Joel, & Mike
Hackensack is one of Charles Banks first solo efforts: we hired him 7 months after Raynor died in 1926. Many of the true MacRaynor features were erased by William Gordon in the 1960's under the direction of a "Modernization Committee." (Ugh!)
We wanted to get back to our Banks' lineage and the bones of his design still remain. We also needed to add drama and interest off the tee because so many of Banks' original bunkers were either never built or removed. (The well-deserved rap on our course was always that it was boring off the tee.) We have a restoration plan prepared by Rees Jones using Banks original plans and old aerial photos that we uncovered in the basement. We spent 3 years on the planning-approval process and as per or by-laws, the plan went to a full vote of the membership, passing 191-9.
Interestingly, the restoration of this hole caused the most controversy. I heard so many comments such as "it is weird" "it is stupid" etc etc. It took me a while to "get it" but now I can't wait. It truly is one of the unique features of a MacRaynor course.
I also think this is a different type of an assignment for Rees. His charge was to restore in a Banks style and so far the recation from the members has been great!. While Gordon "flattened" many of the bunkers, we are digging down to to find the old sand and re-building many bunkers as Banks intended.
Yes, we are taking down the trees behind the green, but not all at once
. If you notice the before picture, you will see many more on the left.
We are doing the work in house. We are fortunate in that we have a very talented superintendent. That is him on the bull dozer!!! (He still likes to play with the toys once in a while.) This lets us do one or two holes each season and keeps the costs down. No way we were getting a multi-million project passed by the membership. We can fund this work through our normal annual budget and not have to assess the members.