CPC 16. Dont try this at Home.

[JakaB]

As a point of note...I don't have a clue what an isthmus is..so the design credit should go to Shivas....

[Mike Hendren]

Barney,

I recall a Little Rascals episode where Stymie was asked by the teacher (hot babe with blond flapper doo) to use the word "isthmus" in a sentence.  His reply:  "Isthmus be my lucky day!"

I also recall his response to the offer of an artichoke:  "It might choke Artie, but it sho ain't gonna choke Stymie."

Bring back the Stymie indeed!

Regards,

Mike

[T_MacWood]

That is why JakaB's brother is a golf architect and Jaka runs a petting zoo in Southern Indiana.

[JakaB]

Now that I went to a dictionary and found out what an isthmus is...I doubt if that would have been the best location for a green at the turn of the century....I was more thinking somewhere near DM's layup spot....Does anyone think it is good design practice to place a green where only 1% of the golfing population has a shot at hitting the green...Was Dr. M. overly influenced by the beauty of the ocean or an owners wishes...or did he just have the vision to know technology would cure a poor design.

[THuckaby2]

You guys don't know the story involving Marion Hollins?  I refer you to Geoff's book on Cypress:  to paraphrase very poorly, Dr. Mackenzie was quite leery of putting the tee and green where they are now, for just that reason, as he felt the carry would be too tough.  Ms. Hollins plopped a ball on the dirt, whacked it over, and it was case closed.

Shivas may have a point that the hole does "balance" the shortness of 9 and 10, and you might even add 5 to that, but I doubt the Good Doctor cared about balancing.

Geoff's book is pretty great re all of this, in any case!

TH

[edited to correct poor grammar now that I see Dan Kelly, the Grammar Cop, is present.]

[Dan Kelly]

I recall a Little Rascals episode where Stymie was asked by the teacher (hot babe with blond flapper doo) ...

Miss Crabtree! Be still, my heart!

From Amazon.com's description of "Little Rascals, Vol. 3":

Volume 3: Teacher's Pet/ School's Out/ Love Business/ Spooky Hooky

Teacher's Pet:
It's the first day of school and the gang isn't ready for readin', writin'...or their new teacher Miss Crabtree. Jackie, Chubby and Farina decide to "welcome" her with gifts of sneezing powder, red ants and a mouse, but their scheme backfires in a case of Miss-taken identity.

School's Out:
Now it's the last day of school and Jackie's developed a big crush on Miss Crabtree. Worried that she'll "go and get married" Jackie's ready to do anything to keep her- like "scaring the pants off" a stranger who comes calling.

Love Business:
"Oh Miss Crabtree, there's something heavy on my heart", confesses Chubby. "Oh Chubsy-Ubsy there's gonna be something heavy on your nose!" counters similarly smitten Jackie. Love (and anger) is in the air when these two do battle for Miss Crabtree's affection.

Spooky Hooky:
The gang is in for some mighty frights when they have to retrieve their "doctored" doctor notes from school in the middle of the night! Spanky, Alfalfa, Buckwheat and Porky must brave thunder, lightning, wind, rain- and each other- to make the grade.

[Lou_Duran]

How about putting the green closer to the tip of the penninsula and playing it as another short par 4, or are there too many of those on the course already?

If you go over the green or left into the ocean, why is this not played as a lateral hazard?  To me this would make the hole "fairer" and may entice more of the Moriarty's of this world (who easily hit the ball far enough) to go for it.  Does having one hole with such a long force carry not add to the variety and charm of the course?  In light of all the other short holes, including the 15th, I think so.

[JakaB]

Tom,

Did Geoff point out in his book any other instances in the history of man where folklore has been used to validate a mistake....kinda like running out of wine at a wedding...where's a barefoot Jew when you need one.

[TEPaul]

Jakab said;

"I think that when the hole was built it was both too long and too difficult...It would have been a much better hole if the green was placed further from the ocean but the view and framing of the hole won out....a mistake of Faziotic proportions that technology has corrected."

And then Shivas said to JakaB;

"barney, are you saying the green should have been in the isthmus, and that the short/left and long/right areas should have been chipping areas?  Interesting... and brutally hard."

And then JakaB said to Shivas;

"Shivas,
Exactly...now that would have been genius...and ballsey to boot.   No way in hell was that green placed next to the ocean so an easy bailout would be available...the hole was comprimised architecturally simply for the view."

And JakaB followed that up with;

"As a point of note...I don't have a clue what an isthmus is..so the design credit should go to Shivas.... "

And then Shivas said to JakaB;

"that would be a helluva hole, wouldn't it?  Give new meaning to the "death long" concept, huh?"

