Even good redesign on classic holes?!

[TEPaul]

There might be a larger question in topics like the current one about Pebble's 18th hole and the death and replacement of the green-end tree.

That larger question might be, should a classic golf hole be redesigned from what it once was because it might seem logical to some that it could be made even better somehow? Or even if it would seem logical to many that it could be made better somehow, although admitting there really is necessarily nothing wrong with it now?

It's a tough question, for sure! I looks like when strategic analysis is done and done well on that hole in the context of the options and strategies of tree vs no tree that a good case may be made for either choice.

But with the tree there we know how the hole works--we know how effective it can be; it's got decades of history that proves it's effectiveness throughout decades of tournament golf with numerous exciting finishes on it alone! But even more important the hole and it's green just is what it is and it's doing just fine!

But without the tree it may seem fascinating to contemplate what it would be like if it were redesigned with a redan green, for instance. I agree that on here and maybe elsewhere that's a sort of fascinating subject for architectural discussion. But should it actually be done? I really don't think so, athough the betterment of the hole might seem enticing somehow.

If a course has the kind of history Pebble does (a course that's currently #1 in the world) maybe thoughts of redesigning any parts of it should just be put aside although discussing what might make it even better should not nessarily be avoided because that alone might be thought to be sacrilegious.

It may be truly possible to make the architectural case that a great Biarritz green would work even better 225yds out on the green-end of what's now #17, but should it be actually done? No to me--the hole works now and always has and just like #18 they should leave it alone! The tree greenside #18 is not a redesign, it's a proven architectural feature that has stood the test of time!

As I said a few months ago about the replacement of that tree, I think they should replace it but I wish they would have let me handle it. A tree costing $250,000 to replace is beyond shocking to me and I could have handled the whole thing and guaranteed it's health for the next 75 years for a mere $245,000!!

[corey miller]

Who is determining the logic?  Logic is generally the justification to most changes anyway and we have seen many of these are just plain wrong.  

I think the original architect probably had a logical reason for many of the choices they made in the design of the individual holes.  Let them be.  

At the course I am most familiar with, I would be hard pressed to name a change that has been made in eighty years that has made any hole better strategically(perhaps the lengthening of one or two holes).

Most of the classical designs that have survived over the years were done by pretty competant people.  

[TEPaul]

Corey:

So true the question of who's determining the logic? It's a question that unfortunately can have messy answers sometimes.

So the entire question can best be avoided by just leaving the hole alone.

If something is clearly wrong with a hole though then the specific solution to that problem should be fairly easy to find and do.

But if nothing is necessarily wrong, the temptation to just make it better somehow with an untried idea can be very dangerous, but I would look at anything on a case by case basis but if nothing is wrong leaving things alone can't ever be bad, in my opinion!

[TEPaul]

I do know whereof I speak on this kind of thing although it never got to the actual change itself.

We're basically doing a real restoration on my course with Gil Hanse but on one hole that's a pure Ross hole that's never been all that great, not bad, but not that great, an idea came up that I thought would have made the hole really good. At first it made Gil nervous only because it would have been changing a pure Ross hole that didn't really have a specific and overriding problem.

And the idea did not come out of the blue either. It came up because there were two mysterious inline bunker formations that are in trees now that on the oldest aerial appeared never to be finished off with sand for some reason.

I always wondered why they were there and now the hole has had trees grow out on the corner of the left to right dogleg that completely block the ideal landing area for the green's orientation and internal contours to some pins.

So the idea of taking out the trees on the corner, finishing off those inline bunker formations with sand and adding a centerline bunker scheme onto them and right into the middle of the fairway was conceived of. Basically it was NGLA's Bottle hole scheme with the shape tweaked perfectly to form clearly divided fairway options with the higher risk one getting the golfer back into the ideal landing area for that green.

Gil liked it as did a number of knowledgeable people on architecture, although it was a clear departure from a pure Ross hole and maybe even a Ross concept.

It passed through the committees, through the membership and got approval from the board with the entire restoration master plan approval.

But at the very last minute the Board sent back about seven items for reconsideration, why I have no real idea, because everything had already been approved.

Just because of the realities of club politics we understood that some things probably had to be given back just to pacify somebody but it seemed like too much was flying through getting approval again, and we'd only given back something really insignificant.

