What Does “Restoring” a Golf Course Mean These Days?

[Mark_Fine]

Well written post Brett 


The only problem I had the last time I played Pasa was green speed. I don’t know what they are keeping the greens at these days but many of the hole locations were just insane. I don’t care what kind of player you were.  It got silly. Mackenzie never envisioned that. 

[Brett Hochstein]

Well written post Brett 


The only problem I had the last time I played Pasa was green speed. I don’t know what they are keeping the greens at these days but many of the hole locations were just insane. I don’t care what kind of player you were.  It got silly. Mackenzie never envisioned that.

Thanks, Mark. No one back then could've imagined anything 10+ with any sort of consistency. I imagine there were localized incidents and unusual conditions though where there were such though, especially on the links.


The thing about Pasatiempo is not so much them pushing speeds but the raising minimum "floor" of speeds across golf in combination with just how steep on aggregate those complexes there are (some over 10 feet elevation change from back to front). 11 on the stimp there is borderline and where they would get really nuts, as you'd see with some of the prior Westerns. 10 is kind of a sweet spot where they have maximum teeth within reason. The problem with the Poa greens before, as explained by Justin Mandon (Justin please correct me if I'm speaking out of my a** here), is that getting them settled at that sweet spot of 10 was very difficult. They either wanted to be 11+ or 9 or less. With the bent and USGA profile, that should be way easier to control.


The speeds are very manageable at the moment and fun to play, especially with the firmness of the new profiles.  I'd make the effort to check it out if you find yourself on the West Coast. 

[Mark_Fine]

Brett,
I will definitely play it again (have done so a half a dozen times as I get out that way often).  Obviously the architect has little control over the green speeds but 9-10 as you say is about as fast as I would ever roll them or they do get silly and many (most) hole locations would be goofy to try to use unless maybe playing in a scramble.  The last time I played there, two of my playing partners (who I didn’t know and joined me on the first tee) complained the whole time as they got tired of four and five putting and then giving up hope.  I honestly didn’t blame them.  It was not fun. Nothing to do with fairness by the way, just silly. 

[Simon Barrington]

This could become known as the "Sitwell Limit" i.e. the point at which where the novelty wears off.

In this co-incident thread I suggest 10 should not just be the tipping point of contour, as do you & Brett here implicitly, but IMHO the limit.

Re: Ideal Green Speed?

[Tony Ristola]

Ira,




In the case of Pasatiempo, Valley Club, SFGC Yeamans Hall and a few others I did not add bunkers to reflect the modern game.  I was never asked to move bunkers nor did I suggest moving bunkers.  But remember these are clubs that are not trying to play the modern technology bunker roulette game.


Whenever a club asks me to consider moving bunkers I always say, you're just going to have to move them again later.  You can't keep up with the 1%ters.  Their game continues to evolve and just when you got the bunker right?, the next 1% comes along and blows it over, oops start again . If you really have to add strategy consider adding a tee, they are much cheaper but even that is not an option for most. 


The clubs listed above that I referenced are more than just bunkers, Routing, Greens, Tees and so much more that just the strategy of a bunker.  And if you move bunkers they are a really expensive piece of furniture that you just never get comfortable with, you just keep moving them and adjusting them especially when they are stand alone and not a part of the topography.

Moving tees makes the most sense, and Dr. Mackenzie did write about providing room for "elasticity". The ability to build tees further back. Can't imagine he would have believed the governing bodies could have been so incompetent for so long, (or gutless) as to let the game get this ridiculous at the elite level.


Donald Ross and his comment about long irons being the true test of a quality golfer is laughable today.


The game at the elite level is simply ruined, and classic courses without wind, are obsolete as tests.


Experts hit it about 17.5% further today than in 1980. If you take the average length course from The World Atlas of Golf (1976) which is 6,835-yards, you'd need a course of 8,031 to achieve somewhat similar shot values... and that's 165-yards short of 7,000, which was considered monster length back then.


So I largely agree with Jim about leaving well enough alone. Hopefully one day the governing bodies will return the game to a levels of sanity.

[Tom_Doak]

In the case of Pasatiempo, Valley Club, SFGC Yeamans Hall and a few others I did not add bunkers to reflect the modern game.  I was never asked to move bunkers nor did I suggest moving bunkers. 

