Mark Rowlinson has a piece on The Alwoodley in the latest issue of T+L Golf magazine: Click here.

Near as I can find the website does not offer the contributors' page found in the print edition, with mug shots of the contributors.  Too bad: Mark pips the actor Peter Gallagher for most-handsome contributor!

(As an aside, this month's issue of T+L Golf is a veritable GCA.com contributor fest, with quotes from Lynn and Geoff Shackelford in a piece on Rustic Canyon and Mike Clayton / Tom Doak references galore in an Australian golf piece.

Apropos, Nick Leefe asked me to pass this along to the group:

"In 1999 Tom Doak said the original greens would have been much larger than today.  You mentioned the large green at the short 7th where the 2 front bunkers (L & R) are away from the green.  Where we have the closely mown aprons at Alwoodley today they would have been the original greens in the early years, so much larger.  The 14th apron area in front of the green is another one that would have extended a long way down.

"· The largest green is the 13th with just over 8000 sq feet.  Some of Mike de Vries restored greens at the Meadow Club are well over 10,000 sq feet !!!

"· Rigs & Furrows. As there was much chat about these I will do some more research, to try & put some approx dates on when these would have been used for the first time, however nimble members do not seem to be worried though I have to say the sideways slopes at 5 have helped me hook my punched run ups into the green from 100 yards or so !!!

"· Yes we do putt from 60 yards but the longest I have seen holed was about 40 yards down the hill at 17."

There's so much excellent discussion fodder in these two sources, but what I really enjoyed:

1. Mac must have learned from TOC the efficacy of large greens in defending par;

2. Is the putter the most-important club at The Alwoodley?  The better players at BUDA rarely pulled driver, and on most-every green at least one golfer and more often two or three, regardless of ability, seemed to struggle to hit his approach close to the flag on those massive, disorienting greens. That put a lot of pressure on the putter out there, didn't it -- especially considering the "effective" size (per Nick's putter comment) of the greens, not just their "official" size.  If the putter is numero uno for all players, then that's another TOC lesson learned, yes?

3. Mac's desire to place bunkers hard against greens was something he figured out in his very first design, rather than something learned over time -- the thing that's incredible to me about his design at The Alwoodley is how many things he got right, right from the start, and without the benefit of having a legion of professionalized designers whose work he could have studied;

4. Mark R concludes his piece by noting, "It is hard not to reflect...how differently events might have unfolded had its design not been so successful."  One may speculate on who would have gotten his commissions, but what I find far more fascinating is to consider to evolution of green complexes without him.  Wild greens would have fallen to Maxwell to innovate, yes? What other design elements might have gone differently?

5. As Mark R notes (in the article and in his excellent history), we in part have the harsh winter of 1907-08 to thank for The Alwoodley, but what I find of interest is to consider the winter in the context of Mark's speculation in #3 above: just how did The Alwoodley come to be accepted as a "success" by club-level golfers, after the committee nearly "came to blows" with Mac during the design and construction?  Did it really fall to the blessings of Colt and Fowler?  Were the members that dependent on the opinion of professionals to decide their own approval?  This club-golfer approval must have been a near thing and by no means unanimous, yes?  For we do have the examples of Sitwell Park plus Mac's disappointment over CPC not generating the controversy he'd hoped.

Mark

But, Sean, people practice chips; nobody practices 180-foot putts!   Also, regarding your Beau Desert observation, IMHO you are right to note the greater impact of slope and contour due to large greens: the ball remains in contact with the ground longer than on short putts, on pitches, and on chips.  But am I to understand correctly that you are unwilling to concede the largeness of the green as responsible?

Getting back to TAGC greens:
1. Mark R notes the significance of the design is that it was among the very first designed for the "Bounding Billy."  Is there a relationship between Mac's decision to supersize the greens and this ball?

2. Do the size of the greens factor into the remarkable degree of design preservation?  A 6,700-yard course at open would have had an advantage, and there's the major role club governance has played. (TAGC's committee model, and its performance with respect to design integrity, surely makes it a governance model to study! Of course, it needed a recent revision, but that's another matter...)

But would someone illuminate or even speculate on a possible relationship?  I have read that one defense of increased length is reduce green size.  Weathered and Simpson I believe recommended this...

Thanks
Mark

PS I guess there's also the question of how large the greens actually play, conceding firm and fast conditions and fall-aways may make them play smaller.  But for my money, they play plenty big!

To answer your last question, maybe not, after all.  Plenty of courses from that era remain at their original length.  Of course, many of those were shorter at open than 6,700 yards, weren't they?  And some didn't have the money to do anything about it...

But what about the relationship between the Haskell and the size of the greens at TAGC?  Assuming that a major organizing principle of Mac was "design for Haskell," then with respect to large greens what was he thinking?

You make the comment of not knowing whether large or small is the best way to defend against length. And the Haskell was longer, but I was thinking more about the relationship of large greens to the "bounding" bit: the gutty didn't behave that way upon landing, did it?

So, just thinking out loud and trying to answer my own question, Mac would have had to think about how a course might be designed in relation to how the ball behaved after it landed.  That's a big difference, isn't it? And that's as significant a difference to design as the increased length of the new ball, isn't it?

And so what does that mean for green size, in terms of run-up shots and aerial shots?

Mark

PS Regarding the challenges of putting vs. chipping from 40, 50, 60 yards: I can't say as I don't think I've ever putted from that distance more than a handful of times...

Did Mac want to add challenge by requiring the golfer to think really hard about all the combos of aerial angle + run out, or am I overthinking it?