Russell and Morcom after Mackenzie's Visit

[Josh Stevens]

Could russell have worked across a wider range of conditions and native vegetation

Wellington NZ - cold wet and windy most of the year.  Not much grows so very linksy with grass being dominant
Melbourne - very melbournish, rain scattered over the year but summers hot and winters cold.  there is a consistent undergrowth of ferns and tea tree
perth - mediteraen.  Summers very hot and very dry and being pure sand it dries out and so no undergrowth at all, just trees.

[Mike_Clayton]

Jeff,

Yarra Yarra, had few,if any, trees when it was done. The clubhouse is in the middle of the course and you could see it from the road.
The aerials from the time suggest he nailed it right from the start.  The work that is still largely intact is brilliant.
It would be interesting to see what influence he had over the planting - there is little or no evidence of any will to plant anything indigenous.
He died in 1961 - and it looks like it survived for about 20 more years before they changed the 4th green and subsequent there have been numerous alterations.
It was shorter than the rest of the sandbelt courses but made up for it with great charm and 3 - 8,9 and 16, - fantastic half-par long holes.
Also his 3s -1,4,11 and 15 - were seen for many years as the best collection of short holes in the country.

[Neil_Crafter]

Just to show a bit more, here is some comparison photos of RM West 5 - the green Mackenzie had built for him before he left - firstly from 1933, then 1960, then a recent one. The bunkers have been adjusted - as Tom mention a lot of this was due to Crockford's efforts. You will note the front left bunker had a tongue added in the 1980s sometime.

[Matthew Mollica]

The West has changes significanlty over the years hasn't it Neil.

IIRC 6 was bunkered on the outside of the dogleg originally.
And 7 is a hole built decades after the course was opened.

Dr. Green's book does a wonderful job of recording these changes.

MM

[Mike_Clayton]

Neil,

They were lucky there were no course rankings in 1960. How could a course that looked like that possibly have been number one.?

[Tom_Doak]

Neil:

Thanks for those photos.  I wonder if I can get the club to clear out some of the ti tree behind the green to open it up to the dunesy look that the hole had originally?  I'll find out next year when they let us make our suggestions for the West course.

[Mike_Clayton]

Tom,
Take them out - and those to the right- and it might open up a view of the 4th green from the top of the hill for those who cannot hit far enough.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Re Crockford, wasn't it he who introduced capes to the bunkers?

And Neil, it's probably my faulty memory but was that unsigned routing map you found a while back of RMGC?

I assume someone has documented the apparent changes to the course from the original. Yes?

[Ben Jarvis]

Neil:

Thanks for those photos.  I wonder if I can get the club to clear out some of the ti tree behind the green to open it up to the dunesy look that the hole had originally?  I'll find out next year when they let us make our suggestions for the West course.

Quite reminiscent of the "dunesy" areas at Cypress, particularly when comparing it to the rear of #9 at CPC.

[Matthew Mollica]

Re Crockford, wasn't it he who introduced capes to the bunkers?

Mark, I heard a story from a long time membeer that some of the capes were used by the horses as their means of entering and exiting the bunkers, as they used the scoop to fashion the hazards. A nice story, but I think it's unlikely.

MM

[Neil_Crafter]

Tom
I agree with Mike, hope you can get the club to take out as much tea tree as they'll let you :-)

Mike, easy to see course conditioning wasn't the same issue in 1960 as it is today. Minimal summer watering I imagine.

There was a series of slides taken in 1960 by one of the members, both courses I believe, and the tea tree was very overgrown then, the 7th played down a chute of tea trees, quite claustrophobic. Tom, this might be a useful resource for when you look at the West.

Mark, certainly Crockford refashioned the bunkers over his tenure, I'm sure many of the tongues were added by him and the bunkers today are more 'fancy' as a result than they were when the course first opened.

[Mike_Clayton]

Neil,

The Shell match in 1963 between Thomson and Player shows the course pretty well - and it's clear from that how tight 7 was.
Graeme Grant told me he was working in the front bunker at 7 one day and he took to the lip with a shovel and cleaned it up perfectly.
It was in the last 60s I think so he was a kid.
Crockford came up and kindly said 'Graeme, It had taken me 30 years to get that bunker looking the way it was this morning.'

[Leo Barber]

Heres a couple of images that may be of interest.







The bunker tongues were very much Crockford and I suspect as much a form of function (for access) as much as asthetics.

[Ian Andrew]

Leo,

Thank you - that's an awesome piece of history.


You can never underestimate the value of scale and that would have come from MacKenzie's building of the 5th with Morcom and Russell.
But I'm facinated that the noses might be some terrific evolution and alteration by Crockford.
If so his influence is very understated.

I need to go back and read the section on architecture in his book.

[Harley Kruse]

Neil

thanks for posting those photo's.  The early photo of 5W is a new favourite of mine. Its  up on my screensaver

 How much better did the 5W look with a) the sandy wasteland behind the green and b) without those  Cypresses (b/w 6tees & 4th) breaking the skyline.  Years ago I was an advocate for a program for  removal of internal pines and Cypresses and along with heaps of tea tree.  I remember these ideas being a bit radical at the time amongst a few I spoke with,  but since then Jim Porter continued  with with many successful indigenous re-vegetation areas which in turn prove that perhaps  foreign species aren't needed.

I think Claude kept a lot of the tea tree at bay.  He would personally whip out new plants that sprung up in the wrong spot.  I was liucky enough to meet Claude when asked to take photos of the course for his book. I remember him talking about the west course after it opened and the problems with sand blow from  bunkers particularly on a typical gusting hot northerly,  along with the need to make things easier for members to get in and out of bunkers.   The results is over the years Claude and his staff did add many walk-ins and he liked the idea of islands of planted heath plants in the large bunkers to reduce wind blow.

Tom

I am liking what I see of the works on the East including much needed adjustments to the  6E.  I always had trouble with 6E when that  green was moved and  naively lost  significant  conitext/relationship to  its surrounds,  including the small dune which rose  to the right of the green .    I am perhaps not alone in not being a fan of that depression on the right of 6E and the  severe side slopes created during the (Hawtree) move of the hole.

cheers

Harley K

[Anthony Butler]

While Russell has solo credit for Yarra Yarra, RM East, Lake Karrinyup and Paraparaumu, he has joint credit for RM West and was involved in redesigning courses like Riversdale and Peninsula and consulted to Royal Adelaide, Glenelg, The Australian, NSW amongst others in later years.

Neil,

You bring up an interesting point... did Russell consult with Eric Apperley on the pre and post-war changes at NSW... I understand they were friendly (not surprising as they certainly occupied the same social strata albeit separated by 600 miles) but to what extent did Russell actually influence Apperley's work... ?

[Neil_Crafter]

Thanks Harley for that, wonderful to have spent some time with Claude as you did.

Anthony - Russell and Eric Apperly were golfing contemporaries and would have played with and against each other in amateur and open events, with Apperly being atop flight player in the NSW amateur team and Russell, the 1924 Australian Open champion, in the Victorian team. Apperly as a building architect and Russell with his civil engineering/grazier background and similar interests in golf design I am sure they would have gotten along well.

As for NSWGC, Russell was there in 1931. The club asked him in to inspect the course - still unbunkered and critique the bunkering plan and he did so, also suggesting some of the greens be remodelled and plans fopr a 9 hole short course be dispensed with. But the club never implemented his recommendations and Apperly began his work in 1932. Would they have discussed NSW? Possibly but next to impossible to know. Certainly Apperly would have seen Russell's report and so there possibly was some influence