The original Redan....

[TEPaul]

"Tom,

I don't have an opinion on the historical aspect...but would you agree that the blindness (and more specifically, what it is hiding) is as valuable as the big low side bunker STRATEGICALLY?"


Sully:

Yes I would, definitely, but always recognizing that someone may counter by asking what blindness has to do exactly with strategy.

I certainly think it does, particularly on a hole of this type. By that I mean that one of the neatest things about a really good redan hole, in my opinion, is actually being able to see and watch that really cool "redan shot" that almost must (particularly under F&F conditions) bounce and roll OFF that kicker which is generally fairway area and filter onto the green and down to the pin. I can tell you from a lot of experience at redans like NGLA's and Piping Rock's and even the old Links Club that you are looking from the tee very hard right at and concentrating very hard on landing your tee shot right on that fairway kicker and even on a particular spot on it! Particularly under really firm and fast conditions if you don't do that your chances of hitting those greens is not very good!

With the redan at NB you just can't see it happen because you can't see it from the tee because of that massive mound or hill that blinds the entire right or kicker on or just off the green on the right. Do I consider that blindness at NB's redan to be highly strategic too? You bet I do, and the only shot I ever hit on the NB redan is proof positive to me of exactly that. I actually thought I hit my tee shot about 40 yards too far right but when I got up to the green my ball was about 2 feet from the left pin. I was totally shocked because I hadn't seen any of it. I actually thought I missed the entire green about 20 yards too far right. Had I actually hit my tee shot where I thought I should I probably would've missed the green left or been behind it somewhere.

To me that is really cool stuff even though I have never seen or played another redan anywhere with the same kind of right-side blindness that NB's redan has.

So the question to me becomes----why didn't Macdonald and all the rest who ever did a redan par 3 ever copy that particularly really significant architectural aspect (that entire right side blindness) of the original redan----eg North Berwick's #15?

Matter of fact, when Ammerman and I first went past the redan on the way out, he said to me: "Who would be so stupid as to put a huge mound with some bunkers in it out in the middle of nowhere?" My only response to that was that I had no idea who would be that stupid! At the time we didn't even see the redan behind that massive mound. But when we came off of #14 and got back to the 15th tee near the tee we looked at it on the way out then it became obvious. Do you think we felt like a couple of unobservant wahoos? No question about that either.

That was quite the round for me and Craig, and not the least reason being by that time he had already hit the quite attractive Mrs. Majors ahead of us in the ass at least twice and perhaps even three times!   

Still today Craig says that NB was one of the neatest golf courses he has ever seen and he's seen a lot.

[JESII]

"What does blindness have to do with strategy?"


I would say STRATEGY is a reflection of, or attempt at, CONTROL. And blindness certainly reduces the amount of control you have because you never REALLY know what you got until you get around the feature and see your ball.

[TEPaul]

Sully:

I think that is exactly right.

I love blindness or more precisely blindness that is somehow juxtaposed or married with visibility because I firmly believe that most golfers and even very good ones instinctively want to go at something they can actually see or at the very least their eye and concentration can be somewhat drawn to that.

I would say at NB's #15 if most golfers actually went at what they could see from that tee, particularly under real F&F conditions, that their ball would probably not be on that green. Maybe Tiger could hit it at what he could see and keep it on the green with something like one of those 190 yard 8 irons that go about 8 miles in the air but not many of us can hit a golf ball like Tiger can!

[Mark Bourgeois]

October 25, 1854

[Niall C]

Sean

I do agree that what matters most now is how the Redan plays today (and has played, for almost all of its life), but I also find it both interesting and illuminating to look at history to see how (and to speculate as to why) influential golf courses such as North Berwick (West) have evolved.  The move across the March dyke in 1869 (when the land for the 3rd green and Redan hole was acquired) was an obvious one, and one which gave the course 9 proper holes for the first time in its history.  That move in 1877 when the Club first ventured past the stone dyke that now defines the back of the tee on the Redan was probably not as obvious, as the maps posted on the other thread by me through Bryan Izatt shows, for anybody who knows the land.  The machinations that the Club went through before in 1895 they finally reached "perfection," including the hole by that name (the old version prior to this date was called "High Bent") are intriguing.  Regarding the 1877 course. it is not for nothing that, according to the web history, "One critic in fact designated it 'a good 9-hole course which has been tampered with'!"

As for the Redan, I think that the probabilities are that the hole was played for some undetermined time as a 266 yard par-4 (maybe even only a few years, or even less), but as that hole was too goofy even for North Berwick, the tee was established at its 192-yard position at or before the turning of the last century.  My guess is that when they played that tournament in 1895 that Dan cites, the pros refused to play the goofy new tee, and that it eventually faded away.  (There are, BTW, several instances in Scotland where the "medal" tees on golf courses are shorter than the "back" tees.  One example I have recently played is the 16th at Pitreavie, where the medal tee is ~190 uphill to a hard two-tier green, whilst the ladies tee is ~230, and there seems to be an even further back tee (~260) which I asume was part of MacKenzie's original layout).

Finally, the record indicates that the Redan played at 210 in the 1877-1895 period.  Looking at Google maps it seems that there was a tee, at about 210 yards (to the west of the stone dyke), at sometime in the past.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&q=north%20berwick

Cheers

Rich

Rich

If the records show that the Redan played 210 yards in the late 1800's I would venture it was a two shotter. A really good drive back then would have done well to get that far, especially when you consider that back then the ball didn't fly as far and therefore a much larger percentage of the distance driven would have been down to the roll. That being the case, you can understand how the hole got its name. It would be a hell of a drive to clear "the Redan" and most would have been facing into it for their second shot.

Niall

[DMoriarty]

Niall,

My theory is that if an when the hole played at 210 yards it must have played from south of the the current tee (the location of the previous 14th green) and so the Redan bunker would have been more to the side, and one could more easily have ran the ball in.

_________________________________

Thanks for pulling this up, I forgot to post the following article kindly sent to me by Melvyn. It is from The Scotsman, Feb. 27, 1895, and addresses the extension:


________________________________________________________________________________________________________


________________________________________________________________________________________________________



Again, this article notes that the Redan is unchanged.


Terrific article.  Thanks Melvyn!