[Mark Bourgeois]

One of the many neat aspects of the course, mentioned in the discussion of the 6th hole (RMW6), is the use of doglegs.  By my count, the course sports an impressive 13.

A few are reverse doglegs and some are short enough that the dogleg can be ignored entirely if one chooses the aggressive route.

There's a wonderful variety, and although a lessened challenge for the pros thanks to I&B "advances," it's a shotmaker's design.  The perfect drive privileges one to take a greater challenge, yes, but of course that challenge pales next to the drive struck far but off line.

And so we come to the 9th, a 455-yard par 4 whose terrain dips to the right even as it doglegs to the left.

Off the tee, the better players will want to sling a hook around the corner, doing their best to avoid the bunkers in the crook. (A second bunker farther down the left side awaits the prodigiously long and the foolishly aggressive.)

The rest of us will simply avoid the bunker, and in doing so find our ruin, for -- again -- the more conservative and off line we steer our tee shot, the less possible the next shot becomes.

As indicated in his principles, Mackenzie tried to design a few shots into every course which were beyond the ability of even the best players.  An approach shot attempted from the outside corner of this dogleg must fit Mackenzie's bill.


The terrain dips down from the tee, tilts right in the corner, then rises to the green.


Here's a long-range vista of the 9th, looking from RMW17 green.(Many such lovely vistas at RM.)


The approach:


But it is the bunkering that promises death from the right, as shown by this aerial:


View from the ground:


The green is a beauty, raised above the otherwise uninteresting terrain. (I think this part of the course originally was swamp.) Notice as on the 8th (RMW10) the "Chippendale" quality to the rear topline of the green complex.


Panoramic shot:


One last point regarding the doglegs on the Composite: in their direction they are like a challenging code, a sort of Fibonacci Sequence of driving.  Here's the order of their turns:
R, R, R, L, L, L, L R, L, R, R, R, L

The golfer is allowed to get his driver into mini "rhythms," hitting runs of right-turning then left-turning holes, only to run into the sequence highlighted: R, R, R, L, L, L, L R, L, R, R, R, L.

So not only is there variety in the large sense (6 left doglegs against 7 right doglegs total), but also in the small sense.

Mark

[Mark Bourgeois]

The 10th (RMW12) is a changed hole.  As shown by this comparison between the early 1930s map Neil C posted and a hole diagram from the club website, the green has been moved to the left, creating a Cape hole of sorts as well as a bit of deception from the "fairway to nowhere."  Also, the hole has been lengthened by 56 yards from inception and by 49 yards from the 1930s map.

It's not a Mackenzie hole, then -- presumably a Russell hole?

Note here the green on the then 427-yard 12th hole (extreme right, just below Cheltenham Road) as it existed in the 1930s:


And note its offset from the fairway today:


A 476-yard par 4 (par 5 for you and me) -- the WAOG and my Composite scorecard both have the old yardage of 465 -- the hole's new green makes the second shot problematical and forces the golfer (that is, most golfers; i.e., those who don't drive the ball 300 yards) to make another of Peter Thomson's "summing up": if he has hit his drive solidly down the left side of the fairway, he can have a go at the green.  Despite the absence of water or big terrain heaves, a real risk is taken, for the golfer must clear the long strip of bracken running down the left.


Otherwise, it's down the right side, where a tricky half-wedge awaits.

In truth, although this is a fine hole, it suffers in comparison to its predecessor and successor.  Personally, I prefer it to the 8th (RMW11); however, the tee-shot challenges of both holes are a little too similar for my tastes. Perhaps better minds will sort me out on this one!  (And almost no hole has a chance, in my heart at least, against the 11th -- RMW17 -- as it possesses one of my favorite greens in the world.)

For the tee shot, the golfer must decide whether he intends to give himself the privilege of a challenging second shot to the green.  If so, the line typically given is -- where else? -- left of the antenna on the horizon, over the right-hand bunker.  From the back-third of the tee, this involves an all-carry, uphill route of roughly 170 yards.  The really aggressive (read: foolhardy!) may try for a line closer to the trees; this requires an arrow-straight uphill shot of 180-185 yards or so.

