the linky doesn't work so here's the text:
Wood Chop 101
Classic Oakmont CC spruces up for a major with a major trim
Published June 11, 2007
When Terry Lavin thinks of trees on a golf course, he doesn't recite the famous line from Joyce Kilmer's poem, "I think I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree."
Lavin goes to the other extreme. Borrowing from Robert Duval's character in "Apocalypse Now," he said, "I love the smell of sawdust in the morning."
During his stint as the grounds chairman at Olympia Fields Country Club, Lavin helped oversee the removal of as many as 1,000 trees in a restoration project.
He contended the trees on the North course, where the 2003 U.S. Open was played, needed to be taken down to allow the sun to help the grass grow and to open fairways that were becoming congested with hanging branches.
His role as tree chopper didn't make Lavin a popular figure at the club.
"We cut down 35 trees around the fourth green," Lavin said. "One member said, 'We should have left one tree up there so we could hang you on it.' He was only half-kidding."
Olympia Fields is one of many clubs that have participated in one of the biggest trends in golf—the mass removal of trees, especially in the restoration of traditional courses.
Locally, clubs such as Butler National, Beverly and Medinah have taken out scores of trees in an effort to improve the quality of their turf and the playability of their layouts.
But none of those efforts compares to what took place at Oakmont Country Club, just outside of Pittsburgh. When the pros arrive there for the U.S. Open this week, they won't recognize the course that last played host to the Open in 1994.
Gone are 6,000 trees. According to Oakmont club President Bill Griffin, there is only one tree left that comes into play on the interior of the course.
The goal was to restore Oakmont to its roots, none of which included trees. The course was designed in 1903 as a wide-open, wind-swept, links-style venue. In an effort to beautify the course, thousands of trees were planted during the 1960s.
"It looked like a Christmas tree farm," said Libertyville-based golf course architect Rick Jacobson.
Various high-ranking members who agree with that statement quietly began a covert campaign to remove the trees. Eventually, the operation was discovered, however, prompting threats of lawsuits from members who wanted to keep the trees.
The trees, though, continued to fall. Much of the dissension evaporated when the rave reviews started to come in.
NBC analyst Johnny Miller believes Oakmont soon will be regarded as the No. 1 course in the country.
"As the trees started to come down, you could see the different views, and they're wonderful," Griffith said. "The bottom line is that everyone now is very much behind it. This is what Oakmont was designed to be."
Donald Ross, one of the game's great early architects, believed trees should be used as a backdrop to frame a hole. However, following an epidemic of Dutch elm disease in the 1960s, club officials reacted with a mass planting of new trees.
"There was a serious overplanting," Jacobson said. "People forget that trees aren't a static component. They continue to grow."
Several area clubs have brought in Jacobson to address their situations, including two designed by Ross: Oak Park Country Club and Bob O'Link. One of Jacobson's first tasks is to try to explain to members what needs to be done about the trees.
"People look at the beauty and majesty of trees, but they don't understand what they do to the golf course," Jacobson said.