[michael j fay]

Two things that bother me immensely about the set up of old classic courses are chipping areas and more grievious chipping areas over greens.

What gives?

It has long been my belief that Ross ended his holes at the back of the green. As a Superintendent I would think he would be unhappy with the chipping areas displayed today especially those behind greens. They are high maintenece and frankly a second chance for shots that are misjudged. I've never seen one described on a Donald Ross drawing.

Is this just another means by which the modern day architect is helping the poor misguided Architects of the Classic Era. Where is basis for these changes?

 

[Adam_F_Collins]

Where have I heard that chipping areas were typical of Ross designs? Is that totally wrong, or are you referring just to those long of the green...?

We have them at our course...

[BCrosby]

I'm with Michael. I've never seen Ross or any other classic era architect designate chipping areas on their courses. Chipping areas were not a part of their vocabulary.

Chipping areas behind greens strike me as particularly foreign to older courses. As Michael noted, over the green was beyond the end of the hole. It was rough. Or unmaintained. From which you almost always have a difficult downhill pitch. If Ross affords interesting recovery opportunites from the front or sides of greens, you are left stricly to your own devises if you go long.

As a philosophical matter, I'm not sure why recoveries from behind greens ought to be harder. (Only better players hit it over greens?) But on most Golden Age courses that's the case. Heck, that's the case for most courses, regardless of era.

Perhaps that's why the chipping areas behind the greens at Shinnie looked so goofy to me. Or maybe it is just that they looked like what they were. Artifical features in use only until the last round of a major championship.

Bob

 
   

 

[Michael_Stachowicz]

Chipping areas as they are maintained today may not have been what he intended, but what about maintenance today did the old architects intend?  It would make sense to me that all around the green would be mowed at the same height as fairways back in the day.  Of course that probably was at inch+, well above our current day 3/8".  Courses back then had two heights (and two mowers for that matter) one for greens and one for everything else.

[A_Clay_Man]

The back of the fourteenth at Pebble Beach (1919) is maintained as a chipping area. Or, at least what I assume you're calling a chipping area.

A low mowed (fairway height) cut-out, surrouded by similar grass at rough length.

The positive benefits of these chipping areas is they remove the unneeded rough, and make recovery, not only more challenging, but more fun. Fun because it requires a higher level of creativity, and should cause one to consider all the added options, such as; club choice and trajectory. Out of cabbage, there is just but one, and it is rarely any fun.  

[ian]

Michael,

"Is this just another means by which the modern day architect is helping the poor misguided Architects of the Classic Era. Where is basis for these changes?"

I find that statement unfair.

First the why. Let's take the new modern TPC at Scottsdale. It was designed primarily with rough around the green sites. A few years ago Jay Morrish altered his design by shaving the surrounds and increasing the ground play around the greens. The result was a more difficult test for the great player, while not hurting the average player. Using this example, how can this be a idea as a concept be bad?

When dealing with a classic piece of architecture which is historically important, I feel preservation is the number on priority. There are courses that should not get silly little chipping areas for major events (Blame the USGA for those not architects). The trouble I have with your comment is some courses truly lack character. A subtle response, that does not damage the landforms, is to shorten grass around green sites to add character, playability or difficulty. This is one of the least intrusive ways of changing the way a hole plays, it sure beats regrading or a "tip and flip" project.

So why is the "modern architect" wrong for introducing this type of play to the game. After all it was fine on the links long before the parkland course appeared.

an example of chipping areas I just went through a complete set of Travis drawings for Cherry Hill Club. He clearly indicates an area of fairway "beyond" the greens on almost every hole on the course. I have seen Travis photos that inicate short areas running in various directions away from and around the greens.

[ed_getka]

I thought Ross had stated in his writings that going long should leave an easier recovery, since so few players ever go over the green in the first place.

