Map of Alwoodley

[James Bennett]

James, That is the map to which I have several times referred. You can see why we are not sure whether the 11th was ever moved.

From my one day visit, I recall the 11th tee being opposite the new 10th green, so think that must be the new 11th hole.  From the map it appears Mackenzie is saying "expected new 11th hole."

This looks like a Gibralter hole to me (with Nick L 'teeing it up' in the foreground.  As Bill says, it plays from adjacent to the new #10 green, and it also plays across the valley which I assume was purchased by the club.

James B

[James Bennett]

Mark

the date of the map was on the title of the file I posted.  I know no more than that.  I'll check the map, but you probably know more than me on this.  Nick Leefe will know more again. 

I agree with you about the work-in progress nature of the course at the time.  We have also discussed how the 3rd tee was moved back behind the 16th fairway, and the 'string of pearls' bunkering that exists at the start of #13 fairway today, featured in the earlier photos.

Next time I am over from OZ, I'd love to see Alwoodley (and Moortown) with others.  My sister lives in Leeds (Headingley).  It will be some months though, so count me out of any short-term reconnoitering. (sp?).

Re #11 green.  I wonder whether #12 tee has been pushed back since this map was produced, which changes the distance of the walk from the old/new green to this tee.  Can someone check the current length of the hole against the distance penciled in on the plan above.  It might suggest that we have been looking in the wrong place for the original #11 green.  For the old #11 hole to have been 'playable', the tee must have been on the far side of the valley if the green has since been relocated - surely they wouldn't have had a blind hole up and over the incline to the right of the current greensite.

Edit - according to the map, the old #11 was 125 yards, 135 from the back.  Doesn't fit with the new green.  And #12 was 325 yards, 355 from the back.  The current #12 hole plays a lot longer than that IIRC.  So, I expect the old #11 green is perhaps another 40 yards on from where we might otherwise expect.

James B

[Bradley Anderson]

"Tom I think that at this point these fairways would have been cut with a horse drawn three gang mower."

Bradley:

Nevertheless, what I'm really wondering is if those fair number of melded together fairways were simple a function of the mechanics of those mowers at the time? I'm 64 now and I've been mowing fields and such since I was around 14 and I do remember those old mowers and how you had to get off and manually disengage the mowers if you were going into an unmowed area. It seems to me it was just easier in those days to have those frequent fairway "melds" just so you didn't have to do that back then.

Matt Shaeffer of Merion noticed that on old photos of the West course where there were these wide mown swaths between holes and even through some treelining. He figured it happened that way just so the guy mowing didn't have to keep getting off to manually disengage the mowers all the time.

I even remember the old bar-lever to engage and disengage those old mowers. It wasn't that easy to do frankly. Sometimes I had to actually prop myself up on something to get some leverage to push it in and out/back and forth. I think I even did some pretty energetic and probably angry kicking on it from time to time!

I seem to recall it was pretty much the same kind of thing for equipment like some of the old hay rakes and bailers we used to have on the farm.

Tom,

I think fairway and rough mowing schemes were less standardized then than they are now. Some clubs had one set of gangs to mow the whole playing field through the green at one height of cut. The rough outside of that cut was more or less knocked down with a sickle bar mower once or twice a year - the kind of mower that is used to mow hay fields.

I used to run a sickle bar mower on my grandfathers farm when I was a kid. That is one dangerous piece of machinery! There was three legged dog on that farm. 

There were other clubs that ran more than one gang mower, with the second set adjusted higher to provide a differentiation between the rough and the fairway, not unlike the standards that we have today. These clubs would generally water the fairways. And I beginning to think that those fairways were generally seeded to finer textured grasses.

But I am speaking in very broad generalizations here. This was all constantly changing.

I don't think MacKenzie connected those fairways to save the operator from disengaging the gang mowers. I would guess that he actually had strategic reasons for doing so. He once said that "no one ever gets as much thrill from driving over a stretch of rough as they do a fearsome bunker." I actually think that he didn't care much for rough as a factor in the outcome of a match. And he detested searching for lost balls.

I am assuming that Alwoodley was not irrigated in the fairways, so the main cost in having large fairways was mowing. If it had been an inch or two higher, you would still have to mow it, albeit with 50% less frequency. His fairway mowing scheme actually makes a lot of sense. Augusta kept that scheme right up until recently.

I have some pictures of old clubs where the fairways are cut 60 yards wide, right to the tree lines. Those bunkers that are way out there in the rough used to be in the fairways. I think that the hickory clubs must have been more wild for trying to control a truly strait line, and they just needed wider playing fields back then.

