James Braid

[Alister Matheson]

I have played a good few Braid courses now and always come away thinking the vast majority of his par 3s are superb ! well guarded needing a pure strike to get any reward they are also pleasing on the eye lulling me into thinking i can fire it in very close ! lol

 When he laid out his courses does anyone know if he prioritised/designed around the best par three sites he found on each parcel of land or did he just go with the flow ?

I am very interested in other peoples views on this as i reallise finding out the great mans design criteria might be difficult to unearth !

Cheers for all replies

                 Alister

[Gary Slatter]

Ally, good questions, I'd check with Malcolm Campbell at Lundin as I suspect he would have an idea.

I like his par threes although I don't know how much Braid is still in the ones that I have played - Downfield, Lundin and a few others.

Is their book about every links course out yet? (Campbell and Geor Peper).  I know it was finished last year, probably waiting for Xmas market.

[Ally Mcintosh]

The book is out Gary... Have it on order from Amazon...

Ally, I'm not that familiar with James Braid's philosophies on routing and design. I always thought (probably unfairly) that he perhaps spent less time on the detail because I don't see any common thread in the courses of his I have played... I don't own a copy of his 1908 book which maybe gives some insight... I'veread nothing else by him either...

[Eric Smith]

Hi Ally.

I played at Tenby before I met the rest of the guys at Porthcawl and your question has me thinking of the 12th hole there. What a glorious natural greensite for this exacting par 3.

[Brian_Ewen]

Are there any "Braids Best" , "Braids Brawest" etc , that are par threes ?

[David_Tepper]

The par-3's on the two Braid courses I have most often played (Golspie & Brora) are very, very good.

Link to info on the 6 different James Braid Golf Trails in Scotland: http://golf.visitscotland.com/home_of_golf/james_braid.aspx

[Melvyn Morrow]

Brian, Ally, Gary and Eric

If you are lucky you may get a response from Ernie Payne, his web site with contact details is as follows http://www.erniepaynegolf.co.uk/ultimate.html .  Ernie's brother is married to James Braids great great granddaughter and has a mass of information. You may get answer to a question or you may not.

Melvyn  

[Brian_Ewen]

Are there any "Braids Best" , "Braids Brawest" etc , that are par threes ?

Dont you hate it, when you start to answer your own questions 

Although Kirriemuir ranks well down my list of favourite 'Braids', it has a wonderful finish, and the 17th is definitely one of my favourite Braid par 3's.

And its a "Braid's Gem"  !

I love that question it asks on the tee, of whether to fly it all the way, or drop it short and run it up , both are problematic.

So unusual to see trees and whins so close to the putting surface, but it all works for me.

Did Braid invent the signature hole, before signature holes were invented ? 

[Scott Warren]

Someone mentioned Braid templates, one of his for a shortish par three was to ring a relatively benign putting surface with sand as you see on Deal #8 and St Enodoc #8. I'd be interested to hear where else he used it.

While I don't know the exact breakdown of Braid and Colt at Hankley Common, the threes there are a great set, each strong individually and also a well-done set for variety of length and shot requirements, and I am led to believe the course is more Braid than Colt.

As David T pointed out, Golspie and Brora are both very good sets of threes and given at Brora the threes fall geographically at either end (9 and 18) and in the very middle (7, 14) of the property in the out-and-back routing, playing exactly to four compass points, they must have been deliberately located as such.

[Jason Topp]

Par threes to all four compass points is a hallmark of Braid's designs.

[Dan Grossman]

Ally -

This is a great post as I hadn't realized how many Braid courses I had played or how great is par 3s were.  I looked through some of the photos that I have and I was struck by how natural the green sites were and how one needed to hit a well struck shot to hold the greens.  Below are a couple of the pics I found.  My guess is that they are holes that are not as much photographed...

Fraserburgh #7




Fraserburgh (back nine - not sure which hole)


Boat of Garten (not sure which hole)

[Dan Grossman]

Boat of Garten (not sure which hole)


6th at Golspie

[Martin Toal]

Brampton Golf Club in Cumbria (not too far from Silloth), is a JB design.

The first hole is a par-3, a 6 or 7 iron shot downhill to a generous green but with a couple of bunkers to the sides and one in front of some dead ground before the green. I don't remember the course well enough to recall if the other par-3s are in different wind directions, but all are pleasant good holes.

[Alister Matheson]

Dan, 
         Superb pictures they speak a thousand words !

    Ive Found this Quote  James Braid

 " There should be a short hole facing each point of the compass ,a par 5 that no-one can reach in two shots and an 18th hole that finishes under the clubhouse window and has a flat green to encourage a tight finish in matchplay"

It seems that even on some of the masters lesser known/rated courses that the par 3s are highlights , and as i stated in the opening post i would love to find out if he did look out for the best natural par 3 sites when stalking the land !

Do any course designers on GCA do this when 1st surveying a new job ? 

Cheers Alister

[Melvyn Morrow]

Interesting if it was based upon Brora. My reason for this relates to M Campbell’s comment in his book The Scottish Golf Book Page 149  which reads as follows
“ Apart from being a perfect base for a tour of the golf delights of the Highlands, Brora offers traditional links golf that has changed very little since James Braid was called in to upgrade the golf course in the 1920’s. The five times Open Champion took th train north to Brora from London, walked the course accompanied by MR A W Sutherland, a member of the committee, and returned south on the next train.

