David Moriarty,
If change occured, it could only occur one of four (4) ways, by design, by accident, by Mother Nature and by outside influences.
I tend to think that a number of events had a significant impact on NGLA and other courses.
The Great Depression, WWII, and subsequent financial downturns...
. . .
IF there were singular events that might have caused changes in the configuration of the bunkers, it would seem logical that the events listed above were a catalyst.
I agree. It would be interesting to put together a chronology of the evolution of the look of the features over time. I have found quite a few old photos in past publications and books, but there are some time spans missing, especially during the depression era. Surely the club has many more . . . maybe next time you are there you will forgo playing and ask to dig through their photographs instead? (I am kidding of course. But surely your pomous pal will have a comment anyway.)
But what is interesting to me is that the look seems to have evolved into
something one might more accurately associate with Raynor's aesthtic style. Surely you already figured out that this was behind my off-the-cuff remark which lead to this thread. And despite Tom's feigned indignity over my joke, I think there is some truth to this observation.
Was this just coincidence, or at some point did someone decide to take it in this direction? Did the course first devolve for the reasons you list above, followed by a decision to fix it, but more in Raynor's style? Is it possible that the powers at NGLA itself (be it the green committee or a superintendent or a consulting architect) made the same error that is all to common today -- could they have meshed Raynor and Macdonald into one
by creating and maintaining a Raynor aesthetic on a course that was otherwise all CBM?
The greenside bunkers at NGLA have a similarity in their form and function and relation to one another.
Most are tight against the putting surface, most fall off rather sharply and most are deep.
I think the greenside bunkers are great, and that the look works as well. Nothing hokey about it. No tall grass to keep your ball out of the bunker. No unplayable lies like they were taking out of the bunker grass at this years Walker Cup. Imagine what CBM's reaction would have been to that!
I actually think the look works for the whole course. I look at NGLA as an Exhibit. It is a teaching lab demonstrating what excellent strategic golf architecture should be, and I think the course was meant in this way. In this regard, the closely cut grass and clean lines of the features really show the bones of the course. It is all there for everyone to see and study. No pretenses about frilly edges to distract the golfer from the real meat of the course -- the arrangement and playability.
But I am still not sure that this the look Macdonald intended, especially not initially. Although in most of the photos where the bunkers are completely in play (surrounded by fairway all the way around) the mowing lines are clean even on the lips of the oldest bunkers in the old photos. It was those large bunkers that extended into the natural beyond the fairway that had the roughest, most unkempt, look.
There are exceptions, like the bunker immediately to the left of the 8th green.
However, that bunker is NOT depicted in the 1928 schematic that appears at the back of "Scotland's Gift", so one has to wonder if it was an afterthought, and if so, by whom ?
I don't have the book handy to check the schematic, but I believe that there is a bunker (or maybe two bunkers) short left of the bottle hole green on the 1910 scorecard map, a photo of which appears in Bahto's excellent book.
Plus, I believe that the fronting bunker short left was
integral to the original strategic concept of the golf hole. One could avoid the bottleneck by carrying over the diagonal bunkers to the left, but then the golfer was left with a tough angle to the green
over a bunker front left. I am pretty sure that Whigham wrote almost exactly that when describing the hole in his 1909 article. If anything, it is the right front bunker that I wonder about, as that one does not seem to fit quite as well with the original strategic concept, and I don't recall in on the card.
Anyway regarding the front left bunker, it may not be as closely tucked to the green, but doesnt it behave as if it is due to the steep slope between it and the green? I seem to recall that about any ball that doesn't carry all the way to the green from the left would likely filter back into either the short left bunker or all the way into the bunker positioned to the right of it. Come to think of it, in this sense doesn't the right bunker act almost as an extension of the left one? Won't balls missing short left sometimes end up in the right bunker? My playing experience there is too limited to say . . .
Here is a photo of the slope I am talking about . . .
ADDED:Patrick after posting this I realized that I might have misread your post. Are you talking about the bunker short left, or the bunker that sits well left of the green, beyond the green side bunker? That bunker is a bit odd. Wasn't this one of the greens which wasrebuilt fairly early on. I wonder if the the original green sat in the exact same place, or if not where exactly it was and how it was bunkered?
