Was CBM's the first "Redan?"

[Rich Goodale]

Thanks, Dan

As I said a few days ago:

"Great hearing from you and thanks for the interesting data.  That 75 by Ben Sayers is a pretty amazing score for that day and age.  It wasn't until the Haskell came out that the pros were regularly breaking 80 on 6000+ yard courses.  The other data seem to imply that the Redan they were playing was not the 266 yard one.  I don't think you would get so many 3's on such a lengthy and difficult hole, even today.  Maybe the back tee was just there for show, and/or the locals rebelled against playing it and reverted to the "old" one?  Such things have happened before and continue to happen today."

Which I meant to imply that I thought you were probably right.  I repeat it not for your benefit, but for Tom Paul's, as his reading skills seem to have diminished over the years.

Thanks, too, for the correction regarding Taylor's position in that tournament.  I misread my source.  My bad.

I'm still not sure there was not a tee next to the new 14th green.  It would have been a great hole from there.  As I've said elsewhere above, I'll get around to asking somebody who might know more when I get a chance to do it.

Thank you and all the others for your contribution to the dialogue.

Rich

[TEPaul]

"Which I meant to imply that I thought you were probably right.  I repeat it not for your benefit, but for Tom Paul's, as his reading skills seem to have diminished over the years.  

Rich:

If you said that a few days ago I stand corrected about what you've said to date.

My only point with the info I provided about tees and the Rules of Golf and the date of "The Best hole Discussion" and such was that the redan at NGLA was not the first one shot or par 3 Redan hole in existence as you implied it may've been in your initial post----but that NB's #15 was as has generally been assumed for years.

I believe you've said on this thread that you knew all of the above but nevertheless on the first post of this thread you said:

"However, what I read implies that it was much closer to 1932 than 1895 when this happened, which would seem to imply that the hole that CBM "copied" was not a par-3 but a short 2-shot hole (with roughly the same green complex as today--although it was not as long)."

I think at this point the contributors to this thread have virtually proven that that was not the case. Perhaps you don't think the info provided passes some Descartes type questioning and "proof test" but I do.

Hope that helps answer your questions.
 

[Bryan Izatt]

For posterity, here are the stick diagrams and course yardages from 1877 and 1895 that Rich has been referring to.









Below is an aerial of the current course with the 1895 distances relative to the current green configurations.

Seems evident that the stick diagram places the 14th green and 15th tee closer to the wall than to the beach and the sea, assuming the curved line in the stick diagram is the wall (as is still visible in the current aerial).  The Redan couldn't have been 266 yards in that configuration unless the Redan green was further inland.  That seems unlikely. The only way to get it to be 266 with the current green location would be to go back out to the edge of the beach (and down a small cliff iirc).  The stick diagram doesn't show that.

The 4th tee in the stick diagram seems to create a line over the double bunkers on the 15th rather than where I drew the 243 yd lline.  From over there to the current 4th green is over 300 yards.  

Seems likely to me that the stick diagram is just representative and that the distances of the holes is approximate, at best.

[TEPaul]

Bryan:

That's some amazing comparative info you posted there.

I'll tell you one thing---eg either they didn't draw very accurately back then or that coastline has changed in a pretty significant way. Check it out. What do you make of that? Where was that big elbow on the coast on #14 back in the last century?

[Tony_Muldoon]

Thanks Bryan.

[Bryan Izatt]

TEP,

No doubt the ravages of global warming created the elbow.

Or, I guess maybe we could just run with the lousy drawer idea. Where was the CAD technology in 1895 after all.

[Rich Goodale]

Thanks, Brian.

Great job of cleaning up the images and tying into the Google map.

Per Tom's observation, It does seem that the "point" by the 14th green has been created by Mother Nature since 1895, possibly by depositing sand from the position of the non-apochryphal  (266 yard) tee to the left (West).

Next GCAer out playing NB, take a look from beside the 14th green to seen what a two-shotter Redan might have looked like, even if just to humor me!

