Harbour Town without Trees

[Tony Ristola]

A couple scenarios:

Let's say a hurricane zipped through Calibogue Sound and ripped out all the trees at Harbour Town. Let's also pretend there is no housing development so there wouldn't be the shock and awe of structures staring you in the face. You'd have many clear-distant views of the salt marshes. Holes like 2 would lose some of their strategic merit, but all in all, how far would the course slide down the rankings? Would it ever be seen in the rankings again?

Let's also say someone built a Harbour Town on an inland site devoid of trees, and just used long grass in the (far) out of play areas. Would the course be haled as something excellent or looked as a course lacking?

[Matt MacIver]

It might go from a pretty tight course to wide open.  Instead of a random (not so random?) Wye Oak providing an interesting recovery shot, the tremendous newly found width would.  And to the still extremely small greens.

I think it would be a better course: you lose the housing, gain the wind.  Losing some of those old and strategic trees would be a bummer, for me at least.  But the land is generally very flat.  I would say it should move up a bit based on that scenario, but it probably wouldn't, and won't.  Too many new courses being built, some good, some popular.  

[Mike Hoak]

You could always lose the houses, but I think the loss of some of those strategic trees would hurt the courses ranking--at least for me.  The trees are one of the central design elements of the course.  For example, my favorite hole on the course is number nine.  I think that hole would be wrecked if you lost those trees on the left.  As it plays now, the hole requires that you hit a precise shot to the right side of a very narrow fairway in order to have a good approach shot into the green.  Without those trees, a player could just step up and bomb the ball.      

[JeffTodd]

Without trees I think the quality of the course would suffer greatly. Harbour Town is a course where there is very little gray area, especially off the tee. If you hit a good shot then you'll have a good look at the green. If you do not hit a good shot then you are left with a recovery attempt, or trying to work the ball around the trees and into those very small greens; not an easy task. I see Harbour Town as a course that lets the player produce good shots and bad shots, but with a very fine line separating the two, and with very few shots that are neither good nor bad. If you remove the trees then you would remove that element of the design, and the course would then be receptive to all sorts of less than stellar shots.  

As Mike Hoak mentioned, if the player felt that he could spray the ball and survive, often without penalty, Harbour Town would be unable to defend itself, even from players of much less skill than the touring professional.

[Tim Gavrich]

As far as I'm concerned, there is no Harbour Town without the trees.  It just wouldn't have any character anymore.  It's a perfect example of why in terms of trees, "almost none" is not always better than "more," as the idea seems to be at times 'round these parts.

Cheers.

--Treehugger Tim  

[David_Madison]

You'd kill the course. Harbour Town is totally a three dimensional course. The trees require you to carve the ball at varying heights in ways that no amount of rough, sand, water, or wind could ever require. There's too many bunkers and other obstacles in the fronts of greens and the ground is soft there, so you'd never be able to change the nature of the place to require low, running, ground-game shots.

[Andy Troeger]

Harbour Town is totally a three dimensional course. The trees require you to carve the ball at varying heights in ways that no amount of rough, sand, water, or wind could ever require.

Agreed, the course would suffer greatly without the trees. If you want a treeless flat course go to Indiana (and I would guess other neighboring states), there's a bunch of them. Some of them are pretty good, but none of them are Harbour Town.

[Adam Clayman]

As someone who is familiar with Pete's work but has never been to the sound, I find it hard to believe that the course would suffer all that much.

Why does less trees imply ground game options?

From this armchair, over growth on any venue implies it's already suffering. Plus, A hurricane doesn't necessarily take every tree. Just a nice thining.

[Brent Hutto]

Adam,

I have no doubt that you are capable of liking a treeless Harbour Town more than the real thing. But without trees, it is no more Harbour Town than Oakmont would be Oakmont with flat greens or the Old Course would be the Old Course without bunkers.

When players think of Harbour Town, they think of working the ball over, under, around and through narrow corridors of trees. And some of them actually enjoy the experience. Don't that just beat all?