REMOVAL OF TREES

[ChipOat]

Brad:

Pardon me for not reading your original post thoroughly.  I was on the run and only absorbed the part about trees near tee boxes.

However, had I done justice to your entire post as you intended, I would have responded to Mikey as I did but would have queried you as follows:

"Brad:  You're not serious???"

Pleased to know you're not over on the dark side.  However, we still must contend with Tom Paul and the legacy of the misguided intentions of the (otherwise) great William Flynn.

[A_Clay_Man]

Redanman- Reverse barometers are the easiest indicators, ain't they?

Poor ol Big Run. We teed off and on the second hole I was just shocked at the green. It was an awesome example of wildly undulating and memories of shot from the difficult surrounds, flood me as I write. But then you get to the newer holes and the flattening is most evident. I'm pretty sure I've figured out what's up there. Remember the third? Short 3 over the creek? It seems like it will go the way of the dodo. The serene setting and the steep downhill made for an easy shot but somehow few birdies ever fell. Also, the ninth hole, the meandering par 5, has so many trees surrounding it that first timers have no idea where to go. Thank god that green has survived, if you ever find it. We played it on Wednesday morning of the Open week and the fairways were cut at a lean 2 inches. Ma and Pop got $56 big ones from me and I haven't felt that overcharged in a long-time. I must stipulate that my return visit was sandwiched between Beverly and Butler. Sounds like a song com'in on. I fired a smooth hundred and won my match, HA!

[Don_Mahaffey]

I wonder if we can get carried away with this anti-tree belief. While I share the universal disdain for an overly treed course where trees dictate all strategy, (Wakonda club in Des Moines is a good example) there are some courses where trees are necessary to define holes, no? Take Riviera for example. Riviera is a great course squeezed into a fairly small area. Would a course like Riviera be better without trees? I don't feel cramped by the trees there and I can't imagine being able to spray the ball into an adjacent fairway and have an open shot to the green. Would that improve the course? I don't think so.

Would a hole with a double fwy divided by two or three trees be less of a hole then if bunkers were used instead?

I understand the turf problems caused by shade and reduced air circulation and I think trees planted near greens to influence approach shots are a mistake. But trees used to force a certain line of play or shot shape off the tee aren't all bad, are they?

[tlavin]

I'm a member at Beverly and Olympia in Chicago where numerous trees have been removed.  Some were removed for turf reasons.  Some were removed because of overplanting or because they negatively affected the playability of a hole.  Some were removed because they were a terrible species (i.e. silver maples which deposit all manner of trash on a course and which have very shallow root systems that plague turf and mowers).  In every, single instance, IMO, the holes look much better after tree removal.  I was totally shocked when we removed twenty or so mature oaks around the fourth green at Olympia because grass wouldn't grow on the green.  We were very concerned that the hole would look worse, but were amazed to see that the green complex really stood out without the trees.

Trees are emotional hot-button issues for golf club members.  Nobody, after all, ever wrote a poem about a stump.  But the guiding principal for anybody in this situation is to listen to the experts.  Listen to the architecture experts, listen to your grounds superintendent and listen to arborists.  You'll take a lot of heat for removing a lot of trees, because the tree huggers are an understandably vocal lot, but you'll always improve your golf course.

Finally, nobody is seriously advocating removing every tree on old golf courses that were built on largely treeless sites.  The more sensible tree removal advocates are looking to remove trees that hurt important turf (tees and greens), trees that negatively affect play and trees that never should have been planted on a golf course (silver maple, for one).\

We're talking about golf courses, after all, not arboretums.

[mike_malone]

TEPaul
   I think that the example of Rolling Green and Flynn's use of trees does not support him as much in favor of trees.My point was that LITTLE strategy was tree related.Also,no trees were planted.Although there are some on the plans.
   On this site he needed to deal with a large forest of trees and ended up using them minimally for strategy.He did not use them much at all for penal reasons.
  This seems consistent with his writings on trees where he speaks mostly of SHADE,HOLE SEPARATION,OUT OF PLAY.

  Redanman
   I think you mean #15.I agree that vigilance is necessary to keep a strategic tree from becoming a penal one.

    When trees are needed to make up for uninspiring designs,i can understand.But when trees coverup excellent design it makes me sick.
     If we only discussed recovering lost strategy as it relates to trees i would be happy.

[mike_malone]

 While i was slowly composing my little piece,tlavin was posting a masterpiece!!!

[A_Clay_Man]

Don- I tend to agree that a blanket statement isn't what the collective purists are saying. Yes, trees are a wondeful addition to the experience, BUT, the placement and use, is of a crucial nature. I see so many newer courses (especially here in sun country) where the placement of trees appears to be ill-thought. Brought on by a complete mis-understanding of what makes golf fun, fair and challenging.The arborists gone nuts is the best way to describe it but only time will tell because they need to grow. Believe it or not I thought Wynn's use of tripling the # of trees, for the most part, really enhanced the experience at Shadow creek.