Reassessing Yale’s Biarritz Green

[Bill Brightly]

JES,

If you maintain the front portion as putting surface, it sure will be fast and firm!

A very large percentage of our membership can rarely reach this green. Now they will have a better chance since the ball will roll further.

We cut down our fairway length grass at the end of 2006 in preparation for restoring the "front" bunkers and making it all green. Our slope is only 2 feet deep now (we think that it used to be much deeper.) But one of the cool side effects has been balls that run up, then back down the swale if not hit quite hard enough. Used to be the balls hung up in the fairway grass just off the green for an easy putt or chip.

Pat,

I don't see how its clear on the drawing that the front portion was part of the green. Why isn't that the start of the fairway?

[JESII]

Bill,

Here around Philadelphia there are very few greens maintained firm enough to demonstrate the optimum playing potential of a Biarritz green. I am glad to hear your course is...

When the green is not maintained firm enough, I would lose much interest in the hole design...not calling it bad, just not ideal.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Patrick:

If you can deduce architect intent from a line drawing - to quote a Yardbirds song - "Mister, you're a better man than I."

In my mind, not unless you have a color drawing like the Fairyland (Mountain Lake) version can you be sure of what the architect wanted. Drawn about the same time, and I'm sure by the same hand, it shows just the back portion as green.

And this idea that the front portion is suppose to help and guide the ball onto the back level is debatable. The front portion at Fishers Island is too steep to ever be mowed at green height, then or now. It also contains two spines or ridges that only's purpose is to direct shots AWAY from the back tier. If I recall, Forsgate has the same feature on its front section.

As far as Westhampton, I think that version is much like Dedham's. The object was to carry front bunkers, land on approach-height turf and let the ball find its way onto the putting surface; making it all green destroys the concept. I've also heard low chattering about a trough being added. That would be flat out wrong.

Anthony

[Michael_Stachowicz]

Pat:

Since the drawing does not specifically state that all levels of the putting surface were mowed or constructe at green height, it would be unwise to assume that it was built or maintained that way. Also, as I'm sure you are well aware, just because anything is shown on a drawing does not mean it was built. At Yale, for instance, the plans show the 4th as the Eden Hole and the 15 as the Short Hole. During construction their placement was reversed.

Anthony

I am with Tony.  The fairway for the Biarritz is drawn like all the other fairways on the course.  In fact, it looks like the line on the greenside of the swale is even a little bolder...

[Bill Brightly]

And Banks had the option of drawing a second line to a hole on the front portion, but did not do so.

On the full course drawing, on the par 4 9th hole, he DID show two different drive lines from different tee boxes...

[JMorgan]

From Emmet's review of the Piping Rock Biarritz, which--correct me if I'm wrong--was the first CBMetc. Biarritz:

"There is a hog's-back extending to within thirty yards of the green and a dip between the hog's back and the green.  Under normal conditions the hole has to be played with what is now known as a push-shot, a low ball with plenty of run which will land short of the dip and run through it onto the green."  My emphasis... the ball hits pre-swale, pre-green, rolls through the swale and onto the green.  One green.

The Dunn hole did not have a double-green.

According to accounts of the Biarritz holes at St. Louis, Lido, Creek, Deepdale, Shinnecock, Gibson Island, Fishers Island, etc.  the Biarritz holes on these courses did not possess a double-green.

In his book, George notes Yale and the Links as possibly being exceptions to the single-green design.   (Maybe George can let us know why this is true.)  Would it have anything to do with the water hazard, which was the first one to appear on this type of hole?  (Again, correct me if I'm wrong.)

Why would RaynorBanks/Banks change the design of the hole later on and go to a double-green at Knoll West, for instance?   Why would Hackensack or Forsgate differ from the original design?  

[TEPaul]

"fm Tom Paul:

GeorgeB:

"So what you're saying is you think the original Biarritz green in France had a big swale in the front of it or the middle of it? What leads you to that belief?"

I didn't say or imply that at all."

GeorgeB:

I'm simply trying to find out if you have an opinion on where Macdonald got the idea for the swale on the Biarritz holes he and Raynor did. It's not a hard question, although the answer may be.

[George_Bahto]

Tom - I  DO NOT know where the swale came from but (again) given CBM was so influenced by St Andrews and that the Biarritz hole, in the early days, was at times called the "Valley of Sin" hole (and often  "Macdonald's Folly,” I would be not be surprised that the use of the swale of a Biarritz hole was influenced by St Andrews-18.

I cannot verify it, I have lots of material and there is no Macdonald / Raynor mention about the swale, but this is MY opinion - nothing more.

I’ve been trying to figure this out for years, have checked every source and so far I have not been able to find out what the original green in France was like.

I have a very clear photo of a painting of the original hole but it only shows the tee, the Bay of Biscay and the two cliffs and is done from a lower viewpoint so you cannot see the green.

