Lido - A Redux

[Josh Tarble]

Sven,

Do you know how long it was in original shape?  From the thread it sounds like less than 10 years.

Do you also have any more info on the other par 3s on site?  The original 8th Biarritz looks like a spectacular setting, though the description of both the Short and the Eden sound like they could have been very interesting.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

I wonder what architects would be on board with the idea of recreating a golf course and not be allowed to interpret working off aerial photographs of the course and photographs of a model? I don't think many. Kind of like saying, "Hey Cezanne, I have a picture of lost Cassett, could you recreate it for me if I gave you a lot of money?"

Anthony

[Sven Nilsen]

I wonder what architects would be on board with the idea of recreating a golf course and not be allowed to interpret working off aerial photographs of the course and photographs of a model? I don't think many. Kind of like saying, "Hey Cezanne, I have a picture of lost Cassett, could you recreate it for me if I gave you a lot of money?"

Anthony

Do you have an example that doesn't use contemporaries?

Knowing what you know about course construction, would you take the job?

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Sven:

I can't think of an example of anyone reproducing a golf course.

Hypothetically, I wouldn't take the job to build Lido. I don't see the point of building a golf course that is gone just as much as I don't see the point of building a golf course that recreates famous holes from courses most people will never play.

The Lido was the Lido. Anything else is just a copy of Lido and, hypothetically, if I was asked to do it, I wouldn't want to be in the copying business. Realistically, I'd take the job because I'm broke.

I can see recreating a green that, let's say, was destroyed by an asteroid, because that's just one piece of an 18-piece puzzle where 17 pieces are original, but I can't see attempting to recreate an entire course that's been gone for a half century on an entirely different site. Then again, I'm not a golf course developer trying to come up with devices to attract customers.

What I wonder is what if the Lido was going to be faithfully rebuilt by an architect who is considered one of the great unwashed by the GCA crowd in conjunction with a Las Vegas casino or a Thailand, would people here would still be all for it? Maybe the better question would be, what if one of the unwashed did, in fact, recreate the Lido in stunning fashion and it was in Thailand, how would people react?

Anthony

[Sven Nilsen]

If it played anything like NGLA, Piping Rock, Chicago, Fox Chapel or any other MacRaynor template course, I think it would be highly praised.  But I kind of doubt you could recreate the type of playing surface and conditions those courses demand in a tropical climate.

Part of me wonders how this idea got started by Mosaic, if indeed they are considering it.  I can understand why they'd want to build more golf courses down there.  Perhaps the land they have available (which I understand they have a lot of) doesn't offer much in the way of interesting features.  So if they're going to have to bulldoze it anyway, maybe it makes sense to go whole hog. 

Or maybe they're just blatantly ripping off the Bandon model.

Sven

[Bill Brightly]

Sven and David,

Just so I am clear: Raynor's Prize Dogleg is a hole that Raynor designed based upon entries received by Country Life magazine that Raynor liked. And Raynor built this hole at Lido and other courses. If correct, are the original "designers" of these contest enties unknown?

Mackenzie's hole, #18 at Lido, is one that came from Mackenzie's entry in a later contest that Macdonald encouraged?

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

According to The Evangelist of Golf "a Seth Raynor rendition combines two entries in the Country Life magazine design contest."

The architects were not named.

He also goes on to write, "It immediately became a feature hole on all future Seth Raynor designs."

All future Seth Raynor designs? I don't think that's true. Fishers and Yale don't have Prize Doglegs. I'm trying to recall which Raynor courses do or did other than Ocean Links.

[Sven Nilsen]

Bill:

Its an interesting question.  The Mackenzie hole (the 18th at Lido) was the prize winner from the Country Life Contest.

I had always thought that the first time Raynor's Prize Dogleg was used was in 1920 at Ocean Links (see the article below), and was chosen as the winner of the contest to design the 9th hole of that course.  The way Macdonald described the 6th at Lido, it sounds like it was intended to be the Road Hole.

Sven

New York Tribune - Sept. 19, 1920

[Sven Nilsen]

Here's the Ocean Links scorecard:

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

July 1921 Golf Illustrated article on Ocean Links.

