Biarritz Question

[George_Bahto]

(FM Bill Brightly of Hackensack CC once known as Kinderkamack CC and staunch defender of the Biarritz  -   )


"We still need to find out where and when the name Birritz was first attached to the hole"

Bill that's an easy one.

Charlie doesn't build a Biarritz at National - most likely he felt, at the time, he did have the topography fora good version of the hole.

the next course built was Piping Rock 

I have a collection of early scorecards and on the PR card there are holes names:    hole 9 is named Biarritz - and that was the first version of this hole

on the original scorecard from "Sleepy" they named the holes honoring the Legend Of SH ..... Bram Bones - Headless Horeman etc

[Bill Brightly]

Yeah, George, I know he didnt build one at NGLA, only three par 3's...but WHY did he call Piping Rock's a Biarritz?

[George_Bahto]

because if was the source of the hole

[Alfonso Erhardt]

Tony,

I have found no evidence in the Biarritz history document related to any visit of Colt to the club before 1924.

Jim,

As to your question related to the length of the chasm hole, all the evidence I have found is that it was 90 yards at some point in time prior to 1924. Cannot say if it ever was longer (or not). We have no date for the plan of the course that David posted. According to the Colt drawing, the hole disappeared after he remodelled the course (1924).

The hole was not as close to the beach as David's recreation suggests. There is a lot of room down there and the holes down by the Chambre d' amour were replaced by the buildings shown in Tony's photo.

George,

I attach a couple more photos of the course, although not as interesting from an architectural perspective as the ones I posted earlier. This is all there is in the Biarritz history book.

The 11th green (I think!).


The 18th green, 1935



The 15th green



9th green, 1935



7th, 1930s



Regards,

Alfonso

[DMoriarty]

Tony,

We still need to find out where and when the name Birritz was first attached to the hole. My copy of Scotland's Gift is in my office, does CBM mention the word Birritz?

Bill,

The first mention I've seen of the Biarritz is in an article CBM penned for Outing magazine after returning from his 1906 trip abroad:

"210 yards.  Suggested by the 12th Biarritz, making sharp hog back in the middle of the course.  Stop 30 yards from the hole bunkered to the right of green and good low ground to the left of plateau green."

So while CBM may not have actually built a Biarritz until Piping Rock, it was one of the holes he contemplated building as early as 1906.

[Note: Scotland's Gift's reproduced this article, but the reproduction contains an important typo:   The Scotland's gift version states that the "hog back" stopped "80 yards from the hole."  The original article stated "30 yards from the hole."]

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As for whether CBM actually saw the course at Biarritz, I would be surprised if he didn't.   He mentions playing in 1906 at Versailles with Massey (from Biarritz.)    Versailles and Biarritz aren't exactly neighbors, but at least we know he and HJ Whigham were in France.

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Lester George,

I don't think it is safe to assume that the fronts of of these holes were used as greens just because old photos show them tightly mown.   I believe the old photos of courses like Piping Rock and Yale show those fronts tightly mown as well, but the commentary on these holes indicates that the front portions were not pinned.

Does anyone have an old photo of a Biarritz where the front portion is pinned?

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Alfonso,

Great first picture.   I am having trouble seeing how it could be the 11th, because I don't think the cliff is nearly large enough, but who knows?    I am not sure what it would be otherwise.   Maybe the 13th?

[TEPaul]

BillB:

Don't keep asking GeorgeB why Macdonald did his first Biarritz at Piping and not NGLA or even why Macdonald would do the Piping 9th hole the way he did it and call it the Biarritz. George has some ideas about what Macdonald was perhaps combining (and even manufacturing) from abroad like some of the rest of us do but the fact is GeorgeB just doesn't know the actual answer much better than some of the rest of us do. I grew up at Piping Rock and I've played that hole hundreds of times and the fact is there is just nothing at all about the particular natural landform it is on that has anything to do with any kind of natural chasm or even any kind of natural swale in the slightest. The natural landform of that hole is basically just your everyday gradual downhill slope for about the first half of the hole and then pretty much a naturally flattish areas after that.

I think too many on here are trying to make this subject far more complicated than it ever was. In the process too many seem to be pretty much misunderstanding what Macdonald was really up to with most of his template holes and even most of the rest. He was just combining basic architectural principles he and others admired, and often if he couldn't find them on a site he considered just making them somehow.

My God, even in his letter to MCC he essentially told us all how he thought about these things when he mentioned that site had some nice natural features like the quarry and some creeks but what the site lacked with interesting features for golf could be just made up in abrupt features and such by what he told them they could do---eg just make some abrupt mounds.

[Bill Brightly]

TEP,

Fair enough. Just tell me why Biarritz appeared on that Piping Rock score card...

[DMoriarty]

While he is no TEPaul,  HJ Whigham, who was there with CBM, tells us why the hole has the name.  Note the similarities between his description of the Biarritz and CBM's 1906 description.

"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. A drive with a longer carry is apt to land in the dip and stay there. But the push shot must be very straight, otherwise it will land on one side or the other of the hog's back and break off into a bunker. This is the ninth hole at Piping Rock."

[Bill Brightly]

Thanks David and Tom. Glad to see you working together!

[TEPaul]

"TEP,
Fair enough. Just tell me why Biarritz appeared on that Piping Rock score card..."


