Some folks who've played golf with me may have noticed that I am, by GCA Forum standards, a tree-lover. Generally when someone points out some amazing vista that would be visible if not for decades of overzealous tree planting I just shrug and say "I see your point but I kind of enjoy the trees myself". I just find tree-lined courses to be very inviting and some totally treeless ones quites barren.

That said, the club I'm likely to join soon has planted about 200 pine trees this year and have plans to add another 200 over the winter. Many of them replace pines destroyed by lightning, bettles or ice storms over the past 40 years and the others are to provide buffers between holes for safety reasons.

I played there yesterday and a couple of times I was aware of the presence of dozens of saplings in areas that have always been open when I've visited there before. I was most surprised to realize that I regretted seeing those trees planted in those places. One of the most interesting greens on the course has a slight fall-away over the green and then short rough all the way to the back tees of the next hole (perhaps 30 yards over the green). There is now a row of about fifteen shoulder-high pine saplings separating those holes. Short and left of the same green is a beautifully contoured area of longer rough that will grab any approach shot missing the green to the left, always leaving a longish pitch shot from an uneven lie in heavy rough over a bunker to a shallow green. There's now a dozen trees haphazardly spread around that area which will eventually turn that shot into a punch out of the trees.

This time of year the shadows are long even in early afternoon and I found myself noticed that some of the new trees less than ten feet tall have afternoon shadows reaching within a few yards of the greens. Extrapolate those into mature 60-70 foot pines and suddenly these amazing-quality greens (the best feature of this course IMO) will be shaded for several hours per day. That can't be good for their health.

So is hanging out with you guys eventually going to turn me into a Cut 'Em All Down!!! tree-hating absolutist? Am I going to join this club and then in ten years be threatening to sneak out at midnight with a chainsaw? Oh well, at least they use pine trees and not some low-growing, long-limbed monsters that eventually cover 1/4 acre apiece and result in lost balls.

Planting trees to block vistas is one thing.  

Planting trees which will quickly block sun and air to a green in Columbia or Camden South Carolina is quite another.

They should plan on extending electrical power for fans.

Pines that are only 10 feet tall, blocking the sun from the green already, might make for attractive Christmas trees in the clubhouse, or could be transplanted if you are a real tree lover.

However, when the white pine meets the wonderfully contoured, fun to putt green on any field on Saturday,  I know who should win.

Leonard's Loser - the white pine.

Brent,
  Sounds like a case where a few trees might have been good, but a lot of trees might cause some undesired results. I think you're still allowed in the tree-lover crowd here though

Sean,

I'd think the addition of trees as you describe has about one chance in fifty of improving the play of the hole once mature. More often than not it's bound to be an anti-strategic annoyance unless there's a pretty clear plan in place for what the tree is supposed to accomplish (and punishing a pulled approach shot for instance is not a clear plan).

Brett,

I have become more anti-tree the longer I'm here, so it'll probably happen to you, too!

I was happy to see something positive with the trees on my home course when playing on Tuesday.  I've been unhappy for years that keep planting new trees all over the course every spring.  They have a little tree farm between #5 and #6 that produces 100-200 saplings, which they plant in every open space they can find (by 2008 they'll have to start planting them on the fairways because there won't be any open space left!)  But Tuesday they had a bunch of guys out with chainsaws working over some of the evergreens and pines to take off the lower limbs, and some areas of the course where stands of prairie grass between holes had become overgrown with brush and saplings for the past 5-10 years had been totally cleared out (still probably a lost ball if you hit there, but at least it looks much nicer)

On the other hand, I noticed they were expanding the left fairway bunker on #1.  I had heard that a few of the longer hitting college guys were making the 310 yard carry over it into the left rough between 1 and 10 (now they'll need 330 yards, that ought to hold them a few more years)  Actually not a bad angle, and probably not a bad strategy except in late May when the rough is so thick you might have trouble finding your ball.  I made a prediction to my dad that in addition to that bunker expansion, they'd probably plant at least a dozen trees over there because it is the largest open space left on the course.  If they do, the recovery options for a hook on that hole become even more limited....

Sean,
Courses such as yours have to (at least should) remember who their architect is and what his thoughts/philosophies were regarding trees.  

Here are a few thoughts from Green Valley's designer on trees:

"The old idea was to have golf courses as free from trees as possible.  This notion, no doubt, was imported from Scotland because when golf was first taken up in the United States we knew very little about the game and modeled our courses on those of the Scotch which were, for the most part, built along the seashore where there were no trees.”

"It is impossible to conceive that the "Canny Scots" would have denuded their courses of trees if there had been any there originally.  As a race they are entirely too thrifty for any such waste as that.”

"Today the old ideas have been discarded and the prevailing belief is that trees, most emphatically, have a fixed place on a golf course."

Just something to keep in mind.  Not all the golden age architects had the same opinions on trees.  That said, most knew when to keep them and where to plant them (or where not to plant them).  This is critical in restoration/renovation work of older courses.  
Mark  

Here is what Flynn said about trees:

'The pleasantest type of course is one where the holes are segregated, that is where the hole you happen to be playing is well apart from the others. In order to have this kind of course it is necessary to secure property that is already wooded or to do considerable planting of trees.' (Italics are Linc’s.)

' The old idea was to have golf courses as free from trees as possible. This notion, no doubt, was imported from Scotland because when golf was first taken up in the United States we knew very little about the game and modeled our courses on those of the Scots which were, for the most part, built along the seashore where there were no trees.

'It is impossible to conceive that the 'Canny Scots' would have denuded their courses of trees if there had been any there originally. As a race they are entirely too thrifty for any such waste as that.

