THE Redan

[Bill Brightly]

Here's a look from one of the front bunkers. MWP, that was one helluva up and down!

[Adam Clayman]

Bill, Thanks for the education.

I still feel the word "faces" in the definition of Redan, makes any Redan hole without those faces, effectively making it uphill, faux. Defensible, would seem to be the key concept.

[Bill Brightly]

Adam,

I just think the guy who gave the hole its name did it with this view in mind:




Can't prove it, but I don't think he named it from the tee. Which means he named it looking down at the hole from the top of the mound in which the two front bunkers are cut. If you accept this, then it minimizes the uphill nature of the tee shot, and the name Redan emphasizes what is going on with the green complex.

I'll stand by the eight elements of great Redan hole that I listed above. If you want to call "faux" all holes that fail to include #8, an uphill tee shot, so be it.

[Thomas Dai]

Out of interest I did some web-searching about original non-golf "Redan's".

Apparently it's a French word meaning a V-shaped defensive projection pointing towards an anticipated angle of attack.

I tried to find an old map showing the position of the Redan at Sevastopol/Crimea, which I understand inspired the term as used for the 15th hole at North Berwick.

The map - below - shows the position of The Redan. It also shows a Little Redan. Both project outwards, not in a strict V-shape, but at least outwards towards an anticipated angle of attack. I had hoped to find a more detailed close-up map or a sketch or a drawing or painting but alas no such luck. More web-searching one day maybe.



Using Bing/Google sat-maps it is possible to roughly establish where the two structures were, both seemingly at the end of rocky outcrops with steep sided valley's below.

Structures termed "Redans" were also used prior to the Crimean War, eg Wellington-Napoleon/Peninsula War, Nepoleons-Russian Campaign, but I guess there was no British golfing officer around at that time, unlike John White-Melville, who is supposed on his return as describing the 15th (then the 6th) at North Berwick as similar to the defensive fortification he saw at Sebastopol/Crimea.

The wonders of the web. A few minutes pushing keys rather than hours spent in a library.

atb

[Bill_McBride]

Nice stuff.  The V-shaped walls are designed to shed frontal assault and direct line impact from cannon fire.  There are a number of well-preserved star forts in America that have five or six of these points, therefore the "star" name.  Well preserved star forts include Ft. McHenry in Baltimore, scene of the War of 1812 battle that inspired the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner, as well as St. Augustine, Tortuga and two here in Pensacola, Fort Pickens and Fort Barrancas. 

[DMoriarty]

Regarding the length of the hole in 1895, the club held a two tournaments on back to back days (one for the members and one for professionals) in June 1895 to "celebrate the opening of the new course."   The 36 holes scores for the winning Amateur are listed in The Golf Book of East Lothian (1896), as are the 36 hole scores for the top seven professionals, so there are scores listed for 16 rounds total.  There were:
Eight recorded scores of 3.
Six recorded scores of 4.
Two recorded scores of 5.

So of the scores recorded in the book, half the scores were 3s.  I think 3 would have been an extraordinary score had the hole actually been playing 266 yards.  I think it more likely that the hole was much short, and that the 266 yard figure was either a mistake or a blatant exaggeration. 

[Patrick_Mucci]

David,

The statistics you cite clearly indicate that the hole was a par 3.
Your premise that 266 was a figment of someone's imagination also makes sense.

Thomas,

I had also heard that the term "redan" represented a fortified embankment that was slanted such that the soldiers could lie behind the elevated front wall and not be seen by the enemy due to the slope that fell away behind the front wall

[DMoriarty]

Patrick, "Par" was still a developing term back, but I do agree that the scores suggest that at least for quality golfers the hole played as a one shot hole, and most definitely not a hole of 266 yards.

[Patrick_Mucci]

David, et. al.,

My use of the term "par" was a 21st century reference, let's not lose focus of the concept in terms of the number of strokes required to complete the hole.

[Bryan Izatt]

I came across a description of the North Berwick course in the 1890 book "GOLF" by Horace Hutchinson.  I don't recall if it has been posted here before, but here it is.  The course as described matches up to the routing as shown in the 1877 plan previously earlier in this thread.  Of interest regarding the length of the Redan hole and whether it played at 266 yards, Hutchinson's description seems to suggest that it was a two shot hole where the first shot was a pitch over the wall and thus likely to have been more like 266 yards rather than 210 yards (or shorter).  First an extract of the description of the Redan hole and then the full description.

"Then comes a cleek or iron shot which must  pitch just over another wall, so far and no farther - and then a full drive or brassy shot to carry you just over a bunker escarpment not inaptly called 'the Redan.' "





As an added bonus, in the middle of the North Berwick description there is a woodcut picture of "The Sea Hole" at Elie.  I'll leave it to Mark to figure out which hole it is.  You can click through for a larger version.  I haven't authenticated the 1899 date on the woodcut.   

[Marty Bonnar]

Not to difficult, Bryan. Still the Sea Hole, #11!
F.

[Bryan Izatt]

It looked more like the 10th green, Lundar Law, to me, but I've only been there twice.  The 11th would be beyond the players and out of sight from this vantage point, n'est pas?

[Rich Goodale]

Great captcha, Bryan.

A lot of the Macdonaldophiles on this site like to poo-poo any evidence that THE Redan was for at least some time, a very different hole than those that Seabeesethbanks copied in the USA, but this proves that 15 NB West links was at least, for a significant enough time for Horace H to write about it, a par 4.

PS--FBD nails it re: the sea hole at Elie.  A "meh?!" hole on a golf course full of !!+'s, but that just tells you how fine that golf course is.

