[CHrisB]

Whenever we talk about how architects can defend against dvances in technology, the solutions offered usually involve: (i) adding length, (ii) creating angles that require both accuracy and distance control, and (iii) doing something with the greens (angles, contours, speed, etc.).

But there seems to be little emphasis on making iron/wedge play harder... So how about (re)introducing the rumpled fairway? Give players an awkward lie and/or stance, and even the simplest wedge shot from your favorite distance can become an adventure, particularly if the target is an elusive one.

Think about the 13th and 15th at ANGC. We see how the approaches are made tougher because of the sloping fairways (ball above your feet for a RH player on #13, downhill lie to a shallow target for any wedge on #15). So varying the slope or contour of the fairway can and does make iron play more difficult.

But how about going beyond this and building fairways like the one below (the 16th at Cape Breton Highlands)?


Combine broader slopes with a variety of bumps and hollows, and iron play becomes much more than a game of just dialing in the number and choosing your favorite trajectory. The challenge would be ratcheted up, more shotmaking (skill) would be required, and the game would be more interesting.

Combine rumpled fairways with a great set of greens, and it might not matter how long the course is.

What are some other examples of great rumpled fairways? Are modern designers building rumpled fairways anywhere these days, and if so, where? Obviously they would be most widely accepted on a links, but does/could the concept work elsewhere?

[Tom_Doak]

Hey, Chris, I'm with you.  Wish I could post the picture I was looking at today, of the 16th fairway at Pacific Dunes.  Barnbougle Dunes has some doozies, too.  But I couldn't name another modern course with that kind of contouring; the rolls at Sand Hills are much bigger.

The main reason is that there aren't many places you can build that sort of stuff.  If it isn't perfect sand, it won't drain, and if it freezes and thaws, someday you'll lose a bunch of turf.  (Cape Breton Highlands has lost grass on those fairways a few times.)

[ian]

That fairway is built mainly on peat. Those rolls have continued to grow and shrink depending on the freeze and thaw of the winter. The construction crew that put in the god awful paths told me they buried a dozer on that hole.

Its hard to make those, you have to inherit them and be smart enough to keep the wrong equipment off of them to avoid losing them.

I like what Tom (and Jack) have done at Sabonic with using a claw to do the grubbing so that they can retain the wild little rumples in the fairways and rough. I think you will find what you desire when that courses opens.

At Muskoka Bay we are sand capping a site that is almost all domes of rock. The rolls are often 10 feet in the middle of the fairway. I don't find this is rumpled, but it still will have some of Highland's character found on other holes. Of note: the limited equipment used at Highland probably helped preserve a great deal of those wonderful folds and rolls.

[Craig Disher]

Under firm/fast/tight conditions (especially in the UK), fairways I've seen like the one shown here tend to have collection areas where divots - and bad lies - tend to accumulate. Players actually prefer playing out of the semi-rough where the grass is a little longer and the ball will stop on a slope rather than settle at the bottom of a depression. Unless the drainage is good, the situation is worse because water will run off the slopes and over-irrigate the hollow. It takes a master greens keeper to keep it in balance.

[Robert Thompson]

Highlands is a wonderful example of Thompson's fairways -- features of which can be seen at almost all of his courses.
What I find interesting is that so few modern architects are willing to build -- or not build, as it might be -- similar fairways. They are all over-graded to the point of being flat. Why is this?
After all, it is generally regarded that the top five courses in Canada -- St. George's, Highlands, Capilano -- all have examples of these rumpled fairways. But modern Canadian architects -- who often say they have some connection to Thompson's work -- rarely, if ever, are willing to create these wild fairways which add such character to a golf course.

[Mike_DeVries]

Chris,

Absolutely!!!!  Contour, whether the small rumpled bumps or bigger rolls can all improve the shotmaking requirements.  It is really great when there is a bit of both -- Pacific Dunes is a prime example of this.  

