The Templates... One mo' time...

[Patrick_Mucci]

VK,

I think there's a nuanced difference between a Double Plateau and a Maiden green.

# 3 at Southampton is a Maiden green, # 11 at NGLA a Double Plateau.

"The Evangelist of Golf" should provide the backround for CBM's Punchbowl, but what separates CBM's Punchbowl at NGLA from every other Punchbowl I've seen are the two fairway Punchbowls in addition to the putting surface and surrounds Punchbowl

[Joel_Stewart]

George discusses it in a GCA interview many years ago.

http://golfclubatlas.com/feature-interview/george-bahto/

[V. Kmetz]

Hello,

thank you both, Joel and Pat for these additions.

PS: Is there something more about a "Maiden" hole than just the green properties that make it so...

I'm now going to read the Bahto thread that JS provided.

cheers

vk

[V. Kmetz]

God that Bahto link interview is SO informative

thanks for re-pointing me there Joel.

I'm gonna have to get me and Evangelist of Golf...

cheers

vk

[Norbert P]

Hi,


1. Biarritz - fishers 5, Yale 9 (also come in non-chasm types with no carry...all usually 200-225 yds)
2. Eden - 11 TOC
3. Redan - 15 NB, 4 NGLA, 7 Shinny
4. Reverse Redan - maybe not worthy of stipulation, but they appear on some good courses (like #7 Sleepy Hollow)
5. Short - many types, most often 125-150 target, large multi-sectored green with pimples, encircled by sand almost entirely in many versions
6. Alps - 17 at prestwick is the model, but I think 3 NGLA when I see the word
7. Road
8. Drive and Pitch - many types...maybe St. Andrews 7 is a model (??)...I think of #7 CC of Fairfield and #10 Merion as prototypical (is #1 NGLA intended as this iteration?)
9. Knoll - 14 at Yale, but I think there are ones that are more straightaway, (but all are usually marked by an absence of bunkers, raised volcanic green pad)
10. Hogsback - 5 at NGLA, 6 at Fishers
11. Double Plateau - 17 Yale, 11 NGLA
12. Cape - 14 at NGLA other versions with bunker/waste as the angle carry hazard instead of water, though water "feels" right for the name
13. Leven - 17 at NGLA.
14. Raynor's Prize DogLeg - I think of 18 at Knollwood as the most evident copy (god that is the toughest closing hole I know)
15. Punchbowl - don't know original, seen many types, but 16 at NGLA and 4 fishers are the models in my mind.
16. Sahara - is this more of the hazard's appearance or a recurring hole type emulated at #2 NGLA?
17. Bottle - 15 NGLA (what is the "command" of this hole...straight driving?.....)

. . .


If you have the time, please pass on your amendments.   . . .

vk

Dr. Mac's "Gibraltar" at Moortown.

[DMoriarty]

vk

I've also seen at least a couple references to so-called "brow" holes.  No. 6 Mid Ocean and I think another at early Piping Rock, but I might be misremembering that one.  Not sure what made up a brow hole, except perhaps a green on the "brow of a ridge or hill with aggressive bunkering in front of one side and a narrow opening to the the other.

[Bret Lawrence]

vk

I've also seen at least a couple references to so-called "brow" holes.  No. 6 Mid Ocean and I think another at early Piping Rock, but I might be misremembering that one.  Not sure what made up a brow hole, except perhaps a green on the "brow of a ridge or hill with aggressive bunkering in front of one side and a narrow opening to the the other.

Reply #147 in the Compilation of Routings thread includes Piping Rock from 1915.  Hole 15 was labeled "Brow".

[DMoriarty]

Thanks Bret.   Seems there was at least one other too, but I don't remember where.

[Bret Lawrence]

VK,

'The Evangelist of Golf' includes a solid foundation of the template holes, as mentioned earlier.

What I found really interesting was the interview with Seth Raynor at Olympic.  In this interview, the author gives some insight as to how Seth Raynor was thinking while coming up with his design for this golf course, including many templates.

The USGA Golf Architecture Archive has a letter from Seth Raynor to Yeamans Hall that includes a brief description of the holes and templates as described by Raynor, himself.

In a 1915 USGA Golf Bulletin, C.B. MacDonald authored an article in which he gives a hole by hole description of Lido, including some of the templates and their origins.  I don't have the exact month handy, but if you search MacDonald on SEGL, this magazine will come up.

Finally, going back to 'The Evangelist of Golf', there is a section on Yale in which Charles Banks gives a hole by hole description for the newly designed course.  Banks writing also includes some of the strategy and origins of the templates.

I have looked at these descriptions side by side in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the templates.  It is an interesting comparison that may raise a few questions! It may also show a slightly different interpretation amongst the three architects.

All these articles are written (or direct quotes) by the architects, so no assumptions need to be made!

[Sven Nilsen]

Here's what CBM wrote about the templates shortly after his 1906 trip abroad (from the Jan. 1907 edition of Golfers Magazine):












And here's his description of an ideal course taken from Scotland's Gift:

[V. Kmetz]

Hello,


great stuff guys, thank you, as I said -- I gotz to get me an Evangelist of Golf.

CHEERS

VK

[Patrick_Mucci]

Hello,


great stuff guys, thank you, as I said -- I gotz to get me an Evangelist of Golf.

CHEERS

VK

VK,

I may have an extra copy.
Email or IM me your mailing address

[V. Kmetz]

Hi guys,

One thing I wanted to offer to this discussion is a course I used to never talk about...Blind Brook CC in Purchase/Rye Brook NY.

In an evolutionary vein of a place I imagine  to be like Chicago GC, Blind Brook has always been an insular, ultra-private place...(I think some of my former reticence was in deference to that) its origins were with some of the game's most crusty patrician figures, but memberships are now mostly deeded through the top stations of corporate and government life. When they don't have a private member outing, 25 golfers represents a crush.

But it was specifically designed by Raynor (1917-18 I believe...no later than 1922) to be a gentler, older fellows golf course. So his answer was to deploy some of the strangest iterations of the "template" holes, that must exist... a 276 yard "Cape" that wraps uphill, around a willow banked pond...a "Short" whose putting surface is blind, set in the top of a volcanic hill, that must carry spectacle bunkers across the volcano's face, to discover a bathtub depression in the center of the green, a Road hole that plays with a magnificent downhill sweep, switchbacking just like one at TOC...A dead straight Alps hole...a 340 yard Punchbowl in which a protusion of pinnable putting surface comprises most of the back side of the gathering bowl...sort of like a Plateau green inside a Punchbowl green complex...

The club is enormously resistant to intrusion and the staff is an able guardian to those desires, but I've got to say if CBM-Raynor-Banks courses are truly great in how enjoyable and stimulating they are and how they reveal fundamental principles of GCA via their study, then Blind Brook is certainly one of the most necessary courses to examine. Jordan Spieth or your Assistant Pro might shoot 56 on it...I don't know...but it possesses some of the most unique iterations of those well-known styles that one will likely ever see.

cheers

vk

[Jon Cavalier]

Hi,

Jay, can you (or anyone) elaborate a bit more on "Lion's Mouth"

For starters, what number hole is it...never played or read that much about Charleston...

cheers

vk

The big bunker out front and center on #13 TOC is a Lion's Mouth.  Not a template but a feature.  The par 5 13th at Rustic Canyon has a terrific Lion's Mouth, with the green wrapped around it.  Second shots must be played to the side where the pin is located or chaos ensues. 

Here are two photos of the Lion's Mouth at CC of Charleston: