[BCrosby]

Dan -

Sean hits on a big issue. In my experience it is hard to convince members to spend the money for a restoration if the argument is that it will improve the "look" of the course. The notion of getting back to a Langford "look" won't carry much water. In part because people won't know what that means, in part because they just don't care.

It is a different case where you are urging the restoration of lost bunkers or greens. Those are the sorts of things that relate directly to the playing quality of the course. I have found that sort of argument does (sometimes) carry water.

Personally, I'm with you on the subjective advantages that certain aesthetics can bring. Lord knows Langford had a knack for creating a wonderful look. But be careful using that approach with the membership. My guess is that you don't score many points if you base your case for a restoration on those sorts of more ethereal factors.

Bob  

[RJ_Daley]

A theme that some of the above posters are hitting on is the fact that WB is the tale of two nines that aren't consistent at all in their design style, nor playing characteristics.  I think that members over time become 'conditioned' by the status quo, and like almost all other matters in life that involve the concept of status quo VS any expense or effort to change, is generally resisted by those who have become conditioned or comfortable with status quo.  They will rationalise why not to change based on $ and comfort conditioning.

I have to believe that virtually every member of WB has played Lawsonia many times.  They have that most consistent and highest quality of an L&M designed course to draw inspiration from.  Yet, it involves a leap of faith or maybe more pragmatically, some cost to get their course up to the highest standard that their sister course at Lawsonia offers.  So, they fall back on their complacency and conditioning of the status quo and are resistent to proposals for change or restoration that involves the more uncomfortable challenge to their pocket book, or cling to their routine of how they play golf on an everyday basis and are adverse to interuption to get to another place. 

So you need some rationale that works to stimulate them.  Since it will cost them money anyway you look at the impact of change to restore, you need something equally as powerful and motivating to foster change.  That has to be 'status alto' (higher), and what they perceive as a higher authority in golf, it seems to me.  If they understand that a faithful restoration will bring status altus to the us old fossil types like here at GCA.com who revere great architecture, well that is great, but somehow I think we don't carry all that much weight in the real world of country club society status....    So, you need a guy like the Pete Dye story above who really carries prestige and comes in an has to tell them what a great thing it would be to do a faithful restoration, because they will experience greater golf and all the elite society of golf will envy them.  Or, you need a player they look up to (maybe like a Stricker or Kelly here in WI) to come in and give them a pep talk on how neat and appreciated it would be for the best players to enjoy such unique and faithful resto to the L&M heritage, and will give them better golfablity in the end. 

Since they probably have full membership and they don't sell rounds, increasing revenue with more golf because the public likes it isn't a factor at most CCs.

[Phil McDade]

In defense of the Langford look...

I don't want to give short shrift to the notion that how a given course plays -- as opposed to how it looks -- should be the most important consideration in remodeling/renovation efforts of the sort Mike is looking for at West Bend. But I also think it's important to consider how a Langford course looks, and for this the guiding model has to be Lawsonia.

Lawsonia just looks different than most courses most golfers encounter. I haven't played nearly as many courses as most of those who post here have, but I've been around, and I don't typically see a hole that looks like this:



or this:



or especially this:



Langford, I'm convinced, liked to utilize elements of design that suggest visual intimidation. His fairway bunkers are quite wide, and tall -- they literally scream: "Don't go in here!"  I believe one of this board's vagabond posters   learned this lesson well on a recent trip to Lawsonia:



Think it's easy to reach the 6th green at Lawsonia if you're in one of those two side-by-side bunkers depicted in the first picture? It's not. Standing on the par 3 7th tee (second picture), a golfer's first, primary, and perhaps everlasting thought is: "Better get this on the green." Want to reach the par 5 13th in two (third picture)? Just how many of those en echelon bunkers are you willing to take on to shorten your route?

Of course, the genius of Langford's routing at Lawsonia is that he provides ample width, and alternate corridors, for the player to wind his way around the visually intimidating bunkers and mounds that he places through the course. On nearly all holes at Lawsonia, he provides some sort of ground-based opening to the green so the golfer doesn't necessarily have to carry his deep greenside bunkering. My larger point is that Langford provides plenty of visual clues about how to attack the course. His courses just don't look cool; they provide guidance for how the thoughtful golfer may want to play the course.