Patrick: ALL drawings by Raynor and Banks depicted the entire Biarritz hole just as the drawing I (re)did of the Raynor/ Banks proposal showed earlier in this thread. This does not mean they were "double-greens" - the original linen drawing Raynor did for Lookout Mountain and the linen (master) drawing of CC of Fairfield that exists are drawn the same as the Hackensack depiction.

To me, it is clear from the Yale paper and the paper that I have that Banks wrote, that these greens were putting green beyond the trench and the approach was not putting surface.

However, I love the fully planted "double green" - used where practicable.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Apparently, in a book he wrote, Old Tom Morris talks about widening the 18th green at the Old Course per the request of golfers and that he used the soil from the fairway to make the addition, thereby creating the Valley of Sin. Would that have happened after or before Macdonald was last there?

Since Macdonald also saw North Berwick I have to think he was influenced by the (I believe) 16th green that resembles a Biarritz turned 45 degrees to the left.

Anthony

[George_Bahto]

Joe, I do not think Raynor or Banks "changed" the hole - the clubs made the changes.

A few years I spoke to the original super who was at the Knoll for the first 40 (or so) years and he told me he mowed it short but not as putting surface. The Knoll was never been mowed as the so called "double-green."

A number of years ago I also spoke to Ben Zukowski the only super at the Links Club but I couldn't get a straight answer about this from him - he was about 93 at the time.

[George_Bahto]

Bill, I do not have the drawing of your course near by but wasn't that dual tee you spoke about on a very long par-4 - probably the Raynor Dog-Leg hole (he usually had them on that hole with 2 different lines of play) ......... there was a double tee drawn on the Raynor Dog-Leg on the Westhampton Oneck course (NLE).

[Bill Brightly]

George,

Close, it was on our current 9th hole back to the clubhouse. The one you think might have been a bottle hole, the one that will "share" the road bunker between 9 and 18.

He drew a tee that was never built, almost behind our 8th tee, far to the right of the current tee.

[George_Bahto]

Patrick (one of my life-heros, by the way):

You asked about the mounds running thru the Knoll's 13th and 3rd.

Banks seemed to move out of his mentor's mode in a few ways:

He began using more raised tees (SR, more ground level) - he wrote an article about how he felt the golf should see more of what was ahead of him; he began extensively using mounds in the greens - the ones you mentioned, 13 and 3, at the Knoll (actually there are 2 very long ones on the Road hole green on the Knoll's first hole); there are/were even very large mounds/spines thru the Essex County Park Commission course (once known as Branch Brook now Hendricks Field)  .......   you know Pat, that’s where you, Mike Cestone, Maury O'Conner (rh hole pro), Chet Sanok and others used to hustle!!!!!.  ................. wadda place that was!!!

Branch Brook was my home course for about 7 years in the late 50's and early 60's. Lots of large mounds in the greens there!!!

I think Charlie Banks wanted to interject some of his own ideas into the Raynor ideas in later years.

[George_Bahto]

The ever inquisitive Patrick also asked:

"I recall playing # 13 50+ years ago, and while I can recall hitting 3-woods into it, I can't recall the details of the putting surface.

I remember flying the ball to the back tier and running the ball to the back tier, but, I can't recall the extent of the putting surface.

If I recall correctly, the back of # 13 had a ridge in it."

Pat the green is all original and a thing of beauty - it has a very interesting "horseshoe" feature in it and there are a couple of minor mounds, running back to front, in the back left and right segments. The green also tilts quite a bit from back to front (I’ll check it tomorrow).

Double and triple breaks throughout.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

George:

The spine on the Redan at Forsgate is a wild feature. The two spines on the approach to the Fishers Island Biarritz make me think Banks had influence on that project.

Anthony

[George_Bahto]

Fishers Island: perhaps Tony because the course was not complete when SR died.

I have a Banks blueprint of the green he was to build on the Westhampton Oneck course and it shows all these finite details.

This was one of the reasons I asked to be involved in the Biarritz in Oregon.

...... and there were the removed mounds from the 2nd green at Yale

The original drawings and plans for Yeamans Hall clearly show a lot of spines throughout their greens.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

George:

I think you should be in on the Biarritz in Oregon. You are the man for the job.

I think Yeamans Hall is a truly wonderful spot but I’m disappointed that they never restored the place to the original intent especially with the detailed drawings they have. I wish the club would get somebody in there that could convince them to put all that great bunkering in.

Anthony

[TEPaul]

"Tom - I  DO NOT know where the swale came from but (again) given CBM was so influenced by St Andrews and that the Biarritz hole, in the early days, was at times called the "Valley of Sin" hole (and often  "Macdonald's Folly,” I would be not be surprised that the use of the swale of a Biarritz hole was influenced by St Andrews-18."

George:

Thanks, that's all I was asking--eg your opinion on that.