'Today the old ideas have been discarded and the prevailing belief is that trees, most emphatically, have a fixed place on a golf course. This is true for many reasons:

First—Because there are few, if any, sites available that are devoid of trees and it is a costly operation to cut them down and remove them.
Second—Trees add beauty to a course forming picturesque backgrounds and delightful vistas.
Third—Their shade is most refreshing on a hot summer day.
Fourth—They are of great practical value in segregating various holes.'
'It might also be that moving a tee slightly to the right or left precludes the necessity of taking out some beautiful tree. This also applies to green sites. Sometimes a slight change in the alignment of the hole permits the architect to keep a specimen tree or trees which may also act as a key turning point in the hole.'

Source: Flynn articles in USGA Green Section Record, 1927.



 I think the fuller version of this article says more about the PLACEMENT of those trees. This  is taken from the Linc Roden Feature Interview.

    I think my home course, Rolling Green , is an interesting case in point.

      There were trees that Flynn designed around . Most seemed to be for turning points.

      There  were trees added well out of play in the 30's which seem to meet the above standards.

     After 35-40 years the evergreens arrived to fill in open spaces , deal with safety issues, and close off angles of play to "make the hole harder".

  To say "trees belong on golf courses" needs to be fleshed out. "Where" is the question.

My own take on trees is precisely that of Flynn. In most cases, a line of trees (assuming they're well back from the line play) separating one hole from another for "safety" also serves to produce the effect of what he calls "the pleasantest type of course".

At my new club, the regrettable tendency to start crowding greens and taking away recovery options seems to have crept into the ongoing program of replacing Flynn-approved pines lost to disease or accident. Eventually they'll mature and I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the cut down after only 10-20 years due to their effect on turf quality of  fairways and greens

"Mark,

Can you show me where Flynn advocated PLANTING trees in lines of play?"

What do you mean by "in lines of play?"  If you mean where he planted strategic trees that helped to dictate strategy or require a certain shot demand?  Not to speak for Mark, but I'd like to answer the question:  Yes, absolutely there are examples of this.  

Flynn didn't write in absolutes nor did he cover every bit of his work in his writings.  There are identifiable examples of his using existing trees for strategic purposes at Rolling Green and more so at Huntingdon Valley, Pocantico Hills, The Country Club-Pepper Pike,Cascades and elsewhere.  

Then there is Boca Raton, Indian Creek, Cherry Hills and other sites where he indicated strategic PLANTINGS.  These plantings were used for strategic reasons, beauty, segregation and the enhanced perception of angles and movement on the course.

Of course he was an expert on plants and agronomy and knew exactly where and how to use the right sorts of trees and plantings.

I would recommend guarding against concentrating on Flynn's writings without considering more carefully his work on the ground.  On site studies, aerial and ground photographs (early and modern) and the drawings lead to a far better understanding of Flynn and trees.  It was not always simplistic and never dogmatic.

Pat,

I think you know better than that.  Flynn was an original thinker and shared concepts with Crump and others.  At Rolling Green for instance, since Mike knows this course so well, the treelines were 40 yards off center.  These were usually a minimum of 80-yard wide corridors, often more.  Flynn's fairways were pretty systematic although he varied them a bit with topography and specific hole elements (not as much as Tom Paul would like, I feel).  Generally Flynn's fairways were 50-60 yards wide--hardly claustrophobic corridors of play.

Flynn was an American designer and did not cling to tradition when he felt some of his modern ideas were moving golf forward.  One example is shot testing in design and designing for championship play.  He did some designs for the masses but had a higher percentage than most of stern tests.  His use of multiple tees for different classes of players, strategic use of trees, perceptual miscues, naturalism, aerial and ground game demands or options and other theories and practices all result in a wide-range of styles and tests.

Consider Flynn's tree plan for Shinnecock Hills.  He planned to use tree heights to create a perception of land movement when there wasn't any.  On the flattish sections he advocated using low trees on low profile areas and tall trees on higher profile features to enhance the look and perception of movement.  That is an extraordinary plan of great vision and not narrow thought.  I would counter the argument that he is easy to compartmentalize.

The father of narrow corridors of play were green committees that were not sophisticated enough to turn down the offer of free and cheap trees offered by the Federal Government.  The proliferation of narrow corridors, exacerbated by the dependence on irrigation systems was after Flynn's death.  Of course the set-up practices of the USGA over the last few decades have perpetuated a bad scene.  

 Pat,

   This is always the problem with advocating ANY trees on courses. Green cmtes. will often not take into account the advice of the architect and go wild.


  Brent,

    Trees can also just provide beauty and visual clues

   

Brent,
  Why pines? Is that all that grows in the area? Don't they grow low to the ground and eliminate creative escapes?

Ed,
You'd find Tillinghast's views on pines disturbing but I don't have time to go into that.  Maybe someone else here will.  

One thing I will say about Flynn, as much as I love him as a designer, I think a weakness of his was that he never visited the great courses of the British Isles.  Yes he read books and talked extensively with Wilson, etc. but there is no substitute (as Wayne points out above) to field study.  Not having seen any of those great links courses definitely had to have some influence on Flynn's design philosophies.  

Not to sound like Matt Ward   , but I've been fortunate to have played and studied over 200 courses in the British Isles and there is no substitute to seeing these courses in person.  To me, it is so much fun to take a few buddies over there for the first time (especially those who think they know something about golf) and watch them experience a true links course.  They're perspective about golf course design, etc is forever changed.  I know mine has been.
Mark