Bobby Jones' Ideal Course

[DMoriarty]

point of clarification, at the time he put out this list, weren't the nines reversed at ANGC so #3 as he puts it would be #12 today?

The yardages seem to match the current order.   He didn't mention ANGC #3 or #12 did he?

[JC Jones]

point of clarification, at the time he put out this list, weren't the nines reversed at ANGC so #3 as he puts it would be #12 today?

The yardages seem to match the current order.   He didn't mention ANGC #3 or #12 did he?

I meant 6 and would it be 16?  I guess it wouldnt, it would be 15.

[Tom MacWood]

"

[Tom MacWood]

Four years earlier Jones wrote this article with a quite different ideal:

[TEPaul]

Moriarty:

Reply #20 seems like another very good example of your own unique attempt at argumentation which isn't much more than pretty transparent specious reasoning, in my opinion.

However, the following seems to be fairly uncategorizable and certainly not understandable, even in the context or your own brand of odd argumentation!

"In short, Augusta was ideal precisely because one need not designate a type of golfer that it fit best.   By this standard, Jones's 1936 "Ideal Golf Course" seems to have been far less than "ideal" in the sense that it was usually used in the genre, and by Mackenzie himself."  

Does anyone understand what Moriarty is even attempting to say in the above remark because I sure don't unless HE, like MacWood, is suggesting that Bob Jones too was some kind of architectural hypocrite who somehow sold out his architectural principles as MacWood has suggested MacKenzie did and Tillinghast did as well!?    

[DMoriarty]

Moriarty:

Reply #20 seems like another very good example of your own unique attempt at argumentation which isn't much more than pretty transparent specious reasoning, in my opinion.

However, the following seems to be fairly uncategorizable and certainly not understandable, even in the context or your own brand of odd argumentation!

"In short, Augusta was ideal precisely because one need not designate a type of golfer that it fit best.   By this standard, Jones's 1936 "Ideal Golf Course" seems to have been far less than "ideal" in the sense that it was usually used in the genre, and by Mackenzie himself."  

Does anyone understand what Moriarty is even attempting to say in the above remark because I sure don't unless HE, like MacWood, is suggesting that Bob Jones too was some kind of architectural hypocrite who somehow sold out his architectural principles as MacWood has suggested MacKenzie did and Tillinghast did as well!?    

It is not that difficult to understand. Why don't you give it another shot after you sober up?

[TEPaul]

My post (#29) and my question is a completely legitimate one and I present it again and ask it again.


Does anyone understand what Moriarty is even attempting to say in the above remark ("In short, Augusta was ideal precisely because one need not designate a type of golfer that it fit best.  By this standard, Jones's 1936 "Ideal Golf Course" seems to have been far less than "ideal" in the sense that it was usually used in the genre, and by Mackenzie himself")  because I sure don't unless HE, like MacWood, is suggesting that Bob Jones too was some kind of architectural hypocrite who somehow sold out his architectural principles as MacWood has suggested MacKenzie did and Tillinghast did as well!?  



I would appreciate a legitimate and considered response to it rather than this:


"It is not that difficult to understand. Why don't you give it another shot after you sober up?"
 
 
 

[Jim Nugent]

You use the term "ideal" in the above sentence much more narrowly than the way the term was used in reference to golf courses.  

David, in short, you don't know.  And Tom MacWood's quote -- I assume it's about this same ideal course -- shows you are wrong.  The 18 holes Bobby described are for the experienced player.  Which seems pretty likely, considering the holes he chose.  A 7000+ yard course for average golfers back then? 

I do agree with you about the Masters, though. 

[TEPaul]

Jim Nugent:

Regarding your post #32; would you then contend that if Jones promoted one type and style (ANGC) which he claimed was ideal for all levels of golfer, and then he promoted another type and style a few years later (that composite course above which certainly does not seem to be for all levels of golfers as you and I seem to suggest and agree) that he apparently also claimed was ideal, that there was something hypocrital about Jones' architectural philosophy or that he had somehow compromised his own architectural principles in some way?

[DMoriarty]

You use the term "ideal" in the above sentence much more narrowly than the way the term was used in reference to golf courses.  

David, in short, you don't know.  And Tom MacWood's quote -- I assume it's about this same ideal course -- shows you are wrong.  The 18 holes Bobby described are for the experienced player.  Which seems pretty likely, considering the holes he chose.  A 7000+ yard course for average golfers back then?  

I do agree with you about the Masters, though.  

Jim,

So far as I can tell, my earlier post is consistent with what Tom posted.   Perhaps if I rephrase, leaving your use of the term aside:

In 1936 Bobby Jones used the term "ideal" much more narrowly than the way the term was commonly used in reference to golf courses generally, and to Augusta in particular.  It is not as if Jones' 1936 "ideal" course was great for great golfers but his earlier "ideal" course (Augusta) was not.   Augusta was all that and much more, which is precisely why Mackenzie (and apparently Jones) found it to be "ideal."  Look at Jones own words.  According to his own description of Augusta, his 1936 list would be well less than ideal.  

So the question in my mind is, why did Jones have a different view of what constituted an ideal golf course in 1936 than he did a few years earlier when working with Mackenzie?   I don't know the answer, but find the apparent change intriguing.   The two uses of "ideal" aren't just different, they contradict.

[Jim Nugent]

Jim Nugent:

Regarding your post #32; would you then contend that if Jones promoted one type and style (ANGC) which he claimed was ideal for all levels of golfer, and then he promoted another type and style a few years later (that composite course above which certainly does not seem to be for all levels of golfers as you and I seem to suggest and agree) that he apparently also claimed was ideal, that there was something hypocrital about Jones' architectural philosophy or that he had somehow compromised his own architectural principles in some way?

