ANGC 1938 v 2013 aerial comparison

[Mark Bourgeois]

http://golfcoursehistories.com/ANGC.html

Looks like Maxwell's work on 7 green was in process. Would be nice to see some of that interior width come back and I wonder how 14 played off the tee. Wait, let me go play the 1934 Masters course in Tiger Woods '14.

[BCrosby]

Fantastic Mark. A couple of quick comments:

- the interior of the course seems wider and with fewer trees than in the 1934 photos.

- was work on-going on the 9th green also?

- left fw bunker is still there on 1, right fw bunker still there on 14.

- c/l bunkers still there on 11.

- modern 10 seems to be done.

- water fronting 15 green is still a creek

- great view of the original 16th. There aren't many good pics of it.

Back for more later. Is there an aerial from '37 that can be obtained?

Bravo.

Bob

[Alex Lagowitz]

Mark,

I'm curious to how the Augusta aerial ended up in the South Carolina archives.
Do you happen to have the index number for the aerial, I'd like to take a look.

Thanks,

Alex

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark,

That's really neat.

It's interesting to see the changes to the fairway bunkering, in terms of additions, deletions and alterations.

I was looking at the 9th tee and noticed trees behind the left side bunker complex short of # 1 green.
They would seem to preclude play down the 1st fairway.

[Sven Nilsen]

Pat:

There were trees behind the bunker, but the were certainly no obstacle in the early years.  Perhaps "bushes" is a better word.

And check out how close that creek was to the 9th green in the aerial.  The other amazing thing about this aerial is that it shows that the gap between the fw bunker on 1 and the trees on the left side of 1 is wider than the gap on the 9th fairway.  Who knew?





Sven

[BCrosby]

Mark,

I'm curious to how the Augusta aerial ended up in the South Carolina archives.

Alex

Mark will have the details, but the GA aerials for 1938 covering Augusta are not available on the interwebs. SC's are, they pick up Augusta (which is hard on the GA/SC border), so that's why SC aerials are used.

Bob

[jeffwarne]

Mark,

That's really neat.

It's interesting to see the changes to the fairway bunkering, in terms of additions, deletions and alterations.

I was looking at the 9th tee and noticed trees behind the left side bunker complex short of # 1 green.
They would seem to preclude play down the 1st fairway.

Pat,
A look at that 1938 aeriel makes the play down #1 fairway look quite attractive-certainly shorter
And I am intimately familiar with the terrain there

[Sven Nilsen]

Bob (and Ed Oden):

You can pick up some of the features from the Maxwell photos posted by Ed recently, including the bunkers on the front of the left greenside mound on 17 and the lack of trees to the right of 5.  

Still don't see anything that looks like the mystery photo that we thought might be from a different course.

Sven

[BCrosby]

Seems to me obvious that playing down the first would be an option.

Bob

[Mark Bourgeois]

Alex, yes Bob got it right. UGa doesn't have it and USC does, mostly by accident: Augusta happens to be close to SC. There's a 1937 aerial out there;I'm working on that but it will be a while.

Bob, does 9 green look under construction? Kinda seems the work already was done. And I like the look of 16. As a general comment, the loss of width - a problem common to every classic course I can think of - remains striking.

[Jim Sherma]

Mark,

That's really neat.

It's interesting to see the changes to the fairway bunkering, in terms of additions, deletions and alterations.

I was looking at the 9th tee and noticed trees behind the left side bunker complex short of # 1 green.
They would seem to preclude play down the 1st fairway.

Pat,
A look at that 1938 aeriel makes the play down #1 fairway look quite attractive-certainly shorter
And I am intimately familiar with the terrain there

But... all of the planted little trees in the picture make it clear that the goal is to make the option a temporary one at best.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Sven,

You seem to be ignoring he location of the tee relative to the trees by the bunker

[Mark Bourgeois]

Something to keep in mind when looking at the 1938 aerial are the long shadows cast by trees. This aerial was taken on July 8, 1938, clearly in the morning: shadows fall west of their "subjects."

For example, the corridor to the left of the Principal's Nose formation on the 1tth appears at first glance narrower than the corridor to the right; however, upon careful study you will see that left corridor in fact is wider. As it should be: the safer route down the left presented a more difficult second shot. In contrast, the golfer willing to risk the gauntlet to the right faced the reward of an easier second shot.

This brings up a point related to my earlier one: people lament the loss of or general lack of centerline "features" these days. These are not possible without width: centerline features are a casualty of the movement to eliminate width from golf courses. The interesting thing about width in the context of centerline features, to me at least, is how a golf course can be considered "wide" but play narrow.

In other words, the argument many make about width and angles -- those go together -- being overvalued neglects to consider how centerline hazards can be used to enable angles and give a value to the width. This creates interest for the better player while giving the chop a way to complete the hole.

Just my two cents.

[V. Kmetz]

My dominant notices:

1.  The signature Mackenzie bunker and boomerang green was already gone from #9 by 1938.

2.  I did not realize - or had never assimilated that there was no greenside bunker on #1 in this "second iteration"

3.  On the 2013 map, place your finger or stylus on the site of the current Masters tee and then wipe to 1938.. look how deep in the trees the current tee once was...amazing.

4.  I would have like to seen the old 16th, though when I analyze it from a routing perspective, I find it funny that given the position of the 17th tee in these pre-1947 years, you basically walked right back to the tee to play the 17th hole.  I surmise only one caddie in the group would accompany the players to the green with their putters, or wedges; all likely saw the sense of leaving the bags back at the tee, while the other caddies went out ahead.

5.  #14 played much less of a dog leg than it is today.

6.  I think #2 is the only hole I can say which I think is substantially a better and more interesting hole today than it was in the first era.  8 and 15 are perhaps also improved, but not as much as I think #2 has evolved.

cheers

vk

[BCrosby]

Mark -

Do I see (in the open area right of the 9th fw and left of the 8th fw) two target greens for a practice area?

Note also open creek across the 1st and the fw bunker on 8 that was more c/l than today.

Bob

[Jim Nugent]

It looks to me like a number of fairway bunkers didn't come into play in 1938.  At least not for tournament players.  Holes #2, #8, #14, #18.  So on a course with very few bunkers to start with, the effective number was smaller still. 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Why would a golfer, in a medal play tournament, risk

1     Hitting into the trees next to the bunker front left of the 1st green
2     Hitting into a DZ with a large, deep bunker
3     Hitting into a DZ with tall trees on the other side of that bunker
4     Hitting into a fairway that slopes down and away from them vs a fairway with a flattened plateau in the DZ
5     Hitting into a creek fed by a severe downslope with a long drive.
6     Hitting into a much narrower DZ
7     Hitting into a DZ where a cut or blocked drive had a terrible angle of attack into the green.
8     Hitting into a slim finger of a green
9     Hitting into a green that slopes away from them
10   Hitting into a the above green when you must carry a bunker off a downhill, sidehill lie.

What are the advantages ?  And, do they outweigh the disadvantages ?

[Jim Nugent]

Patrick, Ron Whitten, in the article wrote for Golf Digest, where he details all the changes to ANGC hole by hole, says this about #9:

1934:  "The horseshoe-shape green was an Alister Mackenzie specialty, but many players drove left down no.1 fairway, for a better angle into the green." 

1938:  "To eliminate any reward for playing down no. 1 fairway, Roberts had Perry Maxwell totally redesign and rebunker the green.  The boomerang shape was removed, and five new bunkers filled the left hillside.  Now the advantage went to those who approached it from the right."

http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-courses/georgia/augusta-changes

[Jim Nugent]

Actually, Whitten says play down the 1st fairway didn't stop there.  He says in 1956, "Perhaps because the cluster of bunkers kept getting less fearsome (one bunker was removed in 1939, another by 1951), some Masters competitors playing from the ninth tee continued hooking it down the first fairway.  To stop the practice, a string of trees was planted just off the front-left edge of the ninth tee." 