That's perhaps one of the funniest exchanges I've ever seen on Golfclubatlas.com. I never really understood why CPC's #16 is one of the most famous and respected holes in the world but now I know--it's the view--it's just so nice to look at and so photographable although the green site is basically a mistake in placement.

Let me see if I have the options right for the way it should have been.

The golfer weighs the options of;

1. Do I want to hit the ball directly at the isthmus green with Pacific and/or beach just short and also just long with something like a 7-4 iron depending on conditons?
2. Do I want to bail out left of the green with about a 9 iron to lots of land and chip onto the green from the left?
3. Do I want to take out a 3w or driver and risk carrying it all the way across the Pacific inlet purposely missing the green with one of the more demanding shots in golf for the glorious reward of being able to chip back to the isthmus green from the right?

I thought the idea, emanating from some on Golfclubatlas, of redesigning another famous hole, Pebble's #18th to have a redan green was good--but it certainly wasn't quite this creative.  

What in God's name could Mackenzie/Hunter/Hollins have been thinking of when they designed #16? What a colossal mistake they made despite what a million or two golfers think of the hole as it's always been.

I hope CPC is reading Golfclubatlas--they should get on this isthmus green redesign thing like yesterday!! And if golfers don't like the hole or understand it at least CPC could still say they have the highest risk purposeful bailout area option golf architecture has ever known.

JakaB and Shivas;

You two are architectural stunners but my advice would be don't give up your regular  jobs just yet!

[THuckaby2]

Great thoughts, there, Lou.

I'm just cracking up at the "Moriartys of the world" line.  Somewhere Chip Beck is screaming with joy.  

I too am interested at the thinking behind calling the ocean "a part of the course" as they do on the scorecard (it's that way for 15, 16, 17).  It doesn't matter all that much, other than as you say re the back left part of 16...  It really seems to me they put in this rule specifically to penalize that very miss.  Interesting.

As for making it a par 4, well, that was the initial intention, depending on which plan you look at and who you believe... the tee was supposed to be back and right of where it is now, kinda in the little grove you walk to from 15 green to 16 tee.  I too have wondered about putting the green farther out on the peninsula... there sure is room... but hey, I'm with Lou here, there are enough short par 4's on the course as it is and one extremely heroic par 3 just would seem to work better.

JakaB, well... if this is folk lore, just like that regarding the wedding at Canaan (sp?), it is powerful!

TH

[Dan Kelly]

I thought the idea, emanating from some on Golfclubatlas, of redesigning another famous hole, Pebble's #18th to have a redan green was good--but it certainly wasn't quite this creative.  

I believe the record would show that Pebble 18 with a "redan" green came from my odd little mind, via my nimble typing fingers. (Prof. Goodale was proposing a hardpan swale to replace that tree.)

And I further believe that, had the Pebble powers replaced that fallen tree (and the front-right bunker) with a "redannish" embankment protecting a green gently falling off back-left toward the ocean, Pebble 18 would be vastly superior!

[JakaB]

Huck,

I believe Noah was like 400yrs old and sodomized his son..I believe Jesus performed magic tricks at weddings...and I believe Marion Hollins hit that ball off of the dirt to the current green site...but thats just me.

[THuckaby2]

JakaB:

Interesting.  I have no reason NOT to believe any of those things, and if it helps my argument, I'll choose to believe them.  I just hope to God I never have an argument that's gonna helped by me citing Noah's sodomizing.  

TH

[Lou_Duran]

Tom,

I didn't mean any disrespect to DavidM, though I am still a little sore about giving him six pops with my bad back, and losing four drinks (debt is still owed, but was quickly assigned to the Ragin' Cajun from Lafayette).  Putting the green on the "isthmus" would probably make the hole  harder in the traditional way, and much easier by going left and chipping up.  I agree with Tom Paul, JakaB and shivas are suitably employed in their respective fields.

[THuckaby2]

Lou:

Oh, none of us mean any disrespect to David, we wouldn't say this if he wasn't a friend...it's just his bad luck that forever more an overly cautious shot will now be called a "Moriarty" and not a "Beck".

I concur re all the rest, btw!  

TH

[TEPaul]

JakaB;

It's good to have beliefs. What they are matters not--it's just good to have beliefs--with the possible exception of Saddam Hussein and maybe that other cat with the towel wrapped around his head who seems to like to live in caves.

[Dan Kelly]

I particularly like   option #3, blasting long and right for the easier chip.  Perhaps the green could run away from the short/left, and there could be a little Road Bunker depth put bunker that the pitch to the green has to carry, so there's an advantage to going long/right?  Or perhaps that long/right area could be set up as the greatest punchbowl redan-like collection area in the history of the game, so that any ball that hits that area would funnel the ball all the way left to a perfect area for the putt, like mini-golf.     Wouldnt' that be something -- the only way to get it close would be to aim at an area about 10 feet deep, right at it, or blast long/right to a larger area and watch it funnel all the way left to the hole.  It's fun to think of things like this, even though it's silly.