At the end of the list was actually a redesign recommendation that I thought was dead and gone a year before. It was to  move a green 60yds to the right, and a Perry Maxwell green to boot, that Bill Coore said was one of the best he's ever seen.

The disappointment if that had happened was so bad that I felt like that might be time for me to throw in the towel on participation.

We were dealing with some letters from members on each item and when we got to the one I described first there was a letter from a very significant member who said he felt that he would only recommend the change if it was a true Ross restoration and clearly it wasn't that. I think the redesign concept might have past through again anyway but had it passed it might have jeopradized that last item that was really concerning me. So when we got to the one I told you about, I said, "Look this passed through everybody and I'm really not sure why we're considering it again, but it was my idea and I'm going to recommend removing the concept right now and leaving the hole the way it's always been".

That seemed to surprise some people but they passed my sudden recommended pullout of the concept and went on to the last item and quickly shot down the late entry recommended green move change. I'll never know whether dropping the first one helped the last one get done but now I'm sort of relieved that we didn't make the change to that pure Ross hole.

I really liked the concept, so did a lot of people that are very good at architecture and I'm certainly not above saying I would have loved to have seen that idea of mine tried--but it's not going to be, and I can sure live with that, particularly in the context of how I feel about the subject on this particular thread.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Just think of your idea as phase II !  

[TEPaul]

Pat:

SHHHH! we're never to sure who reads this site!

[ChipOat]

Why shouldn't "great" golf holes be amended?  Where is it written that all good ideas are considered at the beginning?

Why is scripture ("...as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be....") applicable to classic golf holes?

Why is Augusta National the only great course where reasonably constant change is considered legitimate?

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Careful, Chip

There are more than a few people on this site who consider ANGC as the poster child for architectural bastardization!

[ChipOat]

Rich:

I'd find it hard to agree with that.  Look at the holes that are much improved from the original MacKenzie/Jones design. #'s 2,7,10,11,16 and 18 are, IMO, slam dunks in that regard.

Now if they'd just get rid of that stupid Eisenhower Tree and the stupid tree that now forces a fade off the new 8th tee..........

[TEPaul]

Chip, that's absolutely true about ANGC! Who says its the only great course where reasonably constant change is considered legitmate?

Maybe Pat says that but Pat won't ever tell us what he really believes and now he's become the definition of "contrary opinion"; in other words you can bet your bottom dollar that whatever Pat says the opposite is true.

The best Golfclubatlas analogy for ANGC is it's the Michael Jackson of classic golf architecture!

[Dan Kelly]

A golf course -- like any collaboratively creative product -- is a dynamic thing, isn't it?

Thinking of it as static is denying its essence, isn't it?

If you've done your homework, and you have an idea to improve a course ... take some really good pictures, in case you're wrong, and then JUST DO IT!

It's not as if Donald Ross himself had every idea worth having.

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

I'm with you, Chip, even though my observations are all second hand.  But, as you can see, you're going to have to duke this one out with the Doyen himself, and without doubt he will call on his numerous henchmen.........

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

There is no doubt that courses and holes can be improved, but they can also be screwed up. Chip cites a number of holes at ANGC that have been improved - some I agree with others I don't - but how many other holes are poorer from change? And I'm not sure ANGC should be your model for thoughtful change of classic design, it has always been experimental patient. But it can be done, the 5th a PB is generaly regarding as an improvement. The par-3 7th at Royal Melbourne is greatly admired, the same with the many at Dornoch including the 6th, Langford's redesign of Skokie and number of others. Every situation should be should judged on its own.

There are courses in my opinion that should never be touched, especially at this point, just like their are works of architecture that could never be touched. They should be preserved for the world to study and learn from, blemishes and all.

[ChipOat]

Tom Paul:

Huh?

[TEPaul]

Chip:

What? The analogy of ANGC to Michael Jackson? One guess--and it ain't cuz ANGC can dance either.

[Jeff Fortson]

I guess a good way to put it would be that I may not like the painting "Mona Lisa" but that doesn't give me the right to paint a mustache on her.

Jeff F.

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Jeff

What if Da Vinci had only made a rough sketch of La Gioncanda and his assistants (shapers) had made all the brush strokes?  What if it were not just an objet d'art, designed to be looked at and contemplated, but a living thing which was designed to be played on and with and was exposed to the elements and subject to geological forces?

