A wonderful new way to justify keeping trees

[mike_malone]

 Jim,

    You can say that. I think the defenders of the "amateur plantings" have the same goal as those who want to eliminate them---to protect the challenges or difficulty of the course. It's just that the "tree haters" want the designed challenges to remain and not the trees that eliminate those challenges. But the defenders of the trees just seem stuck by their view that the course will definately be easier. "Can't you see that", they say.


   Those who want to remove these kind of trees , usually planted in areas originally designed to be open , realize that the overall scores on the hole will not change because they trust or analyze how the designer challenges that off line shot on the next one.

       If you believed that the the entire course would score the same way without these "amateur plantings" would it affect your view?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brent Hutto,

If the course is easier, why haven't the handicaps come down ?

Isn't that the ULTIMATE test of the challenge the course presents ?

[Brent Hutto]

I don't know the particulars of the course in question but handicap indices are influenced by a bunch of different factors. I can imagine lots of ways that the club may have toughened up the course otherwise in about the same timeframe as tree removal.

I'm trying to imagine what would happen if whole stands of pine trees were removed at my club. They're generally limbed up pretty far and three out of four times the golfer can find a line more less toward the green. If the trees were removed then during the winter the course would be a lot easier because there's practically no rough. But in the summer the club would probably insist on growing three inches of irrigated Bermuda where the trees used to be and it would get harder.

I never said there weren't other things that are tougher to play out of than trees (especially our mature pines). But the trees per se do make the course tougher than it would be without them.

[mike_malone]

 Brent,

   I would be interested in some examples of courses that played easier after tree removal. Can you give some examples?  I hope you aren't saying it is obvious that it's easier.


   I imagine that most of the significant tree removal  projects are happening on courses where the original challenges are being uncovered. So, the handicaps aren't changing because you are substituting the new challenge,trees, with the old challenge--holes designed to test recovery shots.

    This discussion is not about courses that have little challenge unless there are trees.

[Jim_Coleman]

   Micheal:
      You've hit the quinella - stupid, insane and wrong.  Just trying a little humor here; so don't jump down my throat.  However, Brent is correct.  This isn't a topic worthy of debate.
      By the way, more difficult doesn't necessarily mean better.  For example, on RG's #4, the new back tee has created a new chute because of two trees fifty yards in front of the tee which are now in play for draws or fades (not in play from old tees).  They should go, as I don't believe in barriers 50 yards off a tee.  Yes, they make the hole more difficult, but it's poor design (in my opinion).   But the trees 250 yards off the tee to the right are good.  They protect the hole from a wild slice being rewarded with a better angle into the green than for a shot hit to the middle of the fairway.  And please, don't tell me Flynn didn't want those trees 250 yards out.  You don't know; and I don't care.

[Brent Hutto]

  I would be interested in some examples of courses that played easier after tree removal. Can you give some examples?  I hope you aren't saying it is obvious that it's easier.

As in my response to Pat Mucci, I'm saying two things:

1) There are many elements to the difficulty of a course, trees are only one.

2) Removing trees per se does not make the course harder, it either makes no difference or makes it easier.

I imagine that most of the significant tree removal  projects are happening on courses where the original challenges are being uncovered. So, the handicaps aren't changing because you are substituting the new challenge,trees, with the old challenge--holes designed to test recovery shots.

Quite right. But that's a little like saying that a course plays more difficult now at 6,600 yards than it did last year at 6,900 yards because the fairways were narrowed to 25 yards and the rough grown to five inches and the greens shaved and rolled to within an inch of their life. Making it shorter ain't what made it harder.

This discussion is not about courses that have little challenge unless there are trees.

OK, now you tell us. In your original statement of the "problem" you quoted an unnamed consultant who said

To some degree the trees at .... do make the golf course more difficult

which you seemed to view (and many others reflexively agreed with) as a laughable notion. Well heck, he was there looking at the course with his own eyes and thought the trees made it more difficult. I'd have to have some reason to disbelieve him specific to the situation at hand because what he says certainly applies to lots of courses out there.

