[Tim Liddy]

I am not the expert that many on this site are about Ross, but in the one remodel I have completed on a Ross course it appears he had a bit if a template for greens.  I would guess they were based on classic examples of his thoughts of great Scotland greens (much as McDonald had, but more subtle). Can anyone enlighten me on Ross green design from their experience?

[Tom_Doak]

Tim:

Surely you cannot stereotype Ross greens from just having worked on one course.

Someday perhaps you should go to Kahwka Club in Erie to see a variety of Ross greens ... some are on fill pads (probably the kind you are saying is his "formula"), but others are cut out of sideslopes or just laid on the ground, and there are a couple of punchbowl sections as well.

Surely, the quality of work at any individual course depends on who built it and on how much time Ross spent thinking about it, which can vary greatly from course to course.

If he was really copying particular greens in Scotland as far as contouring or strategy, I have not made the connection -- although come to think of it, there is one green at Kahkwa which struck me as very unusual, which is on reflection a bit like the 17th at Royal Dornoch.

[Tim Liddy]

I wonder if there are a few green types. I have noticed a few: 1) strong middle swale up the front of the green (with hole locations around the perimeter of the swale), 2) small ridges (normally 2 of them spaced about 12 fee apart) running parallel with the shot in the center of the green, 3) the same ridges running perpendicular to the shot, and 4) a small roll in the middle of the green (segregating the green into hole locations around its perimeter).

[ed_getka]

Tim,
   Are the parallel ridges you referring to, essentially rolls that go up and over, with the green the same level on either side? I haven't seen a ton of Ross greens, but they are generally pretty interesting without any predominant features I can think of that were a recurent theme.
     I remember French Lick had some prominent features where you clearly wanted to be on one side of the green with your approach. I remember a couple of parallel ridges that were perpendicular to the incoming shot on a longish par 3. Plainfield has a dividing roll in the green(like your #4 example?) on its fabulous par 5 (#12?) with the winding "burn" that crosses in front of the green.
     What courses have you seen by Ross that lead you to your conclusions? Particularly #2 and #3.

[cary lichtenstein]

It seems to me that the courses that Ross actually did the work in person have much more contour in their greens than ones he perhaps just mailed in.

[TEPaul]

Tim:

If Ross ever had a formula for greens it evolved pretty evidently from his early career to the end of the 1920s. In a short phrase the sophistication of his green outlines as well as internal contouring and such developed markedly.

My course is a fairly interesting example of that. He designed it in 1916 and in 1927 he came back and proposed the redesign of a few of his original greens making their internal contouring much more sophisticated.

One thing he did seem to be pretty formulaic with was bunker depth unless there was some clear topographical reason not to be.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tim,

You raise an interesting question.

Do architects, no matter who they are, have brains that function in a totally random fashion, or do their brains develop patterned responses, borne of repetition. experience and circumstances.

I think the question has to be viewed and bifurcated in the context of modern versus classic designers.

Topography, drainage and budgets may have combined to lead to patterned responses versus originality.

I don't think those olde guys had the tools, technology and funds to be constantly creative irrespective of the situation.

It would seem like surface drainage could be a more significant consideration with push-up greens.

Modern designers would seem to have more latitude in terms of creativity due to the resources at their disposal.

[Tim Liddy]

Tom, Tom, Ed, Cary and Pat,

Thanks for the comments.  It sounds like I need to get up to Kahwka Club. It would be interesting to go to Pinehurst and catalogue his many green diagrams (His green diagrams for construction are wonderful) and compare them with the great greens in Scotland to see what his influences might have been. I have a few in mind but cannot be positive at this time.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tim,

A number of his courses have the graphed field notes that disect the greens in three dimensions.

I believe that Aronomink, Plainfield, Seminole and others are readily available.

I'd suggest that you obtain and review as many of them as you can get your hands on.

[Mark_Fine]

Pat,
There are a lot more than just those you mention that are readily available  

[Nathan Cashwell]

I am certainly no "Ross expert", but have played/ worked on a number of Ross courses.  Like Tom D. said it depends on many circumstances.  Someone who is credited with some 400 golf courses over a 40 plus year career is sure to produce greens, features, and bunkers that are very similar if not exactly like others he has built.  I am sure most architects have "go to" greens in their repetoir.  I am sure you have seen Pete do a green or two that might remind you of others he has done on another course or at another time in his career.  One Ross course we are currently working on we have plenty of evidence that Ross was on-site quite a bit and had very much to do with how the course looked.  I have never personally seen him do greens quite like these, even on a number of courses I have seen that he did during the same time, and was on-site just as much.  These greens are possibly the best set of Ross greens I have ever seen, very unique.  Again like Tom D. said they have some of each type, raised fill pad, on grade, on top of a hill, cut into a hill, tucked between a hill and creek, overall great stuff.  

