Truly "untouched" greens still out there? (with good Crenshaw story)

[Chip Gaskins]

After reading about the nematode problem (or potential problem) at Cypress Point and reading somewhere that Crenshaw and a few others actually turned down rebuilding the greens there, I began to think....are there ANY courses out there that have not had their greens/green contours messed with at all, or at least since early on?  No rebuilding, no expansion, no reclaiming of lost pin placements, nothing...just like when it was when they opened?

I find it hard to believe that the greens at Cypress have not been messed with in some manner, but maybe I am wrong.

Cypress Point
Pine Valley
Merion
Crystal Downs
Oakmont
Myopia
Garden City
Seminole


I suspect the answer is...none.  So the next question is, what great course has had the least work done to their original green complexes?

What courses remain truly untouched from a greens and greens contour standpoint?

Chicago Golf Club?
NGLA?
Cypress Point?
Prairie Dunes? (man they are good!)

[Anthony Gray]

  How about The Honors? Sawgrass?

  Anthony

[Chip Gaskins]

i meant "old" and "great"....

old & great = best 20-30 course built before 1940ish

but hasn't Sawgrass been dug up several times anyway?

[Tom_Doak]

Anthony:

I played the TPC at Sawgrass when it was brand new, and at least once a year for the first few years thereafter.  At the end of that, I think I counted that I had putted on 62 different greens, or something like that.  First they redesigned a bunch of them, then they changed to bentgrass and softened some contours, then they changed back to bermuda.  So I will humbly suggest yours was not the best answer.

Chip:

It would be hard to say that ANY 80-year-old green is "untouched" today because the amount of sand topdressing and other maintenance that affects the surface is significant.  I am a preservationist by nature, but I looked closely at the greens at Cypress Point and pointed out a lot of ways in which the surfaces had changed through topdressing ... it's funny how it works ... different parts of the greens get steep, because of where the topdressing tapers out.  What used to transition softly off the front or side of the green is now much more abrupt.

However, it's also true that many older courses have rebuilt one or more "steep" greens in recent years (i.e. Pine Valley #5), and many have rebuilt the greens entirely to USGA specs, in which case you just have to take their word for it that the contours are "close" to the original ... but I know for a fact where some of them were changed in the process surreptitiously by the people involved, at very famous courses. 

Of the ones where I DO know the history:

Crystal Downs has not had a green changed (sod stripped and rebuilt) since they were built in 1929-30.  I doubt it is the only one out there.

Garden City rebuilt three greens c. 1960 and I have re-rebuilt two of those (#5 and #14).  The others are untouched from the early days, as best I know.

Seminole's greens have all been rebuilt once or more ... Pete Dye tells anyone who will listen that Dick Wilson built completely new greens at Seminole not long after WW II, and Pete was a member at the time.

[Chris Cupit]

  How about The Honors? Sawgrass?

  Anthony

Anthony,

FWIW there have been quite a few changes at The Honors (and while I am biased I agree with Chip that it does not meet his standards of "old and great").

#3 green and right bunker complex have been changed considerably.  Old front right bunker was way cooler
#9 green was softened as many good shots that hit at least 10-12' into the green would often roll off into the lake--the death of a medium sized tree on the right front edge improved the hole greatly as well.  You can still spin a ball in the water and more commonly if you bail out right on the tee shot and you approach the green coming "across" the green it is easy to land on the green and roll across and into the lake.
#10 green was reshaped twice and now a new green 55 yards farther away has been built.
#13 green not really a design change but the maintenance of the back bowl area changes year to year and greatly affects how to play the hole.  When the grass is grown to collar length you can not intentionally play the ball behind the flag and use the back area as a backstop--it will hang up
#18 green had an enormous left to right tilt and was virtually unplayable.  It has been softened a lot is this has been a great improvement.

[Bradley Anderson]

Old Elm has only one new green since it was built in 1913.

The huge Elm tree which the club was named after, behind the original first green, died, and after it was removed a new green was built 100 yards or so behind it, to make the opening hole a par 5.

[Jeff_Brauer]

The best chance to find them is on courses with no money. I have seen some unchanged greens in Kansas that are puportedly Maxwell that have never changed.  There was a course not far from Pinehurst that was supposedly unchanged Ross, etc.