Well, The Valley Club and SFGC never asked you about adding bunkers because I was the consulting architect for those [and for the others, until I let you take them as clients when you left RGD].


Pasatiempo was the only one of those clubs that had a provision in the bylaws that no features should be added that were not part of MacKenzie's original plan.  None of the others were keen to make real changes -- that's why they hired us, instead of other firms -- which is really down to good leadership. 


If they'd had a 1-handicap green chairman who thought he knew about architecture, they'd have been changed, but at those clubs, a guy like that would quickly be bounced from the position.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
As you well know, there are plenty of 1 handicappers at clubs all across the country as well as club champions, and past Presidents etc that carry a lot of influence.  Dealing with club committees is VERY challenging but can also be fun and rewarding at the same time.  GCA is one of those businesses where the customer is always right rule doesn’t often hold    The secret is to get them to the right answer and make them think it was their idea in the first place! 

[V_Halyard]

Let’s take a collective victory lap that this conversation is happening. For all of the angst and argumentative discourse we share on this site, be encouraged that golf architecture has jumped into the popular psyche of golf. Blame/credit this site for fueling the fire, and recognize the likes of Andy at Friedegg for sharing it with a wider audience. Public recognition and branding associated with golf architecture has improved golf, and raised the quality of a golf development script that previously worked to wedge a par 3 between 30 houses and a cul-de-sac. Golf Course Architects, both dead and alive, are now the brands that drive founders, members, developers, real estate value.

I agree with the decades of previous posts that work to declare that "restoration" is driven by provenance. EG: Photos, Plans, Aerials. The restoration should seek to "Restore" the course in a manner defined by the originating architect. You don't put Home Depot or Pella windows on a Frank Lloyd Wright House. You wouldn't replace a revetted Scottish bunker with a Florida gator pond. That said, it is reasonable and realistic to make room for interpretation as in many cases, a pure feature-for-future restoration is not possible based on sold off land, zoning, safety etc. 

A significant departure from “Provenance” would deem that project a "renovation". A gaggle of new bunkers, radical departure from the original routing, architectural style, relocated, rebuilt, heavily altered greens, fairways, features and the like. This could arguably include the "Stimp Curse" where folks soften original greens to be able to run at 12-14, originally built to run at Stimps of 8-10.  All of this could arguably move a project out of the restoration column, and into a renovation.

We crossed over based on a natural disaster:
1: We "restored" an overgrown Ross. No major alterations other than some performed decades earlier which include alteration of 3 holes were arguably “renovations”, but we had 15 holes and Greens originally routed by Ross, as such, we were a majority restored course. We made accommodations for an increasingly malevolent flood plain, but the Ross footprint remained. Ross would have likely made the same drainage and elevation tweaks had he returned. We also added bunkers never completed by Ross. Some placements were questionable and there was room for contention, but our intent was Ross and we did what we could with the info we had... which was thin.

2: A storm destroyed 70% of the course that was routed through groves of trees. Part of the routing devolved into NLE

3: Prichard returned to channel "What would Ross Do" for over 40% of what was originally routed by Ross through tree groves, that no longer existed.

4: Result:  We are no longer a "Restoration". It is a "Renovation."  We enjoyed our time as a “restoration” but no longer retain the "Provenance" given entire groves of trees were wiped from the earth. Hundreds of century aged specimen trees are not feasibly replaceable.

Summary: A project that departs significantly from the “Provenance” of the period recognized as the peak iteration of that course's existence is not a "Restoration".

[Mark_Fine]

Vaughn,
Very well stated!  Most of us are trying to do the right thing (whenever that is) for that particular golf course and always taking into consideration the history and evolution of the design.

[Greg Hohman]

Call for papers: Using the World Heritage Site of Maritime Greenwich as a point of departure, this conference seeks to explore the critical questions for the heritage sector today from various disciplinary perspectives. Whether they come from the fields of art and architectural history, cultural studies, digital heritage, social history or landscape and urban planning. The conference welcomes international case studies that explore the varied and complex components of heritage, conservation and preservation, as both a tangible and intangible phenomenon in different cultures, climates and socio-political contexts.

https://amps-research.com/conference/london-heritages/

Abstracts due April 10. June 25-27 conference in Greenwich. Alternatives to in-person: zoom and pre-recorded.

Last call for abstracts is April 10.

[Tags:]

Tags: