Why did Baltusrol take out the Sahara esque nature on 17 bunkers?

[Paul_Turner]

Interesting the different takes on the contours at Pine Valley. Like JES 11,  I'd consider the greens mentioned to have reasonably strong contours, particularly the 16th.  

But if you reference them to a green like the 6th at NGLA, then I suppose they're subtle!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Paul Turner,

Other than the backstop feature on # 16 green, which can't be cupped, the green isn't highly contoured.

One doesn't need to compare it to # 6 at NGLA, just compare it to # 3 at Baltusrol.

[T_MacWood]

Phil
An interesting take. One thing you've got to give Tilly credit for is the elasticity of the Lower course...it is pretty amazing a course conceived in the teens can be stretched to 7400 yards today.

I'm little surprised you would conceed that Tillinghast's design was obsolete (for championship play) starting about fifty years ago when they began redesigning it.

Why couldn't they restore Tilly's Sahara, it seems to me that change had no effect upon the courses ability to host a major.

Are you offended by the un-Tilly-like look of the bunkering?

[TEPaul]

"Are you offended by the un-Tilly-like look of the bunkering?"

One thing to talk about at Baltusrol is how strategies may've changed over the years due to architectural changes---eg the 17th.

But the other thing to ask about is the change in the "look" of the features such as the bunkering. If the club is so proud of their Tillinghast heritage why don't they care more about restoring the "look" of Tillinghast to the golf courses? That certainly isn't hard to do. God knows they sure do have enough photographs of the look of the golf course from him hanging on the wall in all those corridors. I certainly do remember how surprised most everyone at that GCA meeting in '04 was who went out and looked at them how different those Rees Jones bunkers they added on #18 look. The rest of the bunkers don't look that much like Tillinghast either, do they? Why is that?