Rich

[Tony_Muldoon]

Bryan, the line you show to the Redan green takes the swale and their bunkers out of play.  What would a dogleg R-L of 266 yrds look like?

Rich would surely agree that it's only the lack of a quirky two shotter that keeps NB from being the perfect 10

[Rich Goodale]

Tomy

How about if the tee was to the West of the 14th green (hitting across its front)?

Rich

PS--to approach a 10, I think they'd have to restore the original 16th green, which was the right hand 1/2 of the two humps, but was completley surround by water!

R

[TEPaul]

Here's another question for Rick to nibble on.

Did they even use yards to measure holes in GB a hundred years ago?

[Rich Goodale]

In Scotland, they did.  In England it was Ferrets.  I've been told that in Pennsylvania it was the square root of the Scrapple (which of course were a measurement of area).

[TEPaul]

The Scots invented the "yard" measurement, didn't they Farnsworth?  

[TEPaul]

At this point it's probably appropriate to ask you, Rich, if you're still entertaining the idea that NGLA's Redan was the first real "one shot" or "par 3" redan?

Another way of looking at this question, albeit not particularly scientifically, is that if C.B. Macdonald actually did invent and make the first "one shot" or "par 3" redan, knowing Macdonald he very likely would have taken credit for that.  

Did he take credit for that?  

Another question that's an appropriate way of looking at all this at this point would be;

"How stubborn can or should a questioner be given a wealth of evidence to the contrary?"

[Bryan Izatt]

Tony, Rich,

Herewith alternative routings of a short 4.  The one from west of the 14th green might make a really neat short 4.  The one from the east side at 266 yards, not so much.

[James Bennett]

Another question that's an appropriate way of looking at all this at this point would be;

"How stubborn can or should a questioner be given a wealth of evidence to the contrary?"

Ask Pat.

James B

[TEPaul]

Pat:

How stubborn can or should a questioner be given a wealth of evidence to the contrary?  

[TEPaul]

JamesB:

Do you know how you can tell when Pat and Farnsworth have seen enough evidence to the contrary to stop being a pain in the ass about their questions and points?

[James Bennett]

Tom

I am not that smart or intuitive.  You need a savant for that.  You might try Michael Malone.  I believe his fee would be quite reasonable.

Don't ask Wayne for a reference though.

James B

[TEPaul]

JamesB:

Don't worry about being smart or intuitive or needing a savant. I'm going to tell you how you can tell when they've seen enough evidence to the contrary to stop being a pain in the ass.

It's when they no longer respond on that thread!  

[Rich Goodale]

Tom

I can't speak for Pat, but in my case it is extreme boredeom.  I promise that if you say something of substance, or even just mildly interesting, I'll respond (insert emoticon of your choice here).

Rich

[TEPaul]

Rich:

Extreme boredom, huh?    

Listen, pal, I think I'm aware, or we are aware that with your initial post on this thread you probably thought you may have discovered something pretty significant from your research of NB and its Redan via a NB history book that was written about 50-60 years after the Redan was tansitioned into a real "one shot" par 3 hole. I think you felt that perhaps you'd shown for the first time that it was not actually a shorter hole for perhaps decades after most everyone thought it was.

That would've been very significant and it may've meant that NGLA's Redan was in fact the first "one shot" "par 3" redan in existence.

Unfortunately for you I think a number of contributors on here have proved that your suspicion was in fact not correct.

I can understand that that is probably pretty disappointing to you, but do you really need to say that the evidence presented that NB's redan really was in fact the first "one shot" "par 3" redan has caused you to feel extreme boredom??

If you're going to be as defensive about being proven wrong as you have been perhaps you should have come up with something a lot less transparent than 'extreme boredom'.  

Don't you at least feel some elation in having us find out for you and NB that either the coastline has apparently changed significantly in the 20th century or those people who drew those old course maps above were some pretty poor drawers? Or is knowing that extremely boring to you too?