[Mike_Cirba]

Chip,

Jeff is correct;  the lack of money serves as a preservationist asset.

For instance, at Cobb's Creek we believe that fully 70-80 percent of the greens and internal contours are original, although some green-space has been lost over time.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I wonder if there are some fairly untouched greens on some of the remoter old Scottish courses?

[Rich Goodale]

Mark

I don't know for sure, but I would be surprised to learn that 3, 4, 5, 14, 15, 16, and 17 at Dornoch have been "touched" in the meaning of this thread since Old Tom Morris was there, and you could add most of the "new" holes (6-11, c. 1946) too.  I would be flabbergasted if there were not  hundreds or even thousands of greens that have never been touched on other Scottish courses, remote and otherwise.  Rebuilding greens is just not a Scottish thing.  In my 30 years of experience here the only rebuilding I can think of happened at the new courses, e.g. Loch Lomond, Skibo and Kingsbarns, or Open venues (e.g. Turnberry).  One caveat to this is the moving of greens--this does happen rarely, e.g. the new 9th green at Troon (c. 1980).

Rich

[Michael Rossi]

Chip

Untouched is not possible, being that a course is living breathing entity and ever changing. Even if a course had no construction or heavy maintenance just the use of of it changes the surface. Moving holes over decades, sand shots from green side bunkers and the wind blowing the sand onto the putting surface will change the contours. I will go along with the idea that you need to look at the courses with the small budgets for the least touched or closest to original contours.

However a course that has a small budget today may have been a prominent club at sometime in its existence and could have made changes. The smaller budgeted clubs probably have a lot of lost putting surface to reduce cost of maintainable area and greens just get cut smaller over time and loose their shape. Even the equipment used to maintain the course will have had an impact; mowers of today compared to what was used 80+ years ago. Untouched greens would be cut at the height of fairways of today.

I often wonder if without the evolution/changes by nature or man would we enjoy a course for as long as we do or would we become bored with it?

Happy New Year.
MR

[TEPaul]

Chip:

Interesting question and one that's tough to find an answer to. All the courses you listed in the first post have had some of their greens messed with in one way or another over the years.

[Sam Morrow]

The best chance to find them is on courses with no money. I have seen some unchanged greens in Kansas that are puportedly Maxwell that have never changed.  There was a course not far from Pinehurst that was supposedly unchanged Ross, etc.

Jeff,

Don't you think many of those courses with no money would reduce the size of their greens?

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

One of the reasons Crystal Downs never changed much is that they didn't have much money ... also the short season.

Another interesting thing about it is the relative lack of traffic.  They've never played more than 13,000 rounds a year there, and there were lots of years where it was less than 10,000.  On busier courses, evolutionary change tends to result from traffic and maintenance in response to traffic ... bunkers are edged away and shift slightly forward (in towards the green) because of all the play.  At Crystal Downs the bunkers were actually growing in with grass over time.

[John Moore II]

I will have to agree with Tom Doak about the topdressing. Unless a course has never topdressed, aerified, or verticut the greens, then there is no way that the greens are totally untouched. And in 75-80 years, even if the greens have never been rebuilt, the years of aerifying and topdressing (in NC, I think the standard schedule is 2-4 full aerifying/sandings done each year with 3-4 other light topdressings; so that might be up to 1/2" of new material put onto the green surface each year) will change many of the internal contours of the greens.

This was actually my first thought when I saw the thread title, topdressing with sand would change the contours over time. So in that way, without rebuilds, it would be impossible to keep the contours the same as they were originally.

[Patrick_Mucci_Jr]

Chip,

It's an interesting question.

I know several clubs circa 1927-1929 that have just had a green or two altered over the last 80 years.

I'm curious to know if The Knoll, Morris County, Essex County East, Forsgate, Hackensack, Westhampton and other works of CBM, SR and CB have been tinkered with since inception.

I know that Montclair had green alterations on their 1st, 2nd and 3rd nines, but, I'm unaware of any changes on the 4th nine.

Perhaps George Bahto can provide the answers starting with the courses in NJ

[Rich Goodale]

Tom and John K

I think if you include top dressing, sand splash, aeration, etc. the question asked by Chip becomes trivial.  If you want to pick nits, the act of any golfer walking on any green changes its contours, even if only microscopically, and if we want to talk about other elements of mother nature, how about wind and rain geological activity?