[Doug Ralston]

At the risk of killing another thread on trees as hazards, I will try again.

Trees as 'defintion', that is, as a natural part of a course located in a heavily forrested environment; serve as boundaries. They will minimally affect the play, but will define the angles.

Trees as hazards, OTOH, are just that: hazards! Like any other hazard, they present certain challenges to be responded to by the golfer. As Jim pointed out, there are usually options [as desirable thing, no?] as to how to respond. In an open minded architect, they can be used for a range of reasons.

One can have the fairway literally turn around a treed area, thus leaving choices around or over. They can in that context even offer a long and brave golfer a chance to 'cut off the dogleg'.

A tree actually IN a fairway can be used to offer differing approaches to a green. The shorter was around may be a lesser desirable approach for the green complex, while the longer one offers run up as well as high options. Or one may even be able to lay back from a threatening tree and then hit over it.

I am certain there are other uses. Trees represent options.

Why would and imaginative architect take these useful options off the table before planning his design? I am not saying every design is better off to be full of trees; or even that players should choose 'tree-lined classics' over treeless ones. I am simply saying that options are what lends opportunities to a creative architect, as well as to a golfer who loves challenges.

Trees are not evil!

Doug

[mike_malone]

 Jim,

   Years ago I recommended removing those trees by the tee.  When I heard they were going to move the tee back I reiterated that recommendation.Again, they are amateur plantings. Even from the member's tees play was moving away from the right side of the tee because the trees were coming into play. And that was never intended.

    You are so focused on your own experience that you can't analyze things properly. Flynn did have trees on the right of #4 in the designs that we have. They were 30 yards past where he thought the best players were predicted to hit it and  40 yards from the middle of the fairway. They would also have provided protection from #2 tee. They weren't planted. We had a chance last year to do what he intended and almost achieved it except for the amateurs desire to redesign the course.


     The area where you want trees to protect against that slice is close to where the fairway was designed, constructed, and maintained for years. The challenge on #4 was to hit it over a blind slope for THE IDEAL SHOT to the green. Mishits would have to deal with a downhill shot out of the rough; simply moving the tees back recovers this intent.


   When we shrunk the fairway on the right then it created the situation where a mishit leads  to  a wide open shot. It's because you never thought to do some homework to understand the hole that you just think it is silly.


   

[wsmorrison]

A lot has changed since Rolling Green was planned and constructed.  The 4th hole fairway was once a bit more than 50 yards wide.  Today it is a bit more than half that width.  Flynn indicated planting three trees on the right between 290 and 320 yards--beyond the landing area so that balls that were sliced far to the right were penalized by the strategic use of trees.  Before trees were removed and then others planted (as on 15, not sure what that is all about--I guess they are smaller tree varieties) the trees were in the landing area 225-317 yards off the back of the old back tee.  The new back tee only adds about 15 yards.  I'm not sure the distance of the newly planted trees...probably still in the landing zone which makes less sense than Flynn's original plan even if it wasn't implemented.

The fairway was significantly wider to the right and a bit wider to the left.  There were no trees planted at the outset and there was a single tree on the left about where the tree is today.  For a time, I think I recall there was a bunker and no tree.  It has been a long time since I viewed my RGGC file.

[Brent Hutto]

Trees are not evil!

Good rule to remember. I'll suggest a corollary...

An architect or consultant might actually know what he's doing even if he fails to recommend removing the trees from your course.

It sometimes seems there's a large contingent here who think tree removal is some sort of universal litmus test. You're either in favor or removing trees or you don't know what you're talking about.

Now I've seen courses where any reasonable person, including a consulting architect, can see the trees have to go. But that's not every parkland course in the world by any means.

[mike_malone]

 Brent,

   In reply #9 I stated what I did not like about this quote, that without length  to create difficulty trees added by amateurs were a good option. What this tells me is that the architect is not working hard enough to research how the original angles designed into the course could solve the problem.

