[Jim_Kennedy]

Just reading a 1938 Golfdom article about Iowa State's golf course and I came across this:
 
Through the construction of huge teeing "areas" instead of tees, the length of the course can be varied from 5,596 to 6,573 yards. Par is 70, 35 for each nine. Veenker plans to use the teeing areas which will give a total yardage of 5,945. The longer yardage will be used only for championship tournaments.

The teeing areas would have averaged some 55 yards per hole. Not only does that seem to be RTJsr, size  , it also seems way ahead of its time, or a throwback, i.e., no structured tee boxes.                                                                                                                                         
I posted the drawing of Iowa State's golf course (from Chris Clouser's interview) on the "Compilations" thread as a reference, but I can't tell if the "teeing areas" plan was adopted. Anyone  know? 

There was also some mention of the bunkers:
 
Thirty sand traps, most of them merely for decorative purposes, are spotted throughout the course, but there are no
bunkers to hinder golfers.

And a bit more about the bunkers and greens:
 
All greens have Washington bent grass and are designed to provide drainage in at least two and sometimes three directions. Some of the greens have shallow sand traps which fit well into the contour of the course.There are no traps on the fairways, but the woods and rough provide stiff penalties for one who slices.

The article:
http://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/golfd/page/1938jun31-40.pdf

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:


I think you are reading too much into the mention of "teeing areas" and thinking it's some radical concept because a newspaper guy didn't understand it too well.  I suspect it just means there were options of where to put the tees, reinforced by the statement "Veenker plans to use the teeing areas which give a total yardage of 5,945."  This makes it sound like a separate set of teeing areas from the range previously given.  There was certainly no construction of huge runway tees on each hole there ... more likely, they just gang-mowed big areas and used the flatter spots as tee locations.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tom,


That was what I was more interested in, the idea of no structured tee boxes.  I can't recall reading much about the construction of other US courses where that idea was used, or was it, and then deemed impractical? 

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