A further complication is the presence of a northerly wind, which along with the hill makes the hole play longer.  Without the wind, these yardages indeed may play laughably short for the pros (who would play I think tees a little farther back), yet there is a bunker on the right side of the fairway, farther down and in the direct line of the tee shot, so that the accomplished golfer must either hit 3-wood or add leftward shape to his shot.


The green sports a latitudinal spine to cleave the strong from the weak, particularly when the flag is back:


Mark

[Mike_Clayton]

Mark,

Neil will know better than I but I think it was Crockford who moved the green to the left.
It obviously depends on how far you hit the ball but when the bracken in the front of the green is in play its a really interesting choice - to go over or play right.
It's a par 4 on the Composite but a short 5 for the members.
Into the wind in the middle of winter it can play really long - but downwind in summer it's a drive and a wedge for the pros.
Moving the tee back would be very expensive - the onlt way would be to buy the house behind the tee - but an extra 50 yards would make a big difference here.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Happy Holidays, Mike.

Neat how a patch of bracken can be used so effectively to add strategy to a rather flat piece of terrain.  As effective as a pond or a bunker yet less expensive to build and maintain, and the result of a bad shot is not final as with water.

Interesting about the angle.  I try to play down the left side to shorten the hole, sometimes getting the "unintentional" bailout off the tee.  Poor judgment is a horrible liability on a golf course, but particularly dangerous when a chop is faced with a reachable green from over there on the right.

Guess with a wedge it doesn't matter where your drive lands -- how do you play it during winter and when faced with a northerly?  Is it still bomb and gouge or is there a positional advantage?

Thinking a little more about the hole, this notion of offset or off-center greens is an interesting one, especially on a potentially-reachable par 5.  The key design element IMHO is the angle or longitudinal axis of the green with respect to the fairway.

The green angle can provide advantage to a drive positioned properly.  This position could be anywhere from extreme left to extreme right.  On this hole, I always figured the best angle was down the left side.

Conversely, the excellent 6th at Cruden Bay, whose green is nearly perpendicular to the fairway (green used to be a par 3 in a different direction), favors a right-side position.  That is, assuming you hit the ball a mile, which I don't.  A burn winds short of the green, at the bottom of a long and steep grade.  You've got to carry the shot all the way.

Here's a hole diagram from Cruden Bay's website:


529 yards from the medal tees.  Have you played there?

By the way, RM's centenary history doesn't have anything on who moved the green but a 1936 aerial in the book (might be same as Neil's but hard to tell as picture is overlaid with hole outlines) shows a good handful of Victoria's holes.  Assume you've seen aerials but the source is the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Mark

[Neil_Crafter]

The 12th West is actually a modified form of the old 13th on RM's Sandringham course. It was lengthened with a new green by Alex Russell in 1950. Mike, I would assume that Crocky did the construction work.
Neil

[Mike_Clayton]

Mark,

 For me, into the wind in the winter, its a drive and a 3 wood.
Normally I can get over - unless its a terrible day - but that bracken is not as penal as it was 30 years ago.
The bracken is a fantastic ground hazard.
Are we all assuming the new hole is better that the original? I am obviously

[Chris Kane]

Mike, what would Ogilvy hit in the winter?

[Mike_Clayton]

Chris,
He would hit a drive and a middle iron.Into the wind in July he would have to hit at least a 4 iron.
I understand how far those guys hit - 290 carry with a decent drive - but it is still shocking to me to see what they can reduce a decent length hole to.

[Neil_Crafter]

Mark
Just thought I would post this plan from 1915 which shows all of the earlier Sandringham holes on RM's main paddock, plus the four that are in the West Course's northern paddock. I think this will help everyone understand better what existing holes Mackenzie and Russell had to work around at this western end.

