Are Ross's flashed bunkers an endangered specie?

[ian]

Tom, that is facinating.

That's not the first time or the last that recreated greens "grew"

When Banff's greens were rebuilt the same way they faced an interesting dilema. The greens were concidered contaminated due to the use of mercury (forgot the damn name of the product) in the early years. When the greens were re-built, they simply added the profile over the top, not to disturb the existing soil, and shazam the greens grew higher overnight. This makes the tie-ins really tough, as noted by Tom above.

[TEPaul]

Ian--it is fascinating isn't it?

But it's also very ironic since so many people have come to respect and admire the so-called "crowned" greens of Pinehurst #2 anyway. So much so they seem now to assume that kind of green is the typical Ross green. Nothing of the kind. Jack Nicklaus didn't seem to realize that Aronimink was anything like a Ross course. I wonder what he thinks of the crowned greens of #2 today? Maybe he too thinks they're the prototypical Ross style green. A lot of people have said over the years that Nicklaus has sort of a short memory. It's sounding more like that may be true--don't you think? Fifteen years is an awful long time, I guess!

PS:

The semi flashed up sand of the original Ross bunkers at Seminole is a bit of a misunderstanding too. It was that way originally but for one reason or another the club just didn't understand that. One of the things I've learned is that misdating things, such as photographs, can sometimes lead to assumptions that go in different directions and sometimes in the opposite direction. Doing proper research and particularly dating things correctly can create timelines that often can tell you so much more than most have ever realized.

[T_MacWood]

Interesting stories.

No. 2's greens are elevated at least four or five feet or more above fairway level--how would 4 or 5 inches make them crowned if they weren't significantly crowned to begin with. It seems to me they've always been crowned.

[TEPaul]

Tom:

A green raised above the fairway level isn't exactly the same thing as changing the height of particularly the sides of the greens and what they tie directly into such as the tops of bunkering or even the immediate approach. When you talk about #2's greens being 4-5 feet above the fairway that has to be quite a bit farther out than what the edges of the green ties into and an architect doesn't want to miss that tie in by 4-6 inches if he can help it. It's probably a bit like an elevator floor not landing flush with the floor of the building.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

When I played Pinehurst # 2 in 1961-2-3, the greens were crowned.  At the time I described them to third parties as open umbrellas.  I still remember a 2-iron that I hit 8 feet into the back right pin location on the 2nd hole in a misting fog, and a woman, walking in the woods, in a rain slicker said it was the best shot she had seen since Jug Macspaden hit one back in 38 or whatever year she referenced.  That green was very umbrella like.  
The greens were not flat in the early sixties, but 40 years of topdressing, sandsplash, regrassing and rebuilding can change the topos.

I would think that Peter Tufts could provide pretty accurate information with respect to just about everything at Pinehurst.

My dad, who had been playing at Pinehurst before grass indicated that the greens had an umbrella shape to them when he played there

[TEPaul]

"The greens were not flat in the early sixties, but 40 years of topdressing, sandsplash, regrassing......can change the topos."

Sure that can change the topos but explain to me then how a course such as Pinehurst #2 can become more crowned in the middle from years of topdressing and particularly sandsplash out of bunkering which anyone knows is going to land on the edges of greens and raise that peripheral area more than the middle. Take holes like Merion's #8 and #13. They certainly topdress those greens so why is it that those greens have become so much more bowled near those bunkers than they used to be?

But when you said rebuilding can have a real effect you're potentially saying just what I did about Connors and the USGA spec redesign to #2's greens in 1987. One can even read about that in Cornish & Whitten. So then the only question becomes did Connors and the Nicklaus organization miss on the USGA layered spec dimensions and try to fix the problem the way I said. A well known architect says that's the undeniable story on the crowned greens of Pinehurst #2 today.

Of course it really wouldn't be all that hard to prove what happened. All one has to do is compare photographs of any #2's greens before Ross died or around that time to the way they are now or any other time after his death. Looking at some photos of those greens at #2 (with Ross in the photos) it sure doesn't look to me like they're unusually crowned. And what I just heard happened long after the Tufts owned Pinehurst anyway.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

GRAVITY, together with irrigation and rain would seem to be at odds with build-up or the creation of a crowned effect toward the center of any green.

Sand splash would never reach the centers of the greens in substantive amounts, and would probably create more build-up at the perimeters rather than at the centers.

It would seem that construction alone would be the likely reason.

[ian]

I played the course origionally in 19080 and walked the course 5 years ago. The only major difference to me was how far the ball was running when I hit putts. It was not out of my realm of "normal" speed when I played there origionally. When I hit putts, they seemed to run so much farther and were finding long slopes away that I initially did not think were an issue. It all came down to the damn ball did not want to stop. This made the surfaces seem more severe by result than by eye.

Glad I played in 80', it does make me wonder if I would hold it up as near perfection in design if I played it today?