[Ted Sturges]

To:  Joel Stewart-  I think offering a definition of "tinkering" is fair.  I hadn't thought about how I would define it before I started this thread.  First, I agree w/ Pat Mucci, that adding length would not meet my own definition of tinkering.  I think for me, tinkering would be:  changing the playing characteristics of a hole or holes on a course by significantly altering the architecture of the hole or holes in question (blowing a hole up completely and simply building a new hole (like the 16th at Muirfield Village) would certainly meet my definition.

To:  Brian H-  Why do I think MV is "worse"?  Fair question.  I suppose this is a matter of taste.  I do truly like a number of the holes there (11, 14, 15) being among my favorites. I've also always liked the width there, and thankfully, that has not changed as evidenced by how many fairways the leaders hit (nearly all of them).  Not a fan of the new 16 (though it did produce the tournament's big moment, nobody could hit the green!).  Overall the changes over the years seem to take the course from a more natural looking course to a less natural looking course.  Meandering creeks running down sides of holes now have dams and stone wall retention ponds.  The added bunkers have resulted in less of a "bunkering style", to some holes with a distinct bunkering "look" to others with a mass of bunkers that doesn't look like anything else on the course (18).  I will grant to you that some may like the changes, and I think making an argument that the course is "clearly worse" today than it was 25 years ago is not a lay down.

To:  JC Jones-  Why is ANGC worse from the "tinkering"?      1. I suppose the main reason I believe this is the tree planting.  Adding so many trees has ruined the course in my opinion.  How many years until those trees will have to be removed?  Some holes (7th and 17th to name two) are so narrow at their narrowest point (both of those are only 22 paces at their skinniest due to the tree planting) has taken driving strategy out of the equation and replaced it with simply "hit it as straight as you can".  2.  Introduction of rough has greatly reduced the heroic recovery shots we used to see there.  Heck, Bubba had to hit if 25 yards off the course to get a pine straw lie...a lie he could work a ball off of...to show us a great recovery shot.  If that ball was in the thick rough, he would not have been able to do that.  I understand why they did what they did...they decided their tournament was more important than their golf course.  I personally would have rather seem them use their bully pulpit to get the golf ball dialed back, rather than taking the course to 7700 yards with 22 yard wide fairways.

TS

[Mark Pritchett]

Ted,

With regards to ANGC:

Do you feel the trees have ruined the course from the member tees, the Masters tees or both?

Is rough an architectural feature or maintenance issue? 

Thanks,

Mark

[Ted Sturges]

Ted,

With regards to ANGC:

Do you feel the trees have ruined the course from the member tees, the Masters tees or both?

Is rough an architectural feature or maintenance issue? 

Thanks,

Mark

Mark,  I would have to say (on the subject of the trees)... both.  I played from the members tees, and I think where our drives were landing would be about where the tour pro's tee shots would land from the big tees.  I joked to someone that if Ben Hogan played the 7th hole today, he'd have pine tar on both hips!  22 yards, with a driver, is just not much to shoot at (no matter who you are). 

On the subject of the rough, although it is a maintenance issue, it is a non-issue when you have so much money you can put on the tournament w/o TV sponsors, so for them, a non-issue.  I think it has eliminated "width" from the strategy Mackenzie initially designed.  He designed the greens and the hole locations to be best attacked from certain angles.  When you have 22 yard wide fairways and lots of rough, that part of his original design is certainly lost, so for me, that makes the course less interesting, and thus...worse.

TS

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Define tinkering as per Rees and destruction or tinkering by a normal definition

[Mark Pritchett]

Ted,

While the seventh hole is narrow, I don't feel it is too narrow from the member tees as the hole is not very long.  Also the trees in play allow for a recovery shot of some kind.  It is not as if you hit into the trees and the ball is lost.

I do not feel the other holes out there are narrow at all, in fact they are quite wide compared to many courses.  I view the second cut as a non-issue because it is not exactly US Open rough, it is not even Augusta CC rough.  It is very playable for the average golfer. 

Mark

[Niall C]

I was staying (although not playing) with a Royal Troon member last night and he tells me that they've put in a new championship tee on the 15th more or less back as far as level with the 14th tee. The hole will now play as a 499-yard par 4. They've also put on a new fairway bunker relevant to that tee. Apparently they are also going to continue the ridges on the right of the 4th (par 5) and 12th (par 4) beyond the greens. I don't understand this and can't quite envisage it, but it is apparently so.

Mark

I had heard from a member of this forum that Troon were looking to do some work with a well known gca giving the advice. Not sure if the contracts have been signed so don't want to say too much about that. However the last time I was down at Troon they had posted some proposed changes on the notice board for info. The work involved adding humps and hollows on the flat area to the right of the 13th fairway, an area I took to be an old green. Not sure of the reasons for the other proposed changes that you describe but I wonder if its an attempt to provide areas for easier viewing. Might also be thye are trying to improve the aesthetics as well.

