What’s happening at Swinley Forest?

[Lukas Michel]

Quite shocked to see these photos on twitter today of the remodeled 17th at Swinley Forest.


I haven’t seen any historical photos of the hole but to my eye the changes look horrible.

[Tim Gallant]

Lukas,


You beat me to the punch (again ).


I am genuinely gutted about this. The hole was one of my favourite 3s in the Surrey area, and now it looks destroyed. I loved how the sharp rises on both sides of the green made it feel do or die. Now, they've butchered the bunkers and levelled the slopes in the name of fairness. This might be the first course that is currently in my top 10 that I don't know if I want to go back to for fear of disappointment. Also see the man-made path they put in front of the 13th green.

[Lynn_Shackelford]

As this is one of my favorite places and in the world, please can someone explain this?  It astounds me that anyone living today think they can improve upon Mr. Colt's work, or more importantly why would anyone want to change Harry's "least bad course."

[Marty Bonnar]

What on Earth is going on?
F.

[James Reader]

Quote on Twitter from the Head Greenkeeper:
“17th hole green surround been made fairer, safer and more maintenance friendly, bunkers been made smaller and re positioned”
Nothing in that suggests “improved” to me.  Agree it was a great hole as it was.  I’d be interested to know how much, if at all, it had already changed from Colt’s original design.

[Mark Pearce]

Quote on Twitter from the Head Greenkeeper:
“17th hole green surround been made fairer, safer and more maintenance friendly, bunkers been made smaller and re positioned”
Nothing in that suggests “improved” to me.  Agree it was a great hole as it was.  I’d be interested to know how much, if at all, it had already changed from Colt’s original design.

I think it is almost inevitable that any change to any hole intended to make it "fairer" will not improve the hole.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Any architect involved or all in-house?

[Andrew Hastie]

Frank Pont was consulting there. I don't know if that's still the case.

[Adam Lawrence]

Frank Pont was consulting there. I don't know if that's still the case.

I can't see Frank signing off on this. Will check.

[John Mayhugh]

I guess the steep drop off shown here had something to do with the maintenance and safety rationale, but presumably the course had managed ok with the prior version. Seems like an unnecessary dumbing down (based on the limited info).
sf 17 g from 18 t by john mayhugh, on Flickr

[Jay Mickle]

Any architect involved or all in-house?

From the greens keeper's twitter feed, it surely seem that he is most pleased with the results. Perhaps the executioner as well.

[Bob Jenkins]

I totally agree with the sentiments expressed here. Swinley is a special place and my round there in 2009 with John Mayhugh will never be forgotten. The only negative is how John birdied 17 and 18 to beat me in our match. Accordingly, 17 couldn't have been so unfair!

[Frank Pont]

Frank Pont was consulting there. I don't know if that's still the case.

I can't see Frank signing off on this. Will check.

I am not involved with any of the works on hole 17 of Swinley.

Worked between 2011 and 2015 with the club.
Was hired by the then secretary Steward Zuill, and worked a lot with then assistant course manager John Band (now the CM).
First thing we did was expand the greens back to their original sizes.
Also helped them with restoring bunkering on holes 4,5,9 and 12 and built the new back-tee on hole 5.
Encouraged them to cut rhodo's especially at holes 9, 12 and 13. (they have cut much more rhodo's since, often with spectacular results)

Also developed a course plan for them based on historical aerial pictures, which they seemed to have used as guidance on a number of holes. Examples are:
Removal of bunker behind the green of holes 2.
Removal of the green bunkers of hole 3 which had not been there originally.
Rebuild of the green bunkers on hole 5.
Rebuild of the 3 bunkers on hole 13.

However they did not use my plan for changes they have made on holes 17 and 18.

My direct involvement with the club stopped at the end of 2015 when the club told me they were comfortable doing the work in house with a shaper without my assistance.

[John Mayhugh]

Frank,
Thanks for the explanation. Their in house approach seems ill advised.

Does anyone know the story with the cart paths? That looks like asphalt. Surely not. I much prefer the lighter colored gravel and grit type they had before. Much less visual impact.

https://twitter.com/GJRobertsTurf/status/1083800540344143877

[Brett Hochstein]

Is that entire ditch/falloff on the right filled in now?  Gotta say this doesn't look very good based on the evidence.  By my vision from the photos, it looks like they they took something that is sharp, original, dramatic, and classically period and made it soft, typical, undramatic, and modern.  When you have something really special, why ever dumb it down?  Luckily at least there should be plenty of photo evidence out there to put it back someday, should that ever be chosen.

Does anyone know the story with the cart paths? That looks like asphalt. Surely not. I much prefer the lighter colored gravel and grit type they had before. Much less visual impact.

https://twitter.com/GJRobertsTurf/status/1083800540344143877

I've recently heard some arguments for blacktop/asphalt to be used because it is "more natural" in that it doesn't stand out as starkly among green grass or in shadows.  I sort of get that if you look at everything as an abstract color spectrum with no context whatsoever.  Human nature though makes us immediately associate the things we see with the way we understand them, and when I see asphalt I think of a paved road made with foreign materials.  So, I'm having a hard time buying the argument.
 
Asphalt is clearly a manmade substance, and we quickly understand it to be so when we see it.  Maybe that asphalt path hides slightly if glancing through the landscape quickly, but you are eventually going to notice it and recognize it for the foreign substance that it is.  I would rather try and mimic local soil conditions or match the paths more closely to the tone of the sand bunkers.  That way, they look like they are scraped or beaten from the earth. 


You could make the argument that concrete is a substance as foreign as asphalt, and I would agree and try and stay away from it as much as possible.  But if you absolutely need a hard path, concrete is a better choice than blacktop as it much more closely resembles earth and sand tones.  That is unless you are working in a volcanic area where the soil is black, in which case, asphalt away 

[Tal Oz]

Here are a couple of photos of 13 and 17 I took when I played there last summer. Definitely asphalt on 13 which I agree doesn't look natural, but honestly didn't bother me one bit. The photo comparison and the clearing of the gorse near 14 tee which opens up that beautiful vista looks amazing.
Meanwhile 17, I'm struggling to understand the change. It's such a lovely shot and that false front is much larger than any of these photos suggest.

https://imgur.com/a/hWEgxXQ

[Tim Gallant]

I do hate to be a negative nelly, but seeing more photos come out of Swinley, I am still so saddened by these changes to the 17th:


https://twitter.com/Top100GolfNomad/status/1150171723087659013


In my mind, they have made it fairer, sure, but it looks much more bland and homogenous now. I could see that hole being at Wentworth, and that is not a flattering comparison. The bunkering doesn't even look good in my mind.


I have seen a few areas around the 8th hole as well, which looks like they softened the drop-off to the right.

I used to think Swinley had the best collection of par-3s in the UK, but sadly, I no longer think that's the case.

[David Kelly]

I used to think Swinley had the best collection of par-3s in the UK, but sadly, I no longer think that's the case.

Looking at the new pics of 17 all I can think of is,