The Biarritz

[Mark_Fine]

So just for the record, where does the front of the green end and the fairway cut start on an original Biarritz?  Does the green surface roll into the swale at all or stay above it?  And if you have bluegrass in your approach and fairways what do you do as the difference in cut will likely be dramatic. 

[Donnie Beck]

So just for the record, where does the front of the green end and the fairway cut start on an original Biarritz?  Does the green surface roll into the swale at all or stay above it?  And if you have bluegrass in your approach and fairways what do you do as the difference in cut will likely be dramatic.

The green proper is to be maintained with a false front to the base of the chasm.

[Donnie Beck]

Thanks Bret. Very helpful. I naively assumed for some reason that most of the swales were maintained at green height.  Obviously Yale’s is and I am pretty sure Fisher’s is.  Maybe that Fried Egg podcast states which ones are vs are not.  I have not had time to look.

Mark,


Happy to help.  I am including the description of the 9th hole at Yale from the Yale Alumni Weekly, published on August 28, 1925. As you can see from the description, the swale or trench is part of the approach.  I don't really want to get into a debate about what the hole looked like on opening day, but the description paints a clear picture of the original intent or design of the hole.


I am also including two pictures of Fishers Island-November 2022.  The second picture was taken from the rear portion of the Biarritz and you can (sort of) see the mow lines and differentiation between the approach and swale vs. the green.





Bret

If you look at the severity of the slope on the approach you will see it was never designed to be pinned in the front even at 1920's green speeds.

[Donnie Beck]

Let's take this one step further.The Biarritz was designed to be a long one shotter.Let's look at yardages.At Fishers the green/approach complex is 76yds long. It is 150 yds to the front of the approach and 226 yds to the back of the green.Both the approach and green have false fronts.The approach has distinct kicker hills on both the left and right side angled to funnel well struck shots toward the middle of the green and marginal shots into the bunkers. The green has a large center spine about 2/3 the length of the green from the back.Modern equipment has taken away a lot of the brilliance of this hole, but the facts remain it was designed for a long running approach shot to reach the the green proper behind the chasm and not designed for a short to mid iron to the approach in front.
Please stop butchering this classic design by maintaining the approach as green and pinning the approach!

[Charlie Goerges]

I did a stylized version of a Biarritz that I figured I'd post here. This isn't accurate to any real-world hole, just something meant to express the concept. Feel free to give your opinion positive or negative. (You'll probably have to scroll or else click to view it slightly larger.)


Basic RGB by goerges_family, on Flickr

[Rob Marshall]

I've played two this winter Florida and both had all levels cut as green.

[cary lichtenstein]

I tried to talk our architect to do a Biarritz but he turned me down

[Nigel Islam]

Front half fairway for me because it’s easier to keep approaches firm than it is greens…. Additionally I’d love to see that gentle hogs-back more, so that a ball landing left approach feeds left and one landing right approach feeds right.


It does look more attractive when all green. But plays better when not.

Ally,


Sometimes I get the impression that the front of the Biarritz was set up as the profile of the hog, rather than playing down the hog's spine.  In this early aerial below of The Everglades Club you can see how the front of the approach is at grade and the swale is just about at grade.  To me, it looks more like a hog's back from the side rather than standing over a hog and looking down their back.  I'm not trying to say all Biarritz were setup this way.  Some send balls off to the right and left the farther the tee shots drifted in that direction.  Some Biarritz approaches do have spines running parallel to the line of play while others did not.  I just think it's important to recognize that there are two ways to play over a hog's back and sometimes we only focus on one.


Low altitutde aerial of the 9th hole at The Everglades Club:

The Everglades Club., Circa 1920
Here is the same hole from an odd angle. At first, it's hard to tell it's a Biarritz.

Library of Congress., 1921.
Don't laugh at me, but back in 2020 during Covid I got bored and decided I would buy some plasticene and try to make a model of a Biarritz.  I am not a clay artist nor am I a golf course architect, but I was amazed how easy the substance was to work with.  Here is my model.  I thought some of you on here may get a kick out of it.  I changed it to black and white to give it that old feel.




Bret

Next you are going to start using colored pencils to make old diagrams look better

[Ryan Van Culin]

My opinion is to have both plateaus and the swale maintain as a greens surface and not fairway length. Having played examples of both options, I feel that it is too vague when the first plateau is fairway length. For example, could any hole with a low area in front now say it has a "biarritz-style" green complex?


Also, to say it offers more "options" to play from the front plateau when it is fairway length, to me that just makes it less distinct. You can pitch, chip, putt, bump-and-run, etc. on any green that doesn't have a forced carry, why do we need it here?