I doubt if Leonardo would have rolled over in his grave if Caravaggio had been brought in centuries later to modernize Mona's bunkers .

[Dan Kelly]

Jeff (et al.) --

But the Mona Lisa and a golf course are not at all alike, are they?

One is the creation of a single person. When it was finished, it was finished. The very nature of this type of creation is that it cannot be changed by anyone other than its creator. That's the rule of the game, and rightly so.

A golf course, by contrast, is a collaborative and dynamic thing. By its very nature -- because of its setting, IN nature, and because of its interaction with golfers -- it changes. It CANNOT be preserved exactly as it was at the time of its "completion," because it never HAS a completion. It is forevermore a work-in-progress.

I would be very surprised to learn that any golf-course architect, ever, thought that any of his creations would be or should be treated as a museum piece. (And if any of them did think that, I'd have told him he was a little big in the head!)

A golf course, it seems to me, is less like a painting, or a novel, or a symphonic score than it's like a park, or a building, or a newspaper, or pretty much any business anywhere -- all of which change, and must change, with the passage of time, as the world around them changes.

Of those many creative things that it's like, a golf course may be most like a building -- a functional blend of artistry and craftsmanship; out in the world, and inevitably affected by natural and human forces. Occasionally, of course, we decide that a building is important enough, in the history of architecture or in the history of its location, that it must be preserved in a form as much as possible like the form it had when its original architect stepped away from it.

Is that what we want, in the golf world: an International Trust for Historic Golf Course Preservation?

Maybe it is. Maybe Tom MacWood has it right: "There are courses ... that should never be touched.... They should be preserved for the world to study and learn from, blemishes and all."

It's pretty to think so, isn't it? (Yes, it is. What true golfer with any sensitivity to history -- that's redundant, I think -- would not be enchanted by the idea of playing courses exactly as they were a century ago?) But I, for one, can't imagine how we'd decide which courses those are, and how -- even if we could agree on a list of Courses That Must Be Preserved -- we could keep them from changing.

Nature will have her way over Committees and Trusts.

(Sorry for the rambling. Maybe there's a nugget of something worthwhile hiding in here.)

[TEPaul]

But Rich, Da Vinci didn't make a rough sketch did he? And it's true a golf course is not a objet d'art to only be looked at and contemplated! A golf course can be a work of art too although it is played on and exposed to the natural elements and the forces of nature.

But if there's nothing wrong with the course why not just let the natural elements and the forces of nature do what they do naturally on it? Why do you assume that man has to get his meddling little hands on it all the time? If a hole or a course is working well enough why not just leave it be? If it can be improved, I do understand, but then there really is the issue of who says and how that you must admit can be dangerous, so for particlarly classic courses or holes like Pebble's #18, why the hell risk it?

Everybody knows how it plays because it has the history to prove it and although there may be ways to make it better somehow there is always a strong possibility that it can be screwed up too. That entire possiblilty can be completely avoided by leaving it alone.

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Tom

If we all went through life where the key underlying principle was a fear of screwing something up, not much progress would be made, in golf course design or anything else.  We'd still be playing with old sticks and calcified cow turds on uncut meadows and the capital of the USA would still be Philadelphia!

PS--read Dan Kelly's post above.

[Sebonac (Guest)]

Chip....Who knew you to be such an anarchist....What other classic holes do you want to change.....?

[wsmorrison]

Rich,
What was wrong with the capital in Philadelphia?  It was probably the best assemblage of good men and great ideas in history!  (I am including the pre-revolutionary period as well.)  Even more so, what's so right about Washingon, DC?  Considering that assemblage of trash, I wish they were further away.  Then again, on top of a landfill in northern NJ might be appropriate.

[ChipOat]

Sebonac:

I'll never tell - too much risk of losing certain open invitations.

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

ws

My theory is that the founding fathers moved out of Philly due to fears that their fledgling Republic might be absorbed into GAP before it had a chance to spread its wings.......

[JamieS]

Rich...

The founding fathers moved out of Philly(and are currently rolling over in their graves) due to the anticipation of the horrendous City Wage Tax, and the current mayoral #$@%
John Street.