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Mark_Rowlinson

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What is it about the sea?
« on: November 06, 2004, 05:06:46 PM »
If GCA were to produce a list of its top 100 courses a great many of them would be links courses.  We then have courses such as Pebble Beach which are seaside but perhaps not strictly links.  We have Royal Melbourne and Ganton which are linkslike but not actually true links.  And then there are courses such as Sand Hills which are nowhere near the sea yet play very like links courses.  Do we actually need the sea?

cary lichtenstein

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2004, 05:09:35 PM »
It is not the sea, it is the wind, and its effects on the sand dunes and the wind and its effects on shots.
Live Jupiter, Fl, was  4 handicap, played top 100 US, top 75 World. Great memories, no longer play, 4 back surgeries. I don't miss a lot of things about golf, life is simpler with out it. I miss my 60 degree wedge shots, don't miss nasty weather, icing, back spasms. Last course I played was Augusta

Bob_Huntley

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2004, 05:53:59 PM »
Cary,

I am afraid I must disagree. My golf these days is confined mostly to home and that is within Pebble Beach and along the ocean. There is not a day goes by that I think that if heaven is not like this, then I don't want to go. The crashing of the surf alone is worth is worth ten points on the Slope. You are right in that the ever changing winds add to the experience.

I have not been to Sand Hills yet and many luminaries on this board consider it the best that they have played, however, I believe I would miss the whales just off shore!

A_Clay_Man

Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2004, 07:47:45 PM »
Mark, I'd like to think the answer is two-fold. One being that our bodies are comprised of 85-90% water. So we have a electro-magnetic connection with the stuff. The other is the size. It humbles us, and as the sport should, it teaches us how insignificant we as individuals really are,,, Have a nice day!

Michael Moore

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2004, 08:07:15 PM »
Oh yes.

"What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire?

Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator's projection: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific exceeding 8000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence of its units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic quiescence in calm: its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides: its subsidence after devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar icecaps, arctic and antarctic: its climatic and commercial significance: its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the globe: its indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues over all the region below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the multisecular stability of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: its capacity to dissolve and hold in solution all soluble substances including millions of tons of the most precious metals: its slow erosions of peninsulas and islands, its persistent formation of homothetic islands, peninsulas and downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight and volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones: its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence in seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies, freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers, cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts: its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs and latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of its composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part of oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies, inadequate dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for cleansing, quenching thirst and fire, nourishing vegetation: its infallibility as paradigm and paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet, snow, hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms in loughs and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls and archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and arms of sea: its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its docility in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in canals, rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its potentiality derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level to level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe), numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its ubiquity as constituting 90 percent of the human body: the noxiousness of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning moon."

James Joyce - Ulysses
« Last Edit: November 06, 2004, 08:07:32 PM by Michael Moore »
Metaphor is social and shares the table with the objects it intertwines and the attitudes it reconciles. Opinion, like the Michelin inspector, dines alone. - Adam Gopnik, The Table Comes First

Mike_Sweeney

Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2004, 08:45:44 PM »
Do we actually need the sea?

1. Yes in order to surf and fish before or after the round !



2. For my wife to lie on the beach with the little guy so that the big guy and I can play.  ;)

TEPaul

Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2004, 07:48:29 AM »
Adam Clayman said;

"The other is the size. It humbles us, and as the sport should, it teaches us how insignificant we as individuals really are,,, "

I totally agree with this. It's not just the size it (the sea) is one of the most complete representations to Man of the indomitability of Nature itself---the sea, the earth, wind and water. I believe the fact that man understands their (Nature's) indomitability is the very reason a golf philosopher like Behr felt that man was less likely to be critical of an obstacle put before him in golf if he suspected it was natural and more likely to be critical of an obstacle put before him if he felt it was created by another man. He simply feels deep down that Nature has a greater ability and greater right to trip him up with its obstacles or even dominate him than another man does to trip him up with an obstacle he made. Essentially Man feels he has an entirely different relationship to Nature itself than he does with Man himself. The sea really is an excellent reminder of that indomitabiliy of Nature---something any golfer probably feels deep down no golf architect could ever possess---or even should feel he has a right to possess.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2004, 07:50:15 AM by TEPaul »

A_Clay_Man

Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2004, 08:26:18 AM »
Tom, Thanx. One word in my statement is sticking in my craw. The word "should" was used because it apparently doesn't. At least to many of the  self-absorbed. Perhaps they have yet to visit PB? Sand Hills and Black Mesa, are both void of large bodies of water, yet still exude that scale of greatness.

Banff has the sharp rock face, and, the "V" that looms large and even guides the golfer. But one fascinating thing you touched on, Tom, was the man made aspect of hazards. The first Par 3 along the River, use to be actual river. Now, It's a calm man made slough-like centerline hazard, that rfails to do what once made the hole internationally renowed for it's greatness.

