Interested in opinions on The Biarritz style at Yale and Fishers

[Jud_T]

PM.

excellent point...once again the dreaded sprinklers...

[TEPaul]

"Bradley Anderson,

I think some have misinterpreted Whigham's words/description.

I believe the "hogsback" he's referencing is the entire footpad of the land mass immediately preceeding the swale.
I've noticed that a number of these footpads/land masses slope toward the flanks near their edges, giving them a "hogsback" flavor.

I believe this feature was intended to direct marginal, low tee shots (runners) toward the steep, deep flanking bunkers, while allowing more accurate tee shots to proceed through the swale to the back tier.

If one studies the 16th fairway at NGLA, you can see how that center landmass, (spine or hogsback) directs marginal tee shots to the flanks.
I believe that CBM, SR and CB wanted to incorporate that feature in their Biarritz's.

NGLA is replete with "hogsbacks"/spines, in both the greens and fairways.
Hole # 5 is named, "hogsback".
CBM, SR, CB used this feature to deflect marginal shots toward the flanks which were usually sloped, some steep and deep slopes leading down to bunkers or the bottom of bowls.

Some, if not most of the fronting footpads on Biarritz's have that "hogsback/spine" structure and function.

I believe this is what Whigham was referencing."




Pat:

I couldn't agree with you more about some of the hogsback effect on some of the fairways of NGLA. Only problem with your analysis is NGLA never had a biarritz and there just isn't that same kind of hogsback feature and definitely not the effect of it, either playability-wise or otherwise to even remotely the same degree as those NGLA hogsback fairways you mentioned on any of the fairway sections before the swale on any of the Macdonald/Raynor biarritzes I've ever seen or played or heard of and that includes quite a lot of them, certainly including Piping Rock (the biarritz in question here ) which as you know I grew up at.  

[Bradley Anderson]

David Moriarty,

I think you will find different versions of the "first plateau".
Some are flat, some slightly rounded and others noticeably rounded..

Patrick,

This is a great point. The elevation of the Ocean hole at Lido looked to me more like something on the elevation of a knoll hole than a biarritz, but then when I learned that it was in fact a biarritz it made perfect sense to me that they would make it high like that on account of the fact that it was so close to the ocean--there is no way they could have drained the trough unless the whole thing was way up there in the air. And even then it ultimately fell away on the waters edge. Apparently at that height, the biarritz concept was so severe that they ended up moving the tee to 165. Of course the wind had a factor in shortening the Lido version as well.

That Lido version was probably the oddest place that they ever tried to make that hole concept work. And I would nominate the Yale version and the Mid Ocean version as the second and third oddest places.

A good biarritz called for just the right terrain--porous enough to drain the trough, and yet flat enough to keep the tee and green elevations even. Because when the green and tee elevations are too far off, the hole requires more of an aerial game shot than a ground game shot, compromising the principles that make that hole play best.

[Bradley Anderson]

Tom,

What is the elevation difference between the tee and green on the 17th at Merion? It looks like the tee is 10 feet or so below the green.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat:

I couldn't agree with you more about some of the hogsback effect on some of the fairways of NGLA.

Only problem with your analysis is NGLA never had a biarritz and there just isn't that same kind of hogsback feature and definitely not the effect of it,

I'm aware of that.
Evidently you missed my reference to # 16 and other holes at NGLA which do have "hogsback" features.

either playability-wise or otherwise to even remotely the same degree as those NGLA hogsback fairways you mentioned on any of the fairway sections before the swale on any of the Macdonald/Raynor biarritzes I've ever seen or played or heard of and that includes quite a lot of them, certainly including Piping Rock (the biarritz in question here ) which as you know I grew up at.  

Obviously, when you played NGLA your matches were over before you reached the 16th hole.
The "hogsback" landform that exists in the DZ of the 16th fairway is similar to the footpad and structure of the first tier (plateau) in a Biarritz.
The similarities in form and function are obvious.
Hit a straight drive at the target and you're rewarded, hit a marginal or poor drive and the "hogsback" feature diverts and deflects your ball down, well below the "hogsback" fairway, leaving you a blind shot to the target, which is exactly what happens on Biarritzes.

