Restoring great courses' original shot values

[ChipOat]

Happy New Year guys - how's this for starting 2002?

It seems to me that course restorations that ignore the architect's original intended degree of difficulty all the way from tee-to-green are missing (at least) half the point.  If equipment has made golf easier, than shouldn't there be more than just length added to a hole?  New back tees (usually) serve to re-create the original demand on the tee shot and the original length of the approach shot.  But isn't there more to it than that?

Example #1:  If the hickory shafted niblick has been replaced by multiple Vokey/Cleveland wedges as the tools for playing bunker shots, shouldn't restored greenside bunkers be made deeper than the original design? ("D.A."-type bunkers from PVGC/NGLA being the exception).  Some pretty scary bunker shots from pre-1930 have been getting ever less-so since Gene Sarazen did his inventing thing.

Example #2: If the combination of ball and wedge technology allows for much more spin than in the "golden age" days, shouldn't restored greens be made smaller (especially on the shorter holes) - thus requiring the same degree of difficulty and player skill on the approach as originally intended?

How else could an historic course's original shot values be restored in addition to just adding length?

P.S. "Make the rough deeper and the fairways more narrow" is hereby forbidden as an acceptable answer.  Deep rough adds 30 minutes to a round and is not an architectural element of design.

[TEPaul]

You got it Chip--there's a ton in what you say and the whole subject of bunkering is a good place to start! Equipment to extract oneself from a bunker has gotten about ten times better than 1930 and the bunkers have gotten about ten times easier to boot!! That's a huge variation that's altered  the shot values (and the strategies) of yesteryear!

There was an Irish guy I met this summer who said Frank Nobilo was telling him that the L-wedge/60 degree wedge is probably the single biggest advance on scoring in his opinion!

A good place to start to analyze this subject is to start to really analyze the ideal "maintenance meld" on any particular golf course!

[Paul Richards]

Chip:

Another example is what is known as "green-creep."

Over the years, lazy guys driving those little green-mowers cut corners, and, slowly but surely, over the years, a green becomes smaller and smaller, and, more often that not, rounder as well.

Ron Prichard, as well as other architects, pointed this out to us at the Beverly CC.  Our Green Committee has begun to address this issue, and used our entire turf farm this past fall to expand the 5th, 9th, and 17th greens back to their original size.  This expansion increased green size by some 25-40% on these greens.

The 17th hole, which because of the severity of the green as designed by Donald Ross, (of course with slower green speeds in mind), was down to about 3 pinnable positions.  We now expect to have at least 5 or 6 fair pin places.

We have used our aeration plugs to returf the sod farm and next fall hope to reestablish the original sizes of 4 or 5 other greens.

[Paul Richards]

One by-product of the loss of green size is that shot values are lessened.  The only chip shots available around our greens were from the 4 to 6-inch rough that grew there.  Now, longer putts and more interesting chips will be available.

Just because the green is now larger by no means the holes will play easier!

[Chris Hervochon]

I have been sayin it forever, start putting in sod-walled pot bunkers.  That would make bunkers hazards.  What you could also do is make the sand soft to allow a higher shot to be hit, as well as burn all rakes for fire wood (it's cold in New Jersey).

[Justin_Ryan]

I'm with you Chip, I would much prefer to see greens made smaller instead of bigger.  Paul Daley lists a good example in the feature interview, being of the opinion that some of the new greens at Huntingdale are excessively generous.  It seems to me that increasingly restorations are often making courses easier by increasing the size, often dramatically, of greens that are replaced.  I know that critics will say you need a variety of pin placements, but greens don't need to be massive to achieve this.  I grew up playing a course in country Victoria which has become progressively easier over the years as small greens on short par threes and fours have been replaced by much larger targets.  Golf is at its best when you are required to use every club in the bag, often inventively,when you play a course.  This isn't achieved when you are hitting ordinary approaches into overly large greens and getting away with two putts

[John_McMillan]

Sounds more like a discussion about restoring resistance to scoring to older courses - which is a different discussion from shot values.

To me, "shot values" connotes things like controlling trajectory - high or low; shaping a shot - draw or fade; controlling the release of the ball on the green; or aiming to particular areas of the green other than the pin.  "Using every club in the bag" is a phrase which is over-used, and improperly used to denote variety of "shot values" on a course.  If you had one course which required different length approaches from a 4-iron through a 9-iron, but which all were played with the same full swing and basic shot shape (say a high fade), and another which called for just 7 iron approaches, but one which was a knock-down, another a high fade, another a low draw, one which ran up 20 yards to a green sloped front to back, and another which had to stop quickly to a pin cut against a trap, it's an easy argument that the later course has the greater variety - though it uses less clubs than the former.

This discussion has much more of the Fazio "Golf Channel" interview - "they're hitting 9 irons instead of 7 irons, and something has to be done to stop them," than of analyzing the different shots traditional designs required.

As a final note - if you're really concerned about pace of play, do you really want to add 3 feet to the depth of each greenside bunker?  (I guarantee that will add more than 30 minutes to each round).

