Ideal Maintenance: Edgbaston GC

[Paul_Turner]

This is my idea of the ideal condition for a parkland course in summer.  It's playing fast, has some brown and is without any  rough of consequence, but it's still well groomed and hasn't approached the dusty phase where the grass is practically dead.  Would there really be a massive resistance at private US clubs, if the course looked like this?  

Edgbaston is a very good, short course (6100, par 68) and  well protected greens that require thought.



Opening tee shot







3rd green with some cool contouring at the front (dead ground)



Approach for 4th


Green complex at 4th



5th tee







Approach at long par 4, 6th


Tricky green complex at 6th.



Lumpy fairway, looking back.  Would these lumps survive if it was a modern design?


Great par 3 7th, ranks right up there with some of Colt's best par 3s.  

Cross bunkers at 8th (longish 4)






Unusual tier (V shape) at 9th with clubhouse.

The back 9 is just as good, but I'm out of web space at the moment.

Cricket isn't the only sport worth playing in Edgbaston.

[Norbert P]

 Dreamy.

[david h. carroll]

the super at Beechtree used to get it in that kind of shape in late summer....what fun!!

[RJ_Daley]

This looks like a nice twilight or sunrise walk with 6-8 clubs in the bag, definintly not driver.  Who wouldn't enjoy that...

[Bill_McBride]

Paul, that looks great to me and I'll bet most GCA types!  Is there an irrigation system?  I wish our course looked like that but we've had 24" of rain in the past two months.  You may think of 6100 yds as short, but at par 68 that's not short to me at all.

Looking back from #6 green - the lumps might survive but the road and hedges never!  Until I looked closer I thought the play was from that point toward the green up near #6 tee, across the hedges!

The par 3 #7 is indeed a fantastic little hole, love the church steeple which is a dead line toward that right pin!  

I'd love to play this course - is it in the London area?

[John Foley]

Paul,

I don't know how you find all of this stuff, but thank you. Every time you post these pictures of Colt's works I am truly amazed how great it looks.

[Paul_Turner]

Gents

The course is in Birmingham about 2 miles from the city centre.  Brum, as it's known locally, isn't exactly the most romantic of British cities, but approaching the city from the south through the inner suburbs like Edgbaston it's green and attractive (unlike the views from the M5/6!).  I think there are some potential hidden gems in the area (Harborne is the best I've seen, so far).

I'm not sure what that tower on the 7th is, it's not a church, and is close to the Botanical gardens dome.  It might be something to do with the university.

The backward photo of the 6th is taken from just above the cross bunkers.  Before it was a golf course the land was a park laid out by Capability Brown, perhaps the hedges are from his time?

Yes, I suppose 6100 yds, par 68 isn't all that short, although  the club claims par 70-with a fictitious par 5 (10th) which is a actually a great long 4 and a short "par 4" which is really a long, tough par 3.

[Paul_Turner]

Some the back 9.


Long 10th, bunkers are well short to allow for run up shot in these dry conditions.

Tiny crowned green at v short par 4 11th


12th.


13th.  Picture doesn't really capture the strategy of the hole.  Tee shot is hooked around a lake; the stream complicates matters




14th green complex.  Nice par 3.



15th, a bit of a slog uphill.


Par 3/4 16th.

Shallow saucer of a green at 16th.



17th, par 5 green.





Looking back on 18.

[David_Tepper]

Paul-

Once again your posting has made my day. I especially like the church steeple directly behind the green on the par-3 7th. It looks like a super-large flagstick!

DT

[James Edwards]

Yes, in agreement with David

Great pictures. Thank you for posting.

James

[Don_Mahaffey]

Paul,
I love the look. However, at most private clubs in the US, the super would need to be an exceptional communicator, or the membership would have to crave the fast and firm game. Unfortunately, I'm afraid if you showed these pictures to private club members, most would ask what was wrong with the course.

I love the picture of the 9th.

[RJ_Daley]

These summer pictures makes me think how much more interesting and diverse it is to have the course maintenance meld follow the seasons.  For contrast, I wonder if Paul might be able to snap a few more pictures in fall when the rain and cool nights comes to green up the course (or some spring green-up scenes).  It is somehow more natural to play golf and adjust to the seasons and experience the dry firm and fast ground options of the summer and then transition to the fall where it may soften up and call for more target aerial bombardments.  As long as the greens are running true, what can be more fun than the above depicted conditions?

