I can understand the playability of the Hogsback feature leading to the Swale, but what I cannot reconcile is the front half of the Swale...and specifically, whether or not this front half / down side is actually important.
The Hogsback feature means a grounder will almost definitely not make it onto the green - it will be steered into the crap on the sides. This intent can be replaced by any sort of hazard you want so long as the intent remains of not letting a grounder hit the green. The description of controlling a low shot, but not too low so as to land more than 30 yards from the green (I think Wigham was quoted) really clarified the use of land 30+ yards short of the green. It can be a hogsback or a lake or a bunker, so long as it makes it near impossible for the ball to get to the green.
Jim S,
1. According to George, the Biarritz concept included some representation of the chasm even if just a bunker across the line of play (see Piping Rock, I think.) I mention this because this hazard (whether chasm, lake, bunker, quarry, whatever) would assure that grounders wouldn't make it. So I don't think that the hogsback would be necessary to take care of grounders.
2. To clarify, there is an overlap in what we are talking about. My understanding is that the "dip" Whigham referred to was the space between the hogsback and the front of the green. In other words, the end of the hogsback and the beginning of the swale are the same thing. So in Whigham's description the swale or dip or whatever you want to call it is 30 yards from beginning to the green. I assume that this isn't what you had in mind by a biarritz swale?
3. If this is so, then for the modern conception for the hole the "hogsback" is actually the plateaued area just short of the swale.
4. The more I think about this, the more I wonder if this really wasn't a combination of two holes at Biarritz, or a different hole all together.
The swale is my focus because it's such a unique golfing feature that I'm having difficulty thinking a simple rise (even if severe like #17 at Merion) could be an intentional replication. I think #17 could play the way Wigham describes the Biarritz...certainly it would eed to be firm, but so would a prototypical Biarritz like Yale. I think there must be something about trench that makes it a Biarritz, and #17 at Merion doesn't have it.
1. I think you may be misunderstanding what I am saying here. I am NOT claiming that the 17th at Merion was an "intentional replication" of anything.
There was nothing to replicate. NGLA doesn't have a Biarritz and when he built the hole, Hugh Wilson had never seen the original (and I've seen nothing indicating he made it to Biarritz ever.) This was before CBM ever created a Biarritz, so why would we expect it to look just like epitome of what CBM and SR developed over years and decades?
2. As I understand Whigham's description, the dip was 30 yards from beginning to end. According to CBM's earlier description, the hogsback ended 80 yards from the green, making the dip huge. It doesn't sound like they are describing a narrow swale or trench when speaking about the inspiration for the green.
If Merion was based on anything related to the Biarritz, it would have likely been this early inspiration, not the yet to be determined ideal of the hole. Merion's dip (between the down slope into the valley and the up slope on the green is about 30 yards, exactly the distance between the hogsback and the green, as described by Whigham.
3. Here is a photo from Life's archives looking back from the green toward the tee. The golfer is putting from down in the valley or swale . . .
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If the downslope seen in the photo was maintained as fairway or approach, would you change your view of the hole?
- If memory serves, I believe the area above the downslope (where the spectators are standing) used to be maintained as fairway? Is that correct? If so, why do you suppose that was?
- Why doesn't this downslope count as the front of the swale you are searching for?
- How short across must the swale be in order for it to fit within your understanding of a Biarritz?
4. CBM and SR did not build the hole, Hugh Wilson did. As you know, CBM's and SR's involvement was inspecting and recommending the land (among other things,) helping to plan the layout (at the very least) and choosing the final layout plan. At the time of their involvement, it is not even clear that CBM and HJW had fully worked out their conception of what the Biarritz concept would become.
So why would you expect Merion's hole to be a replica of something that had not even yet been built?
5. A few asides about the course at Biarritz . . . I've read that one of the challenges was that there were a number of deep holes (sometimes described as punchbowls) for the golfer to negotiate. As far as I can tell, there also may have been some long swales, but I am not yet sure about this. The more I consider the substance of the early descriptions of the course (among other things) I wonder if this was not a composite conception, or modeled after a different hole entirely. Hopefully this week or next I'll get a chance to look into it.
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