Changes to the 2nd hole of The Old Course

[Alex Miller]

Seems to me they should've put the bunkers in (if it HAD to be done) where the ripples are in the overhead, approximately pin-high right in David's photo. This would still promote the run up shot and bailout, but provide consequences for a misjudged approach.

I am not a fan of the change or the placement of these bunkers.

[BCrosby]

Rich -

My issue with the changes to the 2nd is that by putting new bunkers greenside right, the logic of how to play the hole for more than a century was changed.

It was a logic that Low tried to reinforce with a combinnation of features. Certainly the modern long game has rendered some of those features obsolete. Some of his bunkers, as you note, are rarely in play today. That fact lowers the drama the hole once had.

But the key feature - until this week - still influenced play. That was a green with relatively benign entrance from the right.

Bob  

[Rich Goodale]

Rich

Also, it is a very wide green.  Lot's of room for more than one feature to come into play!

Rich,

I am not sure if you are being contrarian for the sake of it or not.  

The effectiv entrance to the second green between the hollow/mound and the bunkers wil be all of about 5-7 yards wide once the bunkers are in place.  



There is really only a single strategy to the hole and most of the tournament pin positions are tucked behind the hollow/mound at the front left of the green.  It is a fantastic strategic feture that defends the pin.  THe relatively bland space out to the right of the green is part of the strength of the hole.  Giving players the option of playing safely away from the hole (and the danger near the hole) is part of the charm of strategic architecture, and plenty of the worlds great holes use this feature, holes shc as the 17th at Royal Mlebourne.  

Perhaps you would advocate a couple of pots on the front left of this green to increase the variety of pin positions?  



You have either forgotten all that you have learnt about strategic golf architecture of you are being silly.  

I'll try to talk slowly and not use big words, David.

The bunkers on the right will have virtually no effect on the classic pin position to the left of the green.  They will, however, create a new interesting pin position on the right of the green.  This is a good thing.

Rich

[David_Elvins]

I'll try to talk slowly and not use big words, David.

The bunkers on the right will have virtually no effect on the classic pin position to the left of the green.  They will, however, create a new interesting pin position on the right of the green.  This is a good thing.

Rich

Rich,

An equally simple retort.  If you have studied the Old Course enough to have written a book on it and yet do not understand how the current right side of the green relates to a pin position on the left side of the green and contributes to the strategy of the left hand pin position, then you have a fundamental flaw in your ability to understand Golf Course Architecture.  It shoud not be a hard concept to understand. 

[Rich Goodale]

I'll try to talk slowly and not use big words, David.

The bunkers on the right will have virtually no effect on the classic pin position to the left of the green.  They will, however, create a new interesting pin position on the right of the green.  This is a good thing.

Rich

Rich,

An equally simple retort.  If you have studied the Old Course enough to have written a book on it and yet do not understand how the current right side of the green relates to a pin position on the left side of the green and contributes to the strategy of the left hand pin position, then you have a fundamental flaw in your ability to understand Golf Course Architecture.  It shoud not be a hard concept to understand. 

Thanks for the compliments, David.  Can I use this quote for the dust jacket of my next book?

Rich

[Alex Miller]

Adding bunkers for the sake of creating more interesting pin positions is Rees Jones' specialty, isn't it?

If this case is different, and this change does not resemble a green at say, Torrey Pines, then can you explain the difference?

[Rich Goodale]

Adding bunkers for the sake of creating more interesting pin positions is Rees Jones' specialty, isn't it?

If this case is different, and this change does not resemble a green at say, Torrey Pines, then can you explain the difference?

Not that I know of, Alex.  Who told you that?

I do believe that one of the things that distinguishes a good golf hole from a great one is in the variety of ways one can approach the hole, depending on conditions of the day, including pin position.  In general, holes with only one interesting pin position (e.g. the 18th at TOC) are not as great as ones which have many.

Rich

[David_Elvins]

Tanks for the compliments, David.  Can I use this quote for the dust jacket of my next book?

Rich

Sure, it wouldn't haappen to be a biography of martin hawtree, would it? 

[Alex Miller]

Adding bunkers for the sake of creating more interesting pin positions is Rees Jones' specialty, isn't it?

If this case is different, and this change does not resemble a green at say, Torrey Pines, then can you explain the difference?

Not that I know of, Alex.  Who told you that?

I do believe that one of the things that distinguishes a good golf hole from a great one is in the variety of ways one can approach the hole, depending on conditions of the day, including pin position.  In general, holes with only one interesting pin position (e.g. the 18th at TOC) are not as great as ones which have many.