BillB:

I really couldn't anwer that other than to say CBM definitely must have told Piping to call that hole Biarritz or a Biarritz on their scorecard or otherwise. It was the first one he did over here, the first one that was ever done over here or perhaps anywhere else for that matter, and a lot of others over the years were just variations on the basic architectural theme of Piping's #9. But what actual architectural elements CBM drew from abroad to create a hole like Piping's #9 and call it a Biarritz, he apparently never said even though it seems Whigam tried to. But I've played that hole hundreds of times and to say it has some kind of Hog's back feature in the fairway before the swale would be quite the overstatement, and that front fairway area looks no different in that 1913 photograph than it did when I began playing it back in the early 1950s and the way it looks today.


Of course someone like Moriarty wouldn't know that because like so many courses he and MacWood try to pretend they know something about, that is just another one he has never seen either.


However, that sure doesn't mean there haven't been some changes around that hole compared to the way it was back then! But why don't we just let Moriarty tell us what they are since he seems to want to act like he knows it so well? Let's just humor the "know-it-all" for a while, shall we?

[DMoriarty]

Thanks David and Tom. Glad to see you working together!

Thanks.  Tom and I have teamwork down to an artform with a perfect division of labor.   TEPaul's job is to regale us with stories of who he knows and how I couldn't possibly know anything without knowing who he knows.  In contrast, my job is to actually do research and provide facts.

And the fact is that, contrary to TEPaul's claim above, CBM told us what he took from the 12th hole at Biarritz in the article he wrote for Outing magazine after his 1906 trip abroad to study golf courses.  I've quoted it at least two or three times before in this thread, and it is also reprinted in Scotland's Gift (with a typo,) but here again is what CBM wrote about the Biarritz after his 1906 trip abroad:

"210 yards.  Suggested by the 12th at Biarritz, making sharp hog back in the middle of the course.  Stop 30 yards from the hole bunkered to the right of green and good low ground to the left of plateau green."

As far as how the hole played in 1913 when Whigham wrote about it, noone here is old enough to have played it then.  Except for maybe Patrick.

I haven't had the pleasure of playing Piping Rock, but if I had, I would not be so arrogant as to say or imply that H.J. Whigham's description of the hole was inaccurate.   So far as I know H.J. Whigham not only knew a thing or two about golf and golf courses here and abroad, he was with CBM in 1906 when they were in France studying golf courses, and likely saw the inspiration for the Biarritz with CBM.  HJW's writing showed an acute understanding of the strategic underpinnings of CBM's favorite golf holes, perhaps moreso than did CBM's writing.   (This is perhaps to be expected, since HJW was a well-regarded writer who knew how to get his point across. ) On top of this, HJW was a valued friend of and advisor to CBM and reportedly assisted CBM with some of his designs.

So if H.J. Whigham tells me about a hole at Piping Rock, I am inclined to take his word for it even over the word of someone who claims to be an expert because his father happened to be a member.  

I am still chuckling at TEPaul scolding you for going to George Bahto for information and answers about CBM and his courses and essentially tells you to come to him instead.  As if playing the course as a child somehow establishes TEPaul as the foremost expert on all things Macdonald!   But then it gets back to the division of labor I mentioned above.   For TEPaul, what you know is far less important than who you know.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Time flies, and in the decade or so that I've been on this site I've read some pretty silly pronouncements, and contributed a few too.

This one, though, takes the cake for being the most ridiculous I have ever seen. Thanks TEP, you get the prize. 

"Don't keep asking GeorgeB(ahto) why Macdonald did his first Biarritz at Piping and not NGLA or even why Macdonald would do the Piping 9th hole the way he did it and call it the Biarritz. George has some ideas about what Macdonald was perhaps combining (and even manufacturing) from abroad like some of the rest of us do but the fact is GeorgeB(ahto) just doesn't know the actual answer much better than some of the rest of us do." - TEPaul

[Bill Brightly]

This is GREAT, everyone agrees that CBM invented the hole by combining elements of European courses he liked, first built it at Piping Rock, named it Biarritz, and Raynor and Banks built many versions of the hole based on Macdonald's principles. We also must agree that current architects and superintendents are re-discovering the hole and returning the CONDITION (fast and firm approach) that Macdonald envisioned. This is what I call progress!

Now I forbid you all from turing this into another Merion thread!

Hey, did you kow that Herbert Srong also built a verson at Saucon Valley (Old)in the 1920's ?  It was a par 3, currently #15. The hole was converted  a dogleg par 4 (I believe by Maxwell) but is still called Biarritz on the scorecard. It has two much smaller green sections and the swale is pinnable. Fazio heavily bunkered the inside of he dogleg, and it is a superb hole, the best change he made to the course, IMO! For the  US Womens Open rotation it is hole 18.

[George_Bahto]

Now I forbid you all from turing this into another Merion thread!



 good on you Billy !!!!!

[TEPaul]

"Now I forbid you all from turing this into another Merion thread!"


BillB:

No problem; I wouldn't expect that to happen on this one. By the way, what is "another Merion thread" exactly? Is it like me and Cirba and Moriarty and MacWood on the same thread, no matter what it's about? 

[Kris Shreiner]

Tommy,

Don't go there...you rascal! 

[TEPaul]

BillB:

Did you see that? I asked a question but by all means don't answer it----you, you, you, YOU, POT-STIRING CAD! 

[Bill Brightly]

Speaking of Herbert Strong, did he also copy features of great courses in the UK?

He designed Engineers, and this is what the club says on its website:


Much of the design of the original course followed the layouts of some of the most challenging holes in Scotland. Some thought Engineers to be the finest course in the country. Others felt it was no more than a "bag of tricks" (as quoted from publications of that era.)

I am thinking that Saucon Valley's Barritz was probably a double plateau