Older members who are opposed to change

[Joel_Stewart]

My club (a classical course built in the early 1900's) over the last two years began clearing some trees and brush that have built up for many-many years.  The improvement has been dramatic with the course in the best condition in a long time.  Over the last few months we cleared some more trees and many of the older senior members are really complaining.  

Resistance to change is very difficult for older members although we are restoring the course back to times such as the 1950's and 1960's when the course was in its prime and many of these members joined the club.  

I was wondering if anyone has experience in dealing with a group of older members who as a group have some influence.

[noonan]

These old members do not trim there eyebrows either

The only thing constant is change....they need to get use to it.

Brush removal is good.

[DPL11]

Joel,

About 12 years ago, I was a very young, new supt. at a Donald Ross course in New Jersey, across the river from Philly. The first week on the job, a land clearing company showed up and cut, chipped, and stumped about 1,000-1,200 trees in 7 days. At that time, the USGA said it was the largest removal on an existing golf course ever.

The club still had a very old element to the membership who went NUTS. We ruined the course, blah, blah, blah. Nobody could understand or envision what we were doing.

It made a tremendous mess doing it so quickly, but once we got it all cleaned up and the rough growing in areas that never had grass, it was never brought up again. Get all the bitching over at once. I give my former chairman alot of credit for having the ba**s to pull the trigger on such a controversial project.

Oakmont removed over a 1,000 trees at night over a few years, which is option "B". Most clubs don't have the resources of an Oakmont, and I would recommend the plan we used to any club.

After it was all put back together, most people couldn't tell you where 10 of those old trees were, and the improvement was tremendous. Another 500 have been removed since I left in 1998, and I don't think they are finished yet.

Doug

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Joel,
I have said this once if I have not said it a thousand times. These members need to be taken out into the deep Pine Barrens or desolate Mojave Desert to be educated. Its as simple as that.

When the word gets out that the play of the golf course is being recovered to its original standard, the rest will follow with their hearts and their huevos. Trust me on this.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Joel,

It's usually unrelated to the issue at hand, that's merely the excuse for the opposition.

It's been my limited experience that money is the issue, and that they won't get to reap the rewards of the expense due to their age and life expectancy as members.

Many clubs, understanding the dilema, usually discount or amortize the expense or bond on a decreasing, refundable basis for the older members.

The problem is almost universal.

[johnk]

IF you think your course is bad...

My father is one of the younger member at a low-end club outside Tucson where many of the holes have cart-paths IN THE MIDDLE of the fairways.  Straight down like a roadway.  It's atrocious.

When they took out a few of these asphalt fairway-splitters, the older members (octogenarians, mostly) raised a fit!  They didn't want to have to drive more than 30ft. to their straight down the middle bunts.

Anyways, this course isn't quite Olympic or Oakmont, so it's more amusing than it is tragic...

[Joel_Stewart]

Thanks.  My initial thought is to try and educate them especially with photos.  I have some great photos of the course back in the 1950's with Hogan and Nelson which I thought would trigger some memories and win them over from that front.  IMHO this is about the time frame the club hit its highwater mark.

My other reaction is to ignore them and just move forward.  The problem is like our green chairman said, you feel like when you are at the club you have a bullseye on your back.  Furthermore I'm paying club dues to indure such treatment.

Pat:
Our club membership structure doesn't have an equity position and besides money is not an issue.

Lastly, if anyone doesn't want to post due to whatever reason, please send me a private memo on how your club dealt with older members.

[rgkeller]

Your problem may be that the older members were the ones that planted the trees that you are removing.

You can either work quietly to "turn" the two or three most influential of the older members with photos, maintenance issues etc etc

Or just ignore them and plow ahead. If you plow ahead, get it over with as quickly as possible.

[cary lichtenstein]

I think the best way to handle it is get articles and pictures to show that it is now in vogue to cut back and cut down overgrown trees. They block play, line of sight, provide too much shade etc.

If the great courses are doing it, the agronomists are recommending it, and you can document it, it should be enough for all your members.

There will always be a vocal anti group for a variety of reasons.

[Don_Mahaffey]

To the older members, it will always be the good old days when things were better. It's a bit of a generalization as I've had plenty of older folks back me up when it came to change, but as a whole, seniors just don't deal with change very well. At least that's my experience as a supt at clubs that had a large % of seniors.

Johnk,
That club wouldn't be CCGV, would it?

[johnk]

Don,

It's amazing how the internet can make the world so small

[Brad Klein]

as the song verse goes, somewhere . . .

how Green is my Valley

[RT]

I confer with Pat Mucci.  Usually its the money factor with older clubs and their older members, sublimated under the overlying onion layers of well-intentioned, gray area "reasons & truths".