What's this have to do with West Bend? As Dan points out, the West Bend Langford nine represents some of his best work. It would fit right in as a third nine at Lawsonia. What it's missing, in my view (and it's not missing much), is that completeness of the visual elements that Langford (I believe) intentionally built into his best works. Langford wasn't subtle, for instance, about his greenside bunkering and falloffs; they are deep and penal. Yet look at these two bunkerless greens at West Bend:





Wouldn't they be enhanced -- not just in terms of the playability intent, but how they look -- if contrasting white/brown sand were added? I think they would, and I believe they would restore the course closer to Langford's original intent in how the course doesn't  just play, but looks.

I writer I enjoy often jokes that a good way to make a point in an argument is "generalizing wildly from your own experiences." Upon moving to Wisconsin some 20 years ago, one of my good friends (who introduced me to the game) said: "You have to play Lawsonia. It's the coolest-looking course you've ever seen." He was right. I have yet to take someone new to Lawsonia, or encounter anyone who's played the course for the first time, not have the same reaction.

When it comes to Langford, I'd argue, the look is important.

[RJ_Daley]

I have a technical question for any of the golf course construction guys, or GCAs, regarding the technique to convert the grass bunkers to sand in some of the bunkers like the last two photo's of the holes at WB that Phil has in the post above.  Particularly the par 3, one can see that the grass bunker is a deep scoop below surface drainage runaway.  So, would a sump to a subsurface wet well or other technically engineered system have to be placed in the bottom of the already below surface drainage level under the restored to sand bunker, in order to keep the bunker from turning into a constant sand bottom lake?  Or would one just do a herringbone like under bunker drainage and run the drainline as far as one has to on slope out to a lower elevation outlet?  Not to throw water (or drainage water) on Mike's efforts, because I believe they should do whatever is reasonably possible to get that sand bunker effect on these holes, but could it get more costly in the drainage engineering than one might think?

[Mike McGuire]

  Or would one just do a herringbone like under bunker drainage and run the drainline as far as one has to on slope out to a lower elevation outlet? 

RJ

Our original plan was to do a bunker on this par 3 first (our hole #4). The method you describe above is what we were going to implement. The size of this bunker, the distance to trench drain outlet and the fact that it guarded the front of the green on a 200 yard shot moved us to easier work on the par 5.

[Tom MacWood]

In defense of the Langford look...

I don't want to give short shrift to the notion that how a given course plays -- as opposed to how it looks -- should be the most important consideration in remodeling/renovation efforts of the sort Mike is looking for at West Bend. But I also think it's important to consider how a Langford course looks, and for this the guiding model has to be Lawsonia.

I agree. Langford's golf courses are completely unique and anyone who is member at one of his courses would certainly appreciate that. We are not talking about subtleties; his features are big and bold. I have hard time believing memberships are as ignorant as some would have us believe.

[Phil McDade]

Tom:

I don't think members in general are dumb, either. But I think they are busy folks, pressed for time, saddled with other obligations (for many dads in particular, helping to raise kids), and probably view their course as the one place they can get away from having to make decisions all day long. They probably care about their golf course, but have a tough time envisioning it any other way, and instead focus on the camaraderie of their fellow members and try (in vain?) to improve their game. In a sense, they hand over their stewardship of the course to passionate folks like Mike.

Having recently visited two notable Chicago-area clubs (Beverly and Flossmoor), I was struck by how the dedication of a very few passionate members can help build the case for significant -- perhaps even viewed as radical -- changes that in the end  improved both courses. The before-and-after pictures of Flossmoor that I've seen are particularly striking; a course once literally choked with trees now has some of the more impressive open vistas one is likely to encounter in what is a traditional parkland course. Oakmont may be an outlier as a model for this (from what I gather, it has a membership that's very serious about -- and very good at -- golf, and very serious about its stewardship of the course as a championship venue), but the changes there re. tree removal were as radical as one might find in modern renovation cases. I think the changes (and pace of them) that West Bend is considering for the Langford nine are fairly modest, and don't carry a huge financial burden. I think a good case can be made for a sustained educational approach with the membership at West Bend to restore Langford's original vision for those holes.

[Morgan Clawson]

Mike McGuire -

So what ended-up happening at West Bend?  Did they add any sand bunkers?

What a great looking course!

I really enjoyed this thread. This is a poster child for what gca.com threads should be. Well-written thought provoking insights.

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