

PATRICK MUCCI, and the rest, do you realize that if that miniature grandstand had been kept and was still there I believe it would almost perfectly mimic where the old hotel once was and the tee shot concept on the original ROAD hole at TOC, if the tees on #8 were where they are now!?!?

Was Macdonald looking at that and conceiving of it when he designed Piping Rock??? I cannot possibly see how he could ever have missed such a thing, particularly since he did a Road Hole and green there anyway, albeit originally a very truncated one. Perhaps he thought that given a little time the club itself might prevail on the polo interests to give up some of their second field and he could've put a tee back there around were it is now and he would have a real "Road" Hole like TOC where you had to bust it right over a building for the best approach shot in!

But alas, maybe he and the club got into enough of a brouhaha where he never really mentioned this and they took down the miniature grandstand without realizing what their 8th (their Road hole) could have been someday.

One article that may not have been analyzed or considered for maybe up to 90 years and just look at all the stuff it's now revealing about Piping Rock, Macdonald/Raynor's second golf course!

PS:
I always loved the 8th back then including that it was pretty short. That green is really intense and a short iron into it was always very challenging anyway. But MacDonald may've been dreaming of and conceiving of a more exact copy of TOC's Road Hole in length here and when he couldn't get the length for a tee shot over a building, maybe he had his routing pretty much set so he just went with a short par 4 Road Hole and Road Hole green anyway!? Or maybe the old curmudgeon meant to sent the message to Piping that if this Road hole wasn't challenging enough, the reason for it wasn't his fault, it was theirs, and their anatagonistic polo interests! 

[ChipOat]

Tom:

Two things.

First, have you played the hole in the last 3-4 years from the tee box that was built about then that is located a good 30 yards to the right of the teeing areas that have always been there?  I'm guessing that this may have been where CBM might have wanted the tee box(es) to be in order to set up the same angle of attack to Piping's Road Hole green as is the case at TOC, itself.  It does seems like it's on, or near to, the location of the NLE grandstand.

Second, the angle of attack to the green from any of the tee boxes has never been the same as #17 at TOC (or #7 at NGLA) because you can't hit the drive far enough to the right at PRC to get the same angle for the approach (i.e. "up the green" on longitude).  I've never found the "across the green" angle to #8 at PRC to be even 1/2 as scary as the same shot at National - which gives me the chills every time I have to do it under medal play conditions.

[TEPaul]

"Tom:

Two things.

First, have you played the hole in the last 3-4 years from the tee box that was built about then that is located a good 30 yards to the right of the teeing areas that have always been there?  I'm guessing that this may have been where CBM might have wanted the tee box(es) to be in order to set up the same angle of attack to Piping's Road Hole green as is the case at TOC, itself.  It does seems like it's on, or near to, the location of the NLE grandstand."


Chip:

Wait until you see that photograph. When I noticed that miniature grandstand back there (assuming that's what it was) my first thought was there couldn't have even been room to put the fairly straight and short old 8th in. So from where the tip tees are now (which I would say are maybe 30 yards over and maybe up to 100 yards behind where the original back tees were) that it most certainly would've brought that building into play just like the old garden, or railroad sheds of TOC's 17th.

[TEPaul]

"Second, the angle of attack to the green from any of the tee boxes has never been the same as #17 at TOC (or #7 at NGLA) because you can't hit the drive far enough to the right at PRC to get the same angle for the approach (i.e. "up the green" on longitude).  I've never found the "across the green" angle to #8 at PRC to be even 1/2 as scary as the same shot at National - which gives me the chills every time I have to do it under medal play conditions."

Chip:

If you ask me this is just another good reason why Macdonald was so good at reinterpreting concepts or even some famous hole architectural principles given the mulitfarious site considerations of wherever he was. For some reason too many expect that he should've just pretty totally copied everything about his prototype holes abroad to make it right or good.

I know what you're saying there about the orientation of TOC's Road hole green but you've got to remember it's on pretty flat land and if Macdonald did Piping's on that orientation he might've been going up bit too much up the slope behind it (and there's no real sense back then in reaming out that gentle slope and then sticking the back of a green like that into it), so he mixed it up and did Piping's 8th green orientation a bit more perpindicular to the line of play. That green plays just fine the way it's always been.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Whatever that structure is, it looks formal and permanent.

It seems reasonable that CBM would incorporate a formal structure into a road hole, duplicating the low lying railway sheds off the tee.

What's interesting about the photo is the absence of any other feature, including trees.

What would be interesting would be to compare that photo to one taken today from the same vantage point.  Then you could attempt to reconstruct how the 8th hole played circa 1913.

If the evidence leads a prudent person to conclude that CBM designed # 8 to be played over a formal structure, like a grandstand, would the club, in an attempt to be true to the original design, construct a faux shed.

I would think it would be a great addition.

That's one of the best road greens I've seen, although the road bunker might need some work if my recollection serves me well.

[SPDB]

All of what's being bandied about on this thread is highly speculative.  I'm including a picture in question below (as I did in the Biarritz thread).