As to NGLA having the same degree of "hogsbacks" you need to replay the 5th hole, named, "hogsback" to see how the convex nature of the fairway, subtle as it may be in some areas of the DZ, diverts and deflects balls down, well below the upper fairway, leaving them blind shots, just like Biarritzes.

That feature also existed about 40-90 yards short of the green, fronting the turbo boost on the right side.
Unfortunately, in order to block out the view of the maintainance and dorm facilities at Sebonack, NGLA had to create a large mound or berm that destroyed that particular "hogsback"/spine that diverted balls hit left of it toward the green and balls hit right of it into a bunker that NLE.

To repeat, the "hogsback" in the DZ of the 16th fairway parallels the "hogsback" presented in the structure of the first tier (plateau) of a Biarritz.

Many fairways at NGLA have this feature.
Since NGLA was amongst CBM's earliest work, I'm sure he incorporated the "hogsback" feature into many of his subsequent works, even Biarritzes, even though there is no Biarritz at NGLA.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Bradley,

The Biarritz at Yale has the same amount of drop from cliff to cliff as the original. How did you arrive at the conclusion that it's one of the 'oddest places' to site one?

.....and how did you arrive at this conclusion: "...when I learned that it was in fact a biarritz (Lido's) it made perfect sense to me that they would make it high like that on account of the fact that it was so close to the ocean--there is no way they could have drained the trough unless the whole thing was way up there in the air."
The hole looks to be as ground hugging as is possible.
 


Thanks in advance for your answers.

[Bradley Anderson]

Tom,

The Whigham quote that Travis lifted from Town & Country stated "There is a Biarritz hole of about 220 yards which is new to this country and is one of the best one-shot holes in existence. There is a hog's back extending to within thirty yards of the green and a dip between the hog's back and the green. Under normal conditions the hole has to be played with what is now known as the push shot, a low ball with plenty of run, which will land short of the dip and run through it on to the green.....''

The hogsback described here would have been positioned right were the fairway sits before the trough. It does not make any sense at all. For the term hogsback certainly implies abruptness and significance of height, don't you think? It would only make sense if the landing area in front of the trough was higher in the center than on the sides--just high enough to feed the hazards. The trajectory that most people would be hitting on that hole would not require something as abrupt as a hogsback to accomplish that.

I just can't visualize how you clear the hogsback without being too high coming in to run through the trough.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bradley,

I think Biarritzes can also function well where the green sits above the tee.

It's when there's a substantive differential down to the green that play on the hole is forced to the aerial mode.

[TEPaul]

Just by looking at that photograph of that Lido Biarritz (even at a distance and from the tee) it is just not that hard to tell how and how much it was raised up above say sea-level (which is fortunately visible to the right   ).

However, even accurately estimating how much it was raised above say sea level does not tell us much about its effectiveness to endure for long where it was. The fact is that hole got completely clobbered. Some of the same types of problems happened to Macdonald/Raynor 8-15 years later on the North Shore of Long Island and The Creek Club. The fix app. 6-8 years after that course was created was incredibly expensive for that time.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Please, that greensite isn't more than 10' above sea level. It doesn't even reach the height of the first floor of the house behind it.

This still doesn't answer the Yale question.

[Bradley Anderson]

Jim,

I admit that I am biased by the fact that the only biarritz I have played is #6 at Shoreacres. On that hole there is very little elevation difference between the tee and the green. The tee sits just high enough to command a view of what is before you. The trough sits two feet lower than the green. And the green sits about two feet above grade. But now if my memory serves me right, the trough is cut in to the grade a half foot or so with a place for water to drain to the left side. In either case, however you do the math, the entire hole sits remarkably close to grade.

The engineering of that trough is critical to the success of the hole. At least that's what I think.

The biarritz hole is a challenging hole to build because the trough has to drain in order for the hole to work. But if you have to raise the whole structure up artifically, I think you are compromising the design intent, because of how the raised surface doesn't receive the trajectory of the ball as well as the green that is closer to grade.

[TEPaul]

"The hogsback described here would have been positioned right were the fairway sits before the trough. It does not make any sense at all. For the term hogsback certainly implies abruptness and significance of height, don't you think? It would only make sense if the landing area in front of the trough was higher in the center than on the sides--just high enough to feed the hazards. The trajectory that most people would be hitting on that hole would not require something as abrupt as a hogsback to accomplish that.