[James Bennett]

I am assuming that Alwoodley was not irrigated in the fairways, so the main cost in having large fairways was mowing. If it had been an inch or two higher, you would still have to mow it, albeit with 50% less frequency. His fairway mowing scheme actually makes a lot of sense. Augusta kept that scheme right up until recently.

I have some pictures of old clubs where the fairways are cut 60 yards wide, right to the tree lines. Those bunkers that are way out there in the rough used to be in the fairways. I think that the hickory clubs must have been more wild for trying to control a truly strait line, and they just needed wider playing fields back then.

Bradley

Alwoodley fairways are unirrigated today, so it is probably a safe bet that they weren't irrigated in Mackenzie's era.

A problem they have today is managing the ingress into the fairways and near fairway area of heather.  This is one of the points of differentiation (IMO) between Moortown and Alwoodley.  Alwoodley has more traditional roughs interspersed with heather, impinging into fairways.  Moortown has roughs that are more frequently mown, with less heather infiltration into the playing area.  I also suspect but do not know that Moortown uses some irrigation on the fairways - can anyone confirm this?

As an interesting aside - are Mackenzie courses typically 'less irrigated' than their neighbouring clubs?  I can think of many such examples - Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Leeds, but am not sure about Montecito or Monterey or Santa Cruz or San Francisco (it was raining heavily at these venues when I visited).

James B

[Bill_McBride]

I am assuming that Alwoodley was not irrigated in the fairways, so the main cost in having large fairways was mowing. If it had been an inch or two higher, you would still have to mow it, albeit with 50% less frequency. His fairway mowing scheme actually makes a lot of sense. Augusta kept that scheme right up until recently.

I have some pictures of old clubs where the fairways are cut 60 yards wide, right to the tree lines. Those bunkers that are way out there in the rough used to be in the fairways. I think that the hickory clubs must have been more wild for trying to control a truly strait line, and they just needed wider playing fields back then.

Bradley

Alwoodley fairways are unirrigated today, so it is probably a safe bet that they weren't irrigated in Mackenzie's era.

A problem they have today is managing the ingress into the fairways and near fairway area of heather.  This is one of the points of differentiation (IMO) between Moortown and Alwoodley.  Alwoodley has more traditional roughs interspersed with heather, impinging into fairways.  Moortown has roughs that are more frequently mown, with less heather infiltration into the playing area.  I also suspect but do not know that Moortown uses some irrigation on the fairways - can anyone confirm this?

As an interesting aside - are Mackenzie courses typically 'less irrigated' than their neighbouring clubs?  I can think of many such examples - Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Leeds, but am not sure about Montecito or Monterey or Santa Cruz or San Francisco (it was raining heavily at these venues when I visited).

James B

James, the Valley Club of Montecito has a first rate irrigation system, which is a good thing because Santa Barbara is a very dry climate.  There is a good bit of marine layer that helps keep it moist, but the irrigation is still necessary.  However, the course is kept pretty firm which is of course how it was designed to be played.

I'll be there for a week in February and can't wait to see the final results of the most recent restoration work.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

James, Nick Leefe (who knows everything there is to know about Alwoodley, as you well know) was part of the discussion about whether or not the 11th green had been moved, and he was as uncertain as the rest of us. From the old tee the present green is not blind, had it been further back (which at 135 yards it couldn't be) it would have been.

[Bradley Anderson]

Bradley

Alwoodley fairways are unirrigated today, so it is probably a safe bet that they weren't irrigated in Mackenzie's era.

A problem they have today is managing the ingress into the fairways and near fairway area of heather.  This is one of the points of differentiation (IMO) between Moortown and Alwoodley.  Alwoodley has more traditional roughs interspersed with heather, impinging into fairways.  Moortown has roughs that are more frequently mown, with less heather infiltration into the playing area.  I also suspect but do not know that Moortown uses some irrigation on the fairways - can anyone confirm this?


James B

James,

On another topic that I started here, someone indicated that the bunkering on a Colt golf course was planted with heather on the hummocks.

It seems to me that heather is not necessarily a welcome or chosen vegetative cover on heathland golf courses, but more of a nusiance plant that is just so difficult to control that it is tolerated? Is that a fair assumption?

In America the best way to control volunteer woody plant material is to mow every week. In deep rough prairies we have to burn once a year, and even then we still have to get in those wild areas and cut woody plant material back from time to time. I am just wondering if part of the reason why MacKenzie would design a wide mown fairway, where frequency of cut would have been one to two or three times a week, was to keep the heather back?

