The new Cypress Point

[Joel_Stewart]

I played Cypress Point a few days ago and took a few pictures which hopefully Tommy will post.  

The first photo which is on the other thread about Cypress is the sixth hole and the rebuilt bunkers.  Maybe I have been reading this web site to much but I thought the condition of the bunkers is too good if that is possible.  The problem is,

1. The sand is ultra white
2. The sands consistancy is different then the sand dunes and different than what has been previously used.
3. The reconstruction of the bunkers using some type of fiberglass base keeps the sand very cleanly in the bunker.
4. The pristine sod around the bunkers does not blend in well with the fescue or sand dunes.

My problem is that I have always thought Cypress Point trys to benchmark its conditioning to Augusta National.  (The same could be said about Pebble, NGLA and possibly Shinnecock). As a result, you have this pristine links course that is losing its identity.

Lastly I'll mention that the condition of the greens, especially on the front nine is getting worse and worse due to the fungus called nemitode (I believe this is the correct spelling).  I have to believe the club is one or two years away from a full restoration like SFGC.

For those who want to know, there are no plans to restore the bunkers on the fairways of #17 and #18 which is a shame especially if you see the old photos which are in Geoffs book.

[Michael Dugger]

This is slightly off topic but is Cypress ok with posting pictures of their course?  Don't get me wrong, I'm DYING to see what you shot-up the other day, but it's got me wondering what is the Modus Operandi in regards to this type of thing.  Copyright?  Privacy issue?  

Anyone?  Anywhere?

[Kevin_Reilly]

Here is the pic of #6 that Tommy posted in the other thread.

[Patrick_Mucci]

MDugger,

Do you see the conflict in your willingness to display pictures posted to be representative of the Sandpines site, and your aversion to posting pictures of Cypress Point ?

Would you conceed that perhaps a double standard exists ?

[Mike_Cirba]

Joel Stewart;

I had the privilege of playing CP earlier this year and had the exact same impressions of the bunker work.  I mean, it's tough to visit paradise and sound like I'm griping, but I thought the bunkering was cut much too formally, and the sand is white as a ghost.  It doesn't blend at all into the surrounds, and Lord...if one compares the many photos I took there to the original bunkers in Geoff Shack's book...well, it's hard not to miss the old naturally integrated ones.  

It's one of the very few reasons why I left there feeling that it is not the best course in the world, although it very likely should and could be.

[GeoffreyC]

Joel

I agree with both you and Mike. After looking at Geoff's book on Cypress Point how could one but feel that it once was the most natural and beautiful golf course on earth.  Its certainly still among the very best and still perhaps teh most beautiful but there is the sense that in places it looks like a golf course was placed down upon and between those dunes rather then being integrated seamlessly within the landscape.

It would be nice to see that wild look again but perhaps that is too much to maintain year after year.

ps- I wonder what your photos would look like in black and white instead of color?

[Scott_Burroughs]

Patrick,

There certainly is no privacy issue at Sandpines, a public course with a public web site with pictures of every hole on the site.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

I hope they aren't building a water slide park at Cypress Point....If so, I think I might finally do Rees Jones a favor and quit the Game forever. Why do I want to stick a fork in my eye when looking at this stuff?

[ForkaB]

Tommy

Many thanks for the pictures and for your integrity.  Ugly as it is, doesn't picture #1 just show how "natural" bunkers built/rebuilt under today's standards look before they have applied their makeup?  I'm sure they will look much better when they have put on their "face."

As for the way it looks now, I'd say skateboard track rather than water slide.....

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Rich, I'll go with your skateboard track. Yes, it does very much. Personally, the bunkers look totally artificial for Cypress Point, which was designed much like Joel has suggested--that sort of....(hurrumph!) "maintanence meld" of natural sand dune morphing into sand hazard with all sorts of wonderful beach grasses growing about it and making it look further "Au Natural."

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Rich, to further, I think what they are trying to accomplish here is a bunker that will never erode, or at least a bunker that won't erode as much. When, in all practicality they are supposed to erode and get even further natural looking.

There are many that will disagree with this analogy because to many like are things neat, organized and properly groomed, or as my Dad would say to me--"The Cadet Look." Something his son was never able to grasp!)

These bunkers don't have the full shaping I would have liked to have seen. The edges are just too uniformed and maintained to clean. The sand color is ridiculous.

[ForkaB]

Tommy

Maybe they'll eventually mixed the sand by the green with the sand in the fairway bunkers to get a "natural" color?

PS--have they done anything about restoring that extraordinarily cool turbo-boost slot high up on the hill to the right of the fairway which was tragically neglected and obscured by trees last time I was there?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Rich, I haven't seen Cypress in about six years, Joel took these shots from the other day. Hoepfully soon though!

