Did Sarazen change the course of architecture ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Can you picture approaching the 1st, 7th, 8th, 11th, 12th,
14th, 15th, 17th and 18th greens at NGLA from 60-80 yards without sand/lob wedges under tournament conditions ?

What was the date of the tournament/invitational when all the top pros were invited to play NGLA early in its existence ?

[ForkaB]

Thanks, Doyens

My technique for hitting out of buried lies also includes the "stop the hands at the ball" trick, using a PW and a straight up and down swing, almost like chopping a log.  Is this the Burns technique too?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Rich Goodale,

Yes,

But, on a normal shot, you don't have to be so steep.
And, employ the outside-in plane.

[David Harshbarger]

In reading Macan's assessment of courses in SF in 1926, It struck me how penal he credited sand traps to be.  In 1926 the Sand Wedge had not been invented.  And, if playing with clubs like I have where my most lofted club is a Mashie Niblick with a thin little sole and tiny bounce, if any, getting out of the sand is a bitch, at least when using modern blasting technique.

Maybe a Niblick played differently would change the equation, but as it stands now for me, a deep green side bunker with 1920's equipment is a bad place, a very bad place. 

I think most of us kinda smirk at Macan talking about zig zagging around w/o crossing a bunker, but if you replaced every club with significant bounce (say 6 percent) with low or no bounce clubs, would it change how you play around those cavernous bunkers?

[Mac Plumart]

Maybe a Niblick played differently would change the equation, but as it stands now for me, a deep green side bunker with 1920's equipment is a bad place, a very bad place. 

Absolutely!!

Playing hickories brought this fact to my attention.  Bunkers are bad with 1920's equipment, but REALLY bad with 1890's era stuff.  With the updates in golf club technology, I totally get why architects went big time with the water hazards.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Mac

Hhhhmmmmmmmm.  Bunkers pre 1890's and the then equipment gave golf the kick to make it go overseas. 
What about this bunker from 1880's
.

And was it really a change for the better? Was golf still a challenge or was this the start of the watering down of GCA?

[David Harshbarger]

Melvyn, I'm not really getting your point so I'm going to say.....Yes!

Mac,

After I first posted I started to wonder about the change in architecture we see in the post war boom, and what role did the SW play in that new style?

From the early thirties until the mid forties GCA went more or less dormant.  But golf playing did not.  The architects that picked up the mantle in 1946, Robert Trent Jones and Dick Wilson at the fore, would have seen the advances in play on the courses designed pre-SW.  And, they were in the thick of it in the pre-SW design era, too.  Would the change in that critical piece of equipment, which in many ways dictates the severity of golf's fundamental hazard,have influenced them in their assessment of the less penal nature sand had now become?  Would this have led to more water hazards as a consequence, or even just less strategic use of sand (if seen as less challenging and hence less necessary)?

Would love to hear from anyone with a foot back in that era who might have first hand information on that thinking.

Dave

[Mark Steffey]

Melvyn,

Is that a bunker?  Or a pre-foundation housing plot?

[Doug Siebert]

Reading this old thread has (aside from making me realize "holy crap, I've been on this site for almost 10 years!") made me wonder what the effect of a rule limiting club loft would do to the game?  Let's say clubs were limited to no more than 45* loft, being a nice round number halfway between 0 and 90.  While its certainly true you can play out of bunkers with less lofted clubs - even a 2 iron if you're Seve - its going to make it more difficult.  And you can recover from greenside rough with less lofted clubs, open the face more, etc. but its going to make it more difficult.

Assuming the architecture and conditioning remained the same, I wonder how it would affect the pros' strategies.  I can't speak for all amateurs, but it would probably cause me to worry more about short siding myself, and treat areas where I can now recover with my LW but would find it more difficult to recover with a 45* club as more penal and therefore to be avoided than I treat them today.  On the whole basically it would make me a bit more cautious in playing approach shots.

Not having any clubs with a loft larger than 45* wouldn't make too much of a difference to me as I'm a feel player so I could quickly get used to playing pitch shots with a 9 iron instead of a more lofted club.  The mechanicals using the Pelz system would be well and truly screwed, I imagine.  On the other hand, everyone gets 2 or 3 more clubs in their bag, so I'm sure the equipment makers would love such a rule!

[Melvyn Morrow]

Mark

That picture was Hell Bunker TOC in 1885

[David Harshbarger]

Doug,

My entre to this idea came from playing hickories, and my understanding has it that 50-60 degree lofts were common in the hickory era.  However, I think (but am not sure, but that's not stopping me), the clubs didn't have bounce in the soles.

What if played your thought experiment out in two directions, the version with limit on loft, and a version with a limit on bounce?

Dave

[Bill_McBride]

What did Sarazen have to do with the lob wedge?  His contribution was the addition of bounce to a niblick with lots of metal welded to the flange.  The lob wedges I have used employed very little bounce and are most effective in wet or hard packed sand.  Two different clubs for two different situations.  

[Sam Morrow]

Maybe the better question is how did Tom Kite employing the 3 wedge set change architecture.