Is there another site like Augusta National?

[William_G]

Seems like the site is so unique, and Mackenzie and Jones layed out such a masterpiece.

Could it be done again somewhere else, as the site/elevation change realy influences each hole and the routing?

Given you found a similar site, would any golf course architect be able to create a masterpiece?

And does the site itself amke for a 2nd shot course?

thanks

[Mac Plumart]

Gray...

I think a lot of the land in Georiga is similiar to Augusta National.  Two that spring to mind as simliar are Peachtree and Augusta CC.  I actually find both the be extremely well done and both use the natural landscape to great advantage.

Your point about a great second shot course is spot on, I find the courses I mentioned above to be pretty good second shot courses...especially Peachtree.

If I found a site like Augusta National, which architect would I chose?  I don't know.  Too many good choices to choose before hearing what they all had to say about the site.

[Tom_Doak]

William:

If you had a site with the same topo as Augusta National, but no Rae's Creek to make it obvious, I don't think many golf course architects would call it a great site.  And that's because it's not a great site, apart from the creek and all the 100-year-old vegetation.  It's hillier than you'd like, and the soils are not on anyone's wish list.  So, to suppose that "any golf course architect" would be able to create a masterpiece there is ridiculous; in fact, hardly anyone would have.

But if your question is whether anyone could build a course as exciting for championship play, year in and year out, of course it's possible.  It's not just the course that makes Augusta National seem so exciting; it's the gravitas of The Masters.  If you could somehow give that same gravitas to other events, and played a tournament every year, you could easily see that courses like Riviera and Shinnecock Hills are equally good for championship play -- and that there's no reason a new course couldn't achieve the same status.

Tournament courses are always overrated.  All it takes is one two-shot swing at a dramatic moment for a golf hole to seem like a great hole, and that can happen on any hole in the world, at any time.

[Ronald Montesano]

Thought you were identifying the web site, not the course site. There probably are many like this one, albeit not former fruit factory farms with all those unique trees. This one is so well known, has crafted such a history and is indelible in the annals of golf.

[George Pazin]

William:

If you had a site with the same topo as Augusta National, but no Rae's Creek to make it obvious, I don't think many golf course architects would call it a great site.  And that's because it's not a great site, apart from the creek and all the 100-year-old vegetation.  It's hillier than you'd like, and the soils are not on anyone's wish list.  So, to suppose that "any golf course architect" would be able to create a masterpiece there is ridiculous; in fact, hardly anyone would have.

But if your question is whether anyone could build a course as exciting for championship play, year in and year out, of course it's possible.  It's not just the course that makes Augusta National seem so exciting; it's the gravitas of The Masters.  If you could somehow give that same gravitas to other events, and played a tournament every year, you could easily see that courses like Riviera and Shinnecock Hills are equally good for championship play -- and that there's no reason a new course couldn't achieve the same status.

Tournament courses are always overrated.  All it takes is one two-shot swing at a dramatic moment for a golf hole to seem like a great hole, and that can happen on any hole in the world, at any time.

All true in the larger sense, but every year, I am more and more impressed with the actual holes at Augusta. It's easy to see the drama the water creates on Amen Corner, but every year there seems to be a new hole that exerts powerful influence on the outcome.

As for the site itself, it makes me all the more impressed with Mac & Jones. It doesn't look that different from many other parkland sites, yet they were able to craft a masterpiece. It reminds me of Oakmont in that sense - the land at Oakmont seems the same as land all over western PA, yet there is only one Oakmont.

[Tom_Doak]

All true in the larger sense, but every year, I am more and more impressed with the actual holes at Augusta. It's easy to see the drama the water creates on Amen Corner, but every year there seems to be a new hole that exerts powerful influence on the outcome.

As for the site itself, it makes me all the more impressed with Mac & Jones. It doesn't look that different from many other parkland sites, yet they were able to craft a masterpiece. It reminds me of Oakmont in that sense - the land at Oakmont seems the same as land all over western PA, yet there is only one Oakmont.

George:

I agree with the second part completely.

As for the first part, I agree that the course is a great design.  But the phenomenon you describe is inevitable, if you are playing an event every year where there HAS TO BE drama, by definition.  In that case, the drama can happen on even a mediocre hole.  In fact, one of the strange elements of genius to Augusta's routing switch is that two of the most pedestrian holes now come at the very end, where the guarantee of drama masks their lack of architectural chops.

[George Pazin]

But the phenomenon you describe is inevitable, if you are playing an event every year where there HAS TO BE drama, by definition.  In that case, the drama can happen on even a mediocre hole.  In fact, one of the strange elements of genius to Augusta's routing switch is that two of the most pedestrian holes now come at the very end, where the guarantee of drama masks their lack of architectural chops.

Very interesting, thanks. I guess I've been deceived by 17, it always struck me as underrated.

[Ken Moum]

Very interesting, thanks. I guess I've been deceived by 17, it always struck me as underrated.

I suspect you have been.

http://www.golf.com/video/augusta-national-flyover-hole-no-17

K

[George Pazin]

Sure, pile on, why don't you?

Seriously, it still looks good to me. While I don't like the famed Ike Tree, nor the new second cut, I do like the drive over the ridge, and the simple influence that front center-right bunker has, as well as the green.

What makes it pedestrian?

[BCrosby]

George -

I've got your back.

I guess to some extent hosting a major annually is bound to make the holes seem more dramatic than they really are. But goodness gracious, there aren't many golf courses with a back nine like ANGC. There are lots of courses as difficult, but the combination of hazards and playing temptations is something special. It's about the pull of those temptations. Very few pros play the back nine conservatively. They seem unable to lay off the risks. It's a drug at ANGC. They do stupid things that other courses don't induce them to do, especially not in a major. All of that is about the architecture of the course. I don't think seeing it every year makes it less real.