Anecdotally, I played a nothing-special-about-it golf course a few years ago, and one of the par 4's had a large swale in front of the putting surface. My cousin skulled his approach and it ran through the swale and onto the green. It functioned the same way, but I wouldn't want to call that a Biarritz hole.


I know that was rambling and neurotic, but put my vote for maintaining it all as putting surface, even if it can be proven that it isn't the "correct" way to build it.

[Charlie Goerges]

My opinion is to have both plateaus and the swale maintain as a greens surface and not fairway length. Having played examples of both options, I feel that it is too vague when the first plateau is fairway length. For example, could any hole with a low area in front now say it has a "biarritz-style" green complex?


Also, to say it offers more "options" to play from the front plateau when it is fairway length, to me that just makes it less distinct. You can pitch, chip, putt, bump-and-run, etc. on any green that doesn't have a forced carry, why do we need it here?



Anecdotally, I played a nothing-special-about-it golf course a few years ago, and one of the par 4's had a large swale in front of the putting surface. My cousin skulled his approach and it ran through the swale and onto the green. It functioned the same way, but I wouldn't want to call that a Biarritz hole.


I know that was rambling and neurotic, but put my vote for maintaining it all as putting surface, even if it can be proven that it isn't the "correct" way to build it.

So we’re up to 8-8

[Josh Bills]

I would choose fairway in front and green in back.  I don't want a pin on the front, as it doesn't seem to be what is appropriate or intended.

[Bret Lawrence]

Front half fairway for me because it’s easier to keep approaches firm than it is greens…. Additionally I’d love to see that gentle hogs-back more, so that a ball landing left approach feeds left and one landing right approach feeds right.


It does look more attractive when all green. But plays better when not.

Don't laugh at me, but back in 2020 during Covid I got bored and decided I would buy some plasticene and try to make a model of a Biarritz.  I am not a clay artist nor am I a golf course architect, but I was amazed how easy the substance was to work with.  Here is my model.  I thought some of you on here may get a kick out of it.  I changed it to black and white to give it that old feel.




Bret

Next you are going to start using colored pencils to make old diagrams look better

Nigel,


You must have a crystal ball!  I colored in a few old routings, but much like the clay model, it's all in the name of research.


After reflecting on Charlie's question and listening to the responses, I really prefer when the original Macdonald, Raynor and Banks Biarritz play in their original form with the approach and swale cut at fairway or approach height. Some of the older original versions that have been changed over to all green surfaces appear very streamlined and smooth in appearance.  They just don't look right to my eye. They feel more like a smooth skateboard half pipe rather than a rugged golf hole. I think the bottom line is, if you have to alter the approach to make it into green, you probably should just leave it as fairway or approach.  It's not worth altering an original hole, because 50% of the people like to make extremely long putts.

On the other hand, if a modern architect decides to include a Biarritz style green in their design, I am happy to play the hole as it was designed.  It's likely to work better, when the original intention was to be putting surface all along.  I think the Biarritz that are maintained and play as originally intended are my favorite, whether they are Golden Age or modern.

Bret

[Sven Nilsen]

A number of folks did a good job of describing CBM's original intent for this hole earlier in the thread.  For those that haven't, I'd suggest reading the earlier Biarritz thread (https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,21926.0.html) in its entirety.  It does a good job of narrowing down what CBM saw as the inspiration for his par 3, which had nothing to do with the famous Chasm Hole at Biarritz as it was gone by the time CBM saw the course.


As with any CBM/Raynor template, you have to think about the type(s) of shots that CBM was asking the player to hit.  His "ideal course" was a collection of these types of holes, ones the demanded the execution of a range of shots in order to tackle the problems he presented (in CBM's mind, it was the collection of the shots required that made his assorted holes ideal).  For his Biarritz hole, he presented a 200+ yard hole which at the time required a long tee shot which by necessity of the capabilities of golfers and equipment at the time demanded a long, straight approach shot which would run across the features in front of the green before hopefully ending up on the green itself.  In contrast to this hole, look at the Short, which demanded a shorter, higher tee ball.


For some, the CBM concept of the hole has become obsolete.  Today, certain players can hit a long approach that lands on and holds the back tier.  But not all players have this capability, and I'd argue that the vast majority of players still play the Biarritz in a manner very close to how CBM intended.


One other item to clear up as that the term "Biarritz" refers to the hole in its entirety, not the green itself.  A par 4 with a green similar to those found on a CBM Biarritz hole is not a Biarritz, just as a short par 3 with this style of green is also not a Biarritz.  We tend to muddy the waters when we discuss the term solely in connection with the green, while ignoring the totality of the hole.  Instead of saying a "Biarritz Green" it probably makes sense to say something along the lines of "a green similar to one found on a Biarritz hole."


Sven