Herbert Strong*:
-believed in the need for good shot-making;
-made players pay the price for poor execution;
-designed boldly contoured greens that required careful approach shots, and ones that often set more of the strategy than his more famous bunkers;
-was a skilled router, even on a tough property like the one at Manor Richelieu in Que. Province;
-was criticized for being overly bold and aggressive with his architecture which was sometimes labeled as "a bag of tricks" used to make courses tough rather than good.
HS receives glowing praise from the author of this 1921 article** that's posted below, but I'm wondering about what's been said in the 6th paragraph, that Strong protected every green at Linwood by eliminating the run-up shot in favor of an aerial approach to all 18 greens.
Was Strong more of an aerialist than a ground game architect?
If so, was this always his approach, or did he adopt the more 'modern' aerial view of the game as his career progressed?
Was the author of the article mistaken about Linwood?
*
purloined condensed from a write up of Strong by Ian Andrew
**the final two paragraphs are reminiscent of RTJsr at Baltusrol and to a lesser extent, Marion Hollins at Cypress.
An article in another paper mentioned Strong's use of trees at Engineers as a way of dealing with the problem of parallel fairways. It seems that at the 1919 PGA players on the 15th hole were hooking their tee shots onto the 2nd fairway, affording them a better angle to the green, while those players who hit one straight down the middle had the dogleg to deal with. Strong's solution was to plant a row of trees between the two, and the tactic was eliminated (which probably didn't make for happy players at the 1920 US Amateur). Shades of Lon Hinkle.