I tend to think that if Troon had more dunes lining the fairways people would be more impressed with it. Personally I think the first 6 holes are a great stretch of golf but others I suspect just see a lack of dunes/views. Nairns probably another course that suffers from this, aesthetics over substance.

Niall

[TEPaul]

"Quote from: Rich Goodale on June 02, 2012, 09:16:52 AM

Shinnecock and Muirfield.


Very funny and very true. I'd confirm this but am having trouble finding 1894 aerials."



Rich and Mark:


You know that is pretty funny but it's true. I've never thought of Shinnecock that way in the context of "tinkering."

I think one of the most interesting things about the evolution of the architecture of Shinnecock is that they've had essentially 5-6 somewhat different golf courses on the same basic site from 1892 to 1930 and today. I wouldn't call it any desire to tinker though. It was more like a series of on-going events where the club got rolled this way and that way through a series of land sales, transfers, eminent domain and purchases.

The most little known Shinnecock courses were those from 1900 to about 1914 and particularly the one from 1914 to 1917 when the Macdonald/Raynor course was done just after the war until the Flynn course in 1930.

That 1914 to 1919 course is the one that interests me the most because it involved the work of this really mysterious Shinnecock member by the name of Chester Griswold. He apparently massively improved (redesigned some of the course) the course to something really good but just as he'd done it he was gone.

Apparently the inspiration for Griswold was what the 1999 history book "The Story of Shinnecock Hills" called Shinnecock's "NGLA inferiority complex". With NGLA having just gone in next door apparently Griswold and the good players of Shinnecock felt that their course was something like an inconsequental little church right next to a beautiful cathedral. So Griswold did something about it with the Shinnecock course.

He's a mysterious guy but the other thing that interests me about him is he was one of Hugh Wilson's teammates on the Princeton golf team around the turn of the century where both of them apparently got into tinkering with the Princeton U course at the behest of some big financial angel. Sounds to me sort of like a precusor to what Wilson got involved with about a dozen years later in Ardmore with Merion East.

[Link Walsh]

Ted,

While the seventh hole is narrow, I don't feel it is too narrow from the member tees as the hole is not very long.  Also the trees in play allow for a recovery shot of some kind.  It is not as if you hit into the trees and the ball is lost.

I do not feel the other holes out there are narrow at all, in fact they are quite wide compared to many courses.  I view the second cut as a non-issue because it is not exactly US Open rough, it is not even Augusta CC rough.  It is very playable for the average golfer. 

Mark

Agreed.  Now I do think that some of the tree planting in between 15 and 17 needs to be cut back as well as some of the area on the right of #11.  Oh yeah, and #1.  But as Mark stated, there are plenty of courses out there with narrower fairways than Augusta National. 

But if Augusta had not been tinkered with at all, you would have:

-a totally different green on #6.

-a drivable 7th hole with the green at the bottom of the hill.

-a 10th hole that ended at the bunker at the bottom of the hill (and an inexplicable 300 yard or so walk to the 11th tee)  11th tee used to be over by 15th tee, making it a short dogleg right.

-no pond on 11

-no pond on 15.  When Sarazen made his eagle, it was nothing more than a small creek/ drainage ditch well short of the green.

-no 16th hole like it is now.  Think of the drama that has occurred over the years at that hole!

-no bunkers in the fairway of 18 (I could go either way on this). 


That's just the ones I could think of off the top of my head.  Of course it would be neat to see some of the old features restored like #9 green.



But to say that all the tinkering at Augusta National was bad just doesn't add up to me in my opinion. 

[Mark Bourgeois]

Ted, Mark P, and Link: no-rough designs were an explicit Mackenzie architectural design feature / philosophy at the end of his career (and possibly earlier). He designed and built (well, had Wendell Miller build) Bayside and ANGC to have no rough.

[Link Walsh]

Ted, Mark P, and Link: no-rough designs were an explicit Mackenzie architectural design feature / philosophy at the end of his career (and possibly earlier). He designed and built (well, had Wendell Miller build) Bayside and ANGC to have no rough.

I agree with you there.  I think the "2nd cut" actually makes the course play a little easier in some instances.  For example, the rough to the right of the 14th fairway keeps balls from running into the pine straw.  Also, around the greens, having a ball in the 2nd cut allows players to get underneath the ball for lob shots much easier- meaning you don't see as much bump and run ground game shots. 

[TEPaul]

Link:

Interesting you say that because it was Nick Faldo's distinct opinion when they first did it.

[Mark Pritchett]

I do not think of the second cut at ANGC as "rough".  It is hardly longer/thicker than many course's fairways. 

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