Somewhere, CuriousJJ shouts: BRING IT ON BITCH!

[Pete Lavallee]

According to Geoff's book, Marion Hollins played the shot for Seth Raynor, not MacKenzie.

[TEPaul]

Pete L:

You're dead right about that. That not only proves that Alister MacKenzie was unwilling to consult the details of Raynor's mysterious CPC design but also that MacKenzie never even routed or designed CPC. It proves that Marion Hollins did. Just ask Paul Tunrer, the Colt, Alison & MacKenzie expert about that but he'll probably deny it's true. I always knew that MacKenzie was a thief, a liar and a slough!  

Hell, the Good Dr. didn't even design ANGC. Looks like he sent Marion to do it for him. No wonder Cliff Roberts didn't want to pay him his fee. Matter of fact I just saw a long lost letter proving how Marion got her compensation from CR. It might also explain why CR eventually ended things the way he did. The letter also mentions that Bob Jones found out about this and why CR was never the same again. The word around ANGC is that those few in the know say the club will not even think about admitting a women member until Hootie (who's in the know) agrees to come out of the closet in a dress.

[T_MacWood]

After playing Cypress Point any man who thinks MacKenzie is 'oversung' has got a few screws loose.

[TEPaul]

"TEP:  on a scale of 1-10, how much truth is there in the following statement:  Dr. M today gets a lot of credit for work he personally didn't actually do?"

Shivas:

I have no idea where I'd put him on a scale like that but I've never heard of HIM TAKING credit for something he didn't do. I did read Doak's book on him carefully too. Perhaps in Australia he may have been GIVEN credit for more than he actually did do since he moved through there pretty fast and certainly never saw many of those courses completed apparantly. But I've never really heard that he took credit for more than he did so I wouldn't say he was oversung.

I do think that MacKenzie probably was one of those rare architects who was capable of working extremely quickly in much of what he came up with and apparenty communicating it well to various hand-picked people who carryed it out well--somewhat the same as Ross's modus operandi. Again, such is his work in Australia. It certainly would be interesting to know in detail what his working relationship was with Perry Maxwell at Crystal Downs and who exactly did what there. Maybe someone knows, maybe not.

But I think if MacKenzie was around he could probably be a real stickler for detail. That would seem to have been the situation at CPC with the extraordinary construction crew of the American Construction Co run by Hunter and/or his son. And it would seem to be the case with whatever MacKenzie was attempting to do at Pebble (perhaps also with American Construction Co) that got him into such a twit with Pebble's superintendent and also apparently with Morse.

The thing that strikes me about CPC is the real detail on completion or maybe around the official opening day. The course basically looked at that point like it had been there for a long time. This process is so different from the extremely long term maturation process used for say Pine Valley and Merion. Both those courses took years and years to get to what what one might consider an opening day state today.

Interestingly, in the case of Merion (and perhaps even PVGC) it was very much intended to take that long---that was something Wilson actually thought was a good thing and mentioned to Piper and Oakley as the ideal way to build and create a golf course (if one could). I think William Flynn's modus operandi was some of the same actually--certainly in how he expected the look and playability of his bunkers to mature with time and maintenance (it was really about the grassing).

MacKenzie was obviously an extremely strong-willed man though. And to me, all things considered, I'd put Alister MacKenzie at the top of the all time list of history's architects.

[ForkaB]

I get back from 3 days of actually playing golf and this website seems to have gone bananas--is the weather so crap in the USofA that none of you have anything better to do?  Even the usually meticulous Dan Kelly is trying to spuriously claim credit for my idea of a "redan" green on the 18th at Pebble Beach.....

I think we all know that the best redo of the 16th green would be to rebuild it on the peninsula to the (current) far right as the green site for #2 in the vastly superior R(eversed)CPC, don't we ?

[Mike Hendren]

Rich,

As for the weather here in Middle Tennessee,  I've been hiding in the pantry and mumbling "there's no place like home" for the past couple of days.  

BTW, I was advised of your "garbage dump carry" theory while standing on the 16th tee at CPC earlier this year.  Who are you to call us "bananas."

Regards,

Mike

[THuckaby2]

Oh sure Rich, we ALL know how superior the reversed CPC would be.  

Interesting, that may well be the one idea that you and Tom Paul ever agreed on....  

I too was away from the site, mostly playing golf, from Thu through Sun.  And yes, with both of us absent the place did completely go to hell.  

TH

[ForkaB]

Mike

While I am still occasionally witty, my mind is increasingly sieve-like.  Please enlighten me (and perhaps others...) as to what my "garbage dump carry" theory was (or maybe still is....)?