The 12th Sandringham green does appear short of where the 11th West green was finally built and it is perhaps that green outline that can be seen short of the new green in that 1936 aerial that I posted. 13th Sandringham green location looks about right for the original green of 12W before Russell built his new green at left rear in 1950.
Neil

[Mark Bourgeois]

That's very interesting, Neil.  Yesterday I spoke with a former asst greenkeeper there who says the bones of old Sandringham holes are visible in the triangle of scrub between RMW 12 and RMW 17.  Might that be the original 6th?

Bill V aka Redanman sent along an interesting diagram showing what must have been the original (Mackenzie course) location of the 10th green:


I was wondering about those dark colors from the aerial, which would be depressions I think and very likely are the vestiges of those bunkers.

Lastly, I forgot I had created a panorama from several photos to show the approach shot from the left side to the green.  I'll post it here and in the original post as well:


You can see the drought has done a number on the bracken.

Mark

[Jeff Doerr]

Mark,

Thanks again for your great work on this thread. I check in every day to see what else has been added.

Cheers, Jeff

[Mark Bourgeois]

Some claim the bunker on 14 (RMW 4) is the best bunker in all Australia.  Just short and right side of the green, it’s 15 feet deep and rimmed with scrub (“to keep the lonely golfer company,” writes Ran M).  Some stand in the corner of 8 (RMW 10), the bunker in the bend.

And some nominate the bunker right of the green on the 439-yard 11th (RMW 17).










Now, I’m an 11 man from way back.  A golfer for the first time coming to the 11th green and its solitary terrible beauty of a bunker sentineling from the right lapses into a sort of reverie at the sweep of the view, from jagged scrub to hard sand to clipped grass.


Looking from right to left, it’s not so much a green as an emergence, not so much a bunker as a metonymy.  A metonymy for golf.   Which way does the bunker go, and which side does it struggle against?  Is it being dragged back (going willingly?) into the complex dry swamp on the right or being pulled forward (bootstrapping itself?) into the simple, tame and angular on the left?

It’s a little diorama of golf, struggling, pulling itself forward from wilderness.  And the bunker sits right there in the transition, its right edge not an edge at all but an ill-defined complexity of bush and sand.  Its left edge in stark contrast a carved precision, a sand castle in soil, not simply the work of man but the expulsion of nature’s unkempt and some would say unkind beauty.

Who does this bunker belong to?  Which side is asked to pull? Which side is forced to pull?

And we know the answer.  We’re civilized men.

I’m not much for paintings or artsy photographs of golf holes, but a recurrent daydream is Clyde Butcher spending a few days taking pictures of the 11th green.

The green proper is as lovely as a Calatrava bridge, a tranverse wave that curls out of that bunker and snaps across.  Ran M has rightly noted the functional excellence in its asymmetry, there being one bunker on the right giving the club golfer the freedom to play away to the left – trade his uncertain 4 for a comfortable 5.


But what’s missed by this analysis is that this green asymmetry is incomplete in function without what we might call fairway asymmetry.  Off the tee to the left of the fairway landing zone sits a bunker and – this is critical – that bunker is set against its greenside cousin in another tension, this one not aesthetic but green-eyeshade functional.

11 Tee (in addition to the bunkers, note the recurrent theme of fairway sloping away from the dogleg)


Golfers wish to avoid bunkers.  But safe avoidance of the fairway bunker swings the greenside bunker around into the golfer’s approach line.  And safe avoidance of the greenside bunker swings the fairway bunker into the golfer’s ideal line.  By taking the bland concept of diagonal-axis bunkering and extending the axis,  thinking is introduced alongside execution.  The golfer must think about not simply which line, mostly a question of execution because often there is just one line, but about which score.  Just about every hole has a “par line” and a “bogey line” – but these two bunkers on 11 show to make the risk-reward calculus much more variegated along these entire lines.

New par and bogey lines continue to appear at each “stage” of the hole.  From the tee, without the fairway bunker, the par line and bogey line would be identical.  The golfer’s par-bogey calculus would begin from the fairway.  With the fairway bunker, that choice remains intact, but additional lines of play are introduced off the tee, namely a “bogey line” that steers well clear of the fairway bunker.  And then, from over on the right side of the fairway, a new “par line” is created, but with a very different risk calculus.

