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Tim Gavrich

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Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« on: May 31, 2012, 02:20:37 PM »
Copied and pasted from Cape Arundel GC's website:

"Out of the eighteen greens, I would suggest three fairly flat, two or three gently sloping, one or two on the punch bowl order, two or three of the plateau type, and the rest more or less undulating."

Judging by this quotation (and assuming its veracity), Travis did not seem terribly concerned with having a uniform "style" of green contouring, which is a very interesting implication. The grainy pictures in the GCGC profile don't seem too conclusive on this matter; is it fair to say of Travis' courses that their greens are of markedly different contour styles? Is that effect jarring or okay?

Would you be turned off or intrigued by a golf course that had a handful of Raynor-type greens and a handful of Doak/C&C-type greens and a handful of (pick another architect)-style greens, assuming those greens were individually interesting?
Senior Writer, GolfPass

Alex Lagowitz

Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2012, 07:31:23 PM »
I'm slightly confused here Tim.

If you look at any great architect, each has his own style, yet all the greens are markedly different from one another.
Most great courses have some fairly sloping greens and some mild.

Raynor "template" greens have some that are very wild while others are fairly flat with minor contours.

Even Doak's courses follow the same rule of thumb.

I believe the design of the green is built in coherence with the surrounding land and expected shots to be played into the hole rather than forcing a punchbowl or undulating green on a hole where one is not necessary.


Tim Gavrich

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Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #2 on: May 31, 2012, 10:07:34 PM »
I'm slightly confused here Tim.

If you look at any great architect, each has his own style, yet all the greens are markedly different from one another.
Most great courses have some fairly sloping greens and some mild.

Raynor "template" greens have some that are very wild while others are fairly flat with minor contours.

Even Doak's courses follow the same rule of thumb.

I believe the design of the green is built in coherence with the surrounding land and expected shots to be played into the hole rather than forcing a punchbowl or undulating green on a hole where one is not necessary.


This seems to be less a "green vs. surroundings" issue than a "#1 green vs #2 gren vs. #3 green, etc..." issue.  Even the more "wild" Raynor greens have a different look to them than, say, the more "wild" Doak or C&C greens, right? I'm extrapolating from Travis' quote that there can--heck, should--be different styles of contouring used on different greens on the same golf course.

Are there a lot of golf courses that more or less satisfy all of Travis' conditions? My guess is no; almost every golf course's greens are of, at most, two or three of the five styles Travis mentions in the quote.
Senior Writer, GolfPass

Patrick_Mucci

Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2012, 10:13:17 PM »
Tim,

Don't believe everything these guys wrote.

Instead, look to their body of work.


Tim Gavrich

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Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2012, 10:34:10 AM »
Tim,

Don't believe everything these guys wrote.

Instead, look to their body of work.



Pat--

I'd love to, but I've not been able to see much of Travis' work. I was looking for either agreement or disagreement with this statement from those who have played his courses in order to parse the quotation out.

I know you're familiar with GCGC. Do its greens seem to follow the general formula contained in the quotation I posted from Travis?
Senior Writer, GolfPass

Jeff_Brauer

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Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #5 on: June 01, 2012, 10:50:36 AM »
Tim,

Based on my one trip around Cape Arundel a few years ago, I would say he held to his principles.  I was surprised at how modern (except smaller) his plateaus in about 3 or 4 greens were, and he had some with punch bowl features, with most gently rolling.  I didn't know he had written about his perfect balance.  Stylistically, I would say the outside surrounds gave it consistency.  The different contours didn't really "Jar the liver" as my Mom used to say.

BTW,  I don't think his list of green types is all that unusual.  100 years later, its similar to mine.

Pros tell me they don't like plateaus in greens all that much and 3 (one each par 3,4,5) or 4 max is enough.

Many architects use one or two flat greens for variety and one or two wilder ones for the same reason.  I try to include "planed greens" - i.e. no variation in slope, one each pitching all left, right, or back) on most courses.

I agree that most should be gently rolling, with a variety of slopes, etc.  In the end, gently rolling greens do best at providing a different putt every day (combo of pin locations and random variations in shots in) without sacrificing pin locations, as per another thread.  Generally, a putt of 20 feet is about twice as difficult as one from 10 feet, so there is some proportional reward for hitting it close (not always the case with plateaus in greens, which can spin a close to the pin shot back many feet, and even off the green!)

All of which confirmed my initial reaction that Travis had it going on!  As Jay Morrish said often, everytime you think you are doing something new, you find an example of someone who has done it decades or centuries ago.
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

TEPaul

Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #6 on: June 01, 2012, 12:04:57 PM »
Tim:


In all my travels over many years I doubt I have seen a course with more varied and different types and styles and shapes and sizes of greens than NGLA. I guess that should not surprise anyone as Macdonald did pull his template greens from a number of different courses and he also said that "variety" in all forms was essentially the most important factor in really good golf course architecture. He said that as Nature itself was so chock-full of variety, golf course architecture should reflect it.

Ronald Montesano

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Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #7 on: June 01, 2012, 04:23:50 PM »
Fairly flat versus gently sloping? Do they differ more than they compare?