[Paul_Turner]

Shivas

Thanks!  Even the mighty Sand Hills could let itself tan a bit more, eh?

RJ

Here are some smaller pics from the Warks golf site, taken by a very helpful chap-David Morgan.  They're smaller so you can't see the contours clearly, but it's much greener simply changing with the seasons.

I wonder if the fact that the top American courses nearly always had fairway irrigation changed design principles when compared with the UK?  For example-forced carry bunkers being to greens.

What would it take to change the green is best attitude?  A change at Augusta?  The Open at Sandwich seemed to be a turn off for the average club member.

[david h. carroll]

Shivas--I call it "making the course crispy"....again, it seems that Beechtree is the only experience I've had where the super has the go ahead/balls to make this happen...then again, I saw a ton of "crispiness" in the mid-atlantic due to draought restrictions last year

[Brock Peyer]

Thanks for posting the pictures.  What a great experience it must be to play there?!?  Awesome, awesome, awesome.  I am jealous.

[bodgeblack]

Paul,

Do you know what sort of irrigation Edgbaston had? I am presuming just Tees and Greens. I can't think of any course in the US which still has to hand water fairways. This is one of the main reasons why you will only see these conditions in the US when the old irrigation system is broke!

cheers
Jamie

[Tom]

The Tower is the Clock tower of Birmingham University !!!

[Sean Remington (SBR)]

  Great pictures.  All the uneven ground gives so much interest and depth to the course. It would be great fun to play even in the rainy season. We see so many flat pannel fairways with containment mounds that are called links style courses today. It's great to see the work of a master in this condition.

   I do not see any signs of golf cart use.  Is this course for walking only? Maybe some pull carts?   No cart use would be a great aid to the Supt. in getting the course crispy.

   Thanks for the pictures.

[tonyt]

Good pics, and thankfully being Australian, a look that I grew up with, and still see at almost every course for 3-5 months every year.

Without perhaps the English charm factor  

[Paul_Turner]

Jamie

Yes no fairway irrigation.  The majority of courses are still this way, although the posher famous ones have all added it: not always for the better.

Tom

Played Harborne too.  It was brilliant.  Where does Brum Uni play-Little Aston?

[GeoffreyC]

Paul

Great photos as usual.  I can clearly picture the ball bouncing with the contours of the ground looking at them.

I can also dream of how fine Yale with its great topography would play if it could ever be maintained like that.  

[RJ_Daley]

Paul, thank you for all the pictures.  You are truly "Johnny on the Spot" and your pictorial lesson on "maintenance meld" has been one of the best ever...

[TEPaul]

Paul Turner asked:

"Would there really be a massive resistance at private US clubs, if the course looked like this?"

Paul:

I'm afraid so. Some of us may like that look and there's little doubt in my mind that even most American golfers would like that firm and fast playability but the brown look in those photos would be a real problem with many American private club members.

But the good news is to achieve firm and fast conditions--or at least a very good degree of it--it probably isn't necessary to have to take fairways and such to the extent of the brown look of Edgbaston GC to get the kind of firm and fast playability that golfers like us on here enjoy and I believe most other Americans would too. In my opinon, if more American supers can achieve faster and firmer playbability by taking their courses basically to a much lighter green look (not all the way to the brown look in those photos) we'd all be a long way down the road to getting this firm and fast maintenance meld thing knocked!

It's pretty amazing how quickly grass can recover from that ultra brown look in those photos back to a lighter green look and still remain really firm and fast.  

[Paul_Turner]

Tom

Ok, so no brown but a lighter green.  

But how about the bunkers?  Could US clubs move towards fairway rather than rough surrounding their bunkers?  

[TEPaul]

"But how about the bunkers?  Could US clubs move towards fairway rather than rough surrounding their bunkers?"

Paul:

That's a very important question and one Pat Mucci asked on another thread--maybe when you were away. I see no reason at all that American members would NOT be happy with bunkering surrounds that's cut to fairway height. Very few American course seem to do anything like that though and apparently they never have (I did a slight research effort on that on Ross courses and found even way back the bunkering had collars around it although perhaps shorter than today.

So one wonders why American courses never used that concept and maintenance practice as so many in Australia and Europe appear to (and always have).  

The answer could be an unusual but very interesting one that was mentioned on here a long time ago. That is that in America the idea has always been amongst greenskeepers and memberships to get the grass to grow and in Australia and many parts of Europe the idea of the greenskeepers and memberships was to stop the grass from growing!!!