Rich

Does this change not eliminate one of the ways to approach this hole?

No longer can someone aim well right and hug the ground for a 4. Sure the better players aren't going to have as much difficulty, but to my understanding this change takes away one of the ways to approach this hole: conservatively.

Anyone else wanna weigh in?

[Bill_McBride]

"Better angle than from the right once the new bunkers there are in play,..."

I'm not following the logic either. We have a green with humpy-bumpy stuff guarding it left/cetner. Now, just this week, we have two new greenside bunkers on the right.

We are standing on the tee. I see ahead of me a green now protected both left and right with trouble. Why would I want to drive anywhere but to the middle of the fw? To my thinking, that is a harder but much less interesting hole. (Indeed, it sounds like the kind of change that only a tournament adminstrator would dream up.)

Worse, a hole on TOC it is now stripped of its most distinguishing historcal feature. When it comes to holes on TOC, that is no minor mater.

Bob

For some reason this reminds of playing the Robert Trent Jones course, Jacaranda, in Ft Lauderdale.  Virtually every green had a deep bunker at 7 o'clock and another at 5 o'clock.  No strategery whatsoever, just hit the tee shot straight down the middle and then avoid the bunkers.  Again and again.

[Connor Dougherty]

A positive way to look at the change is that the mounds to the left of the green can be used to move the ball toward a pin near the new bunkers. This of course means that everyone will start playing at the mounds, which is why I don't like the bunkers. It makes the play I listed above the only viable option in firm conditions. If the pin is tucked in the left corner, you're going for the mounds hoping it doesn't take a kick right. If the pin is tucked behind the bunkers on the right, I'm aiming for the mounds hoping it does take a kick right. Moving the bunkers to the back right makes a right pin more interesting to play to because going for the pin entails being aggressive with the bunkers.

[Alex Miller]

Seems to me they should've put the bunkers in (if it HAD to be done) where the ripples are in the overhead, approximately pin-high right in David's photo. This would still promote the run up shot and bailout, but provide consequences for a misjudged approach.

I am not a fan of the change or the placement of these bunkers.

Connor, just wanted to quote this to show I'm in FULL agreement with everything you wrote, not that I said it first. I swear! 

[Sean Walsh]

Maybe I haven't seen enough pros play the 2nd but I can't remember them bouncing it in.  From what I've seen they would attack any pin on the right half of the green aerially anyway.  For the sake of a week's golf once every five years we completely change the hole..

The players it will effect most are those with a 5+ handicap who can't spin the ball and are also coming into the green with a flatter club.  Oh well that's probably only 95% of players. 

Tom Doak's last paragraph in his piece on the hole in Paul Daley's Favourite Holes By Design says it best.

"To be sure, the second hole at St Andrews is not marked by the sort of terrific hazard - Strath, Hell Bunker, Principal's Nose, or the Road - which makes its more famous siblings so memorable.  It is a hole brought to life by simple things, namely the firmness of the ground, and the rippling undulations of The Old Course.  In short, it is the quintessential links golf hole, and the perfect antithesis of the more Americanised pitch over the Swilcan Burn at the opening hole."

The only good thing about these changes is that it has had me rifling through my golf books re-discovering this type of writing. 

[Rich Goodale]

'Tiger Woods, who set the scoring record at St. Andrews in 2000 at 19-under 269, said he could understand moving the bunkers on the second hole.

"We do use the pin over there on the back right, and if we get a left-to-right wind those bunkers really aren't in play because they're too close to the third tee," Woods said Tuesday. "But I can see by moving those closer to the green that if we get a left-to-right wind, those bunkers now are in play, which is good, because that's our miss anyway, that back pin over that bowl to give yourself an angle at that putt. I believe that's a positive change."'

What does that punk know about stategery......!

[David_Elvins]

Rich,

How about a sporting bet.  If the bunkers constructed this month are not removed or altered before the next Open Championship at St Andrews, I will shout you a game at The Old Course?  If they are removed or altered, you can shout me a game at your choice of course in St Andrews?

[Sean Walsh]

Rich,

No doubt for the Pros coming in with a lofted club those new bunkers front and centre will force decisions.  I do question whether at the time of answering that question he was shown any detail of the exact changes envisioned.  These bunkers aren't merely moved closer to the green, they are also moved 10-15 yards to the left and it appears a mound will be built to house them rather than being the existing pots.  A little different to "moving those closer to the green".

For the average golfer they increase the difficulty and feel of the hole tremendously and IMHO this is not for the better on a hole that is already no pushover.