Understanding the relationship of the greenside bunkers to the putting surface and surrounding terrain, altering those bunkers would be an enormous undertaking.
And, if you altered them, I doubt any alteration could take place where the putting surface interfaces with the bunker.
You have to examine the highly structured/constructed nature of those greens and their immediate surrounds, including the bunkers to understand that the process of substantively altering them would be next to impossible.
No doubt. But as I said above, I like the greenside bunkering, clean style and all. I would cringe in horror if they chose to mess with them. They seem to work terrifically from a playability perspective, and if they are messed with even the best might not be able to put all the pieces back together again.
What is possible is shrinking them at the non-green end.
Filling in expanses from the non-green end.
If one accepts the premise that the bunkers were transformed, or went through a series of transformations, my quess would be that the events I listed above were the primary causes, and that the bunkers were primarily alterned at the non-green end.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I think your story is a reasonable one. At least this time. I am just curious about the evolution of the look. One has to be very careful not to confuse the current aesthetic styling of NGLA today with the real substance of the course. NGLA can't be judged on superficialities like the look of its bunkers. There is way too much there there for that.
This is why I roll my eyes at the answers to Jim Urbina's question on the other thread. Amazingly, even among this educated crowd, you get this nonsense about how Macdonald wasn't influential because others did not adopt his supposed aesthetic sensibilities. Pure poppycock.
- First off, they are usually talking about Raynor's aesthetic styling, not Macdonald's, they are thinking of the the modern look of NGLA which happens to be more in a Raynor style that it originally was. The fact is that, from the photos I have seen, early NGLA looked more natural (and more like the traditional links abroad) than almost everything in America at the time. Those who supposedly took a more "natural" path were not heading in a different direction, they too were following CBM at NGLA!
- Second, and more importantly, focusing on the superficial aesthetics trivializes incredibly influence Macdonald had over
the substance of golf course design. Macdonald's influence isn't about bunker edges. Rather, showed the golfing nation how to look to the links, and how to emulate what we find there. He taught us that we could distill the fundamental principles underlying great links holes and apply them in this country and in a variety of settings. He showed us that we need not settle for substandard, repetitious golf, but could create courses where every single hole was unique and compelling. And as a result of his this most every great course in the country was fundamentally changed, and many great new ones sprung up everywhere. He may not have created golf architecture and he may or may not have designed the first truly
world class golf course in this country (I think he did, but it is debatable) but he sold the concept of the importance of a great golf course based on the fundamental concepts underlying the links holes, and he inspired them to try and follow in his footsteps.
Sorry for the rant. I know I am preaching to the chior. Probably more appropriate for the other thread, and I may copy it over there later.
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Tom Paul,
You've taken a joke and tried to turn it into a big issue and treat it as some sort of blasphemy. Even tried in vain to get Mucci riled up about it, but he is too smart for that. You need to get a life.
-- The funny thing is you have no idea the context of my original off-hand comment and don't give a damn about it anyway. All you see is an opportunity to try and tear me down.
-- The truly sad thing is that your mind and memory are apparently completely shot. You claim to have CBM's book almost memorized and you write about him constantly, yet you still don't know the first thing about him or how he worked. Because if you knew much about the man's career, then you'd know the basis for everything I wrote. Unlike you I just don't spout off and then try to rationalize it later.
-- The ironic thing is that,
after all of the asinine and insulting things you write then try to pass them off as a joke, you are the one who cannot take a joke. In that vein, here is a new theory for you . . .
When you and Wayne were drunk in the Southampton Cemetery and Wayne was desecrating the graves of CBM and Raynor, Raynor's ghost got pissed off for being pissed on, and flew into a rage, traveling back through time and messing with the aesthetic styling of NGLA so that people would forever associate the look with both CBM and Raynor. After all, he figured, if he was going to be pissed on anyway, he might as well leave his mark on the course that set Wayne off.
Oh, I almost forgot . . .