"Raynor's Prize Dogleg
hole is what he considers his masterpiece and curiously enough he has
made it a par four and a bogey six. That in itself should attract attention
its way and Raynor feels that anyone who gets home in two over its four
hundred and sixty yards will have played two wonderful shots while the
bogey man will be fortunate to get there in three."

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

By the way, The Evangelist of Golf has the name of the fourth hole at Ocean Links wrong. It's, as the scorecard shows, Brenton Reef, not Ocean Reef. Brenton Point is where the course was located.

[Jim_Kennedy]

It was mentioned earlier that  Lido's 4th was essentially the same as holes at Valhalla and King's North:



"I don't think the original hole at Lido has been well replicated anywhere, at least that I've seen.  The key to that hole was that the fairway for the shorter route was a very small target and the rough around it was supposedly very penal, while the long way around was MUCH LONGER around than on any split fairway hole I've ever seen.  So, the decision off the tee was really difficult to make.  That is rarely the case with modern split-fairway holes." - Tom Doak

"The fourth hole is a long hole of the elbow type, which to the usual scratch player will be a three shot hole, 510 yards in length. Both the first and second shots will be over water. The green is built high on a plateau with a deep bunker protecting it some 60 yards from the middle of the green. However, unusually long drivers, who are accurate, may play in a pocket among sand dunes by carrying 180 yards off the tee direct at the flag into a valley of fair green some 100 yards in length by 30 yards in width. Having accomplished that, they have a brassie shot at the green, making a par 4 hole of it by playing it that way." - CBM

Neither Valhalla or King's North have an elevated green, nor do their 'safe' routes have 2 water carries for both routes (KN might, but only if the player doesn't hit his second down into the neck), and they have nothing but water fronting their greens from the 'island' fairways. The last reason is KN's and V's biggest 'fail', for me.
Lido's raised green adds to the player's uncertainty in choosing the proper club,  plus, Lido has a substantial section of fairway between the water and the green for the player who opted to play to the 'island'. That 'saving' fairway is the temptation-piece that might make a marginally long player decide to take the shortcut in the first place.

None of these are seen at Valhalla or King's North. So yes, there are general similarities in their design, but they aren't the same hole.    



    

[Bill Brightly]

Here's the Ocean Links scorecard:

Wow, I had never heard about T. Suffern Tailer's course. He is an interesting write-up which the author wrote based upong Anthony's book:
http://www.rigalinks.org/club/scripts/view/view_pubnews.asp?S=L&GRP=0&NS=&PID=6513&MFID=

[Bill Brightly]

Sven,

I think this Country Life competion requires more research. The paragraph below is taken fron Essex County CC (NJ)  website. (A course that Raynor laid out, but Banks built after Raynor's death.)

Are we to believe that Raynor came in second, Mackenzie came in first, and CBM used both holes on Lido? Or are people mixing upi the story?

      Among the more publicized holes on the new West Course were the "Bottle" hole (old No. 3/present No. 10), with its alternate fairways, the higher one to the left more difficult to reach but offering a better view of the green on the approach; and "Raynor's Prize Dogleg" (No. 8/No. 15), which in its original configuration at 435 yards, featured cross bunkering in the drive zone (a difficult 200-yard carry in those days), then again on the second shot, the latter forcing the golfer to make a critical decision if he wished to play the hole in regulation style.  Bobby Jones once said this hole was one of the best par 4s he had ever played--and he said to have played it once in fourteen strokes!  The hole was so named because its concept had won Raynor second prize in a design contest sponsored by Charles Blair Macdonald and Country Life Magazine (in England) more than a decade earlier in conjunction with the design of the fabulous Lido Course on Long Island, and first appeared as the sixth hole at Lido.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Sven,

I believe that your opening post and accompanying documentation provides all the proof necessary to support the premise that Streamsong could build a replica of Lido without having to embark on a Herculian effort.

I'll read the other six pages over the next few days.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Bill:

Ocean Links is a wonderful story. If you don't have a copy of To the Nines I will send you one. An unanswered offshoot of Raynor's work there is that he also was hired by Newport as proven by the receipt which I have a copy of in my book, but it has yet to be discovered what he tid there for $500.