[Pat Sisk]

For the record.  A nemitode is an insect not a fungus.

[GeoffreyC]

Here is another showing 13 green and 14 from #9 tee.  Of course our two GCA friends are discussing the strategy of the upcoming tee shot but note the driver in their hands   . No wusses laying up here (or 16!)  

[Peter Galea]

Man! You guys could wake up in Heaven and be pissed off.
Bummer.

[THuckaby2]

That was my reaction also, Pete!

And yes, look at those two macho studs on #9 tee... my god, it's amazing each were allowed by their many female admirers to even get the round in... Fact is, shortly after this picture was taken, said hordes of admirers broke out of the gate behind 8 green and attacked these two studs, leaving them nothing but their drivers and some very satisfied smiles..  It is amazing that thanks to quick-thinking, clothes-carrying caddies, they even made it to 16 tee, let alone hit such manly shots over that chasm as well.

 

Seriously, re the bunkers, can we not give them time to be finished and developed?  Jeez, those on 8 looked like crap also right as they were being re-done... now app. two years later they look pretty damn great.  I have a feeling that's going to be the case for all of these also....

TH

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom;

Those adoring female attacks...you sound surprised it happened to us at Cypress Point?  

That doesn't happen to you everywhere you go??  

[THuckaby2]

Mike, my only surprise was the lax security at CPC.  One would think at such a shrine we would have finally been allowed some peace.

 

TH

[GeoffreyC]

I for one am hardly complaining.  Finally playing CP was like a fantasy come true. To my kind host, I am eternally grateful.

Living in the bay area for five years and playing PB many times I would often sit on the fence by the 18th tee at CP and watch up #17 literally for hours. The course lives up to its hype for sure.

However, if you look at the photos in Geoff's book on CP, the place has changed somewhat. That's not a criticism; its a fact.  Same for Bethpage, PB, Shinnecock and many others.

PS- I've seen Cirba get FedEx packages with lingerie while we were traveling to see golf courses.  They appeared to be way too small to fit him so I supposed he was being tempted to think about coming home.    

[Bob_Huntley]

I first played CPC in 1963. I had just come over from Africa. The bunkers, unlike the reddish brown sand I had played there, were the whitest I had ever seen. I think one would have had to have gone back a long time to have the dunes and bunker sand seem identical.

I am going out there in a couple hours and will make a note to pay particular attention to the comments made here.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

 I enjoyed talking to the construction guys about the bunker construction and their goals. I spent an hour one afternoon last week with them as they shaped and poured the granite fiberglass compound used in the foundation of the bunker. One might find it interesting that Geoff's book was in the shapers cab with other old photos as he was working on 10 and 6. With all the technology and cad programs at work here, at the end of the day the photos were used to confirm the look and shape. I do find the new bunkers to be more playable. Now, I can hit a driver at 9 and feel that the bunker shot is almost as easy as the play from further back. ie some of the risk reward is gone. I went back to my traditional way of balancing shot values after 3 rounds for the purely personal reasons that we talk about on here from time to time. I have often wondered if the dune sand was originally used there and with its tecture how difficult it must have been to play from them. The new bunkers at 13 make those shots much easier than before too. The old sand was tough enough but, I can on the of how tight you would be into a strong wind with the risk of dune sand if you missed that green.

[GeoffreyC]

I am going out there in a couple hours and will make a note to pay particular attention to the comments made here.

Bob- now that puts it all in perspective. You are there and I'm sitting at my desk writing grants    

[THuckaby2]

That's a damn good thought, JB - and I hadn't thought of it that way at all... darn right there's very little fear of the bunker short left of #9, not for decent players anyway... oh, that's not the world's easiest shot, but it's not like immediate bogey if you go in there...

Make the sand like the dunes, and then maybe it would be... then the strategic choices become more difficult....

As it is, #9 presents very interesting problems anyway - there are so many clubs that can be hit off the tee - but for a straight driver of the golf ball, well... driver does seem to be a reasonable play nearly every time, with the thought being just don't go right.

Make the left bunker more difficult and all this changes...

Man I wish there was an icon for a light bulb.  Perhaps I am a dim bulb but I have never thought of it this way.

No here's the question though:  Mr. Huntley's been playing that course longer than anyone we know, that's for sure, and he says the bunkers have never been like the dunes in his experience... How could they make them so now?  Would they really want to?

TH

[Brad Swanson]

Hints of suggested consipracy and Photoshop retouching   ...  So, the group is moving on from being critical of one of the most sacred courses in existance due to the hue/brightness of the sand to suggesting doctoring photos of said courses...    

I'm with Pete G. and Tom H.

Cheers,
Brad Swanson