Reading Grading Plans

[Greg Holland]

Forgive my ignorance, but I'm reviewing the original greens grading plans of a course designed in 1963.  On one hole, the architect stated, "Green and sand traps must be visible from right half of fairway at angle turn 7 + 50."  This hole is a 400 yard par 4.  Does that mean the landing area (or at least where the green was to be visible from was at 225 yards?  

On another hole, a 505 yard, uphill par 5, he said, "green must be visible from angle turn at 7 + 20".  

Help please. Thanks.  

[Tom_Doak]

Greg,

I think that's 750 feet or 720 -- 250 yards from the tee, or 240 in the latter case.

[Brian Phillips]

Greg,

I am just having a guess here but 7 + 50 sounds like 750 feet which is about 250 yards out. Are you sure he is using " and not ' . One is feet the other inches.

Brian

[Greg Holland]

Got it, thanks very much.

Also, this is a pretty well-known architect, at least in the southeast, and the original bunkers he drew are very Mackenzie-like (for lack of a better phrase) and unlike any I have seen on his courses today.  That is, there are no round or oval bunkers on the plan at all (but today almost all I've seen have evolved into oval, rounded bunkers), but rather there are irregular, jagged lines -- like those in vogue on this site.  

He also wrote comments on several holes like, "wash gullies to right and rear of green to be left natural -- do not disturb.  Green on natural site requiring little grading except sand bunkers."  

Very interesting stuff.

[Ryan Farrow]

The whole 7+50 or 0+50 1+50 thing is pretty strange; I see that used in road alignment to represent distance. Is this person you speak of also an engineer?

[JWL]

Greg

Just as been eluded to, my experience from that era would indicate that the 7 refers to 100' centerline stakes from the back tee, and the 50 would refer to an intermediate 50' stake.
So the course was apparently staked out every 50' on the centerline of the hole beginning from the back tee.

750' - 250 yards was the standard turn point back then.
Today we use 850' -283 yards.   at sea level.

[Scott Witter]

Greg:

"Just as been eluded to, my experience from that era would indicate that the 7 refers to 100' centerline stakes from the back tee, and the 50 would refer to an intermediate 50' stake.
So the course was apparently staked out every 50' on the centerline of the hole beginning from the back tee."

It is not only "that era", but also the present day and it is used by many golf architects, but probably more so by many contactors who layout the centerline of a hole in the field and yes normally use the back tee as their starting point.  It is called Stationing and it is traditionally been used by engineers and surveyors for a mojority of their layout work.  Surveyors basically live and die by this method and golf course contractors use centerline stationing to roughly locate bunkers, mounds, intended drainage swales and other features as an offset right or left from the centerline.

[Brian Cenci]

In construction, something like 7+50 refers to a station reference.  A station is generally 1 station = 100' (unless you're into that messed up metric system).  So many times in road design, and I guess in this case golf design, everything is referred to in stations.  It's a way of referencing something on a fixed alignment system.  Most likely the center of the tee box was the first station (and just for general knowledge to others stationing usually starts at 1+00, not 0+00) and then the ending was the center of the green.  
 
In road design, an intersection may be the fixed starting point so that would be 1+00 and then the stationing would begin from there.  Probably more than most people wanted to know.


-Brian