I just can't visualize how you clear the hogsback without being too high coming in to run through the trough."


Brad:

I guess I just don't know how to explain it well enough on here but Piping Rock's biarritz just does not and apparently never did have some significant "hogs-back" feature in that substantial fairway area before the swale.

I have a photograph of the hole from 1913 but unfortunately I don't know how to post photographs on this website. But I'll try to describe it for you again.

That fairway area before the swale has some very gentle undulations in it (concave and convex obviously) but essentially it is a fairly flat plateau fairway area above the depressions on either side of it and it is on basically the same level as the green behind the prominent swale (the swale itself is probably 35 yards wide and about 10-15 yards in length. It is also about five feet deep throughout). The plateau fairway area looks to be about 30 yards wide and perhaps 25-30 yards in length. On the far end of the fairway area before the swale over on the right side is a small gentle mound that is visible from the tee but it most definitely does not constitute some hogsback feature that could cast a ball either way from the middle of that entire fairway area before the swale.

The hole has a very large cross hazard in front of that fairway area. I cannot tell on this photo if it has sand in it; I doubt it as the large flanking bunker on the left of the green itself does not have sand in it at that point (1913 the year the course opened).

Actually the biarritz bunkering on Piping's ninth hole may be a bit unusual as I don't think the hole has ever had a sand bunker on the left of the fairway before the swale but in this 1913 photo it certainly does have a massive sand bunker on the right of both the green and the fairway area before the swale. To me the reason for that is pretty obvious as the fairway area on the 8th hole comes right to the biarritz bunkers on the right (this is a feature of the 8th hole that was obsoleted many years ago).

But again, there is definitely no prominent hogs-back feature in the center of the fairway area before the swale and if some on here try to tell you somehow there is some prominent hogsback feature in that entire fairway area, I can tell you right now they are just wrong.

Brad, The Creek Club's historian found this photo of Piping's ninth hole and provided it to me a few years ago and I believe it was once posted on this website but I just don't know how to find it. It is in a 1913 article on Piping Rock by Devereau Emmet in I think Golf Illustrated.

[Bradley Anderson]

Please, that greensite isn't more than 10' above sea level. It doesn't even reach the height of the first floor of the house behind it.

This still doesn't answer the Yale question.

Jim,

This was reported to be one of the toughest holes at Lido. Certainly the wind was also a factor, because the ball had to be played out over the ocean and blown back on line. That is probably why the shortened it. But I think it was also because the elevation of the green did not receive the shots too well when it was at 220 yard.

What is the question about Yale? I missed that one. But I won't back on till this evening.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Bradley,
Thanks for the answer, I think it helps to show just how adaptable the Biarritz can be, from flatland to a 30' elevation change, and from shallow swales to deep.

I don't think that the height of the green complex matters as long as the tee height complements it.

[Bradley Anderson]

Tom,

I have that Dev Emmet article somewhere in my collection. I'll try to post it tonight---if I can find it.

I was just reminded of the fact that I am in a relationship with a family here--you know chidren and a wife. Doh!

[TEPaul]

"That is probably why they shortened it."

Bradley:

Why did they shorten the Lido Biarritz from the original 220 yards to 160?

Well, the generally told story is because that hole got really clobbered by the sea and the sand but if you just look at that plasticine model of the whole course or even that on-ground photo on this website you will probably see why it was shortened. Assuming that tee on the on-ground photo was at 160 yards just look at those golfers standing on not the 8th tee but the 9nth tee!!! Then go back and look at that plasticine model again and imagine how dangerous that combination of tees must have been FROM 220 YARDS!!!

By the way, Brad, the area of most of the tees on Piping's ninth hole are probably 15-20 feet above the fairway and green but believe me it was no problem at all to land a ball on that fairway and filter it into and out of the swale and onto the green as long as you kept it low and got the "weight" right. I ought to know as I've done it scores of times starting back in the early 1950s and going forward. And there was definitely no "hogs-back" feature that cast my golf ball from the center into the hazards on either side. I mean there may be some on here who will still try to tell you that's the case because of CBM's or Whigam's or Travis' remarks but they have not played that hole hundreds of times as I have, have they? 

[Jim_Kennedy]

There's a forty year interlude between the time you started playing the course and when the hole was built. A lot of things happen insuch a long period of time.
Perhaps we'll see why Whigham described it as he did when the photo appears.