I do agree that it isn't a particularly wonderful site. A good site, but not one on which a gc would design itself. There is lots of hilly, piney Georgia land like it. Lots, if not most, also have creeks and lakes. The property was chosen as much for its pre-existing landscaping as for its terrain. Plus it was bought for a good price and located near town.

But back to the architecture. I just spent two days at ANGC. Every time back I am surprised by (a) the severity of the contouring and (b) its scale. Big, massive humps, swales, hillocks - all stuff that doesn't come across well on TV. Examples. The steepness and size of the contouring around the 6th green has to be seen up close to be believed. Ditto the contouring around the Strath Bunker at the 4th.   

Bob



 





 

[William_G]

William:

If you had a site with the same topo as Augusta National, but no Rae's Creek to make it obvious, I don't think many golf course architects would call it a great site.  And that's because it's not a great site, apart from the creek and all the 100-year-old vegetation.  It's hillier than you'd like, and the soils are not on anyone's wish list.  So, to suppose that "any golf course architect" would be able to create a masterpiece there is ridiculous; in fact, hardly anyone would have.

But if your question is whether anyone could build a course as exciting for championship play, year in and year out, of course it's possible.  It's not just the course that makes Augusta National seem so exciting; it's the gravitas of The Masters.  If you could somehow give that same gravitas to other events, and played a tournament every year, you could easily see that courses like Riviera and Shinnecock Hills are equally good for championship play -- and that there's no reason a new course couldn't achieve the same status.

Tournament courses are always overrated.  All it takes is one two-shot swing at a dramatic moment for a golf hole to seem like a great hole, and that can happen on any hole in the world, at any time.

Tom.

Thanks for your insights...

I always feel when I'm there that the slope/elevation change is so unique, that it inherently has made the architecture, from a championship players standpoint, a masterpiece.

Of course the soil of choice would be sand, but the topography may not be an owners choice as it is steeper, but I'm surprised you think it is too hilly.

I guess it may be ridiculous to suppose a certain site in "anyone's" hands will be a masterpiece, but I do believe that "certain sites" are more important, with due respect, to being a masterpiece than whose hands are doing the painting. Of course, it has cost Augusta a fortune to have done what they have, but is such a site better in someways in providing great architecture, eg. the elevation change.

I hear what you are saying that the tournament has raised the status of the perception of great architecture at Augusta as well as it could or has at other courses.

I also wonder at the same time, that is it the concept of a second shot course in a beautiful setting, that makes for such great playing/spectating/picnicing?


Thanks

[William_G]

Mac,

Thanks for the reply.

I look forward to playing some golf out in your area with you sometime.

Gray

[Mac Plumart]

Me too!  Give me a heads up and I'll line up some good golf for you.

[Kevin Pallier]

Bethpage for mine looks somewhat similar in part in terms of topography changes ?

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Yes and no. No one else would put TOC in the USA on a inland hilly site. It took greatness and that does not happen very often. Then they had the skill to promote over correctly the generations.

[noonan]

Everyone wants to play Augusta National - so why has someone not done a copy of it? - I would most certainly play it

[Tom_Doak]

I guess it may be ridiculous to suppose a certain site in "anyone's" hands will be a masterpiece, but I do believe that "certain sites" are more important, with due respect, to being a masterpiece than whose hands are doing the painting. Of course, it has cost Augusta a fortune to have done what they have, but is such a site better in someways in providing great architecture, eg. the elevation change.

...

I also wonder at the same time, that is it the concept of a second shot course in a beautiful setting, that makes for such great playing/spectating/picnicing?

There are lots of great second-shot courses, just not that many which are identified as such.

As to your initial comment, of course there are sites which allow the architect a chance to shine.  I've done a reasonable job at identifying some of them, and of identifying with them.     But were it not for Berckmann's nursery, Augusta National would not have been a site that many architects would kill for.

[Jim Nugent]

Yes and no. No one else would put TOC in the USA on a inland hilly site.

Can someone explain to me how ANGC is like TOC?   

[William_G]

Yes and no. No one else would put TOC in the USA on a inland hilly site.

Can someone explain to me how ANGC is like TOC?   

2nd shot course

[Mac Plumart]

Fascinating to me that Bobby Jones picked Augusta National for his dream course, given all it hills and fairly severe terrain.  And then picked a very close facsimile of that same property for his private course in Atlanta, Peachtree.  I wonder why he liked that type of property so much for playing golf?

[Brent Hutto]

Another advantage to the particular contingency of ANGC having had The Masters conducted there decade after decade is the extent to which it can fine-tuned to maximize the drama. It seems popular on this site to deride the constant changes there. Adding trees of exact sizes in exact places, recontouring greens, constantly tweaking countless little details. But the willingness to do that on a constant basis which having each revision validated that the following year's major championship (best players in the world and so forth) means there is hardly any potential source of drama left unexploited.

Or so it seems to me. Some of the dramatic shots that we associate with The Masters must have been more likely to occur given the fine tuning of distance, contours, mowing patterns, hole locations and (to the extent possible) firmness of the course. And yes even the lengths of the roughs. The committee and their consultants are in there tweaking every year in the hope of maximizing chances of various bits of drama. Surely that has had a cumulative effect in making it a more dramatic course than if you created a similar routing on a similar bit of property tomorrow and convinced everyone there was a Great Event to be played there next spring.