  Trees aren't evil, but those planted by amateurs in places where play was designed to happen should be removed , IF the challenges designed in are capable of making the golf fun and challenging.

   Doug,

   This handles your point that, of course, trees designed into the course originally are an entirely different matter. Trees used to create doglegs and separate holes or line the property or even just for their beauty are valuable.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brent Hutto,

You're ducking the question and the issue.

If the only thing that's changed is the tree removal, and the handicaps have remained the same, then, you can't declare that the golf course is easier.

And, please don't blame Mother Nature.

What I find interesting about this issue is that many, if not most of the trees in question were usually planted long after the golf course was built.  Many, if not most are recent additions, added in the 3 or 4 decades.

[Brent Hutto]

Pat,

I don't know how not to "duck the issue" to your way of thinking. If you cut down a hundreds of trees and the course doesn't get any easier, there are only two possibilities. Either the trees were not in play or something else changed in the same timeframe to make the course tougher. If that fails to address the issue head-on then we must be talking about two different subjects.

OTOH if your only measure of how difficult the course plays is the USGA handicap indices of the membership, then in fact you know virtually nothing about the difficulty of the course.

Were the course and slope ratings updated/changed after the trees were removed?

Are you comparing the same group of members before and after?

Do you even believe that the USGA handicap system was designed so that the indices of a group of players somehow accurate reflects the difficulty of a golf course on which they play? It wasn't, of course.

[Joe Hancock]

I hate to jump into this....but here I go, head first....

Let's say a course is tree lined. Under those trees is what height of cut? Fairway?...nooooo...it's rough, and we know what rough does, don't we? It stops a ball very shortly after it lands in it. Therefore, trees do have a significant impact on how far offline a ball can go, even if the ball never touches a tree.

Now, let's assume a course has some very tumbly land, for lack of a better description. Let's also assume at least one hole has been routed along a spine of land. The green would perhaps be pitched from back to front on the intended angle of approach. If the hole were naked to the world, so to speak, and the turf was not overly irrigated and cut at fairway height for a significant width, wouldn't that make the approach shot more difficult, relative to a shot from somewhere up on the spine the hole is routed along? Of course. But, you say, it isn't more difficult than a shot from under or behind a tree, or trees. But, it would force a chip-out for a high percentage of the golfers, regardless of which course it is. Now, if chipping out is regarded as more fun than hitting a doable shot from an awkward angle, then the whole tree argument hits a snafu.

I would recommend taking out enough trees to make the golf course fun and healthy.

Joe

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

I don't know how not to "duck the issue" to your way of thinking. If you cut down a hundreds of trees and the course doesn't get any easier, there are only two possibilities. Either the trees were not in play or something else changed in the same timeframe to make the course tougher. If that fails to address the issue head-on then we must be talking about two different subjects.

It's not that they're not in or out of play, which is difficult to determine in some cases, but, whether or not they're a material or substantive factor in the play of the golf course.[/color]

OTOH if your only measure of how difficult the course plays is the USGA handicap indices of the membership, then in fact you know virtually nothing about the difficulty of the course.


I've only been playing it for 55+ years so I doubt your conclusion is correct.[/color]

Were the course and slope ratings updated/changed after the trees were removed ?


There's been no material change in slopes or ratings[/color]
 
Are you comparing the same group of members before and after ?

Yes,
How else could you evaluate handicaps staying the same or changing if it wasn't the same group of members ?[/color]

Do you even believe that the USGA handicap system was designed so that the indices of a group of players somehow accurate reflects the difficulty of a golf course on which they play?

No, and that's irrelevant.
You're confusing disciplines.

If the membership plays a course under one set of conditions and then the same membership plays the course with one change in its presentation, the removal of many trees, and the handicaps remain the same, then a prudent person draws the conclusion that the tree removal project didn't have a material impact on handicaps, thus the trees removed had no material impact on the difficulty of the golf course.[/color]

It wasn't, of course.

I think everyone agrees with that.[/color]