When the turf is firm and fast, it really magnifies the contours and the look is even better.  As Ian and Tom point out, having the right material and inherent terrain is essential to make this work.

[Bill_McBride]

I recently joined Columbia-Edgewater CC in Portland, Oregon as a non-resident member.  One of the main attractions to me from my introductory round there was the rumpled nature of the fairways.  While the site is generally level, there are many interesting dips, rolls, bumps and "rumples" which keep the course extremely from being boring in the slightest.  If anybody has any photos of CECC to post, I'd love to see them.  Their website, www.cecc.com, shows a number of hole photos.  The greens are also wonderful, very smooth and quick bent grass.

[Neil Regan]

     Ballyliffin (the old course) had fairways rumpled like that, maybe too much so. The waves were sometimes only a foot or two peak to peak, frequently giving you cupped lies (which I think is not so good.) The new (Glasheedy) course is much smoother on the ground, maybe too much so. I think they must have used big dozers to shape the fairways.

[Sean_A]

I was just at Pennard yesterday.  The course is loaded with humpty bumpty.  However, Craig is right, there are natural collection areas where the turf is non existant (especially at the bottom of the hill just short of #8 green).  I don't think they should bother trying to grow grass in those few areas.  Make them into bunkers.

Ciao

Sean

[cary lichtenstein]

I love the look and would like the challange.

But.....

The higher handicaps, the majority of the playing public can't handle those lies.

Cupp redid a course called Frenchman Creek South. I thought he did an excellent job and he rumpled the fairway and the members hate it. Not only the lies, but the divots because they collect in the low areas.

Also the low areas flood iin the heavy rains in the summer, the drains can't handle the water, and the grass sufficates in a big circle in the low areas.

For a men's club of better players, I think it works just fine. But economics today would probably prohibit it.

[ForkaB]

I've played a fair amount of golf over some of the "(c)rumpliest" of links fairways and I would disagree about the prevalence of bare patches and "cuppy" lies.  In my experience, bare patches are extremely rare in properly maintained links--the very rumpliness added to the natural dispersion of players length and direction distributes balls in such fairways MORE randomly than on fairways which are moderately sloped.  Moreover, on the older links, natural depressions at the end of fall lines have already been converted into bunkers--what remains are more random bumps and humps which throw the ball in every which direction.  As for "cuppy" lies, that is just sloppy greenkeeping, IMO.  If you repair divots properly (i.e. fill with seeded sand) you will not notice the repaired areas after a few weeks.

This being said, I do think that rumpled fairways are an acquired taste, and more likely to please the aficionado than the average golfer.  My guess is that in the US, very few memberships would really want to play day-to-day on fairways like Ballyliffin Old, for example.  It's not the cuppy or bare lies but the lack of levelness that is the rub--it takes a good player and/or a masochist to enjoy a constant diet of non-level lies.

I am interested in what some of the archies are saying.  Tom Doak seems to imply that you can manufacture (c)rumpliness, whilst others seem to believe that it can only be found.  I tend to agree with the latter.

PS--Faldo should by now be in the process of renovating Ballyliffin Old.  I know he loved the place when he helicoptered in 10 years or so ago.  I know that there are routing problems with the "new" Old course which need to be dealt with.  But, I wonder what he is going to do with those marvellous fairways.......

[TEPaul]

I'm with ChirsB too---really rumpled fairways like the photo shown above are fantastic in play--creating "iffiness" with where a shot ends up when firm and fast. Fairways like that make players think or give them some pause.

Tom Doak just said;

"The main reason is that there aren't many places you can build that sort of stuff.  If it isn't perfect sand, it won't drain, and if it freezes and thaws, someday you'll lose a bunch of turf.  (Cape Breton Highlands has lost grass on those fairways a few times.)"

That's no doubt completely true and the "rumpled" fairways most everyone mentioned on here are the natural terrain of old courses.

Can it be actually shaped and built to look like some of those old natural earth fairways? I guess it could but that would take a lot of shaping work and talent too and as Tom Doak mentioned even if an architect (shapers) can do that there's probably a lot more to it and to worry about like drainage and turf condition.