Rich

[Rich Goodale]

It looked more like the 10th green, Lundar Law, to me, but I've only been there twice.  The 11th would be beyond the players and out of sight from this vantage point, n'est pas?

Bryan

The perspective is from short of the 10th green, looking at the 11th green with the bay in the background.

Rich

[Marty Bonnar]

Eight Violins!:

http://www.golfhouseclub.co.uk/the-course/hole-11/

Practically the same viewpoint.

F.

[Bill Brightly]

Bryan,

That is a great find. Does anyone happen to know when CB Macdonald visited the course? It probably was in the early 1900's after it had been converted to a par 3, but it also could have been when he was a youngster attending school in St. Andrews.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Great find Bryan.
I having fun tying to picture those old holes. As anyone who has played a layup shot on 7 will know, the slope down to the burn starts a long way back and gathers fierceness.  Placing a green there was wicked.  Interesting to see both The Pit and Redan were early holes.

IN the April 2nd 1898 Country Life he reviews the extended course favourably but sadly not in the same detail.  There is also a photo of the Redan which I sure is a mislable.

[Bryan Izatt]

Tony,

Playing the 7th downwind is indeed very interesting - try not to drive it too far and end up in the burn and then try to carry the burn and stop it on the green with the wind pushing it on.

I like some of the other pithy comments - I'm sure the courses in those days looked and played nothing like what we're used to today.

"You might just as well leave your driver at home."

"The lies through the green are execrable - but then there practically is no 'through the green'."

"In fact, the course is practically all hazards except the putting greens;"

[Bryan Izatt]

F. and Rhic,

I hate to disagree with two fine Fifeans (?), but upon further review I really think the woodcut view is angled across the 10th green then looking across 11th in the background and then across  the bay to the hills beyond.  The rocky crag - Lundar Law(?) - at the right side of the woodcut is to the side of the 10th green.  There is no such crag near the 11th green.



From Elie's web site here is a picture from the top of the Law looking across 10 in the foreground and 11 and then the bay.  Imagine being at the bottom of the Law and further back and out on the next promontory and I think you get the right angle with the Law at the right edge of the picture.




This one looking across the 11th green has no Law on the right, nor is the sea lapping up to the green as in the woodcut.

[Sean_A]

The question I have is why was the first shot a pitch over the wall?  It seems clear from the tournament reports that some players were banging away because 3 was not an uncommon score...and that would seem rather odd if loads of top players were earning 2s from essentially the current teeing area just over the mentioned wall.  Is this a case of bogey 4/par (such as it was) 3?  I would imagine that if there was a compelling reason to lay up off the tee, that there were more 5s than 4s scored. 

I also don't believe the "back" tee was in play very long.  Perhaps the light bulb went on when playing the second after a good lay-up?  In any case, there would certainly have been congestion issues laying up to the modern tee area...Painswickian dangerous 

Ciao     

[Bryan Izatt]

Hutchinson was one of the best players of the day.  Even the best players had trouble breaking 80 on average length courses (this one being very short even for that day).  They were using gutta balls.  There doesn't appear to have been much if any fairway to give any roll.  So, maybe Horace is using a cleek (1 or 2 iron) off the tee so he doesn't drive it into the face of the Redan.  Or, maybe he was more confident of getting the ball up and over the fence with a cleek.  What makes no sense to me was that he felt the need for a brassy (2 wood) for the second.  Did neither the cleek or brassy go more than 130 yards on the fly?  Perhaps he made his comment based on playing it into a substantial headwind.

From the routing plan that area does seem to be congested with crossing holes.  Horace does say that the course gets blocked and gets tedious both because NB is a popular area and the course is so short - early pace of play issues; there is nothing new under the sun.

[Bill Brightly]

The question I have is why was the first shot a pitch over the wall?  It seems clear from the tournament reports that some players were banging away because 3 was not an uncommon score...and that would seem rather odd if loads of top players were earning 2s from essentially the current teeing area just over the mentioned wall.  Is this a case of bogey 4/par (such as it was) 3?  I would imagine that if there was a compelling reason to lay up off the tee, that there were more 5s than 4s scored. 

I also don't believe the "back" tee was in play very long.  Perhaps the light bulb went on when playing the second after a good lay-up?  In any case, there would certainly have been congestion issues laying up to the modern tee area...Painswickian dangerous 

Ciao     

Here is what the tee shot looks like today from behind the wall. Could the first set of bunkers be carried or skirted with the gutta ball?

[Tony_Muldoon]

The two articles may give us a clue.  The course was already thought to be full of single shot holes so having a two shotter with the tee close to the previous green would have been desirable.   Bill I doubt the bunkers could have been carried and then immediately over them there’s a deep depression, so reaching the green would have been improbable and thus there would be little reward for taking on the risk.

If anyone has a close up of the plan in the starter’s office you can see there were many more bunkers on the hole than today.  The closest analogy is TOC’s 12 where you have to place your fist shot very carefully. This backs up what the articles say about the lack of fair green at the time.  Also in what I would have deemed the desired landing area you were standing in the middle of the flight path on a short hole playing inland.  The elimination of this hole was part of the redesign that allowed the tee to come forward?

I can forward the picture if someone would like to post.

[Sean_A]

Thinking on it, the pro tourny held after the late 1890's redesign may have been the death knell of Redan as a two-shotter.   

What do folks think?  Would Redan be better today as a 260ish par 4?  Maybe, but congestion/safety rules out that possibility.

Ciao

[Tony_Muldoon]

Would Redan be better today as a 260ish par 4? 

Ciao

No