The original question asked if Pebble could have been designed better, not if Pebble should be changed given the opportunity.

Cheers,
Darren

Every golf course could be better -- in the eye of the beholder.

And once it was perfected by that beholder, another beholder would change it to more closely reflect his own idea of perfection.

And that's how tinkering hurts golf course architecture.

I think I could improve Pebble Beach, as I am sure do most of the golf architects who ever lived.  But it's pretty good as it is, so I'm content to build my own new courses and see if I can do anything better that way.

But it's pretty good as it is, so I'm content to build my own new courses and see if I can do anything better that way.

From your mouth to Tom Fazio, Roger Rulewich and Rees Jonses' ears we can only hope.

Every golf course could be better -- in the eye of the beholder.

And once it was perfected by that beholder, another beholder would change it to more closely reflect his own idea of perfection.

And that's how tinkering hurts golf course architecture.

These words should be memorialized...... in stone.[/color]

Whether or not you think Pebble Beach is an incredible design, I *guarantee* you that if someone else had been given the original site instead of Jack Neville (et al.), and that alternate architect had designed the course from scratch, and you were then able to compare the alternate course to the current design (or the design before the new 5th hole was instituted, or at any other point during the course's history), someone would like the other course better. Perhaps even most people would. Isn't that the point of the question? Why do some people have to turn an idle thought exercise into a diatribe against tinkering with an existing golf course, when the latter was not mentioned in the first place? (I mean, if this discussion group included Messrs. Nicklaus, Fazio and Rees Jones, and I thought one of them might pick up on the idea of overhauling PB and turning it into something else, that would be one thing...but there is no practical cost of thinking about how one *might* have done better with one of the most famous sites in golf, is there?)

Cheers,
Darren

TEPaul,

George Bahto and I had to drag you screaming and kicking to the berm behind the current 7th tee to show you where a tee should be constructed, in order to bring the "hotel" bunker complex BACK INTO PLAY

That is the critical issue, returning the architectural features such that they interface with the golfer's game, and not sit there idly, like the Maginot Line, to be circumvented by technology.

Changing par, as you advocate, does not return those features, intended to impact the golfers thought processes and play, back to their intended function.

The same was done at # 8 to preserve the tee shot values and options, and the same was done to # 14.

Had you had your faithful companion, your seeing eye guide dog, Coorshaw, with you that day, you would have seen the light.

But, alas, you choose to remain where you're most comfortable... in the dark  

Patrick, I see where you're coming from, but let me say this: not everyone at GolfClubAtlas has an encyclopedic knowledge of golf courses like some do. On the other hand, I would imagine that at least 90% of the forum posters feel like they know Pebble Beach pretty well, whether through television or from visits in person - it's common ground for pretty much everyone, and therefore could serve as a neutral discussion point. In turn, discussion of Pebble Beach's merits - and yes, even possible areas for improvement - could help more fully introduce some posters to the sorts of architectural language and concepts many of us cherish. Such a discussion could even be useful beyond GolfClubAtlas, again because Pebble is a familiar icon of American golf - perhaps by challenging assumptions and pointing out "flaws" in the architecture, or perhaps by creating arguments about why the course is a great design which transcends its aesthetics.

If not Pebble, then perhaps other common ground could be found (Augusta National most obviously). Unfortunately, some posters will choose to use a course like NGLA or Sand Hills as "common ground", perhaps not realising that such choices disenfranchise huge segments of the forum who haven't been there and might not have the first clue how to even begin going about getting access, no matter how passionately interested about golf course architecture they might be. I've never seen NGLA or Sand Hills myself, for example, and while I'm sure they're both other-worldly courses, theirs is a language I cannot even begin to pretend to understand. The same is unfortunately true for the ever-dwindling number (or so it seems, anyway) of Australian regulars at GolfClubAtlas - they have some truly fantastic golf courses to call their own,  but hardly anyone in America has seen them, so talk of Kingston Heath, Victoria, New South Wales, maybe even Royal Melbourne comes across as unintelligible gibberish. And as for your oft-repeated maxims that (I'm paraphrasing here) you can't tell anything about a golf course from photos or television, and that you don't really know anything about it until you've seen it in X different wind directions and ground conditions...well, sure, but how limiting can you possibly hope to be? If those really were our guidelines the forum would have about four members and six threads in aggregate.  

The point I'm getting at is this: rather than STIFLING discussion about one of America's and the world's most popular golf courses, how about we see where that discussion leads and hope that such a discussion connects with GCA participants who may not be privy to the great but inaccessible golf courses of America and elsewhere? Many people long for a world in which GolfClubAtlas has more influence in the wider golfing world - isn't this exactly the sort of thread that could be used to put that process more rapidly in motion? Someone made the excellent suggestion that Pebble might have been better if it had crossed over from the 8th green to the inward half of the course, creating a great downhill par 4 (the inverted 11th) and some other interesting holes; that's a good starting point to contradict the idea that "talk is cheap", is it not?

Cheers,
Darren

Adam....I played there this summer after a long absence. I was less than pleased with alot of the surrounding visuals and changes made since I played the course 200+ times some thirtyfive years ago....maybe its just halcyon mists but I felt little sense of improvement ......actually very much the opposite....I feel most here on GCA would think it was better then. [maybe because the greens fees were only $65]
I sure do.

Darren,

A more productive discusion might make Spanish Bay, Bandon Dunes or Pacific Dunes the focus of the exercise because they're far more contemporary.  We can probably obtain access to the details and facts surrounding their creation, design and construction, whereas that information may never be obtained with respect to PB.

But, in the interest of discussion, let the suggestions regarding improving PB come forth.

Paul:

The only way to change the back to back par 3's to any satisfaction would have been to rip up the seventh hole at Bandon Dunes so I could make the tenth into a short par-4 ... that was my original idea, because the holes at Bandon Dunes weren't on my original map.  However, I had to build the eleventh, and the only way to get to that tee was to put the tenth green where it is, and I couldn't see building a par-4 up over the upper tenth tee.

Darren:

You are right ... if there were two or ten different versions of Pebble Beach, there would be no unanimous agreement as to which of them was best.  But that is really just saying that golf architecture is an art form and subjective in its very nature, isn't it?  And would you really want to play UPHILL toward the ninth tee instead of down to that beautiful green stuck out looking down the beach to Carmel, just so the eleventh could play downhill and out to sea?

Patrick:

Although there is some room behind the 7th tee it most certainly is not ideal back there for a new back tee. To get enough length back there you'd either have to get too close to the 12th green or if you placed the tee enough away from it you tend to get it too much behind #6 green so players on the 6th tee have that green back-dropped by players teeing off on #7. Things like that probably don't even occur to you. You'd probably just do it without even recognizing that and find out the reaction to it after the fact. The best policy is to just not tinker with classic courses unless you really know what you're doing and unfortunately you pretty much need to depend on me to explain that to you.