James/Tom,
Please check them again. I've inserted the shot taken from the EXACT same point after construction.....

BLOODY GENIUS!

Martin.

PS Can you be sent to prison for 'Golf Course Lovin''

Martin - if so I'll be in prison with you.

To me that is pretty damn incredible how it all set in there so perfectly... just grass over some parts... but the RIGHT parts... because as I look at that last pic, oh that is a bit more terrifying-looking than the hole is today, BUT... the large grass area right before the green does exist!  You can see it on the left, past what I've been calling a "waste area" as it exists today... so yes, James, it's still a driver, even as it existed back then.  Of course I'm also assuming today's equipment.  Give me a hickory shaft and a haskell ball and it is likely a different equation.  

Thanks for putting that preconstruction photo up on CPC's #9. If you put that photo right next to the post construction photo of the hole just after opening and analyze every little detail of it you can see that other than building that bunker in the sand waste area straight on thru, and a tee basically Mackenzie just appears to have layed the fairway and the green right onto what was there without shaping a thing at all. Pre and post construction photos on that particular hole really is indicative of ultra minimalist design.

Please do not forget how steep the last 20 yards of that bunker are. The picture, as per normal, does not give the topography its due here. I love the way the hole was set up obviously more than the current version which is not much different. I ball to the right then was not dead just a very tough shot.

TEP:

Well... seems to me if he wished to, he could have extended the sand/bunker/waste along the left all the way to the green.  Yes, that area does look like "fairway" but a very valid choice might have been to do it this way.  The fact he didn't - and thus created this wide area into which I've been advocating hitting a driver - shows me the greater genius than just following minimalist ideals.

TH

Jeffrey:

Absolutely.  Run that sand all the way to the green and only a fool tries to hit it up there... the risk in trying to drive the green for the big hitters becomes so much greater even they rarely try it... it becomes a 5iron/9iron hole for everyone, not just the timid.  

TH

I'm fascinated by the right side, along the edge where the contrary slope creates, what many subsequent designs try to emulate, but often only looks like containment.

TEP:

That's all great by me - you are preaching to the choir re the minimalist/natural issue.  Agreed.  Concur.  Gotcha.  Right on.  Tell it, brother!  

My point remains though that he had to decide where to plant grass.  And where he planted such, and didn't, shows strategic genius ON TOP of the genius showed by leaving well enough alone.

That area short of the green PAST the sand, which is grass as the golf hole was created, could very well have been left as sand.  It wasn't - it was planted with grass.


TH

Well, Rich, there's basically only one real way to tell. We have the  before and after photographs right here on this thread (and a couple of other really clear one's of pre-construction #9 in Geoff's book) and to my eye that green landform is about exactly how it was pre-construction. You can even see the defined ramp (with the tiers) of it right there on the real close photo to the pre-work landform).

Of course, I guess it's possible that MacKenzie's crew could've been out there moving all kinds of earth around before they took what sure does appear to me to be photographs of what was to be #9 and some other holes before they did anything out there.

And what I'm saying about entirely pre-construction is supported by a number of other photos in GeoffShac's book that are labeled pre-construction and if one looks closely at all of them there's not a track or anything else in the sand on those photos. Nope, those pre-construction photos  look just as pure and untouched as some of the Atlantic dunes I grew up around as a kid on the east coast of Florida. As for the green-site on #9 preconstruction there're two photo of it on pages 42 & 43 the latter being really close to where the green is now and one can see the two tiers and everything else about it is exactly the same as after it was done and grassed and in play.

Of course if you look at those early photos (with MacKenzie playing the course) one can't help but notice all the sand so low profile and almost delicately juxtaposed to the fairways and greens. In those early photos in Geoff's book it almost looks as if MacKenzie pasted the grass onto the sand---that's how incredibly low profile the grass/sand juxtapositons are!

I've mentioned and questioned on here a number of times if MacKenzie was completely aware how wind and water might eventually play semi-havoc with that sort of thing (sand blowing all over the grass) and that's precisely why, in my opinion, we see in later photos of Cypress (years later) and many other courses like it such as Flynn's Indian Creek, Shinnecock or even Crump's PVGC a much more formalized look as the years go by. The entire sand faces fronting greens like PV's #2 and #18 had to be redone and formalized far more than they were originally designed and in play just for preservation.

But no matter how you rationalize it Rich, in this case the before and after photos of CPC's just don't lie.

TEP:

Fair enough.  So to me, it's not so simple to say the hole was "just there".  Oh it is, to a large extent... but not completely.  Genius was shown in many ways on this golf hole.

TH

Sorry Tom, we seem to be back to square one.  Oh I am absolutely not trying to be anything, particularly Mr. Goodale, the only point I am trying to make has been made several times already, and I had thought you agreed with it:

MacKenzie had to decide where to plant grass and where not to.

To me his choices there reveal greater genious than simply saying the golf hole was naturally there.  I don't disagree that the site for that hole screamed out for a cool shortish par 4, and not much, if any dirt was moved.  Granted.  Concur.  Gotcha.  Right on.

What I am laboring to get you to understand is that it COULD HAVE BEEN SCREWED UP, very easily.  A different architect may well have NOT planted grass in that area right in front of the green (shown in all pics as past the sandy waste area and before the left greenside bunker)... leaving the hole with one long narrow strip of fairway, tee to green... which also would have been "natural", but would have been a far worse golf hole, for reasons already stated.

Yes Tom, this isn't rocket science.  Understand now?

TH

ps - what do rocket scientists say to each other in situations like this?  I have a friend who does that, and she could give me no answer.  Same goes for brain surgeons.  Me, if I were either I'd walk around all day saying "this IS rocket science/brain surgery."  

TEP:

That is the point.  We seem to have come to an understanding.  And they said it could never happen...  

BTW, you're welcome for that setup re Goodale on that other thread.  I am a world-class straight man.  

TH

Adam:

That entire green on CPC's #9 was made by God--and the amazing thing is he didn't even make it to USGA specs. Of course Rihc couldn't possibly recognize the difference!