Cypress Point and playing the ninth....

[Marty Bonnar]

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''

[A_Clay_Man]

Awesome old photos. I can tell one thing clearly from these pix. Never, in the history of GCA, is it possible to screw up a golf course more, just for a cart path, than here. Assuming that the dune line, that was the front left bunker, was altered for that purpose. YUCK, SCHMUCK

[THuckaby2]

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.  

[THuckaby2]

Awesome old photos. I can tell one thing clearly from these pix. Never, in the history of GCA, is it possible to screw up a golf course more, just for a cart path, than here. Assuming that the dune line, that was the front left bunker, was altered for that purpose. YUCK, SCHMUCK

Yeah, that is interesting... but do they even have carts at Cypress?  I'm guessing the reason for the path is that absent it, all balls coming from the left - and given the death right off the tee, a lot of shots go over there, even on to the 8th fairway - mean a trek WAY around to the right to allow access to the green.  On top of that, it likely helps the maintenance guys big time getting equipment to the 9th green and 10th tee... just a guess.  So it does ruin the look a bit - but given it's pretty much out of play and seems very practical, well... it doesn't seem to me to be the horrid sin that it otherwise might be.

TH

[TEPaul]

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.

[THuckaby2]

TEP - yes, but... he did pick where he was going to put fairway and what he was going to leave as sand... and the way he did this was bloody genius - we're still talking about how to play the damn hole 70+ years later!

TH

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

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.

[TEPaul]

TomH:

Sure he decided where to put fairway but look at that pre-construction photo very carefully and compare it to the post construction fairway and you can see the fairway lines PRE construction are amazingly defined by the nature and purity of the sand and even the sand-blown low grade shapes of the sand, and even some scrub brush and such which obviously they only cleaned up a little. Talk about a hole that basically mimicked the old pre-man-made architecture era of golf centuries ago of the "path of least resistance" this hole would be it.

[THuckaby2]

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

[Jfaspen]

And in doing so, created the opportunity for the ultimate risk/reward short par 4 and at a bare minimum created an incentive to gamble a little bit in order to avoid penalty/long 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

[THuckaby2]

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

[Jfaspen]

I have a feeling that my very short experience on this board is going to have me viewing golf courses in an entirely different light when the weather permits it here  And for that I am thankful.

jf

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

[A_Clay_Man]

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.

[TEPaul]

"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."

It seems to me he could've done anything he wanted to---he could've pushed the whole thing down and moved it around any old which way-it's just sand after all, but he used it just as it's defined naturally, in my opinion. If you ask me MacKenzie probably looked at that landform--all of it--the part that looks like fairway, pre-construction, the narrow green-site itself that looks about identical to how it is and said to himself--there's the golf hole--all of it right in front of me, all I have to do is clean it up some, plant the fairway, the green and voila!

He could've done anything there but it looks to me like he basically touched about two teaspoons!  

And on landforms as unique as that one turned out to be for golf although perhaps seeming a bit gutsy with that green-form and shape and all I don't see that genius and minimallism are mutually exclusive if a very creative architect is using his imagination and really letting that pre-construction landform talk to him!

For a highly unique hole this one is probably the most minimalist and also one of the most natural I've ever heard of. Now if someone like Richard Goodale comes back and says; "Yeah but it can't really be considered natural because it has grass on the fairway and grass on the green even if MacKenzie never really touched that ground---then I surely will give up on trying to discuss this subject with him!  

[THuckaby2]

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

[ForkaB]

Tom P

9 CPC is a puttable and distinctively 2-tier green. From my observation of the effect of wind and gravity on sand dunes, one would have to move several million teaspoons of sand to create such a land form.  Am I misinformed?

[TEPaul]

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.

[TEPaul]

"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."

TomH:

Of course he did. I don't recall saying anything to the contrary. Grass does have to be planted to make for tees, fairways and greens and it is the architect's call on where those areas and dimensions will be.

[THuckaby2]

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

[TEPaul]

"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."

TomH:

What are you trying to do, act like Richard Goodale? This stuff ain't exactly rocket science--it's basically no more than observation and some really good before and afters basically do the trick.

When you look carefully at the GROUND (which is most all of what golf course architecture deals with! What did Behr say--the artist's medium is paint, the golf architect's medium is the surface of the earth)--all of it that now forms that golf hole (mostly sand in the case of CPC's #9) BEFORE anything was done there you can quite easily see that it's almost exactly the same in every single little dimension as it is AFTER the hole was finished.

But of course there is one remarkable difference in the before and after photos. AFTER the hole was finished there is a good deal of very fine looking fairway grass on that unaltered fairway landform and also grass on that unaltered green landform which it is clear to see was not there at all BEFORE anything was done there! That's the big difference and if someone wants to call that architecturally unnatural then how does one reasonably respond to that since we all know its a golf course?

So it IS simple to say the hole was "just there" (again, we're talking about exact before and after similarity of the entire surface of the earth of that hole). All MacKenzie basically did is plant grass for golf on it!

[THuckaby2]

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."  

[TEPaul]

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

TomH:

I realize that. Who said other-wise? Certainly not me. What's the point about that though? Archtiects do decide where to plant grass on fairways which is always on those spots where they decide to lay out fairways. MacKenzie did do a superlative job of where he layed out his fairway lines and planted grass on CPC's #9. You're right, that did make the hole more tempting to drive and more encouraging of that risky option and strategy than if he'd decided to narrow the area coming up to that green down to much less fairway than he put there.

[THuckaby2]

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

[A_Clay_Man]

Rihc- I don't think the green is two-tiered, but you've probably seen twice as much as I have. As I recall the green is just one long steadyish climb with some contrary influence from the backside of the left front bunker while the rightside is effected by the large dune. Not too much break from below the hole when putting up the entire length, due to the double break straight phenom.

[TEPaul]

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!