Our Travis people (Ed Homsey, ed al.) can let us know if/how he differed with mountain versus flatland courses.

Cherry Hill (Ontario) is an apparently-fairly flat piece of property, with no major sloping. The greens go like this:

1-gently sloped
2-fairly flat
3-punch bowl
4-gently sloped
5-gently sloped
6-more than gently sloped
7-fairly flat
8-gently sloped
9-gently sloped
10-fairly flat
11-farking crazy (ask Lee Trevino)
12-fairly flat
13-fairly flat
14-gently sloped
15-more than gently sloped
16-punch bowl
17-more than gently sloped
18-the craziest green you will ever put, anywhere (ask Ray Floyd)
Coming in 2024
~Elmira Country Club
~Soaring Eagles
~Bonavista
~Indian Hills
~Maybe some more!!

Patrick_Mucci

Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #8 on: June 02, 2012, 05:08:06 AM »
Tim,

Don't believe everything these guys wrote.

Instead, look to their body of work.

Pat--

I'd love to, but I've not been able to see much of Travis' work. I was looking for either agreement or disagreement with this statement from those who have played his courses in order to parse the quotation out.

I know you're familiar with GCGC. Do its greens seem to follow the general formula contained in the quotation I posted from Travis?
In general, I'd say "no"

If there's a general formula at  GCGC, it's that the greens follow the land form, emerging seamlessly from the fairways.

The only greens with an element of contour in them are # 4, 11 and 16, the balance basically follow the surrounding terrain.

At first glance GCGC's greens seem benign, but their slope/cant makes print difficult.

Played there recently in a cool, three club wind,which made keeping it below the hole a real challenge.

Thankfully, the carpet like fairways are very wide


Niall C

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Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #9 on: June 02, 2012, 12:03:16 PM »
How do you know your looking at the original architects work, particularly in relation to green contours ? There's probably a very good chance that there's been some modifications over the years which may have taken the dge of them.

Niall

Tim Gavrich

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Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #10 on: June 03, 2012, 12:12:03 AM »
Tim:


In all my travels over many years I doubt I have seen a course with more varied and different types and styles and shapes and sizes of greens than NGLA. I guess that should not surprise anyone as Macdonald did pull his template greens from a number of different courses and he also said that "variety" in all forms was essentially the most important factor in really good golf course architecture. He said that as Nature itself was so chock-full of variety, golf course architecture should reflect it.
Tom--

That's very interesting indeed. I would have thought that Macdonald and Raynor greens tend more toward the "uniform style" end of the spectrum. That's based largely on pictures I've seen of their courses. I find that since we mostly see the templates in different settings, that makes a Macdonald/Raynor green easier to spot.

I have never seen NGLA but I have played Yale. Setting the 16th green aside because it's not original, I would say that the greens there seem to fit together thematically in terms of contouring style. However, that may be a self-fulfilling statement on my part. Do you have the same feeling about other CBM/SR courses as you do of NGLA?

Let me throw out Cascades as a course where the presence of greens contoured by different architects detracts a little bit, I believe, from the course.  I'm talking, of course, about the 14th and 15th greens, which I understand are the RTJ Sr. greens there. The main reason those holes feel like a departure from the "Flynnness" of the course is because those two greens are contoured differently than the Flynn greens, which in their entireties seem to have a dominant pitch in a particular direction.  The 14th and 15th greens at Cascades, as I recall, do not exhibit a dominant pitch and rather tilt in at least two different directions in different parts of the green.

I guess I was just struck by the certainty and formulaic nature of the quote.
Senior Writer, GolfPass

Jim_Kennedy

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Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #11 on: June 03, 2012, 08:07:56 AM »

I guess I was just struck by the certainty and formulaic nature of the quote.

I don't see the certainty in Travis' quote, or the formulae. He suggested certain types and numbers of greens, but they're really just generalizations.
As Pat noted, it's about what they did, not what they said. If an architect is asked a specific question, like, "what do you think is a good mix of greens for 18 holes", it's not surprising that they'd name a few concepts and quantities.

 
"I never beat a well man in my life" - Harry Vardon

TEPaul

Re: Walter Travis on Green Undulations
« Reply #12 on: June 03, 2012, 12:11:51 PM »
Tim:

Again, in my opinion, the greens of NGLA are about the least "uniform" in style and type as any set of eighteen greens I have seen anywhere. What Macdonald said about the importance of variety in golf architecture and what he did in that vein with his greens at NGLA seems complete in tune to me and just about the ultimate in variety in type, style, sizes----you name it---NGLA has got it green-wise somewhere on that golf course.

There is also no question that in his book Macdonald also talked about what "architecture" or 'scientific architecture' meant to him (eg building as in actually "building" greens and such) as opposed to just using natural landforms (which he appears to call "laying out"). But even with that it sure does appear to me that Macdonald had 1-3 greens at NGLA which were pretty damned natural "land-form" too.

Variety, variety, variety----he also said in no uncertain terms that was fundamentally the essence of all really good golf course architecture!
« Last Edit: June 03, 2012, 12:14:25 PM by TEPaul »

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