Here is a very good article by Ron Whitten regarding Oakland Hills. He shares his thoughts regarding the restoration of classic courses in general and the controversial topic of "modernizing" the classics.
One very interesting fact that Whitten brings up Ross' plans that he came with in 1947 in preparation for the '51 Open. His modifications were never implemented as Trent Jones came in and did his infamous changes.
Here's the article:
Oakland Hills Country Club (South Course), Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
by Ron Whitten
If you inspect some of the holes of the South Course at Oakland Hills, site of the 2004 Ryder Cup Matches, you may be surprised that a number of long-abandoned, grassed-over sand bunkers are still clearly visible on that magnificent course. Eighty-seven years after they were first installed by legendary architect Donald Ross, 54 years after they were replaced with new bunkers by the equally legendary architect Robert Trent Jones, some of those original pits still endure. You can see several out in the right rough along the par-5 12th, all a good distance off the line of play these days (an indication of how narrow fairways have become). Some of these old bunkers now have mature trees growing out of them.
The most prominent remnant is a deep hollow that was once a cross-bunker about 40 yards short of the green on the uphill 356-yard par-4 sixth. While eliminating that cross-bunker in favor of a tight necklace of sand around the green, Trent Jones had it grassed over, but not filled in. (Presumably, there wasn't enough excess dirt in the reconstruction to handle the task. Most of the dirt removed in digging new bunkers was used to create new back tee boxes.)
That Oakland Hills still has some of these antiquities is in direct contrast to Augusta National, which has repeatedly bulldozed away nearly all of its past. Want to play the course from the same tees where Nicklaus and Palmer collectively won 10 Masters? Can't do it. Those tee boxes are no longer there. Want a real example of Alister Mackenzie's bunkering? All but one of his original bunkers is gone, and the token remainder - the harmless one out of play on the par-4 10th - has long ago been modified for modern mechanized rakes.
Heck, Augusta National kept so little of its past that, when it wanted to restore its original Mackenzie "punchbowl" green on the eighth hole (a green previously bulldozed out of existence in favor of a truly bland surface in a different location), it had to rely upon the memory of former Masters champion Byron Nelson to approximate the dimensions and slopes. The club didn't even have any decent photos of the original hole.
Which brings me to my real point: Should any of those old original Ross bunkers at Oakland Hills South be reclaimed and restored?
Consider that one on the sixth, for example. Given the length of today's greatest players, the sixth may well be played as a drivable par-4 from the up tees during the Ryder Cup, and a cross bunker at that location might well have complicated things. As a hollow, it might knock a few tee shots off line, but it won't do much more to blunt the assault of modern technology. But restore it to a deep sand pit, and now you'd have something that will make them pay attention down at the tee box.
Despite that, I don't advocate tossing out Trent and digging up Donald. Let me explain why.
Restoration may be the hottest item in golf course design these days, especially among the youngest generations of architects, who preach and practice it either out of utmost respect of the legends of the Golden Age of Golf Design, or out of a total inability to come up with thoughtful, original design concepts of their own. Restoration dovetails nicely with the elitist attitude of some club members, who want to boast of "owning" an original from a superstar like Ross, Tillinghast, Mackenzie and Raynor. (Funny, I never hear of clubs wanting to restore their Joe Roseman or C.D. Wagstaff.)
Ross restorations lead the pack, probably because there are far more Ross designs out there than all other superstars combined. (Ross, you see, had something of a mail-order business in course architecture, sending out plans to many locales that he never actually visited. Some of these courses were built without even the supervision of a Ross employee. To his credit, late in his life, Ross regretted having engaged in that part of his practice. Oakland Hills, I must note, was definitely not a mail-in job. Ross was there personally.)
Ross restorations also lead the pack because there's still in existence more Donald Ross plans (and sketch cards and notes) than those of all other superstar architects combined. These are the Holy Grail to course restoration experts. If they can find the original Ross plans, then they can justify the reintroduction of just about any feature on the golf course. Some don't do so blindly, of course. There's still modern maintenance practices to consider, green speeds and increased wear and tear on tee boxes, for instance, that will cause them to slightly alter what Ross originally intended. But most treat those plans as words from the Almighty. If it's not on the original Ross plan, they won't do it. But if it is on the Ross plan, they'll try everything within reason to reclaim and restore it.
Which brings us back to Oakland Hills South. Ross designed the course in 1917. There's a plan of his original design hanging in the clubhouse. I am sure there are those, especially those who aren't fans of Robert Trent Jones, who think Oakland Hills would be much better if it blew up all the Trent Jones changes and restored the classic, finely crafted Donald Ross features. (That's what's been done at Aronimink near Philadelphia, to name just one prominent Ross-to-Jones-back-to-Ross merry-go-round.)
There's one hitch. A few years back, I came across a set of hole-by-hole Oakland Hills South plans bearing Donald Ross's signature. These were done in 1947, presumably in anticipation of the 1951 U.S. Open. It is evident from the plans that Ross was clearly modernizing the course for that era's golfers. On his diagram of the par-4 first, for example, he sketched in two new fairway bunkers on the left, one 230 off the tee, the other 250 off the tee. On the dogleg-left fourth, he eliminated a set of carry bunkers on the left (all less than 200 from the tee) and suggested a new, bigger one, farther out in the corner of the dogleg. He also "closed" a fairway bunker on the right, which probably looked neat but was just 150 yards off the tee.
On hole after hole, Ross recommended extending and widening greens, repositioning bunkers to the 250-yard range and filling in many then-present bunkers. On the uphill par-4 sixth, he wanted to close that section of the cross bunker that extended into the fairway and tighten the approach of the green by extending a bunker on the left around to the front.
None of Ross's recommended changes were implemented. Ross died the next year, and the club apparently decided to rely upon a living architect to beef up their course. Robert Trent Jones was brought in, and he ignored Ross's suggested redesign. In fact, he red-penciled his suggested changes directly over the 1947 Ross hole-by-hole plans.
So what's my point? It's that by 1947, even Donald Ross admitted that his 1917 design was out of date. He was willing to revise, modify and update his fine original design to keep it competitive.
That being the case, I don't understand why any architect or club member would insist these days upon slavish strict reconstruction of a Ross design in adherence to a set of plans that he'd prepared over 75 years ago, before steel shafts, power mowers, automatic irrigation and any number of other items that Ross would surely consider if he were alive and designing today.
It's one thing to proselytize the good works of Donald Ross - his efficient routings, his clever strategies, his artfully deceptive bunkering, his astonishing green complexes - but quite another to become a narrow-minded fundamentalist about his craft. The true Ross restoration expert ought not be proclaiming, "Look What Donald Did", but rather should be asking, "What Would Donald Do?"
link to article:
http://tinyurl.com/5qbax