As a broad-based generalization, of course...

[A_Clay_Man]

Curious if the by-product is sold? Wouldn't the cost be offset by the sale of the wood, reducing the cost of the project?

Perhpas a little momento made from the wood, all the alta cockers love so much? I see a cut-out in the likeness of Wilie Brown, complete with blow gun and darts.

[Jeff Goldman]

It's not necessarily just the seniors who object to tree removal.  I've seen where some low handicappers (or folks who care about ratings) get concerned that removing trees in lines of play may make the course play easier, rather than more strategically, and lose standing.  Joel's place doesn't seem to have this problem though.

Jeff Goldman

[Steve Lang]

 

You know, ya can't turn every course into a scottish links..

About 4-5 years ago we had some trees removed on our West Course that severely reduced the test of golf on several holes.  2 examples.. unfortunately on finishing holes

On #16, a straight-away par 5 with creek crossing on second shot and water in play right and several 75 ft pines left in landing area, when the the left fairway edge trees were removed, it took almost all the bite out of the hole.. just hit it left and no real worries..

On #18, a dogleg right cape type hole, removal of some pines on the right corner completely opened up the hole to the point where big slicers could have a much closer and easier approach angle to the green, if you don't fret about water carries..  

All this and more were attributed to "older members"..  So having a plan for the whole of a course sounds like an essential educational element.

[Kevin_Reilly]

I've seen where some low handicappers (or folks who care about ratings) get concerned that removing trees in lines of play may make the course play easier, rather than more strategically, and lose standing.  Joel's place doesn't seem to have this problem though.

Jeff Goldman

I think that is probably the basis for most of the objections at Joel's course.  There is no doubt that trees make the course more difficult...particularly on tee shots where there is little margin for error.  And in many peoples minds, difficulty is an inherent characteristic of a quality course.  So, the thinking goes, reducing difficulty reduces quality.

Also, many like the feeling of isolation playing holes that are sheltered from each other.

Cost is probably not even in the top 100 list of objections to this.

Rebuttals?

- turf quality (though this isn't compelling to people, generally...it is like hearing that you should exercise more...sounds good but not a "must-do")
- what other top clubs/courses have done (Oakmont, WF)
- inform the membership that, unbeknownst to them, many people in golf thought the course was getting too claustrophobic....it is like telling someone they are putting on weight...sometimes the truth hurts.
- the course can play just as difficult with more interesting options off the tee and WIND becoming more of a factor.

[Doug Siebert]

Not trying to argue for/against tree removal per se, but I'm interested in one aspect that keeps coming up again and again in GCA.

I can definitely see the arguments for turf quality on greens, plus (to a slightly lesser extent) on tees and fairways.  But why in the world should anyone care about turf quality in the ROUGH?  If you hit off the intended line of play, you should be penalized, whether that penalty is 6" rough, spotty rough where you might end up sitting on a tuft or in a depression that's worse than playing out of a divot, or bare ground covered with various junk like leaves, twigs and pine cones where you cannot risk even the slightest grounding of your club and practice swings must be taken several feet away from your ball to avoid mishaps.

Its just up to luck what kind of lie you end up with, which will limit/determine your recovery options.  If you do not wish to leave your lie to chance, use less club so that you may hit it straight and avoid such spots.  Brings more strategy into the game rather than black/white either/or you get when you have courses where your tee shot will be in either perfectly manicured fairway or uniformly consistent rough.

During times or drought or if the rough is just kept mowed down without any issues to do with lie, trees or other obstacles there is little penalty to prevent a player from just blasting away with the driver with little regard for the drawn lines of the fairway, especially with today's aerial game where much of the strategy of greenside bunkers is diminished or removed entirely.

Allowing for areas of poor turf quality that come into play, even if the trees themselves don't (or at least don't on reasonable shots a good player is likely to hit) seems to me to be one of the shrinking number of items of concern that affect strategy off the tee.  You can tell it matters for even really good players, because the pros expect even the tiniest sections of imperfections to be marked as GUR these days.

[Joel_Stewart]

It could be we didn't approch the membership correctly from the start.  It all happened very quickly when a few trees fell down and then our new super and green chairman determined that a number of trees posed a threat to falling down and as a result those trees were removed.  It turned out to be a hundred or so trees and then another hundred and people started to take notice.  When the turf started to improve we began thinking of widespread tree and brush removal and we began talking with an architect.

The green chairman did mention in our latest newsletter that we would continue with more removal during the winter which I thought was fair to keep the members informed.  This is when the members started to scream. Hopefully we can get it finished before the board puts a halt to it.  




