Tom,  I have to ask what scores you shot at Engineers?   Your opinions seem to be based upon an inability to putt.  The game of golf has evolved and it is no coincidence that the greatest courses have evolved with the game.  Could you name one top 20 rated course worldwide that has not had some sort of addition, subtraction, ect. over the years?  Because golf courses are living organisms, they are always subject to some change.  And of course we as golfers have undergone changes over the past 80 years.  Is there a possibility that Engineers was a fairly long course when it was built?  Sure the scorecard yardage was not as long as Winged Foot's, but Engineers played up and down hills.  There is a good chance that it effectively played much longer than the scorcard yardage.  Also, maybe a design weakness to the powers that be back in 1920 was the lack of fairway bunkers.  At this point in time it really does not matter.  For everyone whom I've come accross,  other than yourself, they have aboslutely lauded the fairway bunkering.  As for the Royal Melbourne comment, when I played there a few years ago, there was a new bunker recently built.  They are not afraid of tinkering with the course and would probably recontour a couple of greens if they became unplayable at the fast speeds usually found there.

Geoffrey
Frankly I'm not sure how one determines if I green is at 10 or 11. Do you carry a stimpmenter with you?

I  don't know if the greens today are rolling better or not. All I know is that the original greens were among the most interesting and most terrifying ever built (and they are now lost forever) and the new green are a lot more tame. Perhap you prefer the tame greens at higher speeds. I prefer the more contoured greens at lower speeds, preserving the historic design and save a boat load money.

I was being sarcastic about WF....another great set of greens falls to the stimpmeter.

Robert
I didn't keep score...if I had to guess somewhere in the low eighties. What does my score have to do with my regard for Engineers and Herbert Strong? I'm a very good putter...if I don't say so myself.

I'm certain that every course in the top 20 has been changed to some degree...does that mean we should accept a change to Engineers, Yale, Riviera, today?  That kind of thinking has led to some pretty sad developments over the years...see Winged Foot above.

Golf courses are living organisms and they should evolve naturally, and they should be changed if there is something fundamentally wrong with them. Engineer's problem was that the historic design -- the one that was considered in the same class as NGLA and Pine Valley -- had been left to deteriate...mostly through neglect and poor redesign. Instead of brushing her off they chose to redesing once again and in the process destroyed a great deal of the original material and you will never get that back.

Engineers was not a fairly long course when it was built. It was notet at the time that short hitters had every opportunity there as the long guys. It was one of the shorter tests...which made its reputation even more extraordinary. It difficult lie with its greens which demanded great thought and execution from tee to green.

I'm glad everone enjoys the fairway bunkers...my favorite part of the fairways were the extrarordinary contours. Would you recommend Tripp Davis add fairway bunkers to more classic courses in the Metro region.

Do you equate adding a single bunker at Royal Melbourne with what occured at Engineers?

The bunker at the 16th green looks like it was designed by George Fazio.

I'm certain Engineers is still a very good golf course...another Northeast Gem...it shoud've and could've been a hell of a lot more than that.

Everyone knows that I don't leave home for the golf course without my stimpmenter.  In fact, when I measure the practice greens before a round I don't even bother to go out on the course if they are not 10 or higher.

 

I was wondering why you walked with a stiff leg.

Here is an excerpt from the MGA magazine:

“Some of the greens had false fronts and wild contours that had to be flattened out. ‘We went from 8% slopes down to 2.5%. today, with speeds of 10 or 11, the greens were too steep,’ says Troy David, Chairman of the Green Committee…Architect Davis has worked to restore the look of the original Engineers, crafting ‘ragged’ bunkers fringed with fine fescue grassed, and the new greens will have the original outlines even if the topsy-turvy contours have been softened. ‘Some purists might object to what we’ve done on the greens,’ he says, ‘but this is 2005, not 1925. I think the restoration should be as much about intent as it is about style, and the intent is to create an interesting game.”

"The new agronomy methods are a gift to all golfers."

How is that? No doubt they have been a huge gift to architects who make their living rebuilding and redsigning classic golf courses.

Geoffrey
No, the first quote is from the chairman and the second quote is Tripp Davis.

One of the consequences of the new agronomy/super fast greens has been making mediocre greens more interesting and bold well-designed greens obsolete.

Geoffery - I second your comments about the slopes at Engineers. They are severe by anyone's standard! If the greens have been "flattened" then I can't even imagine what they were like before. I thought our caddy said the changes were mainly made to the outside edges of the greens, not the interior contours. That would make a lot more sense based on what we observed.

Michael

I would agree with your comment. Without any preconceived ideas about altered greens, bunkering or the "new" par 3 3rd I had to conclude that

1- Those were among the finest greens I had ever come across.  They are varied, wild, challenging, thought provoking and down right FUN to putt (in a friendly game - nail biting in a tournament environment).

2- The routing OVER hills is quite unusual.  It works well though with the requisite blind shots (I like these too).

3- THe par 3 3rd is an EXCELLENT golf hole as modified by Trip with tree removal (right) and enlarged and reshaped bunker (left).  Frankly, the course needed a long par 3 though the 2 or 20 somehow needs to be incorporated into the routing more often.

4- The caddie did infact point out almost exclusively enlarged areas and perepheral areas of greens that were modified.  All the huge swales, dropoffs and shelves looked to me like they could not possibly have been MORE severe.

That's what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears.  

I think they did a little more than soften the edges at the 16th....what did the caddie say?

Originally the 9th (old 8th) was 213 yards. You can have the par-3 3rd and the morphed par-5 4th...I'll take the old 3rd and '2 or 20'. When I played there a couple of years ago the tee for old 3rd was still there.