[TEPaul]

Sure, there was a forty year interlude between the time that hole was built in 1913 and when I started playing it in the early 1950s but the point is the architecture of that hole looks the same in that 1913 photo as it did when I began playing it in the 1950s, and continued playing it for decades as well as basically what it looked like the last time I saw it this year. So, Jimboohoo Kennedy, if you're gonna try to tell me that you know something or you're going to see something when that 1913 photo I have appears on here, that I don't about that hole or that my descriptions of it are wrong, I'm just going to tell you you're spitting in the wind again as you have so often on here when responding to me. The fact is you seem to want to be constantly argumentative and antagonistic on here with me, and apparently for no other reason other than to be argumentative and antagonistic. Go ahead, keep it up with posts with implications like the last one, and that ridiculous one on here regarding what I said to Ari Techner. Your response on the latter one was a total argumentative waste of time that frankly made no understandable point or sense at all.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tom,
I'm not questioning your 50 year old impressions of the hole, I'm questioning Whigham's, and it seems that the only way to find out why he described the hole the way he did, 40 years before you saw it, is through that photograph.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jim,

I admit that I am biased by the fact that the only biarritz I have played is #6 at Shoreacres. On that hole there is very little elevation difference between the tee and the green. The tee sits just high enough to command a view of what is before you. The trough sits two feet lower than the green. And the green sits about two feet above grade. But now if my memory serves me right, the trough is cut in to the grade a half foot or so with a place for water to drain to the left side. In either case, however you do the math, the entire hole sits remarkably close to grade.

The engineering of that trough is critical to the success of the hole. At least that's what I think.

The biarritz hole is a challenging hole to build because the trough has to drain in order for the hole to work. But if you have to raise the whole structure up artifically, I think you are compromising the design intent, because of how the raised surface doesn't receive the trajectory of the ball as well as the green that is closer to grade.

Bradley, I totally disagree with your premise, as does the architecture at FI, especially when you factor in the slope/grade of the putting surface and fronting terrain.  Biarritz greens raised above the tee don't offer, incrementally, that difficult of an approach, versus a Biarritz where the tee and the green are at the same elevation.
 
In addition, most golfers don't have the fire power to hit to the center of the back tier.

[TEPaul]

"........I'm questioning Whigham's, and it seems that the only way to find out why he described the hole the way he did, 40 years before you saw it, is through that photograph."


There is no question about that at all. And other than that small mound on the far end of the fairway over towards the right and some very gentle undulations (both convex and concave) on that fairway that is over-all fairly flat, if someone on here carefully analyzes that 1913 photograph and the way the hole was in the 1950s and on, and is today, and still believes what they see constitutes some prominent "hogs-back" feature that casts the ball either right or left off the center into one of those flanking hazards I would suggest they make an appointment with a really good optomitrist at the absolute soonest! And if that still doesn't work, I would advize they take a couple of weeks off and give up golf course architectural analyses altogether.

By the way, here's an interesting bit of historical trivia on Piping Rock that happened on that hole and sort of reflects the latter advice I just suggested.

It was on this hole many years ago that the indomitable grande dam, Mrs. Grace, was playing with Sam Snead in a pro-am. Mrs. Grace was not having a good day on the previous eight holes and so on the biarritz, she, in apparent desperation, asked Sam Snead to tell her how to play better. Snead said: "Lady, my advice to you would be to take two weeks off and then just quit the game for good."

Apparently, Mrs Grace was so incensed by that she sent Snead packing so he only played nine hole and had to walk from the biarritz across the polo fields and back to the clubhouse to get his things and depart, never to be allowed to return to Piping Rock for all time to come!

[Jim_Kennedy]

The first plateau is a hog's back in and of itself. I think it's fair to say his description is correct if the photo shows undulations ( the convex and concave you mention are visible) that would serve to kick the ball in the directions Whigham reported.

I feel sad for people who ask a question, and when confronted by an answer they don't like, cannot help from being spiteful. Too bad.

[Bradley Anderson]

Piping Rock 9

[Bradley Anderson]

Alright, I found that photo. Looks like that hogsback was exactly where Whigham said it was. HA!

[Jim_Kennedy]

Thought you were with the kids