[Kelly Blake Moran]

Didn't MacKenzie design a hole with fairway beyond the green to encourage that as one option for playing the hole?  The term chipping area is imprperly applied.  Short grass surrounding the green brings the undulations and slopes into play by spurning or helping shots coming into the green area  A careless shot does not end up a few feet off the green in 3" rough, but rather is carried away by a slope resulting in a much different recovery shot.  If Ross did not advocate shorter grass around the greens then so be it on his courses, but that certainly should not be the measuring stick for modern design.  In my opinion he's wrong on that account.

[John_Cullum]

At Ross' Savannah Golf Club there are 9 (arguably 10) holes of 15 remaining Ross holes ( 3 holes were lost to the county and replaced on other property) that have severe fall offs at the back. Going long on these holes is death, some of them require a blind shot back up to the green. It has never before occurred to me that this feature was unique, but thinking through the other Ross courses I have played I have not seen such a predominant feature as at Savannah GC. I am reminded of 1 or 2 fall offs on the others, but not 9 or 10. Also since the Sav GC is packed tightly into small acreage many of the greens back up to fairways or tees and going long keeps the ball in the maintained areas of the course. This is pretty typical of the Ross courses I have played.

So this would contradict Ed Getka's assertion and what appears to be the general belief of this thread.

[A_Clay_Man]

 Short grass surrounding the green brings the undulations and slopes into play by spurning or helping shots coming into the green area  A careless shot does not end up a few feet off the green in 3" rough, but rather is carried away by a slope resulting in a much different recovery shot.  

Kelly- How right you are. i.e. the 10th last week at Shinnecock. Careless is what many of those shots were and the core principle involved here is the unpredictability this allows for, versus, the predictable result from longer grass.

Ed-If Ross believed in testing distance accuracy on certain lines, which his steep walled fronting bunkers exemplifies, why shouldn't "long", be proportionally penalized, by getting farther away from the hole? Along with the mis-conception, that the shot out of rough, is more difficult, are the two biggest obstacle, I see, to seeing more short grass around greens and bunkers.

[Ed_Baker]

This is a great topic, because in my opinion it's as much maint/meld as it is architecture, and the fact that then or now,an improper maintenance presentation will alter design intent and nullify great architecture. We just saw an example at Shinnecock.

In my opinion, Ross designed collection areas purely by slope and gravity, if they evolved (devolved) into chipping areas, it was the result of the preferences of the custodians of the course, members,committees, superintendents. The lack of labels or maintenance instruction on field drawings for areas through the green would suggest to me that they were to be left alone.

Common sense was apparently more prevalent in the Golden Age , because maintenance technology did not exist to significantly alter playabilty to the point that goofy golf was a concern.

[A_Clay_Man]

Common sense was apparently more prevalent in the Golden Age , because maintenance technology did not exist to significantly alter playabilty to the point that goofy golf was a concern.

Ed- A concern? How about; the irrigation systems have allowed for the goofy golf, and what we saw Sunday, was well within the parameters of what mother nature, could've and would've, throw at them? Why not now? Societies self absortion perhaps?

[Mike Hendren]

George C. Thomas, Jr. was an avowed believer in fairways beyond the greens and writes so in Golf Architecture in America.  I'll post some quotes later since I keep that book in the office.  His premise was that it rewards bold play.  

I am not aware that Ross either wrote of or practiced this feature.  

I do believe "chipping areas" became vogue in the late 1980's and have cross-over to the classics.  The first I recall see were at the TPC Southwind in Memphis about that time.

Initially I liked them but cannot help but wonder what's next:  driving areas, long-iron areas, short iron areas, approach areas, first cut, second cut, third cut.  I recently played a course with zoysia fairways and tees, except the back tees were bent.  How about tees on long par threes that are a little shaggy to promote a flier lie?  

MIke

[TEPaul]

The answer to whether chipping areas (of the heights some now are) were original or intended is pretty simple. A few of the posts basically have it right. They never had chipping areas around greens that some courses are maintaining today simply because they never had mowing equipment in that day and age that they do now.

I had that interesting discussion a few times with Ron Prichard when they were installing some chipping areas during Aronimink's restoration and I had the same disussion with Mark Michaud of Shinnecock (and another super) last Friday while out there looking at that course.