[michael j fay]

I think I have seen as many "Ross " greens as anyone and I cannot say that I have seen much repetition.

There appear to be similarities in the greens at Oyster Harbors and Salem for instance and they were built two years apart. They are similar in style but there are no greens at either you would say are copied from another.

The greens on some of his earlier courses like Brae Burn, French Lick and Grosse Ile have much more movement than those courses done in the mid to late 20's.

The greens at Pine Needles and Mid Pines, built five years apart but grassed at the same time are fairly dissimilar.

The greatest difficulty is ascertaining who actually built some of the greens. Was it Aneas, McGovern, Hatch or Ross himself? This jumps around from place to place.

Two courses where Ross most probably oversaw the construction were The Orchard and Teugega. The two sets of greens are quite apart in movement and slope. All 36 greens make sense and are imminently fair but they have no real similarities other than that.

There are a few common threads. Nearly all of his greens sloped from back the front and they all allowed for the player to get from any point on the green to another.

I think that most of the greens he designed before the Depression tended to have more slope and movement than those designed or redesigned after WW II.

Suffice to say, the more I see, the more questiions arise.

[Will E]

Here's a couple of strange features I haven't seen repeated-

A "top hat" feature in the middle of the 9th green at Barton Hills.

The swale running across the 14th green at Oakland Hills.

Common features mentioned here that I agree with are the use of spines and ridges creating "greens with in greens".

[ed_getka]

I am curious about the parallel ridges Tim referred to in his second post. Has anyone else seen these? I am sure I've probably played a course with them and probably didn't notice. However, the only one I can think of is not Ross and that is #17 green at Fishers Island. Where did you see parallel ridges Tim?

[Mark_F]

or do their brains develop patterned responses, borne of repetition. experience and circumstances.

Patrick,

I think you will find this is how you, and everyone else, get out of bed in the morning.

[Dan Boerger]

I've never played golf in Scotland, but a friend of mine (native Scot and a scratch golfer) raves about Dornach. Given the Ross connection, it's sure to be a course I'll try to play next time I'm across the pond.

[BCrosby]

Michael Fay raises a good point about Ross associates.

At Athens CC, the greens drawn by Ross in his field sketches differ from the blueprints prepared by McGovern(?). Some of the greens as built differed from both.

To my eye, greens built to Ross's field sketches would have been more interesting than the greens shown on the blueprints which were, in turn, more intersting than the greens actually built.

Which raises the obvious question, what exactly is it that you are restoring when you are restoring?

Bob

[JNagle]

Tim -

We have certainly seen some "proto-typical" greens from Ross course to Ross course.  IMHO it seems the middle twenties courses, his busiest years, have some similarities.  Lake Sunapee, CC of York, Springfield (Ohio), Oyster Harbors, Weston (added nine), Congress Lake, Penobscott Valley, CC of Buffalo and others have variations on the following:

center swale, double plateua, horse-shoe, center prowl, diagonal swale, plateau, green without sand but surrounded with ridges and mounds that extend into the green (Congress Lake and Bedford), center spine and also a green with haunches extending into it from approx. 3 and 9 on the dial.  There is also the heart shaped or Mickey Mouse green with large lobes back left and right with an undulation between and often a bunker cut into the rear of the green between the two lobes.

Not every course has each one of these greens but we certainly see a commonality from course to course.

[Tim Liddy]

Ed,
I am referring to golf hole #2 at Hyde Park Country Club in Cincinnati, Ohio - a great green

JNagle,
I agree and have noticed the same.  

Nate,
You are too young to teach me anything. Get back to work. Although seriously, I am looking forward to reviewing the Ross greens with you and Kris.

[Mike McGuire]

Reply from Ron Prichard,

Unfortunately, (or perhaps, fortunately); I stay way too busy to even attempt to keep up with GCA.  There were several responses to Tim Liddy which were correct. Anyone involved with the design of over 400 courses, would of course display some repetition of characteristics in his green's design, (and although this might fly over the heads of some people), that would include the putting surfaces. In the efforts I have made to carefully study the great old golf courses, (which includes many built here in America prior to World War II), I have not found any work which compares to that of Donald Ross, (although we must remember there was an even greater architect who created much of what we see at St. Andrews and a few other old links). I don't believe I've ever seen a close duplication of any golf hole, or any "Green", on a Ross course.
 