Let's stick to active interventions, as enumerated in Chip's first post, please.  They do bring up a striking difference between general US and UK practices which I think could be instructive and constructive.

Rich

[Chip Gaskins]

so does this mean we really don't know for certain that any of the great old architects built greens with truly great internal movements and green contours.  we can look at old pictures and speculate....but being this thread seems to prove there is no evidence still in existence (due to, if nothing else, years of topdressing) we can't completely know can we?  matter of fact, unless someone has rebuilt some of these great old courses' greens back to exactly like the grainy pictures look, then we know for certain the internal contours have changed.  don't get me wrong we have some decent, pictures of some of MacKenzie's greens at Lido, Sitwell Park, and Cypress and and they certainly look fun and interesting with lots of internal movement, but we also have some pictures of some of Ross' greens that to me look dead flat and yet today there are lots of movement in them.

one reason i bring this up is that the member i played Austin Golf Club with was a founding member and was on site during a lot of the construction.  he told me a story that he was out at one of the green sites with the club manager one day watching things move along and saw Crenshaw walk over and pick up two handfuls of sand and walk over to another spot on the green and drop it down and hand shape basically two handfuls of sand.  that seemed a little far fetched but i have no doubt i was being told the truth and made me think to myself "wow, that is art of GCA at its best"

looking at Shackelford's Golden Age of Golf you can see on P 142 a picture of the #3 green at Cypress Point that looks completely different to me than the current #3

looking at Shackelford's Cypress Point book you can see on p 119 the #8 green at Cypress Point a green with what looks to be some great internal movement.  all those ledges seem to still be there.

i just think how great greens like #12 at Ballyneal, #3 at Bandon Trails, and #6 at Sand Hills and then think, what will they really look like in 80 years....even without green's committee intervention.

question for Tom Doak.  how did you handle the green contours at San Francisco Golf Club and Passatempio when you guys rebuilt them? 

[Patrick Glynn]

Chip,

Interesting topic. I think we have to ignore certain alterations as Rich Goodale said - otherwise we will never get anywhere.

I know that in Lahinch, even before Hawtree's restoration, very few greens have remained untouched since MacKenzie. And even Mac's greens were remakes of the 1890s greens!

Would you count do 18th at PV's to be changed? When it opened I believe there used to be a big "bump" in the middle of the green but it was taken out very early on.

Mr. Doak can answer for himself I am sure, but I found it really interesting to see all the overheads & opening day pictures (with Bobby Jones & co) from Pasatiempo. This to my mind is one of the few actual restorations, in the truest sense of the word, that has occured at any world class golf club.

Also - Doak's point about Crystal Downs not having a large amount of cash is very eye-opening. Many GB&I clubs have been lucky enough to have a large cash surplus every year due to outside play, and perhaps this caused too much tinkering to greens on this side of the pond...

[Tom_Doak]

Chip:

At SFGC there had been a few changes already made to the greens before we saw them.  When the three holes were changed in 1950, two of the greens were preserved in place, but apparently modified to play from a different direction (13 & 14, which changed numbers); we tried to re-modify these two greens based on our best guess.  The toughest thing about greens is that there is basically NO documentation that's accurate enough that you can tell what's been changed ... though occasionally you can tell once you start digging around.

There was a completely new 15th, which we obviously had to change to move back to its old spot.

The seventh and eighth greens had also been rebuilt at least twice prior to our stint ... #7 because it was severe and/or because it was flooded out at one point ... #8 because it was too severe from back to front.  We made very subtle changes to these two greens, but we weren't starting from the originals anyway.

The only green where we made a change to an UNTOUCHED green was #2.  Virtually the whole green had a 4% back to front slope, and I was afraid that with the new grasses on the green it would get to where EVERY downhill putt rolled off the front ... which wouldn't make me look too good.  So, we lowered the back of this green to make the back-to-front slope more like 3%.  It's still pretty touchy when the green gets fast, but not as severe as it used to be.


As for Pasatiempo ... we've expanded many of the greens over the years, but the only one where slopes were changed was #11 ... which I was convinced had already been changed once before.  Again, we took down the back of the green to reduce the back-to-front slope a bit, but it's still pretty steep from back to front.  We also tried to repair the front of the green, which had earlier been built up to lessen the back-to-front slope ... the problem with that method is that you wind up with a big step up to the green so that balls can't bounce onto the front.  (There are still remnants of that at #3 and #9.)