This is part and parcel to something Jim Finegan said to me about ten years ago---that basically we should not forget some of the things advances in agronomy and maintenance practices can do today to make some of these old courses play better and more interesting than they ever did!!

The chipping areas of Shinnecock look just fine, in my opinion, and the playabilty of them is undeniably more interesting than if those greens were surrounded by rough as they were not that long ago.

Why do I say that? Simply because the multiple options created by today's chipping areas around some of the old classic course greens creates more interesting and varied play than the rough that used to surround most all greens.

Are there more options and interesting play from chipping areas around greens than there is from rough around greens? That should be the only question, in my opinion!

[TEPaul]

Furthemore, I'll give you a perfect example of why and how chipping areas around greens are more interesting and challenging than just rough.

The other day I had about 50 yards into NGLA's #5. Being the purist architectural addict I guess I am, and since the course was firm and fast I said to myself----here I am with a real ground game option and even though I've never used that shot much and don't play it very well, I've got to try it anyway it's so interesting and cool, particularly on a course this good and cool. So I take a pitching wedge and basically chip it low behind the left pin.

As I was walking to the green I saw the ball was still rolling near the left edge of the green and to my amazement it caught the chipping area and rolled about 15 yards left into a bunker at the base of the swale about 15 yards left of the green.

From there I hit a 60 degree sand wedge to edge of the green (near the pin)---it rolled back, caught the chipping area again and rolled back into another bunker to the left of the green, from where I blasted out well past the pin and 2 putted for an easy 7!!

If there'd been rough in that area, as there used to be, I would've made anything from a 4 to a 6 but certainly not the 7 I made. Basically the same thing happened to me two holes later on the Road Hole after I decided to play a cool little chip shot directly at the far right pin (where there's zero room which I knew) got in the bunker behind the green and took three shots to get out as the ball hit the top of the green and rolled back down the close mowed area of the bunker bank) and I made an 8!!

This type of thing happened to me a number of times on the front nine all because I had so many interesting options to try I decided to go with some that seemed cool but that I don't know that well and am not that good at and I paid the price.

This is what's it's all about fellas! This is multiple options of interest and challenge and these are the kinds of things which happen with them. If it was just rough surrounded those greens I never would've thought twice about what I could do!

[ForkaB]

Good report, Tom

Now go and post that score.  USGA/GHIN needs your support!

[BCrosby]

Tom -

Good info. Thanks.

There is no question but that scalped chipping areas are interesting and damned hard to play. My guess is that they will become a permanent feature of most tournament set-ups.

Of those architectural features that world class players seem to struggle with, they are a far more attractive alternative than things like pinched fairways, nine inch roughs, crazy green speeds and the rest. I hope they continue to be used. In moderation, of course.

But we ought to be clear that these chipping areas have little to do with historic architecture. They weren't a tool in the Golden Agers' toolbox. When you see Ernie chipping out of the shaved swale behind no. 7 at SH, that was not a shot envisioned by Flynn.

Bob



   

[A_Clay_Man]

Bob- I'm not speaking for TePaul, but it seems a rather small distinction. The height of the grass, back in the day, was inconsequential because of the firmness of the underlying turf.
 Low-mowing these softer surrounds, in the present, simulates better the bounce and roll of the ball, that it use to get, out of the 1-4 inch high grass. Clearly, the maintenace practices are adapting to the flaws in what the  Augusta Syndrome produced, and other flawed standardized maintenace presentations, of the recent past.

It is a maintenance meld, in all it's glory.
 

[mike_malone]

 Bob,
     Flynn may not have imagined Ernie hitting that shot,but his affection for the recovery shot would likely have him enamored of selective chipping areas today.Trying to figure out what a dead architect would do today is a lively pursuit.Another concept of Flynn's is "variety".Having different options around greens adds to this variety.Why have the same "lob wedge out of deep rough" on every hole.
      The interesting discussion is on which holes is this appropriate.I did not like it at the back of #10 at Shinnecock since the fairway at the front was so steep that adding a falloff at the back as well seemed like overkill.However i loved it at many of the other holes.

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