Has it been attempted like those natural rumpled earth fairways? They say they attempted to do it at Kingsbarn---and it appears some criticized it!  

Wayne and I were just down at ACCC the other day and we had a pretty extensive conversation with pro/GM Billy Ziobro about that on a number of fairways. We noticed on a number of the fairways of the front nine there were some stunning contour and rolls (although they were much larger in scale than the small random rumpled type in that photo above).

BillyZ said that the old ACCC fairways were all basically as flat as the top of an aircraft carrier and the rennovation of Doak and company put those contours in some of the fairways. The reason for it was apparently a bit of form following function. Some of the fairways on the back nine holes needed to be raised due to being low-lying to the water table and constant drainage problems and probably flooding.

So they were looking for fill to raise some of those back nine fairway 6-9 feet!! They apparently got a lot of the fill around the 7th and maybe the 9th with some big depressions and probably enhancing the lake on #10 but apparently some of the fill came from those fairways on the front nine they contoured.

Those fairways looked fantastic although the scale of the contours is larger than that rumpled look in that photo above. But in play as fast as ACCC was those contours put in those ACCC fairways looked like they really did the job.

But as Tom Did said a lot of enhancement had to be done to those contoured fairways to get the turf and the drainage to work right (like about five miles of new pipe underneath the course) and according to the super they're still working on enhancing the fairway growing medium.

So just building that rumpled look is one thing that probably takes a lot of work but maintaining the turf and drainage properly is a whole other problem.

 

[TEPaul]

And on that fantastic contoured or rumpled #16 fairway at Pacific Dunes----those contours were basically the way you found that landform---right TomD? And even with that you did put some pretty sophisticated drainage underneath it with the drainage heads off the fairways and out of play, right TomD?

That latter thing was one of the biggest differences I noticed between Pacific Dunes and Bandon Dunes where at the base of all the fairway contours were drainage heads like a drain at the bottom of a sink! That becomes bothersme after a while.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom P:  I would have to ask Jim Urbina whether there is any drainage under the cool part of the 16th fairway or not.  I think most of that stuff had surface drainage except for the pocket on the right side of the fairway, which I know we drained ... but I don't think we ran tile all the way to the littlest pockets like we did on the first fairway.  (But, Jim could have done it while I wasn't there.)

Cary:  The majority of the playing public "can't handle those lies" only because they get no practice at them, because modern architects take them out.

Three other reasons rumpled fairways are seldom built today:

1)  Most contractors insist on "cleaning up" the fairways by mechancial means (rock pickers, tractors, etc.) which smooths out the little stuff.  (Ian after all that clearing work to preserve the contours at Sebonack, Jack's on-site guy keeps asking why we don't run a rock picker over the fairways instead of doing the work by hand.  I don't think they really like the rumpled look either.)

2)  Most contractors think rumpled fairways look like someone didn't do a good job of finishing the fairways ... they want everything to be polished.

3)  (Seriously) Rumpled fairways are pretty tough on golf carts, and most American designers are assuming there will be carts on the fairways.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

What portion of the Nicklaus objection is based on fairness - i.e., I just hit a career tee shot to the dead middle, and now, I have this funky lie?

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

I don't know.  Jack didn't like a couple of fairways where we had left a downhill lie at the 285 mark, which is the figure he uses for driving distance now.  [We softened them for him; I didn't tell him Jim and Brian had been doing that deliberately, to mess with long hitters.]  Other than that, he hasn't said anything about the rumples, except where they affect visibility of targets or hazards, which is just about everywhere of course.

We're really just starting to finish the fairways for planting holes now, so I'm not sure they've understood how much rumple we'd like to leave in the fairways and it is just becoming clear now.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

I recall Larry Nelson really objecting to downhill lies, especially on uphill or long iron approach shots.   Basically, he said that even for players of his level, it was impossible to get a long iron shot up high enough to make the shot.  I suspect Jack feels the same, since most good players think the course should generally be set up so that nearly impossible physics aren't required to play well with their "normal" game.