             I leave it to others to judge then where he fits in the ranks of Master Architects; and I have the deepest admiration for MacDonald, Raynor, and who would not recognize the skill of Tillinghast, (if he visited Winged Foot).
 
             Mike, There is a great quotation from a book written by Humphrey Repton, "Landscape Architecture", written in 1797 which should be memorized by ever wannabe, or active, golf architect:
 
                          ".....True taste, in every art, consists more in adapting tried expedients to peculiar circumstance than in that inordinant thirst for novelty, the characteristic of uncul-tivated minds, which from the facility of inventing wild theories, without experience, are apt to suppose that taste is displayed by novelty, genius by innovation, and that every change must necessarily tend to improvement."
 
                                                                                                  Ron

[Kris Spence]

Tim, I would not consider myself an expert at anything, but your post got me thinking about all of the Ross holes I have had the pleasure of working on and I can without question say he did not seem to template or formula greens, if he had a formula it was to utilize the lay of the land at each green site and create something unique based upon that.

I decided to focus on the greens plans for Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro which we are currently restoring and I can say the most commong trait among the drawings is this:  The front width of the greens are almost without exception 80', the front edge is perpendicular to the play of the hole most of the time favoring the preferred angle or direction of the hole and the depth is at or near 80' also.  If you were to draw an 80' x 80' square, the greens would start out 80' wide at the front and protrude in or out of the square at one of the front or back corners establishing angle.  

I have restored close to 200 Ross greens and I can say that I have not seen two exactly alike so far, yet several that were similiar.  Oyster Harbour for example (studied the greens only) has two greens on the course very similiar in style, squarish in shape with two square tiers  comprising 25% of the surface area each  in opposite corners raised 1 to 1'6" above the lower tiers. The Greensboro Country Club NC Irving Park Cs (Reworked in 98) had this exact design on the 7th green.  The areas around the greens were quite different though.

Another duplicate Ross design  I have seen on another occasion is a squarish green with a center back square tier raised 1' higher than the body of the green that occupies the middle third on the back half of the green with  pin placements on each side.  The 10th at Carolina Golf Club in Charlotte NC (par 4) and the 5th at Hendersonville CC, NC (par 5) have these types of greens.  Hendersonville is by the way one of Ross' best sets of preserved greens I have ever seen along side OH on Cape Cod.  

With that being said, Ross did not use formulas in my opinion and designed greens individually based on each green site and layout for the hole, he did utilize proven features within the greens more than once but not to the point that it would be considered formaltic.  

The greens i have worked on include: flat and or bland decks without any distinct contours, distinctive spines and ridges from various angles, scalloped punchbowl greens, two or three tier fill pads, dominantly tilted raised fill pads, swales running through the greens at various angles, greens  with raised humps, flared corners, undulating mounds along edges, multiple tiers with troughs between them,rolled down edges, saddle fronts and backs, Im sure I missed several but I think this clearly shows there was no formula.

[TEPaul]

Mike MacGuire:

Thank you for posting that Ron Prichard message. He sent it to me too asking me to post it but saying he'd been talking to you but it came out really weird on my email and I couldn't format it onto this website.

Did you mention he signed it Ron Quixote?  

[Mike McGuire]

TEPaul

As you  reported - the email I received needed to be formatted to post. Perhaps something was omitted.

The good is news is I have convinced Ron to post on this website. His qualifications are obvious but his perspective is extraordinary.

I  asked The emperor a couple days ago for a login for Ron. He has not delivered yet but perhaps Ran will.

[Tim Liddy]

Thanks guys,

As Tom Doak speculates, it is always interesting to try and understand his major influences.  Obviously, Ross was very creative, but as Ron’s quote outlines, it is always important to understand the lineage behind his designs. With a little study, a number of the greens that influenced Ross could be identified. It would be a fun and interesting hypothesis.

No green design is ever the same, but it is possible to understand the theory and influences behind them. I think a few patterns would emerge.

But probably only interesting to golf nerds.

[BCrosby]

But probably only interesting to golf nerds.

Well then you certainly came to the right place.

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