[Mark Bourgeois]

Neil Crafter once again has uncovered a gem of an article, this one on the construction of ANGC.  120,000 cubic yards of dirt being moved: can that be right?  That works out to 3.24-million cubic feet.  And to create today's 12 green: 135,000 cubic feet -- it having been built over an Indian grave may explain a lot of what's gone down on that hole over the years.

What is the reference to artificial knolls on today's 17th? Would that be a reference to the green complex -- originally was it similar to today's built up and mounded green?  It sounds more like today's 8th, actually.

There's also a reference to the infamous McWane irrigation pipes for which the club never paid and subsequently was served.

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[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark,

The numbers seem staggering, but, if the ponds were excavated, I could possibly see it happening.

Remember, # 16 didn't have a pond originally.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Pat,

Additionally, they scraped the top foot from the playing corridors and built up a number of greens as well as I suppose a few of the tees, notably 13.

The surprise comes from realizing how "manufactured" this course apparently was, despite notions of bunker minimalism.

Mark

[Peter Pallotta]

Yes indeed. Thanks Mark. It was impressive enough to me that Jones and Mackenzie could envision what they wrote about envisioning for Augusta when I assumed that the land/land forms were all right there in front of then, lying already present, to aid them in that seeing. But it's even more impressive now -- given the reality that what they had seen was in fact buried under 3 million cubic feet of earth.  It does, however, make me look at that oft-posted photo of the original Augusta course in a different way, i.e. it always did look like someone had taken a steam-shovel to the place, but that thought never occurred to me before.

Peter   

[Mark Bourgeois]

Ah, not a steam shovel, Peter, but 3 Caterpillar Sixty tractors, 3 Caterpillar Thirty tractors, 1 Caterpillar Twenty, and 2 Caterpillar Fifteens.  If my math is right, that's 320 Caterpillar somethings.

Sorry, that was too easy.

[Tom_Doak]

I've had a copy of that article in my files for a long time.  Sorry I never thought to post it.

120,000 cubic yards of earth is not a small number by the standards of the day, but it's hardly a big number by today's standards.  I haven't really thought how much earth we moved at Old Macdonald, but I would guess it's somewhere in the same neighborhood ... and nothing by Jim Engh's standards.  Heck, just stripping one foot of topsoil off 40 acres = 60,000 cubic yards, and putting it back is another 60,000.  [We didn't have to do that at Old Macdonald because it's all sand, but Augusta certainly would have had to handle the topsoil anywhere they did shaping work.]

You guys just don't know your way around a construction site.  Putting four feet of earth over a rock ledge to build a green is not hard at all to visualize ... especially when it is going to be the flattest green on the golf course. 

[Mike Benham]

You guys just don't know your way around a construction site. 

Tom - Hopefully this fact just didn't dawn on you tonight ...

[Mark Bourgeois]

I appreciate there are probably no hard and fast rules as to reference numbers, but qualitatively how might one define the upper boundary for a minimalist effort?

[Tom_Doak]

I appreciate there are probably no hard and fast rules as to reference numbers, but qualitatively how might one define the upper boundary for a minimalist effort?

I think you have to leave topsoil out of the equation, because sometimes just stripping and replacing it is more earth work than the actual change you're making.

Once you get up around 100,000 cubic yards of earthmoving, you've crossed the line, I think.  That's when you've gone from building greens and bunkers, to moving earth around in the fairways or building mounds for framing.  Of course, on many sites you are going to have to move more earth than that just to make the course playable.

[Garland Bayley]

... 120,000 cubic yards of dirt being moved: can that be right?  That works out to 3.24-million cubic feet. ...

Mark,

Are you in marketing? Mountain out of mole-hill comes to mind.

[john_stiles]

The bunkers were few, but were  VERY LARGE.  And the sand was imported by rail. 

The bunkering seemed to fit the scale of the land and the course very well.

The bunker on the 14th would have been about a dozen greenside bunkers on other courses, not to mention the other bunkers.  The number of bunkers fits the idea of minimizing but the execution of building these very large bunkers would not have.

[JC Jones]

Remember, # 16 didn't have a pond originally.

I dont think it had a pond in 1932 either.  Didn't the pond come some years later?

Disclaimer: I have not played Augusta National; nor have I played it in every conceivable wind or weather condition.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Everyone is forgetting how ANGC was configured in 1934.

# 7 wasn't the built up green it is today, neither was # 10 and # 16.

The course was much shorter at 6,700 yards and most of the tees weren't as big as they are today.

And the waterways were NATURAL, and smaller

Looking at the 1934 aerial, I don't see where 120,000 cubic yards was moved/excavated.
But, then again, the aerial doesn't get you up close and personal.

The ground level photos in "The Making of the Masters" don't seem to reveal much work at the green sites either

Tom Doak, et. al.,
If the property was a tree farm, why would they NEED to strip a foot of topsoil ?

If they did strip 30,000 yards and put it elsewhere I don't count that twice.

I can see the greensites at NGLA being a significant undertaking in terms of cubic yards, but, I don't see it at ANGC.

What am I missing ?

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