 The master architect’s fee for this was £25, plus of course his expenses, and the resulting upgrade of the layout was probably the best investment the Brora Golf Club made….”

Major changes but over such a short site visit, hardly sounds feasible, but why do designs need to be complicated, the proof should be based upon the final result IMHO.

Melvyn 

[Mark_Rowlinson]

James Braid visited Ringway (Colt) to give advice very shortly before his death. He walked the course with his son James Jnr (a member of the club at the time) and a prominent member, making no notes whatsoever and only a few comments about bunkers and fairway width on his walk around. He returned to Walton Heath and sent a detailed description of the course, its holes, features, hazards etc plus suggestions for alterations. It seems he had a photographic memory even at the end of his life. The suggestions were not implemented.

James Jnr made two new holes after his father's death. I don't think his father would have thought much of them!

[Brian_Ewen]

Sometimes I think we overthink these so called design rules that was attributed to the likes of Mr. Braid.

I remember reading before about his favoured design for an 18th, and Edzells finishing hole fits the bill exactly, yet when I read their centenary book, it turned out that the final 2 holes were original and he only re-designed 16 holes.

Is it fair to say his most well known design would be the Kings Course ?

Yet off the top of my head, the four par3's on the Kings only point to two points of the compass ?

He had such a hand in a lot of the courses in NE Scotland, that I grew up playing on his courses, and have always had an appreciation of his designs .

I still think he is very underrated as a course designer and as a golfer, especially on this website, which can probably be put down to his chronic travel sickness.

My favourite pic. of the Man, 52 years old thrashing out of gorse with a hickory at Walton Heath  

[Brian_Ewen]

The best name for a Par 3 ever 

The Het Girdle

[Kris Shreiner]

Excellent thread and contributions gents! Some super pics that really showcase some great GCA in my view. While I've not played many of his designs, the awesome, sporty nature of Brora alone suggests Braid's routings and eye, for draping the course over the land, won't disappoint on future plays over some of his other tracks.

Brian, The Het Girdle... wow! What a cool par 3.That picture of the slashing, swashbuckling Braid in golf's version of a mid-life crisis is priceless!

Cheers 

[Melvyn Morrow]

Whilst a fan of Braid, I believe that Brora was in essence all down to Sutherland routing. There is some interesting comments that seem to mention that Brora had a course pre1891 and that might have been done by Old Tom and Sutherland when OTM was working at Dornoch. Others have claimed OTM involvement in the 1880 but I have found no confirmation (well as of yet).

Both Brora 9 and 18 hole extension was down to Sutherland starting in 1891. Yet I am certain there is more still to find, perhaps someday, but it all adds up to a great course , love Brora wait until you play first Machrie then Askernish in that order.

Melvyn

[Rory Connaughton]

I have only played one Braid, Mullingar Golf Club.  Course has excellent par threes in particular the second which is, as with many of those pictured above, perched on a knob 195 yards from the tee.  Bad outcomes all the way around.
The 5th is also a strong point to point at about 180 yards well bunkered with a green that slides hard right to left.
12 and 15 are both in the 150 to 160 range, 12 is slightly uphill to a green with runoffs the whole way around and 15 is downhill to a multi tiered green with the lower tier a bit of a punch bowl.

The holes present beautifully but what really makes them is that each is buffeted by cross winds which quarter from a variety of directions. 

Mullingar is a terribly underrated course and the par 3's are one of its real highlights.

[Alister Matheson]

Whilst a fan of Braid, I believe that Brora was in essence all down to Sutherland routing. There is some interesting comments that seem to mention that Brora had a course pre1891 and that might have been done by Old Tom and Sutherland when OTM was working at Dornoch. Others have claimed OTM involvement in the 1880 but I have found no confirmation (well as of yet).

Both Brora 9 and 18 hole extension was down to Sutherland starting in 1891. Yet I am certain there is more still to find, perhaps someday, but it all adds up to a great course , love Brora wait until you play first Machrie then Askernish in that order.

Melvyn

In Brora Golf Club s Centenery year 1991 we played a few competitions over the pre Braid layout which i beleive Sutherland did have a lot  to do with the routing ,but it beared no resemblance at ALL with BRAIDS WORK ! The existing layout today has to the best of my knowledge had zero influence from anybody other than Braid.

Cheers  
           Alister

[David_Tepper]

Dan Grossman -

Thanks for posting those pictures. The picture from Goslpie is of the 6th hole.

DT

[Niall C]

Melvyn/Ally,

I've got a copy of the original 9 hole Brora routing by Sutherland and it bears no resemblance to what is there today. Perhaps when he did the 18 hole layout it might have been more like it is but can't say.

The thing with Braid was that he did a huge amount of redesign work, usually rebunkering, that many courses got tagged Braid courses when the original course was someone elses work.

If your interested the National Archive of Scotland in Edinburgh has a Braid routing plan for Yellowlees, a course which was never built but was to be located (I think) close to Archerfield/Renaissance club. The plan is pencil marks on tracing paper over an OS extract. I seem to recall that it was a working drawing which showed how he had modified his routing to get the plan to work. Their are two others like it but no info who the architects might have been. The plans from 1923. I didn't manage to get a copy which is a shame as it would have been an interesting exercise to see how the course would have laid out, assuming of course that its not already developed.

Niall

[Alister Matheson]

David ,
            The 6th at Golspie is yet another superb par 3 and my other favourite at Golspie is the 16th if any one has a pic of this it is well worth uploading !

Cheers
          Alister