[Mark Pearce]

Bradley

Alwoodley fairways are unirrigated today, so it is probably a safe bet that they weren't irrigated in Mackenzie's era.

A problem they have today is managing the ingress into the fairways and near fairway area of heather.  This is one of the points of differentiation (IMO) between Moortown and Alwoodley.  Alwoodley has more traditional roughs interspersed with heather, impinging into fairways.  Moortown has roughs that are more frequently mown, with less heather infiltration into the playing area.  I also suspect but do not know that Moortown uses some irrigation on the fairways - can anyone confirm this?


James B

James,

On another topic that I started here, someone indicated that the bunkering on a Colt golf course was planted with heather on the hummocks.

It seems to me that heather is not necessarily a welcome or chosen vegetative cover on heathland golf courses, but more of a nusiance plant that is just so difficult to control that it is tolerated? Is that a fair assumption?

In America the best way to control volunteer woody plant material is to mow every week. In deep rough prairies we have to burn once a year, and even then we still have to get in those wild areas and cut woody plant material back from time to time. I am just wondering if part of the reason why MacKenzie would design a wide mown fairway, where frequency of cut would have been one to two or three times a week, was to keep the heather back?

Heather may be unwelcome and a nuisance when your ball is sitting in it but it is a highly desirable hazard on heathland courses.  Well maintained heather can be a hazard in which it is easy to find a ball but very difficult to move it far.  It is far superior to thick grass in this respect IMHO.  Indeed many courses have engaged in heather reclaimation projects to promote the growth of heather in appropriate places.

[Andrew Mitchell]

Bradley

Alwoodley fairways are unirrigated today, so it is probably a safe bet that they weren't irrigated in Mackenzie's era.

A problem they have today is managing the ingress into the fairways and near fairway area of heather.  This is one of the points of differentiation (IMO) between Moortown and Alwoodley.  Alwoodley has more traditional roughs interspersed with heather, impinging into fairways.  Moortown has roughs that are more frequently mown, with less heather infiltration into the playing area.  I also suspect but do not know that Moortown uses some irrigation on the fairways - can anyone confirm this?


James B

James,

On another topic that I started here, someone indicated that the bunkering on a Colt golf course was planted with heather on the hummocks.

It seems to me that heather is not necessarily a welcome or chosen vegetative cover on heathland golf courses, but more of a nusiance plant that is just so difficult to control that it is tolerated? Is that a fair assumption?

In America the best way to control volunteer woody plant material is to mow every week. In deep rough prairies we have to burn once a year, and even then we still have to get in those wild areas and cut woody plant material back from time to time. I am just wondering if part of the reason why MacKenzie would design a wide mown fairway, where frequency of cut would have been one to two or three times a week, was to keep the heather back?

Heather may be unwelcome and a nuisance when your ball is sitting in it but it is a highly desirable hazard on heathland courses.  Well maintained heather can be a hazard in which it is easy to find a ball but very difficult to move it far.  It is far superior to thick grass in this respect IMHO.  Indeed many courses have engaged in heather reclaimation projects to promote the growth of heather in appropriate places.

Several UK heathland courses that I have played in recent times have posted signs stating that they are undertaking heather regeneration programmes.  These include Alwoodley, Moortown, Bingley St Ives and Wentworth.

As Mark says, in the UK heather is seen as a desirable hazard.

[Bradley Anderson]

[/quote]
Heather may be unwelcome and a nuisance when your ball is sitting in it but it is a highly desirable hazard on heathland courses.  Well maintained heather can be a hazard in which it is easy to find a ball but very difficult to move it far.  It is far superior to thick grass in this respect IMHO.  Indeed many courses have engaged in heather reclaimation projects to promote the growth of heather in appropriate places.
[/quote]

Several UK heathland courses that I have played in recent times have posted signs stating that they are undertaking heather regeneration programmes.  These include Alwoodley, Moortown, Bingley St Ives and Wentworth.

As Mark says, in the UK heather is seen as a desirable hazard.
[/quote]

Well there you have it. I guess I made a bad assumption regarding heather.

But is heather something that would have grown up as a volunteer plant in area that MacKenzie intended to be free of all hazard? Is that the nature of heather - to spread into any areas where frequent mowing in not practiced? Going back to Tom Paul's original question about those areas where fairways are connected: Tom was wondering if those were designed to make the mowing process easier, and my take on it is that it might have been designed rather as a means of providing areas through the green that would be free of hazard.