[ed_getka]

IMHO making greens smaller to increase resistance to scoring is not necessarily the way to return a course to its original difficulty. I saw this firsthand this fall at the Meadow Club here outside of SF, which Mike DeVries is working on restoring. The greens Mike has done so far have been increased back to Mackenzies original size and anybody who has seen them is very unlikely to claim it makes the course easier to play. You may hit more GIR, but I doubt your scores will be lower with the contour that has been reclaimed with the greens going back to their original size. It was fun to watch members playing the restored greens and listen to them talking to their balls to "get up" to the proper level that would allow a chance at 2-putting. Previously with the smaller greens that had lost much of their contour the members picked the club for the yardage and played their standard shot. This one is but one example I have seen in the short time I've been posting here.

[Mike_Young]

To me the most important element of the shot values that we must maintain in restoring older courses is the angles of the various shots into the green.  I think that once one has restored greens back to the original size combined with tee adjustment that will place today's teeshot where the arch desired ;you have done about as much as you can do to maintain shot value.  By lengthening the teeshot you may have accomplished placing the drive where it used to be but the modern player will still have a shorter iron into the green complex.  But the angle should now be the same.
Also, IMHO today's conditions are so much better than even 15 years ago that issues such as green speed and tight chipping areas can offset some of the advantage of shorter approach shots.  As TD mentioned in an article several years ago "short grass" around greens will penalize the "short side" shot.  And I think that is the one thing the pros try to eliminate on traditional courses the most is the "short side".  
 A good example:  The 15th at Augusta....I was told by a person familiar with Augusta facts... that the left back pin position average scores have gone up even as the hole has played shorter.  This was due to ...1. When people were hitting 3 irons or four woods into the green they were taking the middle.  As players started to drive the ball further and started hitting mid-short irons they started to attack the pin and "short sided" much more.... 2.  Today's maintenance made this recovery much more difficult.
Isn't this the shot value the arch. wanted??

[Patrick_Mucci]

Chipoat, et.al.,

Making greens smaller may not be practical with the increased volume of traffic they would experience, and the agronomic and maintainance problems that would create, but,
TEPaul's concept/phrase of greens within greens might be a reasonable solution to accomodate your desire.

Picture if you will, more greens like # 3 and # 6 at NGLA,
HUGE greens in light of the incoming shot, yet small targets.
What a great concept, and one I would like to see more of.

[cbradmiller]

Ed, as a former jr. member at Meadow Club (late 80's) the expanded greens are wonderful, and most certainly don't make the course easier. Numbers 1,5 and 17 are great to play, this past Nov. when playing the expanded greens for the first time I three putted #1 and made a very difficult two putt on #17.

[BillV]

Hey Tom Paul

The hell with a 60* wedge, what about that 64* you have?

As for the topic, without a change in equipment (With all due respect in the New Year to Robert Walker), it is obvious that this is impossible.  The game is irrevocably changed.  The only option is to have it change as little as possible more.

And I vote for bigger, quality greens (Basically what Mucci said).

[Paul Richards]

Mike Young:

You said:
>To me the most important element of the shot values that
>we must maintain in restoring older courses is the angles of
>the various shots into the green.

One of the biggest problems at these classical courses is that
many well-intentioned people (green chairman, green committees) started planting tons of trees and closed up the
corridors.   Different shots and different angles no longer
exist.  It's either hit it straight down the middle or punch out
from the trees!

Reestablishing original green pads WITHOUT reestablishing the
corridors accomplishes very little, at least as far as shot
values are concerned.
 

[TEPaul]

BillV:

The game sure has changed and the equipment has a lot to do with it! Probably it has changed irrevocably.

But there are things that can be done other than throwing up your hands in horror or constantly lobbying for a return to 1930 in every single way!

There are many things that can be done with thought and imagination, and definitely to even the old courses that can be both compatible to the way they were designed and also to maintain many of the shots and strategies that they were designed to produce.

That's what a topic like this is about. The first order of business is obviously for more people and certainly those in positions to do something about it to understand what those courses were about in the first place--much of that understanding has been lost or forgotten in the last fifty years or so.

But even with that understanding, as Jim Finegan once very correctly said, we should not overlook what some of the advances in the "Modern Age" can do to make some of those old courses even better and more fun to play, and yes, possibly even more multi-optional than they once were or even were back then at their very best!

It's an interesting subject!

My 64 degree wedge? If they're making it and it's legal, I'm using it Baby!!

[Willie_Dow]

Welcome Chip
Every tree on a golf course should be considered, and then reconsidered with a formula of thinking.  Just a few:
   A) Shot value from all angles of play, including from wider fairways or rough or bunkers.
   B) Shot value from various pin placements offered by larger greens.
   C) Purpose:  eg a shield from roads, and road noise, or a boundary fence.
   D) Type of tree:  eg white pine which grow fast and big vs Jap Black or Jap Red Pine which is slow growing and bushy.
Does the tree blend into the character of the course?
   E)  What does that tree offer in overall design?  If it is in a grove is it high enough to discourage a Lon Hinkle short cut?
Does the tree destroy the long view vista of the course, if desired?
If these characteristics, among others, are not of value then chop them down!