I don't know.  Maybe the publishers of the article asked him to produce a course for top players only.  Maybe his design philosophy changed (I doubt that).  Or maybe he simply wasn't thinking about average guys when he came up with those holes.    

 

[TEPaul]

"I don't know.  Maybe the publishers of the article asked him to produce a course for top players only.  Maybe his design philosophy changed (I doubt that).  Or maybe he simply wasn't thinking about average guys when he came up with those holes."


JimN:

In that case, would you say that it is possible or logicial to have different "ideal" types and designs of golf courses for different levels of golfers?   

[Jim Nugent]

Bobby lists 13 at ANGC at 480 yards.  Maybe my memory is off, but I recall it playing at 465 yards in the 1960s.  Am I wrong?  

[TEPaul]

"So the question in my mind is, why did Jones have a different view of what constituted an ideal golf course in 1936 than he did a few years earlier when working with Mackenzie?   I don't know the answer, but find the apparent change intriguing.   The two uses of "ideal" aren't just different, they contradict."


Moriarty:

Why would it contradict if Jones meant that one ideal was for all levels of golfers and the other ideal was meant only for high caliber or championship level golfers?

[DMoriarty]

Bobby lists 13 at ANGC at 480 yards.  Maybe my memory is off, but I recall it playing at 465 yards in the 1960s.  Am I wrong?  

Maybe Augusta originally measured along the ground like other courses of the era. 

[TEPaul]

"Bobby lists 13 at ANGC at 480 yards.  Maybe my memory is off, but I recall it playing at 465 yards in the 1960s.  Am I wrong?"

Jim:

No you're not wrong. I think the tip yardage on #13 stayed the same for maybe 50-60 years at around 465. However that did not mean there was not perhaps 15 yards more tee space area behind the listed tip yardage even originally.  The reason I know this has to do with some data to do with a redesign Perry Maxwell was doing for my club in the 1930s immediiately after he took the train from Augusta to Philadelphia.

[Jim Nugent]

Bobby may not have been inconsistent at all.  I take it the distances listed in this article were from the tips.  The shorter tees on these holes may have worked fine for the average golfer. 

I don't think ANGC was an ideal course for the average player from the tips back then.  Bogey golfers had to play the shorter tees.  Maybe the same applied to the ideal course Bobby described in the article.

e.g. 7 of the holes are from ANGC and TOC.  Those are ok for the average player, aren't they, so long as he plays the right tees?

8 at Oakmont is long, but you can run the ball up.  8 at Pebble is a classic that tens of thousands of average golfers play each year.

16 at CPC: average golfer can take the alternate route.  18 at Baltusrol also doesn't look like a monster for the average guy.   

Though I've never played these holes, or seen them in person, offhand it seems like at least 11 of them work fine for the average golfer.  Maybe the whole course works fine, from the right tees, and Bobby was not inconsistent at all. 

[Tom MacWood]

"Editors Note: No golfer in the entire world has had a greater opportunity to pass judgement on the merits of golf holes here and abroad than Bobby Jones, who starting at Inwood where he won his first major championship...During those years he has travelled 120,000 miles and had occasion to play and study the characteristics of hundreds of golf courses and thousands of golf holes. But when it came to the problem of naming the eighteen holes he would select for an 'Ideal Golf Course,' made up of holes now existing elsewhere, even Jones was stymied for a time...Here, however, is presented for the first time the course Bobby Jones, maker of the 'Grand Slam' in '30, has built for the The Golf Review, together with his general ideas as to what goes into the making of a perfect par 72 course."

[Tom MacWood]

Here are Mackenzie and Jones thoughts on the Ideal Golf Course, as written by Mackenzie:

[Tom MacWood]

The 13th hole was listed as 440 yards in Mackenzie's pamphlet describing the course. On RTJ's map of the course in The Complete Golfer (1954) the hole is listed at 480 yards. For years it was listed as 465-475 during the sixties and seventies. I suspect Jones considered 480 yards ideal for that hole.

[Jim Nugent]

...Here, however, is presented for the first time the course Bobby Jones, maker of the 'Grand Slam' in '30..."

Tom, they wrote this in 1936?  So they called it the Grand Slam back then? 

[Tom MacWood]

It was written in 1936 or 1937. I'll double check when I get home.

OB Keeler coined the term Grand Slam for Jones' accomplishment right before or right after it happened. The 13th hole (the 4th at the time) was listed as 480 yards in an article written in the NY Times (1/1/1933) reporting on the impending opening of the course - total yardage for the course was 6700 yds.

[Tom MacWood]

Jim
The article was included in the 1936/1937 Annual Review, so its difficult to say if it was written in '36 or '37. Here are excerpts from the article dated January 1, 1933

[Bill_McBride]

NO 8 at St Andrews?  Shurley Shome Mishtake!

When the pin was front left behind the fronting bunker, with a 2 iron in hand, it was one of the most thrilling shots I experienced. It gave me a a much higher regard for the hole, plus the background makes it even more soul stirring!

Kelly, how many knots was the wind blowing?    Front left is usually about 130 yards from those yellow visitor tees.

I guess by the background you mean all that St Andrews skyline?  When the caddie says hit it at that church steeple, I always ask him which one, there's about a dozen!

[Bill_McBride]

I was thinking you might have been thinking of #11 which is 30 yards longer than #8 but then thought, not so much background, just blue sky mostly!

So was it windy that day?  Forget the knots.