I have even incorporated that into my design ROBOTS (Rules - Often Broken - Of Thumb) as "Maximum downhill fw slope should not exceed the iron expected to be played to the green, i.e., 2% for 2 iron.  Larry seemed to like that simple explanation, but it does account for a lot of fw softening in the landing areas.

[Philippe Binette]

Tom Doak, tell me if this story is accurate

About Nicklaus and downhill lies:

At Carnoustie, Jack was complaining that his drives (longer than anybody at the time) at one particular hole were always stopping in a little downslope, leaving him a tougher shot to the green. So he told the committee about that...

Jack showed up at the course a couple of years later and at the spot he was complaining about, people from Carnoustie had solved the problem: they build a pot bunker and named it Jack Nicklaus...

I saw that in a book somewhere.


The point with rumpled fairways is that you need to have greens where ground game is possible, to receive shots from downhill and sidehill lies. That eliminate a lot of courses in America...

[ForkaB]

This thread is beginning to get (even more) interesting.......

So......the big boys like Jack N and Larry N get upset if they have to play off an uneven lie?  And we wonder why today's golf courses are to yesterday's courses as Wonder Bread is to a Poulain baguette?

[Tom_Doak]

Jeff:

I would have more sympathy with your formula if you were stuck with a CONTINUOUS downhill slope in the landing area.  But where Jack was concerned on the second fairway at Sebonack, he could have addressed the issue by hitting a 3-wood off the tee to get an uphill lie, or by putting a little extra on his drive to get to the bottom of the slope.

We like having those downhill slopes in the fairway because they make a good player respond in some way ... either through course management, or through shotmaking.

Philippe:  I don't know that story; do you know which hole at Carnoustie?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

I agree, and I look at the overall or continuous slope, allowing variations at different distances or sides of the fw.

This all goes to the idea that a good player should feel comfortable in making a shot, at least from somewhere in the fairway, whereas many gca types might very well try to make the good player uncomfortable, just for the heck of it.  Seems to me having one area of fw with a better lie than the rest promotes strategy, as you suggest.

Of course, many professional gca types make good players uncomfortable simply because they don't really know what makes them comfortable.   If no one cares about how comfortable the good player is, they we can have at it, and rumple the fairway landing areas up all we want.

[Mike Erdmann]

Tom, the hole in question is the 9th at Carnoustie.  The second fairway bunker on the right, about 140 from the green, is even labeled the Jack Nicklaus bunker on the Stroke Saver guide.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

During the 1996 Open at Royal Lytham I spent some time standing alongside the 15th fairway where drives came to rest.  It was a particularly uneven bit of fairway and back then players were left with at least a medium iron, if not a long iron, in to the green.  I was so impressed with the ability of the star players to hit towering iron shots even from significantly down-sloping lies.  I really do not think the unevenness made a ha'p'orth of difference to any of them.  

[TEPaul]

TomD:

I don't remember seeing a single drainhead on any of the low areas of the fairways of Pacific Dunes but I wasn't exactly out there looking for any either.

I did see more than I cared to see on the low areas of Bandon Dunes's fairways though.

I guess the reason I may've assumed you guys hid  drainheads in out of the way places is because I do remember stumbling around out in the bush somewhere--maybe from some green to another tee and I spied a drainhead hiding under a bush or some rough vegetation or something. I just thought that was pretty damn cool.    

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

There are a lot of "star drains" (perforated tile in a star pattern) buried under the fairway depressions at Pacific Dunes.  We got sick of seeing drives roll onto little plastic drainage caps at Bandon Dunes and thought we would try something different.  There are a lot of people in the golf business who swear they won't work, but they work at Pacific just fine.

We didn't bother with the star drains in places we didn't think anyone would hit a ball; that's one of the ones you stumbled upon.

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