[Tom_Doak]

Patrick:

That's a very good point about the UK courses.  Thirty years ago, none of them had that kind of cash, and rarely contemplated big changes because of that ... but on the other hand, UK greens are just built out of sand, so it's quite inexpensive to change them.  The main objection is that it's too disruptive to play.

Chip:

In my long-winded explanation I didn't get around to your first point ... whether the great old courses had great internal greens movement.  I'm sure they did, especially because they were finished by hand labor or with small equipment, as opposed to the "bigger and better" machines of today.  I think that topdressing has EXAGGERATED or SOFTENED those contours somewhat ... I've seen tons of examples where a superintendent had deliberately topdressed extra heavily at the front of a green for years so balls were less likely to roll back off the front. 

However, I don't believe that all sorts of significant, random contours are being created by topdressing.  Subtle ones, yes ... but the ones you pick out by eye are mostly the remains of the last construction, I believe.

[Ed Oden]

I'm curious to know if The Knoll, Morris County, Essex County East, Forsgate, Hackensack, Westhampton and other works of CBM, SR and CB have been tinkered with since inception.

Patrick, didn't Ron Prichard do a restoration at Morris County a few years back?  I haven't played there since and don't know the specifics.  But I would be surprised if he didn't touch the greens as part of that work.

Ed

[George_Bahto]

Patrick: most of courses you mentioned - Morris County, Essex County, Forsgate, and Westhampton have been maintained “properly” over the years and as a result, obviously, many green features are not as sharp as they originally were.

Ron Prichard did Morris County over a few years ago but I’m not sure if he did any or all greens over.

At Essex County the greens are not very undulating in many cases and may never have been, but there are a quite a few greens there that are original, especially the short uphill punchbowl 14th, the Tillie 6th green, the great 2nd green, which I think is the most interesting on the course, and the D P 16th green, and even most of the short 9th, although we added about 15 more feet in front when we reestablished the cavernous bunker in front because the Tillie green is too shallow for the tee shot.

I think many of Forsgate greens are original and there are any number of greens at Westhampton that are as well (some of Raynor’s best).

There are 2 very interesting greens out on Long Island where there are original, and very interesting, single greens built on non-Raynor, Banks or Macdonald courses; the 2nd hole over water at North Hempsted built by Banks and the Eden Hole (#5) at Nassau CC built by Raynor whose surfaces rival the stronger greens at NGLA.

I’ve been guarding the Knolls greens for years. Somewhat thankfully no surfaces have been altered in any way and for many years no topdressing of the greens was done - money issues adn disinterest, the culprits. In my opinion they are more “Charles Banks-textbook” greens at the Knoll than textbook Macdonald greens at National.

In all there are really a lot of pretty original greens of theirs around - selectively located on various courses.

[Chuck Brown]

Well, speaking of preserved contours at noteworthy courses, I am quite sure that the history of the exotically-contoured greens at Oakland Hills is as follows:
Two greens, 7 and 16, are completely re-done.  (And, in my view, don't look much like other greens on the course.  7 was re-done because the entire green was relocated (it's the one hole that has been altered the most; it is the shortish Par 4 that follows the short Par 4 6th); 16 is the pondside green of course, and they have re-done that one too.  (7 and 16 are virtually the only two holes on the course with water, apart from 5 with its little creek.)
I know that they have re-seeded all the South Course greens at Oakland Hills at least once, as well.
But everything else has survived all the other remodeling; both Robert Trent Sr. and Rees left them all alone.  That fact is a very interesting window into what Donald Ross envisioned in a course that was destined to host major championships (a Western Open four years after it opened, and a U.S. Open just six years after opening).  Ah, the days before 13-foot stimpmeter readings...

[Anthony Gray]

Anthony:

I played the TPC at Sawgrass when it was brand new, and at least once a year for the first few years thereafter.  At the end of that, I think I counted that I had putted on 62 different greens, or something like that.  First they redesigned a bunch of them, then they changed to bentgrass and softened some contours, then they changed back to bermuda.  So I will humbly suggest yours was not the best answer.

   Bad guess. So the reason they were changed was because the original greens wrer too dramatic?

   I hear the same thing is in store for The Castle Course.

  Anthony