Interestingly, for much of its life the hole lacked this fairway bunker.  It was introduced in the 1970s.  IMHO, the hole is better for it.

The concept of extended-diagonal bunkering, is also used to great effect on the 8th (RMW 10).  There, too, the bunker order is left then right.  Another example of the concept is the 1st hole on the Old course at Royal Golf Club of Belgium.  Interestingly, the green falls off on the left side there as well.

What other examples are there of extended-diagonal bunkering?

Mark

[Mark Bourgeois]

Imagine yourself living in Australia in the 1920s.  The great courses of Britain and America are very far away; very likely few would have seen them.  Along comes Mackenzie and creates the stunning view from the 12th tee (RMW18).

As moments go, the reaction must have felt similar to what people experienced when hearing Louis Armstrong the first time. We who live in the "after" must work hard to see how the world appeared to those living in the "before."  The view must have differed dramatically from anything they'd seen before.  (Odd though: three bunkers appear in the plan Neil supplied but not the old aerial.  The area of the bunkers appears in the photo as a single bunker, followed by a dark spot.  Interpretation?)

In truth, the golfer can't help but start staring when he walks up to the 11th (RMW17th) green


Of course, perhaps that moment came on the 4th tee of the West (RMC14).  Regardless, here on the 12th, Mackenzie rang his "controversy" leitmotif fantastically. (Mackenzie wrote that designers should seek controversy in design, and across his career he succeeded in this, admirably at times.)


The hole plays as a reverse dogleg: the deeper into the dogleg, the better the angle coming in.  This makes for one of the many difficult "small" decisions on the course: taking the tee ball over the left side of the bunkers makes reaching the outside of the dogleg easier and therefore sets up the ideal angle for the second shot but leaves a longer shot.  The farther right over the bunker the golfer chooses, the shorter the second shot – but the higher the risk of a difficult angle into the green, not to mention the smaller margin for error

Let's run the numbers.

From the middle of the back tee, suppose the golfer drives the ball over the left side of the bunker, a yard or two inside the left edge.  A 255-yard drive sees him to the far edge of the fairway.  If instead he chooses the center of the right-hand bunker, he needs a 290-yard drive to gain the same angle.  On the other hand, if he drives it "only" 255 yards over that right-hand bunker, he has 40 fewer yards to negotiate to the green, a compensation for the poorer angle.  But if he foozles that drive...

That's not all.  The left-bunker route offers a greater margin for error; the carry needs to be about 160 (uphill).  But the right-hand route requires an extra 20-25 yards (and more hill) -- plus the golfer needs 225 yards to achieve the fairway.

(The short-hitters, the conservative, and those bad at math will choose to play around the bunker, treating the hole as a par 5.)

Think of it as the second derivative of our nonlinear tee-shot equation: the golfer wants to find the maxima of angle-and-distance combinations.  Good luck.

Some will say this is overthinking things and by a lot, as the green from the wrong angle still offers more than 25 yards of depth.  Not only that, a 255-yard drive down the right leaves only a 145-yard carry, 160 or so to the middle.  But: he'd better know he drives it 255 regularly, not "on a good day," which is to say, the margin of error is an unforgiving one, and if he misses, he's got another of those monkey-hand traps to deal with: misses call for another painful Peter Thomson "hardheaded summing up (aka loss-cutting)."

And though the green indeed is 25 yards deep from a 255-yard drive to the wrong side, and it's just 160 to the middle, the wrong-sided golfer will reply, "Then how is it I am always in that back bunker?!"

Clearly, a hard and fast green is essential to enforcement of "angular strategy," as that shrinks the playing size of this enormous green.

RMC 12 green, from the "wrong" side of the fairway -- note the complex's Chippendale top line all the way from the left bunker to the scrub on the right, as on the 8th and 9th a lovely way to define or frame a green, not to mention vastly superior to mounding


Mark

[Mark Bourgeois]

If the club gave thematic names to its holes, could it come up with a better name for the 13th (RMW 3) than "foozle"?  Because, let's face it, that's what many of us do somewhere along the hole.  Especially from 100 yards down to, say, 2 feet.  Calling it "Foozle" would be of immeasurable value to our expectations, to say nothing of our self-esteem.