But it sounds like heather is not as prolific of a volunteer as I had thought.

[Tony_Muldoon]

But is heather something that would have grown up as a volunteer plant in area that MacKenzie intended to be free of all hazard? Is that the nature of heather - to spread into any areas where frequent mowing in not practiced? Going back to Tom Paul's original question about those areas where fairways are connected: Tom was wondering if those were designed to make the mowing process easier, and my take on it is that it might have been designed rather as a means of providing areas through the green that would be free of hazard.

But it sounds like heather is not as prolific of a volunteer as I had thought.

As mentioned on the other thread the turf at Alwoodley is particularly springy.  It is also the only course I've been to that you can see heather trying to establish itself in the fairway.  I saw this on the 3rd, the 5th and one or two others.  So it maybe that it is particularly vigorous in some parts of the course.  Having said that overall there isn't nearly as much heather as there is at e.g. Walton Heath, Swinley or judging by Philip's photos Hankley Common.  Sorry if this is inconclusive but Nick Leefe might know more and sending him an email might be the best way to get an answer.

[Rich Goodale]

Tony

I too was intrigued by the heather on the 3rd and 5th at Alwoodley.  In my recollection it was not just encroaching, but seemed to be leaping (i.e. patches springing up in the middle of grasses 10-20 yards from the mother ship that was the rough).

I must also say that the depth of the heather at Alwoodley was about the only disappointing aspect to that otherwise very fine course, IMO.  I remember spending far too much time trying to find golf balls hit only slightly off-line.  Thick and moderately deep was what I would described it as.  In that regard, the set-up at Alwoodley was no better than a course "boasting" US Open type rough.  Although I know that soils and climates maketh the heather, the alternative presentations of heather at the raised beach holes of Golspie (deep but thin) and Dornoch (thick but shallow) are far preferable if you value quick play and hazards that can be recovered from through various strategies, each of which carries proportionate risk.

Rich

PS--as an interesting fillip of quirk, maybe somebody can retrieve for this site and post the pictures of that course in The Netherlands which features 100% groomed heather fairways!

j-p p

[Bill_McBride]

Tony

I too was intrigued by the heather on the 3rd and 5th at Alwoodley.  In my recollection it was not just encroaching, but seemed to be leaping (i.e. patches springing up in the middle of grasses 10-20 yards from the mother ship that was the rough).

I must also say that the depth of the heather at Alwoodley was about the only disappointing aspect to that otherwise very fine course, IMO.  I remember spending far too much time trying to find golf balls hit only slightly off-line.  Thick and moderately deep was what I would described it as.  In that regard, the set-up at Alwoodley was no better than a course "boasting" US Open type rough.  Although I know that soils and climates maketh the heather, the alternative presentations of heather at the raised beach holes of Golspie (deep but thin) and Dornoch (thick but shallow) are far preferable if you value quick play and hazards that can be recovered from through various strategies, each of which carries proportionate risk.

Ou est M. Parodi? 

I remember the heather being most in play off the tee at 12, with a pretty good forced carry.

[Bradley Anderson]

I may be prolonging this topic to the point of being a big bore but I think that it is important to understand the evolution of the heathland golf courses.

According to Cornish & Whitten there was significant clearing of the heaths for golf course development. But it was worth the effort to clear those lands because the underlying soils was pretty good stuff to work with for shaping and for growing fine turf.

There were at least two other factors that made the effort worthwhile:

1) the location of the heaths were close enough to London for the support in membership that a club would need to exist.

2) there were some advances being made at this time in the use of grass seed for propogating large areas.

In the earliest photos of these golf courses they appear to be stark in comparison to contemporay photos. But many of the same holes are now much narrower from pine tree growth on the edges, and they even seem to have become much more punitive from the growth of heather in the interiors.

In America our game has also been pinched in places by planting trees too close to the playing corridors. But in the heathland courses, the evolution seems have developed not so much from over-planting but rather from changing the mowing patterns. It looks like the heathland courses are basically returning to state on their own.

Sorry if that sounds like Yankee-arrogance or criticism but thats just what I can observe from the pictures.

Part of why this evolution is important to understand is because I think it is an issue of economy. In my experience here, it is cheaper to mow from fenceline to fenceline than it is to allow native (unmaintained) areas to grow up in a golf course.