[Will Lozier]

'Tiger Woods, who set the scoring record at St. Andrews in 2000 at 19-under 269, said he could understand moving the bunkers on the second hole.

"We do use the pin over there on the back right, and if we get a left-to-right wind those bunkers really aren't in play because they're too close to the third tee," Woods said Tuesday. "But I can see by moving those closer to the green that if we get a left-to-right wind, those bunkers now are in play, which is good, because that's our miss anyway, that back pin over that bowl to give yourself an angle at that putt. I believe that's a positive change."'

What does that punk know about stategery......!

Rich,

"Good"...FOR ONE WEEK EVERY FIVE YEARS!?  This quote does little for your argument.

Cheers

[Rich Goodale]

'Tiger Woods, who set the scoring record at St. Andrews in 2000 at 19-under 269, said he could understand moving the bunkers on the second hole.

"We do use the pin over there on the back right, and if we get a left-to-right wind those bunkers really aren't in play because they're too close to the third tee," Woods said Tuesday. "But I can see by moving those closer to the green that if we get a left-to-right wind, those bunkers now are in play, which is good, because that's our miss anyway, that back pin over that bowl to give yourself an angle at that putt. I believe that's a positive change."'

What does that punk know about stategery......!

Rich,

"Good"...FOR ONE WEEK EVERY FIVE YEARS!?  This quote does little for your argument.

Cheers

Will (et. al.)

This "FOR ONE WEEK EVERY FIVE YEARS!?" mantra/rant is just not true.  The top Euro Pros play TOC every year in the Dunhill and many of the world's best amateurs play the course for a week in the Links Trophy, every year.  The punters who flock to the course every year and pay exorbitant sums to play, do so not because they want to experience what golf was like 50 or 200 or 500 years ago (they ain't gonna get that anyway, BTW), but because they want to play where the pros and top amateurs play.  Nobody yet on all the related threads on this issue has yet made a cogent case for exactly which TOC should be preserved as sacrosanct.  The course that was there a week ago; pr the course where Ballesteros won in 1984; or the course that Palmer and Thomson played in the 1950s-60s; or the course that Jones played in the 20s and 30s; or any of the different versions of the course that James balfour played from 1845-1887; or the course played by some shepherd in 1514?  They were all different, as will be the most recently remodeled one.

Which course is sacrosancy and why?  If somebody can articulate this properly, I might just join in the mass hysteria.....

Rich

[Mark Smolens]

Having never played TOC, I have enjoyed for the most part the back and forth of this and other threads regarding the changes currently being effected (tho the pissy tone of some posts could and should probably be avoided).

My question, however, is this:  shouldn't these types of questions/discussions/arguments have been vetted with people who obviously have an interest in the issues prior to these changes being made?

[Bill_McBride]

Having never played TOC, I have enjoyed for the most part the back and forth of this and other threads regarding the changes currently being effected (tho the pissy tone of some posts could and should probably be avoided).

My question, however, is this:  shouldn't these types of questions/discussions/arguments have been vetted with people who obviously have an interest in the issues prior to these changes being made?

There you go being all logical and ethical.

[Mark_F]

I am not sure if you are being contrarian for the sake of it or not.  

You have either forgotten all that you have learnt about strategic golf architecture of you are being silly.  

How many times have you played The Old Course David?

[Paul_Turner]

Rich

Regarding which Old Course to preserve:

I don't think the course was much different between the last planned architectural changes in the 1930s and 2000.  I played there first in 1990 and it seemed much the same as the course I'd seen on the Shell Matches (1960s I think) and Opens on the Telly growing up in the 70s and 80s.  It was a bit neater but that was about it.

Before 2000 Open they redid the bunkers and made them geometrically boring, level bases,  less random and less true "links" like.  Like imitation links bunkers you'd find in Florida.  So I'd go for any period in that 1930s-2000 time. 

Of course if the ball could be dialed back then the tees sitting OB could go.

Nobody knows the details of the earlier changes so it's hard to form an opinion i.e. 2nd green getting expanded.

[David_Elvins]

How many times have you played The Old Course David?

Never played it, Mark. 

Why do you ask?

[Mark_F]

Never played it, Mark. 

Why do you ask?

Just wondered David.  I have heard of car park reviews before, just not TV reviews.

This appear to be totally outrageous fiddling, far greater in scale than the changes to 11 or 17. 

This has the potential to totally destroy one of the coolest holes in golf.  How sad. 

[David_Elvins]

Just wondered David.  I have heard of car park reviews before, just not TV reviews.

Mark,

I have probably spent 15 hours + walking around The Old Course.  I am confident in my opinion that the second is a cool hole, based on that.