[Rich Goodale]

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,1922.0.html

I found this on Google.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.....

PS--this was December 2002.  Anybody who can retrieve the actual thread noted above, please do so and paste to this thread.  Thanks.

[Rich Goodale]

Here's what John Huggan and Peter Thomson and others had to say 10 years ago...

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,1975.0.html

[Paul_Turner]

I remember that Rich and which was why I was expecting a strong outcry from the locals of St Andrews.  Instead not much protest for what are now far greater alterations.

So what's changed in 10years?

[Alex Miller]

I think this sounds like they altered the area immediately around the bunker to restore a botched job of making it smaller:

"Given that shots that should have been finishing in the sand were not doing so, what was the proposed solution? "The bunker has changed a lot over four or five Opens," said Adams. "Not dramatically, but in the 1970s it was more oval-shaped with a lower face to it. Since then, it’s become deeper. In 2000, we actually made it smaller than it was in 1995. The idea was to make things a little more ‘claustrophobic’."

Also, in this previous change it seems they did not alter the contour near the green, but rather near the base of the bunker. If that change were made today I thnk I and many others here would support it. That bunker has been tinkered with a lot over the years, but has the work ever come so close to the greens edge? Has it ever expanded the "catch zone"? I have not heard of such work.

[Paul_Turner]

Also, in this previous change it seems they did not alter the contour near the green, but rather near the base of the bunker. If that change were made today I thnk I and many others here would support it. That bunker has been tinkered with a lot over the years, but has the work ever come so close to the greens edge? Has it ever expanded the "catch zone"? I have not heard of such work.

Alex

I think you are correct.

[Rich Goodale]

Alex and Paul

Per the Grauniad story from 2002 (embedded in my modification to my initial post above)....

"The most famous hazard in world golf, the Road Hole bunker, has been drastically and dramatically changed. The bunker, which used to dominate the 17th on the Old Course at St Andrews, has been moved back from the putting surface and its height reduced by around two feet, thus altering the character of the hole completely."

....they did in fact come right to the very edge of the bunker.

They also reduced the "catch zone" which they are now restoring.  I would think this would be good news to GCA afficionaodos?

[Paul_Turner]

Rich

I had a look through that thread and there's some guy called ForkaB who posts a link (to The Times) that confirms the bunker was not moved.  I think it was all just about the base and steepness of the lip.

I can't work out what the R&A and Martin Hawtree plan to do here.  The photos with the red line suggest something.  Are they going to recontour the front of the green?? 

[Alex Miller]

Alex and Paul

Per the Grauniad story from 2002 (embedded in my modification to my initial post above)....

"The most famous hazard in world golf, the Road Hole bunker, has been drastically and dramatically changed. The bunker, which used to dominate the 17th on the Old Course at St Andrews, has been moved back from the putting surface and its height reduced by around two feet, thus altering the character of the hole completely."

....they did in fact come right to the very edge of the bunker.

They also reduced the "catch zone" which they are now restoring.  I would think this would be good news to GCA afficionaodos?

Shockingly it seems many were upset back then too, but I still interpret the changes to be of much less significance from my personal comprehension of the reading. Like I said, that bunker has changed in shape and size many times, but the contours at the front of the green which funnel the ball left down toward the Road Hole bunker have never been touched to my knowledge. Peter Dawson was pretty explicit and the photos have confirmed that this time around they have extended the depression to catch more balls. I don't think this has ever been done before.


Edit: more from way back when http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2002/dec/06/golf

Whether or not Dawson thought there was something wrong, perhaps our voices will still make a difference. From everything I've read (or haven't read) about the most recent changes, it seems that the community here on GCA and the internet in general, as well as in St. Andrews can still make a difference if they make their voices heard.

I also want to add that the changes which were reversed, were IMHO, less impactful than what I can make of the ongong/proposed changes.

[Connor Dougherty]

Peter Dawson, the secretary of the R&A, said: "We did not ask for these changes and it is evident that they have altered the nature of the hole.

I couldn't help but see this quote and wonder, "Why doesn't he think that today?" Better yet, why was returning the bunker to its original form not proposed?

[Rich Goodale]

One possibility is that he has learned a thing or two over the past 10 years......

[Paul_Turner]

Dawson might just be making it up as he goes along.   A bit like Nicklaus.

Then again, since 2002 all the other Open courses have been altered to various degrees by his team and Hawtree or Ebert&Mackenzie.  I'm sure Dawson regards these alterations as improvements and The Old Course was just next on the hit list.

[Rich Goodale]

Possible, Paul, but it's also possible he is right and you are wrong.

[Terry Lavin]

Good deed, Goodale.

[David_Elvins]

Rich,

One small problem with your hypothesis...

As a result of complaints, the bunker was changed again in the winter/spring of 2003...

The complainers won out...

If, as you claim, history does repeat itself, expect Hawtree's changes to be undone next winter.  

[Terry Lavin]

It can be changed. It's dirt and grass.

[Peter Pallotta]

It does seem sometimes that in every area - politics, ethics, architecture - every force is responded to by an equal but opposite force, driving the two sides ever further apart.

In the late 60s/early 70s, during the Nixon administration, Ted Kennedy hammered out a bi-partisan health care formula/deal -- but backed out because he thought he could do better. He never imagined that the schism between the Republicans and Democrats would only widen.

Peter   

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