We played the back tees - the 9th (old 8th) was a 6 iron to the back of the green (3 putts later for my bogey - first putt rolled off the front of the green   ) The new 3rd at 225 yards was every bit of my 17* hybrid pin high just off the green right (two putts).  That's a huge difference in club selection.  I like both holes.

The old 3rd tee is still there if they want to change the routing on different days.  The current par five is a good slightly uphill driving hole with a bunker complex on the right that could collect a drive hoping to cut off a bit of length to go for the green in two.  The layup is at a diagonal and uphill to a narrowing area of fairway and not an easy shot.  Pitches see only the top of the flagstick and the false front is a big factor for front pins.  Its a good par 5.  I'm sure it was also a good dogleg left long par 4.

You'll have to do your own research on the current 16th.

If the current 9th were 213 yards, where would the tee have been positioned?  Though the 8th was recontoured at least a couple of times before Tripp rebuilt the green, it was always short back--front and very wide across.  With the current 13th and 10th running parallel to the 9th, where could a back tee have been placed?    As for the old 14th being incorporated into the course problem, Engineers has two scorecards--Tribute and current.  In addition, there is a short pin on the green for those who wish to play all 19 holes.  The 19 hole format happens to be very popular among those bringing guests.

As for the 16th green complex--I was unaware that George Fazio employed grass faced wrap around bunkering.  I've only played a few of his courses, but they all had the same dimensioned flash faced oval shaped greenside bunkers.  The right greenside bunker has the same type of grass face as the back 15th bunker and the wrap around back 7th bunker.  In adddition, I have seen this type of bunker at Canterbury and on 17 at Inwood--though it is not wrapping around very much.  Nevertheless, Tripp did a fantastic job with this bunker and it will get a lot of visits now that there a pins on the right side of the green.

Bob
The 9th tee was effected by the rebuilding of the 8th green.

The lolly pop capes and bay are classic GF. I agree, I'm sure it will continue to get a lot of visits...unfortunately if his goal was to restore the look of Strong's bunker he missed the mark.

Geoffrey
Have you altered your position on the restoration of bunkers since those days when you were upset by Rulewich at Yale?

TE
What do you have against Ohio. Where does Tripp Davis reside?

I’ve never once said on here, or anywhere else, that historic architectural information on a golf course is not extremely important. If a golf course becomes involved in planning a restoration project I believe that really comprehensive historical architectural research is the place to start, even before considering an architect. There is no substitute at all for it.

TE
What is your opinion of the current restoration at Engineers?  How comprehensive is your knowledge of Engineers, its architectural history and Herbert Strong?

TE
Sorry. You were confusing me, I thought you said you had no knowledge of Engineers and little or no knowledge of Herbert Strong, but yet you appear to be interjecting yourself into a debate on both & the decision to redesign vs restore Strong's Engineers. Even more confusing is your defense of ignoring/rejecting the architectural archival data.

"but yet you appear to be interjecting yourself into a debate on both & the decision to redesign vs restore Strong's Engineers. Even more confusing is your defense of ignoring/rejecting the architectural archival data."

Look, Tom, it has always been damn near impossible for most anyone on here to have an intelligent and certainly an efficient discussion with you but it defiinitely seems to be getting worse and a lot worse recently. This thread alone and many of the posts on here are getting to be collective evidence of and testimony to that.

I have never advocated ignoring architectural archive material and I have never defended a club interested in a restoration for ignoring architecture archive data.

What I am saying to you and have for years now is that, in my opinion, the very first order of business for any club interested in a restoration is to do all the research on the golf course and it's evolution that could possibly be done----and that includes real research into their original architect and any others who worked on their course too.

To me that is completely fundamental and essential and in all cases must be the place to start. Do you understand that or am I going to have to say it to you again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that ad infinitum before you stop saying that I believe something else like automatic redesign?

Having done that, having collected all the architectural research material that appears to be available, I then feel it is encumbant upon a club trying to do a good restoration to hire an architect who is good and who truly understands classic architecture and restoration architecture and to then go through what is often a long and difficult analysis of how and how well the process and production of restoring all the various ramifications of the original architecture will work both in play for those using the golf course and also to those maintaining the golf course.

In those processes I have learned how necessary it is to attempt to educate a membership into the philosophies of much of the older classic courses both in play and in strategy as well as in maintenance.

Some say the latter should never be even attempted because all that can be expected is that they will meddle and eventually dismantle a good restoration plan.

I do not believe that to be necessarily so, and I have amplle evidence of both how and why that is not necessarily so.

But what I particularly believe to be the case, and is the purview and responsibility of generally the committee assigned to develop the restoration Master Plan with their architect is to make the decisions regarding what will work well and what will work best with today's realitiies of golf and what won't.

There is no question at all, Tom, that you tend to totally glorify some of these old architects and some of their work to the extent that you must feel there is nothing they could've ever done that didn't work well for some reason, either back there or today.

That dream-world belief is just not the way it is, not in every case or ever facet of original architecture---that's just not the reality in all cases and you seem to think it is or should be.

I believe in total restoration only if total restoration architecture works well to serve the purpose of what golf architecture is there to do in the first place---has always been there to do in the first place---and has been confirmed generally in writing by most all the great architect who considered the subject. And that is to do the best that can be done to create maximum enjoyment for the people who play and use the course and pay for it.

How in the world you can possibly think there is any other reason or way or higher calling for golf course architecture whether it be classic, modern or restoration than that is just beyond me.