The 13th, a little downhill 355 yarder that some insist should be given a par of 6, might be the most representative hole of the entire 36-hole golfing complex.

The 13th singles out the golfer who fails Peter Thomson’s test of “summing up and loss-cutting,” who stands on the tee and curls his hand into a fist around an expected 3, which in time becomes a hoped-for 4, which in time becomes a grinding 5…

Off the tee, the golfer must decide where to place his ball.  He must have a keen self-knowledge of wedge distances and spin control – the key is to be able to land the approach shot within the small area that fits his self-assessed wedge-game strengths.

Note off the tee two recurrent themes, one highlighting the excellent routing the other the excellent terrain: a dogleg left, and a side slope, in this case shortening the hole



After spraying our tee ball -- on this hole, "spraying" counts as being 10-15 yards or so too left, too right, too long or too short -- the rest of us employ the audacity of hope.  Because, pretty much, that's all we've got left.

"Please, not in the left-hand bunker, not in the swale...uh, not in the right-hand bunker...please not anywhere short..."


Eventually the golfer discovers the science of loss-cutting involves apparently "irrational" actions like hitting one’s approach shot purposely long.  Might as well have a say in the matter; the green is a slick fallaway and one way or another the golfer will be back there after 2, or in 3 if 2 landed in the bunker or chunked its way into the swale just short – or even more horrifyingly, short of the swale.

Let’s watch one golfer get the full treatment:
The tee shot is a lovely blast to a wee 30 yards, but a shade left of desired – problem as flag is left of center.
Second shot’s only job is to avoid the left-hand bunker.  But golfer, thinking 30 yards equals birdie when the reality of his position is hope-for-par, challenges the bunker too much and the pitch trickles in.
Third shot is a beautiful feathered sand shot, which floats out of the bunker, lands perhaps a yard on the green…and trickle-runs all the way off the back.
Lying four and clearly rattled, the golfer must now pitch the ball up (the green is elevated) and get to the hole, yet not so boldly as to challenge the bunker that now appears behind the hole, a bunker for which the golfer now sports a robust respect -- some would say a "foozler's fear" -- although really now can it really be in play anywhere other than the golfer’s mind, it would take one heck of a foozle, but isn't that possible given what we've experienced so far -- enough! Chip it up...And so the fourth shot makes the green, just.
Two putts later, six!

Before each shot, the golfer had the option of protecting against the worst, or taking a chance.  Similarly, after each shot, the golfer had the option of tearing up his prior plan and developing a new one.  If wisdom is the accumulation of experience…

Subsequent plays charitably may be described as a progressive exercise in learning how to play defense…on a drive-and-pitch hole…with no water, canyons, or cliffs…

This hole is in a cold-hearted academic way an excellent study in gravity.  This photo from Ran's writeup illustrates, as well as showing the ridge and furrow that run seamlessly from fairway to green and define the play of the entire hole:


Honestly, I still don't know the right way to play this hole, but I think a lot of it comes down to the hole location.  You've got to peek over at the green from RMW 2 as you can't see the flag from the tee.  If the flag is back, a little pitch might be the play, even though you'll likely end up with a downhill putt.  If the flag is up, a full wedge might be the play, assuming one can spin the ball enough to keep it in the middle of the green.  Jeez, do I have this analysis backwards?

Probably I would be better off pretending no flag was present -- that front-right hole location shown in the two photos is the pictorial representation of score-death.  Absolute death, I tell you!

Honestly, all I know is you never, ever want to be in that front-left bunker or in the swale short.  Well, all I think I know -- I'm not so sure of anything with this hole.  One hypothesis I'm working on is that, at least when the flag allows, you want to be perpendicular to the swale for your approach, but the line of approach cannot be over or near the right-hand bunker.  Of course, the perpendicular may bring in the left-hand bunkers, and did I mention you never ever want to be in them?

Mark

[Neil_Crafter]

Mark
Great write-ups of the 11th and 12th. The 11th green complex and its bunker is quite remarkable.