[jeffwarne]

Mark -

Do I see (in the open area right of the 9th fw and left of the 8th fw) two target greens for a practice area?

Note also open creek across the 1st and the fw bunker on 8 that was more c/l than today.

Bob

Bob,
 That practice area was still there in the 70's and if I'm not mistaken was actually in use during tournament week.
But it certainly was there in the 70's and perhaps even the early 80's as I distinctly remember seeing it, and I could swear I saw players hitting shag balls with short irons  to their caddies there.
That was the greatest when the players used to hit balls to their caddies-eventually they went to helmets, then eliminated the tradition.
It was also the only event where only caddies and players were permitted on the range, but that's changed now too.
May still be true on the course.
I remember Jim McLean caddying (white jumper and all)for Brad Faxon so he could work with him on his swing

[Ed Oden]

Bob (and Ed Oden):

You can pick up some of the features from the Maxwell photos posted by Ed recently, including the bunkers on the front of the left greenside mound on 17 and the lack of trees to the right of 5. 

Still don't see anything that looks like the mystery photo that we thought might be from a different course.

Sven

Sven, I agree.

1.  The signature Mackenzie bunker and boomerang green was already gone from #9 by 1938.

Vinnie, Maxwell's work started in late 1937 and was, presumably, finished by the 1938 Masters.  If the aerial is from July of 1938, then the changes would have just been completed.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick, Ron Whitten, in the article wrote for Golf Digest, where he details all the changes to ANGC hole by hole, says this about #9:

1934:  "The horseshoe-shape green was an Alister Mackenzie specialty, but many players drove left down no.1 fairway, for a better angle into the green." 

I suspect that's general speculation as no specific player or time is ever produced

1938:  "To eliminate any reward for playing down no. 1 fairway, Roberts had Perry Maxwell totally redesign and rebunker the green.  The boomerang shape was removed, and five new bunkers filled the left hillside.  Now the advantage went to those who approached it from the right."

[
Mark's 1938 aerial would tend to dispel that claim.
I'll have to review my Masters file tomorrow to see if there's any support for that claim.

Ron Whitten also declared that Jasna Polana was a modern day Winged Foot and that the clubhouse was mediocre at best, so intend to not accept Whitten's word as the Gospel /color]

http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-courses/georgia/augusta-changes

[Jim Nugent]

Pat, if Ron is wrong, it's pretty involved error.  Not only does he say golfers used to hit down the 1st fairway.  He says the club took proactive steps to prevent that.  Then he goes further and says those steps didn't completely work, so the club came back a second time, years later, and took still more steps to stop the practice.   i.e. he pretty much builds the first 22 or so years of changes to #9 around the exact play you say didn't happen. 

I've never been there, but in some of the early photos, driving down 1 looks like a pretty straight shot.  If it gave you a better angle into that early green, from a similar or shorter distance than playing down the ninth fairway, likely off a better lie, that could look real inviting.   

[BCrosby]

Jeff -

I started going to the Masters regularly in '81. That area was open ground by then.

I recall seeing pictures of pre-tournament clinics given by Hogan, Nelson and others in the '40's. It occurs to me that those pictures were probably taken on the NLE practice area.

Bob

[Sven Nilsen]

Jeff -

I started going to the Masters regularly in '81. That area was open ground by then.

I recall seeing pictures of pre-tournament clinics given by Hogan, Nelson and others in the '40's. It occurs to me that those pictures were probably taken on the NLE practice area.

Bob

Bob:

The early drawings from MacKenzie and the Olmsted plans indicate the intention to use that section as a practice area.  Some of the early photos show what looks like the three practice greens (or targets).  Its tough to tell if actual greens were built, or if they just cut the grass a little tighter.

Sven

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