 

[A_Clay_Man]

Doug- Funny how I understand what your saying, agree fundamentally with much of it, yet I disagree that the rough (off fairway) should be given less consideration for some level of playability, albeit varying. Perhaps it is the medal mentality, but being errant is it's own penalty and gauranteeing that the errant shot has little to no chance for recovery, isn't neccesary and removes a big part of the fun of match play..

[Jeff Goldman]

I do not know whether removing trees at Olympic make the course more fun to play.  As to trees making a course play harder, but possibly less fun, at Olympia Fields North the 4th and 5th holes are narrow and run parallel, separated by some humungous trees.  If you slice it in the trees, it's a chip out (ask Scott Burroughs).  I believe that these trees have always been there, but I wonder how the holes would play with less tree trouble.  The 4th fairway is lower than the 5th, and slicing it down there (or where the trees are now) could present terrific recovery choices - do you go blind and up over traps to try to reach the green?  a safer shot to the front of the green which also carries substantial risk, or a safe chip out?  Now, you just look for a hole in the trees to get back to the fairway.  Fewer trees would make for a few lower scores, but might bring in a ton of really cool recovery opportunities.  It will never happen.

Jeff Goldman

[Joel_Stewart]

Something is wrong with the link with the photos so I took it down.  The photos reside on Tommys server and I have asked him to look into it.

Jeff:
I'm not suggesting that we take down all of the trees or Olympia Fields do the same.  Each location merits its own decision on trees.  Olympic is built on a sand dune and had 30,000 trees planted during the first 75 years of its existance.  We are mearly trying to thin the trees, remove the non native eucalyptus trees and restore the line of play that was originally planned.

[Jeff Goldman]

Joel, I wouldn't presume for a minute to suggest anything about Olympic, as I've never seen it but on TV (and aren't qualified anyway), just speculating on lines of play.  As to memberships wanting to keep their course hard (and therefore being opposed to tree clearing), we are having a debate whether to have OF North 18 play as a par 4, basically to keep the course rating high (it's a terrific finisher, so who cares what "par" they put on it?).

Jeff  

[Doug Siebert]

A_Clay_Man,

Your response is interesting, as I almost went on further in my initial post along those lines but decided to sit tight with what I had and see what the responses would be.  I was and am interested in this dichotomy where it seems that a lot of GCA posters are very much in favor of courses were "fairness" isn't something we should care about, but where tree removal is concerned "adding options" and "turf health", both of which play into fairness to some extent (depending on individual cases, of course) are listed as among the important factors.

I hope you didn't take my post to indicate that I think that it is OK to have lots of areas where the ball could go that are essentially unplayable.  Such a course wouldn't be fun for anyone, and while I like a challenge, I like it to be something I would consider attainable without having Moe Norman like accuracy!

However I certainly think there's nothing wrong with hitting into areas where the turf conditions may make a shot one might normally pull off 9/10 times from the fairway or 6/10 times from consistent rough more like 1/10 or 2/10 from poorer quality rough, nor is it a terrible thing to be stymied by trees to the point where you can either take a lower percentage shot for full or partial advancement down the fairway versus the high percentage chip out (where the trees are so thick you lose balls, or don't even bother to look, is where I draw the line myself)

I very much disagree with your assertion that "being errant is its own penalty".  Sure, playing from a bad angle isn't as easy as playing down the line of charm.  Playing from the rough isn't as easy as playing from the fairway.  But bad angles and rough are FAR easier these days than during the golden age when a lot of the classics were designed in a mostly treeless setting (nevermind that I'll bet its more likely that in many cases the courses in the US were built on already-cleared farmland, rather than having forested land stripped of trees everywhere during construction)

If playing from the rough or bad angles were so bad, you wouldn't see so many people realizing that on many treeless layouts, absent extremely penal rough or extremely firm greens, it is better to just bomb away with the driver and accept playing many or most approaches from the rough 50 yards closer as opposed to playing a lofted fairway wood or long iron off the tee for position.  I pretty much play "between the trees" on such courses, where the fairway lines happen to be drawn is just another data point, but not necessarily a particularly important one absent a particularly challenging green complex.

Not wanting to sound like a tree hugger here....but I am curious to better understand why so many in GCA are seemingly so opposed to trees on principle -- to the point that it seems like they believe a course should have no trees except those that can be proven to either have no effect whatsoever on the play of a hole or be completely essentially to its play.  Trees are guilty until proven innocent, in effect

[A_Clay_Man]

Doug- I appreciate your response but I don't see a dychotomy. (I love a good dychotomy, too)

The proliferation of "tree traps" or treelining a hole, perpetuates the "myth of the middle". This myth seems fundamental to the mistakes of the recent past as it relates to gca.

The perfect example is Spyglass Hill