As for the 12th, this is certainly a dramatic hazard set into the face of this large ridge, and while it is nice and romantic to see its genesis with Mackenzie, I am sure he never saw it (except perhaps in his mind's eye) and it only came into being around 1929 or so, well after Mackenzie had left Australia. It also looked a bit different in 1960 when the photo below was taken. It had some 'sexing' up in the meantime, probably from Crockford.

Also a photo of the 12th green and its bunkers. This green's location is the same as the old 7th on the Sandringham course, this hole as you can see from the plan I posted before played pretty much straightaway over the hill, Mackenzie and Russell just pushed the tee further south so the hill is played over at an angle and the hole then doglegged. I think a few of the bunkers in the approach to the green are retained Sandringham ones.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Neil

It's neat to see the brown in those photos.  Perhaps indeed as has been said brown has been the predominant color across the course's history.

Regarding that bunker, version 1960 looks pretty dramatic to me as well!  But Mackenzie did plan a big, presumably dramatic bunker there, didn't he?  There's the trio of bunkers in the black and white plan you've posted, plus the Wall Plan and Approximate Plan indicate a large bunker was to go in there.  Today, yes, it apparently has morphed into a trio of interlocking bunkers...

No, he wouldn't have seen it but Russell and Morcom would have gotten Mackenzie's philosophy and instructions, yes? Routing the hole up and around the hill, mapping bunkers into the hill on dogleg, surely Mac would have given clear instructions for highly visible and "natural" bunkering?

Mark

[Neil_Crafter]

Mark
Brown is the new green! or is that the new black?

Oh certainly, version 1960 is dramatic too, just looks a little more rough hewn I think without the refinement of the tongues.

Mackenzie's sketch plan, the B&W one that was only discovered a couple of years ago, has totally different finishing holes. It was not until the coloured plans were drawn, which certainly postdate Mackenzie's visit, was 18W shown in its essentially current form. So how much did Mackenzie have to do with this hole? Hard to say, but likely Russell would have communicated with Mackenzie about the additional land that the purchase of Bumford's block brought to them. In any event, Russell and Morcom would have known what to do I suspect from their time spent with Mac on the ground. As can be seen from Mackenzie's sketch plan, the fact he did not have the extra land of Bumford's Block in the north-east corner of the main paddock, meant that he had one less hole in the stretch up until the road was crossed - ie the 11th hole is the one before the road, whereas in the finished form it was the 12th. With the four holes out in this smaller block, it meant Mackenzie needed three holes to get back to the clubhouse, and so the hole we now know as 17W, the first one back in the main paddock is the 16th, and is doglegged to the right to allow for 2 further holes back to the location of the new clubhouse. of course we know with Bumford's block in hand, the extra hole could be gained in the run from 1 to 12, and the 17th could dogleg left and the 18th then be a variant on the old Sandy 7th. Hope I've explained this OK.

Interestingly, if you look at Mac's 18th in the sketch, it is quite like the hole that ended up as 18, but with the tee and green in quite different places! It has a big carry bunker and a dogleg to the right, although it is quite a bit shorter than the hole that eventuated. Perhaps Russell and Morcom carried through this idea of Mackenzie's to have a big carry bunker on the 18th, and when the hole was able to be relocated this ridge proved the ideal place in which to dig it!



The black and white plan I posted before shows this bunker complex as 3 separate bunkers, which it is effectively, they are just not separated by not very much but a thin strip of ground, and interlocking like you say.

Here's an aerial from 1941 that shows the 18W (12C) green at right, 18E (18C) at left and above it 2W (2C) green. The road you can see was built to go to the new clubhouse site, where can be seen the 7th west tee. Except the clubhouse never eventuated in that spot, allowing the 7th hole to be relocated by Ivo Whitton. Seems they built the road early on as it can be seen in some 1930 panoramas of this area. I can post these if you are interested?

[Sean_A]

You gotta love that ridge!  Does the ridge lead to the right bunker or get cut off at the green?  I can't tell from the photo, but certainly something looks odd.



Thanks for this thread mark and Neil - it is most enjoyable!

Ciao

[Mark Bourgeois]

Neil

Yes I very much would like to see those aerials. I believe that aerial you've just posted appears in the centenary history. Impressive to see the bunkering schemes and styles so well preserved over more than 60 years!

The rerouting (re-rerouting?) story is interesting. Too bad there's no comprehensive, definitive record of Mac's correspondence.

Another oddity about 18 is one of the plans, the one where the green appears left of its present location, has the hole a longer distance than it is today!

Sean, looking at my photo and Ran's, remarkably the green appears to slope in opposite directions! No idea how that happened...

That ridge line does run down to the right bunker -- I should say "towards," as the bunker lip rises
.

The green falls off in the general direction of the ridge; ie, from front left to back right.

I would add that it is the complementarity of ridge and swale that gets the golfer's attention. That concern is position dependent: you will care a lot about the ridge from the left, where the greens juts forth like a boat's bow, and more about the swale from the right, where the challenge is how to deal with the perpendicular face of the swale. Hmm, I guess that concern on the right could be about the ridge, but it feels more like a "carry across" rather than a "run up."
 
Make sense?

By the way, in this routing the hole comes at a great point, from a match play perspective.

Mark

[Mike_Cirba]

Mark,

This is indeed an impressive thread and I'm enjoying it immensely.

I must admit that it also makes me feel good to know that I'm not the most obsessive person on this discussion group. 

Brilliant job!

[Neil_Crafter]

Mark
Your wish is my command!
Here are the two panorama photographs of RMW taken by Russell Grimwade in 1931.

The first of these is taken from the vicinity of the current 7W tee (once the new clubhouse site) looking to the south east. I have also included the captioned image from the article Dr John Green wrote on RMW in GA7 as this will answer any questions of explaining what is what in each image.





The second is also by Grimwade in 1931 and is taken from the 6W tee looking west. What I wouldn't give for a time machine!

[Mark Bourgeois]

Neil

The club history mentioned the importance of trees growing up on 6 West (RMC6), in particular the inside of the dogleg.  I reckon that's true, looking at that photo!

That bunkering on the outside of the dogleg looks impressive, too.  Do you suppose it was filled in because it punished the weak more than the strong or did it have to do somehow with the RME 2?

Also, looking back to the closeup of the Mackenzie sketch you provided (during our discussion of RMC 12 / RMW18), it's interesting how many center-line bunkers Mac put in.

Many thanks for the pictures -- we are going to clear out your inventory! (Doubt that...)

Mark

[Mark Bourgeois]

Does any other course have such a wonderful collection of par 4.5 holes?

At Royal Melbourne, each golfer's list of such holes may vary according to their ability, an indication the course is loaded with holes within a yardage range.  (Add in the the par 3.5 holes and you begin to see the magic key to unlocking the secret of "privilege," this notion that a great drive doesn't make the next shot easier but rather invites the golfer to a more difficult shot, an opportunity to be a hero, if for just one shot.)

Amazingly, six holes on this composite routing -- 1,2,4,10,14, and 17 -- fit the four-and-a-half bill for me.  While your mileage may vary, take comfort in knowing that with a surfeit of "magic-range" holes you too will have your fair share of "throw-up" decisions to make!

But then we come to the 509-yard par-5 14th (RMW 4).

The 14th is a flawed hole. Most damningly, it is flawed by Mackenzie's own standards, for he did not give every class of golfer a way around the striking hill off the tee.

All, the high and low hitter, the weak and the strong, must challenge it. Playing around it to the left, over towards the fairway of the 17th (RME17), renders it a par 6.  From the up tee, a narrow gap to the right of the bunkering appears, but the cant of the land into scrub on the right renders this a very narrow corridor indeed, and even if successful the odds are high the shot will find heather or rough.  Were we discussing this hole as part of a walk-through of the West, the complaint would deserve a full airing. It is a direct and fundamental broadside to that course's claim as one of the few in the world to span the spectrum of enjoyable for all yet challenging to the best. A rare compromise which renders the course less than absolutely perfect. There, I said it!

