Old Courses with new holes - better or worse?

[David Kelly]

And yet, #1 on Walton Heath Old lives.

[Sean_A]

Never been to Liphook but I thought the reason that they had a partial redesign was because part of the course was taken to build a road but could be wrong.

Niall

There was a very dangerous road crossing which included a long green to tee walk. There was a plan to build a tunnel under the road, hence the rebuild. However, with the new design the road crossing is much safer and more direct so a tunnel hasn't been built. I can't say any of the new holes are really good, but the flow of the design is better. Add that to the better road crossing and I think the rebuild is successful. I do, however, think the newer stuff could have been better. It's safe design.

Ciao

That old road crossing between 14 and 15 at Liphook was frightening. Cars coming blind from around a curve behind a bridge on the right at 60 mph. Worplesdon has some pretty gnarly road crossings too, but I thought this one was far worse. I heard that a woman getting killed prompted the change.

The loss of the 14th green is unfortunate because it was one of the best in southeast England. But I can't fault the club for making changes to eliminate that road crossing, even if the new holes aren't as good. And they killed the old 10th hole, which was by far the weakest on the course.

I miss the 11th. The green was tough, but just about worked as a short hole. I am not convinced the combined and reworked old 10 & 11 works very well. It's a very severe green for the approach.

Ciao

https://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/content/tom-mackenzie-begins-second-phase-of-liphook-rerouting - has a diagram of the proposed changes


New 11th - old 12th has a new green further on like 50 yards extra

Thats right, as I wrote. The 10th is a combo of the old 10th and 11th using the old 11th green...the hole I miss, a par 3. The 11th is the old 12th with a new green making it a par 5. Not keen on this change at all. The hole wasn't great to begin with and they made it longer.

Ciao

[Matt Wharton]

Pine Lakes in Myrtle Beach was designed by Robert White in 1927. At some point in the past 10-15 years (I think) they eliminated a couple of holes (I believe to either build a new road or expand an existing one) and built two new ones as replacements. The new holes aren't bad, but they're out of character with the rest of the course. It's easy to tell they were built separately and they really mess up the overall flow. It feels like you wandered off onto a separate golf course.

I agree with the "out of character" problem.  At my club that is solved by the new holes being one and two, so you get then out of the way first and then on to old ones, 16 in a row.

In the case of Carl's club, Carolina Golf Club, Kris Spence did a wonderful job using newly acquired adjacent property to route a constantly bending par 5 followed by a shortish par 4 over the corner of the new irrigation reservoir solving both the club's irrigation supply issues and creating space for a much needed practice range on the back-to-back par 4s that used to be holes 1 and 2.


In the case of my current facility, Idle Hour CC, holes 7 and 8 were added nearly 60 years ago on previously adjacent property. It is my understanding expansions to the clubhouse and its amenities at that time claimed portions of the original 1st and 9th holes creating the need for two holes elsewhere. The par 5 8th may very well be one of the best non-original Donald Ross holes I've ever seen. If you didn't know the hole was not an original Ross hole you would never guess. Kudos to whoever routed the hole originally and to Ron Prichard for the current iteration.

[Peter Sayegh]

Do radically new green sites constitute a "new hole?" 1923-26 old enough?

If so, the improvement of 16 at Manasquan River would be tough to beat. Don't know if the 70s-90s version was part of the original design but at that time it was a truly forgettable hole.