When you allow areas of a golf course to return to state, they slowly migrate inwards from the edges. And the native areas become a seed bank for spreading invasive species to the interiors. Many years ago I allowed "out of play" areas to grow natural on my golf course. These areas were very interesting to look at when the grasses went to seed in early summer. And there were definite savings in mowing fuel and labor. But after five years or so I began to see weeds and softwood trees spring up in those areas. My herbicide budget had to be increased to control the weeds that the natural areas were seeding in to the groomed areas. I had to budget for grubbing out seedy weak limbed trees that were springing up all over. I had to dedicate a man to backpack spray the thistles that were popping up all over the place.

Before those areas were allowed to return to state, they were mowed 30 times a year or so, they were never fertilized, and they were spot sprayed for dandilions once in the spring - that was it. The budget to maintain those areas was less when they were mowed. And the management of those areas, when mowed, was way less complicated.

 

[Rich Goodale]

Bradley

There is a significant difference between "heathland" (the geomorphology) and "heather" (the plant).  Unimpeded, the plant will grow big and gnarly and must be cut down to create any sort of golfing surface.  This is what Park Jr. etc. did in the olden days to bring golf to the gormless Londoners.  Controlled, heather can be a very subtle hazard, or even a playing surface.  Uncontrolled, it can be and usually is a bitch....

j-p p

[Rich Goodale]

Ou est M. Parodi? 

Ici.

[Bradley Anderson]

Bradley

There is a significant difference between "heathland" (the geomorphology) and "heather" (the plant).  Unimpeded, the plant will grow big and gnarly and must be cut down to create any sort of golfing surface.  This is what Park Jr. etc. did in the olden days to bring golf to the gormless Londoners.  Controlled, heather can be a very subtle hazard, or even a playing surface.  Uncontrolled, it can be and usually is a bitch....

j-p p

It probably evolved to endure those close tolerances from grazing. From what I have been reading this morning those fields were probably grazed by sheep. And that might also explain why the pines were not as prevalent on those golf courses in the beginning - the best heather grazing fields were burned from time to time to keep them pure.

Thanks for the new word: gormless. That's a keeper. I wonder if I could use that in the same sentence as Green Bay Packers?

[James Bennett]

Tony

I too was intrigued by the heather on the 3rd and 5th at Alwoodley.  In my recollection it was not just encroaching, but seemed to be leaping (i.e. patches springing up in the middle of grasses 10-20 yards from the mother ship that was the rough).

I must also say that the depth of the heather at Alwoodley was about the only disappointing aspect to that otherwise very fine course, IMO.  I remember spending far too much time trying to find golf balls hit only slightly off-line.  Thick and moderately deep was what I would described it as.  In that regard, the set-up at Alwoodley was no better than a course "boasting" US Open type rough.  Although I know that soils and climates maketh the heather, the alternative presentations of heather at the raised beach holes of Golspie (deep but thin) and Dornoch (thick but shallow) are far preferable if you value quick play and hazards that can be recovered from through various strategies, each of which carries proportionate risk.

Rich

j-p p

j-p-p is right.  I believe the club has had some advice on the issues of the bunkers being 'set in the rough' on some holes.  #4 is a narrow bottleneck at the tee shot-point.  This is the rhs of fairway, and a similar issue occurs on the left.



For Tony Muldoon, here is the #5 - the patches of heather (and gorse) can be seen in this late March photo.



For Bill McBride, here is the wonderful carry over 'heather' on #12.  It looks like gorse to me.



If you want to see a wonderful patch of Heather, go across to Moortown and see #3.  This is on the rhs of fairway at the shot point (generally, the heather is better presented at Alwoodley IMO).  Or, visit some of the other clubs mentioned by Tony and the hyphen (j-p).  When does it bloom in vibrant purple - summer?



James B

[Bill_McBride]

You're obviously right about #12, James.  I was there in July and the yellow blooms were gone.  I wasn't really thinking and recalled heather, but that is even worse!

[Jon Wiggett]

Going back to comments about the fairway width. Wide fairways don't require more time to cut looked at on an annual basis if you have slow growth. My understanding was that through to the 1980's Alwoodley cut their fairways about once a month.

[TEPaul]

Jon Wiggett:

There is that old remark that in America they try to make golf grass grow while in most of the rest of the world they try to stop it from growing.   

And I've seen it said that in the very old days of golf in Scotland way before any kind of mowing it was generally a winter game since the grass got a bit long and high otherwise.

And those words of Joe Dey still ring in my mind: "Mr. Paul, I'm quite sure you have very little idea the way golf once was."

The inimitable Max Behr even gave it a term----"Wild Golf"