Mackenzie would have known all this and I suspect he realized he had to accept the sandhill in order to "unlock" the 5th and 6th holes -- and given the unalloyed excellence of those two lovelies are we right to complain of this beast?  Besides, it is an amazing formation -- a great example of Yeats's "terrible beauty"!




Perhaps it's best just to note that today we are talking the Composite, a tournament course, so we can leave this "flaw".  Right, that leaves us our first question of the hole: how much hill to challenge? Once again the question is answered by the angle desired for the subsequent shot.

As far down the right as you please is the generic answer -- but each must decide how much pain to mix with the pleasure. Carrying the hill will give you a turbo boost, which propels you into another difficult decision.  The right falls off alarmingly into rough, heather, sand, scrub -- well, you should get the point by now: another dogleg, another slope to figure.  (More three-dimensional decision making.)

The pleasure of a ball in the fairway on the right is a shot "perpendicular" into the sloping green -- but a shot that must negotiate a fear-inducing bunker which, we discussed a few holes back, Ran M votes the best in Australia.




Personally, I'll take my chances down in right, if only because being over on the left doesn't guarantee safe passage past this pit of despair.  (If the golfer's drive finds the left side of the fairway, he would have to be brave indeed to go for the green, as the earth is against him with all her might from over there.  But the layup angle is pretty much right at the bunker, as the golfer will want his subsequent pitch to run perpendicular to the green's slope.)






If one's drive down the right opens the privilege of the green, only a boldly struck shot will do. Weak efforts will find sand short...left...right....And the "overly heroic" should beware: in contrast to the prior hole, a front-sloping green awaits, hoisting heroically long shots on the petard of heroically fast downhill putts.




One last point to make regarding this hole, and it's a pleasure special to the West's routing. The West 4th (our 14th) is smack in the middle of a run of crooked fingers, deliciously bent doglegs that elevate an out-and-back routing into artistry.  This is an out-and-back where the holes retain their uniqueness and the golfer never suffers familiarity.

Better to show than tell:



Left, right, left, right, (5th), right.

Mark

[Sean_A]

Sean, looking at my photo and Ran's, remarkably the green appears to slope in opposite directions! No idea how that happened...

That ridge line does run down to the right bunker -- I should say "towards," as the bunker lip rises
.

The green falls off in the general direction of the ridge; ie, from front left to back right.

I would add that it is the complementarity of ridge and swale that gets the golfer's attention. That concern is position dependent: you will care a lot about the ridge from the left, where the greens juts forth like a boat's bow, and more about the swale from the right, where the challenge is how to deal with the perpendicular face of the swale. Hmm, I guess that concern on the right could be about the ridge, but it feels more like a "carry across" rather than a "run up."
 
Make sense?

By the way, in this routing the hole comes at a great point, from a match play perspective.

Mark

Mark

Is it a case where a full frontal ground assault on the right right swale is safer (but hard to judge the distance to the hole) than trying to ride the ridge which may funnel to a front right hole location?  If so, can one make out the strategy involved depending on where the hole is located from the tee (assuming one knows the hole)? 

Ciao

[Mark Bourgeois]

Sean, the argument for attacking the front-right flag -- personally, I would never attack a flag there! -- from the left has more to do with giving yourself a runway of green to feed the ball down, as opposed to coming in perpendicularly, i.e., from the right, from where the margin for error is small.

Coming in from the left, that "ridge" feels more like a tightrope: it's easy to fall off into the bunker on the left or the swale on the right.  Think convexity not flat or "plateau-like."  It's possible reality isn't nearly as severe as the mind's eye makes out, but perception is reality for this chop!

My own thinking on a front-right flag is get it past the hole and the safest angle for that is perpendicular, thus my personal preference for the right side.

The idea of trying shots along a 20- or 30-yard arc from that hole is a pleasurable one, as would be watching a world-class player trying that distance approach from either side under tournament conditions.  It wouldn't be surprising to see that player focus on positioning his ball for an uphill putt -- in Peter Thomson's phrase, "loss cutting."

Mark

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