What are the greatest impediments to restoration ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

What prevents more restorations from being undertaken ?

What features are the hardest to return to their original/prefered form ?

[James Edwards]

Trees must be the hardest Patrick.  They can never be what they once were obviously.  Pictures of PV and Oakmont spring to mind in the States and Mr Turner posted some pics on Wentworth East course, England, with hardly any trees on it sometime ago. Amazing if you go to these places now.

What prevents more restorations?  Good question, I'd say the disruption to the course for the membership.  The obvious difference here is that we take more time to complete a restoration than you, mainly due to money.. but maybe the captain of the club is finishing their year in control and doesn't want to start anything new.

[Joel_Stewart]

It has to be that the majority of the members don't understand why a restoration should take place?  I have to believe that at most clubs, 95% of the members don't care about architecture and if Tom Fazio was called in to bulldoze the course to put in a Hawaii type resort course those members would think it was OK.

[Jim_Michaels]

Money. Ignorance. Complacency.

[Art_Schaupeter]

At most clubs you need to get a majority of the members to approve any actual work.  That is a tall order most of the time, especially if you plan on doing anything substantial.

Trees and bunkers are usually very sensitive issues with members.  These might be the toughest features to recapture just from the club politics standpoint.  I think that most restorations would involve potentially substantial tree removal programs, which is very difficult to sell to the members.  To get a majority to approve the plan requires selling a lot of members that do not have the sophisticated knowledge of design theory and history that this group has.  There is usually a well intentioned, well educated minority pushing a program forward.  Getting the majority to sign off is tough because of the impacts and sacrifices (part or all of the course impacted for one year or more, additional dues or assessments, etc.).  The relative age of the membership can be an issue many times.  Clubs with older average ages tend to be more resistant to substantial projects.

An additional impact is probably just the lack of records, photos, plans, etc.  I am amazed at how many clubhouse fires and maintenance shop fires are in the past of the clubs I have dealt with.  They seem to lose a lot of records this way.

Those are some of the practical reasons that restoration (or renovation) work is difficult as I see it.  

Beyond the practical, how many courses are worthy of a restoration versus a renovation?  What qualifies as restoration versus renovation?  By restoration, I assume you are saying that the golf course was very good or excellent in its original form, and is worthy of being recaptured completely.  I would think that most courses would benefit from some degree of renovation as well as restoration.  There are only a select number of courses that I would think are architecturally so good, or of specific historical merit to warrant only restoration.  Most courses probably could use some renovation as well.  (This is probably an issue for another thread  )

Art

[Art_Schaupeter]

Jeez Jim,

It took me fifteen minutes to write basically the same thing you said with three words!

I wish I had seen your post before I began typing.

[larry_munger]

Hardest features to restore must be large mounds that might once have framed a green, while at the same time have been part of such green.

[Tom_Doak]

Marketing.

Even at the clubs where we have done fairly complete restorations, there is a general aversion to anything which would make the course "easier" in the eyes of good players.

At Yeamans Hall there was enormous concern that by restoring the greens to their original size, we would make the course easier, because it would be easier to hit greens in regulation.  (They did not imagine the finished contours in all their glory.)

If a club has added bunkers in the "drive zone" they are reluctant to remove them.  If they've added back tees, they're certainly not going to remove them ... I cannot think of a single example of a club sacrificing length on even a single hole in the name of restoration.  (I'm sure there are a couple somewhere.)

To many Americans there is a general fear of "going backwards," since we are constantly being sold on the progress of new and improved products.

[Jeff Fortson]

Golf & Greens Committees


Difficult to return a course that started treeless, that is now a forest lined jail house, back to its original design.


Jeff F.

[GeoffreyC]

A Yale education!

[Jeff Goldman]

I think the most difficult thing to restore on a golf course is a green that has been modified by man.  Once it's gone, I don't see how you can recapture the original contours.  I understand the politics involved with trees, bunkers etc., or even greens that need to be "recaptured", but an original green whose countours are changed can probably never be brought back, and causes more damage than anything else.

Jeff Goldman

[shank]

Ignorance,

In the south-east the majority of today's players didn't grow up with the game, they began playing at the coporate level and therefore wouldn't know a great old school design from a par three pitch and putt.  
Then with their coporate background somehow end up on the golf committee and then as president and think adding a cross bunker and a back tee makes everyone happy.
Few seem to realize that the ball is round and replacing the 40% green loss incoporated with the contours and bunkers that are now 50 feet from the putting surface would bring the same teeth back into the course.

But I'm just ranting, sorry!
Brian

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak,

Are lengthening and restoration in conflict with one another ?

Or can restoration, along with lengthening of the golf course be in harmony with one another through the medium of elasticity ?

[Brad Klein]

The two biggest impediments to restoration are:
-not having enough money;
-having too much money.

As most of the postings suggest, the major issues are political, attitudinal, an the planning process. To Geoffrey Childs' comment about a Yale education, I would add that the nature of modern training (landscape architecture in the classroom) for most golf course designers leads them to overlook much of the genius and inventiveness of the classical designers. Along the way, they are used to using big bulldozers, not little machinery, handwork and imagination. They tend to be "Fountainhead" types, wanting to build, move, blast and create anew.

Mucci asks above whether lengthening is consistent wth or antithetical to restoration. Pat, the answer depends on how it's done. Adding tees can often have a restorative effect, if you keep the more forward tees for higher handicappers and just use the new back tees to bring the older features into play more in the driving area where they were supposed to be in the first place.