Anthony

[Jim_Kennedy]

Bill:

Ocean Links is a wonderful story. If you don't have a copy of To the Nines I will send you one. An unanswered offshoot of Raynor's work there is that he also was hired by Newport as proven by the receipt which I have a copy of in my book, but it has yet to be discovered what he tid there for $500.

Anthony

When do we see  "To The Nines - Part Deux" ? 

[Sven Nilsen]

Here's the June 20, 1914 article announcing the contest.

[Sven Nilsen]

Here's the article showing the runner-ups.

[Sven Nilsen]

Bill:

If you read the second article I posted, it gives the names of the three winners, Mackenzie, Edmonson and MacIver (unfortunately, the only article I don't have is the one announcing the winning designs).  Raynor is not listed.

As I noted above, Raynor's Prize Dogleg won its "prize" for an entirely different contest, that being the design for the 9th hole at Ocean Links.  Bahto had this one wrong as well, as do the good folks at Essex County.

Go back and read the description of the 6th hole in the first article posted in this thread.  If the hole had been designed by Raynor as part of the same contest that produced Mackenzie's design used as the inspiration for the 18th, CBM would have noted it.

Sven

[Bret Lawrence]

Sven,

I agree that the description CBM gives for the 6th hole sounds like a Road Hole.

When I looked under the Yeamans Hall course tour, the 15th hole is identified as a Raynors Prize Dogleg.

In Seth Raynor's March 1925 letter to Yeamans Hall, he writes:
"No. 15 is like the 6th at the Lido, this hole being a copy of one of the holes taking first awards at the time Mr. Macdonald offered prizes for the best designed two shot holes."

Maybe this is what causes some of the confusion?  

Did Seth Raynor refer to the wrong hole number in his 1925 letter?
or, Did Raynor and Macdonald alter the 6th hole after the 1915 article was written?

The CBM article also notes that the 15th hole was a copy of one of the prize holes.  I believe George mentioned in an earlier thread that the 15th hole at the Lido was inspired by the Tom Simpson design.  There is a picture of the first prize design and second prize design in Scotland's Gift-Golf

Bret

[Sven Nilsen]

It should be noted that there are some similarities between one of the runner-up entries in the article above (the Walsham entry) and the 6th Hole at Lido.  It is possible that Macdonald and/or Raynor designed the 6th using that entry as their inspiration.  The holes aren't exactly the same, and the green complexes appear to be very different (note the criticism in the article about the blind approach).

Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

Sven,

I agree that the description CBM gives for the 6th hole sounds like a Road Hole.

When I looked under the Yeamans Hall course tour, the 15th hole is identified as a Raynors Prize Dogleg.

In Seth Raynor's March 1925 letter to Yeamans Hall, he writes:
"No. 15 is like the 6th at the Lido, this hole being a copy of one of the holes taking first awards at the time Mr. Macdonald offered prizes for the best designed two shot holes."

Maybe this is what causes some of the confusion? 

Did Seth Raynor refer to the wrong hole number in his 1925 letter?
or, Did Raynor and Macdonald alter the 6th hole after the 1915 article was written?

The CBM article also notes that the 15th hole was a copy of one of the prize holes.  I believe George mentioned in an earlier thread that the 15th hole was inspired by the Tom Simpson design.  There is a picture of the first prize design and second prize design in Scotland's Gift-Golf

Bret

Bret:

I'd like to know what the 9th at Ocean Links looked like.  It might help to answer some questions.

I've been searching my files for an article I read a while back that confirms the New York Tribune story noted above.  If I can find it, I'll post it here.

Sven

[Bret Lawrence]

Sven,

I remember seeing another article discussing the Prize Dogleg at Ocean Links too.  I think it was on the SEGL site somewhere.  Anthony mentioned in his book To the Nines, that he saw an aerial from 1929 including Ocean Links.  Anthony, did you happen to take a picture of the aerial or have access to it?

Bret

[Adam Warren]

From the sounds of the land moving and what not they would apparently seem to want Fazio for a replica of Lido...