However, the mortal sin with lengthening is building new greens for the yardage, in which case you usually distort the features and what you build doesn't look like what you had.

There are rare times when it makes sense in the name of restoration to rebuild a green to make better use of a site or to solve a routing problem - or simply because you are sure you can create something that has retro look with the new green complex. In such cases, be crafeul, because the success of the whole proiject will depend on how this element turns out. But generally, such an approach ought to be avoided.

The major impediment structurally in restoration is not the feature itself - any mound or bunker can be rebuilt. The real issue that no one has mentioned is the topography. A well-scuplted little bunker on a rise 145 yards off the tee cannot be moved onto a low area behind it that's 195 away, since this won't function the same way and can't be seen - and probably can't even drain. So it's topography that's the limiting factor, not the feature itself.

[Mark_Fine]

Some of these have been mentioned but here is a list anyway.

Impediments to restoration:
- Fear that the course will be made easier
- Concern that restoration is going "backwards"
- Lack of vision to see or understand what was there designwise in the first place
- Money or lack there of
- Love of trees
- Belief that trees improve safety and improve golf holes by separation
- Concern about "fairness"
- Unable to decide what to restore
- Architects suggesting "the course should be modernized not restored"
- Fear of change (despite the fact that their course has probably changed dramatically over the years)

Hardest features to restore:
- Fairway contours that have been lost due to changes
- Greensites that have been moved over time
- Interupted fairways (due to the distance of the modern golf ball) and concern about fairness
- Width
- Tees close to greens due to safety concerns
- Firm and fast conditions due to the need for green

Mark

[BCrosby]

Tom Doak -

Resistance at Athens CC to a restoration was precisely the opposite of the resistance you got at Yeamans. Everyone is concerned - even many of the good players - that restoring the Ross features will make the course too hard.

Bob

[Kenny Lee Puckett]

All of the above.

Well put by everyone!

KLP

[Mark_Fine]

Bob,
Too hard or "unfair"?  
Mark

[BCrosby]

Mark -

Too hard. About 60 Ross bunkers were removed. A number of green complexes would need to be re-angled and recontoured. But no one seemed to think a restoration would be unfair. The fear was that the course would become too hard and, thus, less fun.

The membership likes the mediocre course they have today. "So why spend a lot of money to make yourself miserable?" was a typical response to our restoration presentations.

Other than saying something insulting, I had no good response to that question.

Bob  

[Dunlop_White]

Topography:  Classical architects used the land as an opportunity to determine the location and position of bunkers. For instance, carry bunkers and cross-bunkers were used by Donald Ross to expose the movement of the terrain. These bunkers made natural features literally pop out of the land. Although these bunkers were often well short of play, they added balance and flow to the hole as golfers utilized their visual impact to orient and shape suggested shots in conjunction with these landforms. Moving these bunkers forward will in effect take them away from their natural landform, and as Brad Klein mentioned, their effect could be compromised.

In restoration, it is not necessarily as important to position bunkers a like/kind distance from the tee as it is to position them in conjuction with prevailing landforms. Both would be ideal, if possible. Solution: simply extend the tees backwards to create the like/kind yardages, while keeping and/or reclaiming the bunker in conjuction with the original landform.

[Mark_Fine]

Dunlop,
I completely agree about moving back tees but unfortunately many old courses are land locked.  There is no room to go back.  This is where real problems occur when you are trying to restore the original design intent without making golfers play with 1930's equipment.  
Mark

[Dunlop_White]

Mark,  Certainly!  Courses, which have little room to extend their teeing grounds, alternatively may determine whether advancing their bunkers further down the fairway would reclaim or revive the strategic value of the hole? Often this interpretation is simple, especially on a tame piece of property. Other times, however, because classical architects recognized that bunkers belonged  up against natural humps and swales in the topography, separating them away from their intended/original landform can do more harm than good.

[mike_malone]

 I am very concerned that uninformed restorers move fairway bunkers without understanding "original intent".Flynn has written about what Dunlop stated that the terrain should be used for the placement of bunkers.Today,we may just move them into the "hitting" area when they may  have had a much different intent at first.Unfortunately,we  usually only have the design and the finished product,not a written rationale for the placement.
    As for impediments to restoration,i think education can solve most of them.

[W.H. Cosgrove]

If we can all agree with the theory that "Less is more" then we probably have a basis onwhich to begin a restoration.

Brad Klein cites Ayn Rand in "the Fountainhead." Roark creates a world where newer is bigger and better.  This is the natural direction in this country.  We often rush ahead for the brighter and bigger when the answers really lie in the past.  I would much rather cite "Atlas Shrugged" here the infrastructure collapses under the addition of the new.  The lesson here is that a strong foundation is required for a strong future.  

With all of that esoterica behind us, why do committees and members rush to make the same mistakes.  Arrogance, power and money lead to the same mistakes on a regular basis.  It requires a vocal group to scream the lessons of the past.  This vocal group (GCA perhaps) must continue to preachand provide a check and balance to the others.  

What is the impediment to restoration.......the natural conflict between the two contingents.  How do we get past this?  Communicaton, Marketing and Planning.  And these processes never stop.

[Jim_Coleman]

    Do you really not get it, or do you just pretend not to get it.  "Original intent" (a grotesquely overused mantra) can't ignore the changes that have occurred in the game over the years. any more than "original intent" of the founding fathers can't ignore the changes in society when "construing" (read "restoring") the Constitution.  You're more absurd and closed minded than Bork, Ashcroft or Scalia.  And please don't tell me you consider that to be a compliment.