TEPaul

Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2004, 08:41:30 AM »
"It humbles us, and as the sport should, it teaches us how insignificant we as individuals really are,,, "

Adam:

This is the very thing Max Behr believed in with golf architecture and this is the very reason he believed 'nature' should never lose its place in golf architecture---or its part in the equation or balance, as he said. However, 80 years have gone by since he wrote those things and I think those 80 years have shown us all pretty clearly that Man (the golfer and the architect) in too many cases doesn't really want to be taught (or even reminded) how insignificant he really is...    ;)
« Last Edit: November 07, 2004, 08:42:48 AM by TEPaul »

T_MacWood

Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #9 on: November 07, 2004, 09:31:50 AM »
The game was born by the sea. Probably pretty crude and unsophisticated at first, but perfected by the sea over time into the game we are familiar with today. Because it was developed by the sea its only natural that its prefect form is on firm sandy turf, sand-hills, broken ground and wind. The ocean is less intragal as a  physical feature, only that sites near it often have the other important ingredents. A view of the ocean wouldn't make Sand Hills a better golf course IMO.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2004, 09:32:31 AM by Tom MacWood »

GeoffreyC

Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #10 on: November 07, 2004, 09:42:52 AM »
I enjoyed reading each reply to this interesting question.

With regards to Sand Hills, however, it is my opinion that the experience would be lessened by the proximity to the sea. At Sand Hills one experiences the vastness of the earth on scale that is impossible for me to write about.  It is what I would imagine being lost on the moon would be like. One can easily get disoriented and lost but not for that tiny Ben's porch. Backpacking in the Sierras is the only other feeling I've had like it. The sea is calming, vast and beautiful but it also gives one orientation and a comprehension of exactly where you are located. That too is a wonderful but different experience. Sand Hills is unique.

Patrick_Mucci

Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #11 on: November 07, 2004, 12:02:37 PM »
Marc,

How much of a physical or visual factor is the sea at TOC ?

How much of factor is the WIND ?

Mark_Rowlinson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #12 on: November 07, 2004, 12:03:10 PM »
Wow! Some great replies.  I'm afraid my question was rather more prosaic than your poetic answers.  I, too, love proximity to the sea.  My own home course at Conwy has some great tees and greens on the edge of the sea and I never fail to be uplifted spiritually whenever I'm there.  The views across the Conwy Estuary to Deganwy are pretty decent, and the inland views onto the mountains of Snowdonia are hard to beat.  It's a good course and it's a very tough course, but it's not Royal Lytham from which there is no view of the sea, the place is girt about with housing and there's a pretty dreary railway line running alongside.  And there are other great links where you hardly notice the sea: Hunstanton, Seaton Carew, Rye, Hayling, Littlestone, Southport & Ainsdale, Carnoustie, to name but a few.

Forrest Richardson

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #13 on: November 07, 2004, 12:05:13 PM »
Any decent course needs an "ocean" — whether it be a body of water, an endless plain, a gentle valley, fields of heather, or an adjacent mountain...these settings make up the great sites for golf, and without a great site there is rarely great golf.
— Forrest Richardson, Golf Course Architect/ASGCA
    www.golfgroupltd.com
    www.golframes.com

Bob_Huntley

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #14 on: November 07, 2004, 12:44:27 PM »
Marc,

How much of a physical or visual factor is the sea at TOC ?

How much of factor is the WIND ?

Patrick,

Point taken. At TOC you see very little water and wind is the dominant factor.  

Mark_Rowlinson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #15 on: November 07, 2004, 01:08:17 PM »
Patrick,

Your observations about the Old Course are correct.  But I have played it many a time with my brother-in-law who grew up there.  He used to make allowance for the state of the tide.  It apparently affected borrows on greens and the degree of allowance needed on side-hill lies and bounces.  This was in relatively still weather, of course, and it does exist there.  This may have changed as I believe they've lowered the water table in order to flatten and lower the bottoms of bunkers such as Hell.

I'm told, though I've no personal experience of it, that cricketers who play on grounds near the sea also have to make allowance for the effects of the tide on swing on the ball and movement off the pitch.  

TEPaul

Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #16 on: November 07, 2004, 01:26:22 PM »
To me there's most definitely something about the sea (oceans etc) incredibly moving, powerful, indomitable, all of which has been one of the single things in my life that helps my own personal gyro. Whenever I've felt sort of lost or troubled I've tried to go to the sea and sit quietly by it for some time. It really is something, I think, and almost always is benefical. Although I love to play golf and even look at the sea when doing so, to have the effect the sea does on me it certainly doesn't need to have a golf course next to it!  ;)

Joe Hancock

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #17 on: November 07, 2004, 01:42:14 PM »
I would guess that anyone in the golf course design/ construction business would feel quite content with an opportunity to do a project on a seaside location. What could be better?

Joe
" What the hell is the point of architecture and excellence in design if a "clever" set up trumps it all?" Peter Pallotta, June 21, 2016

"People aren't picking a side of the fairway off a tee because of a randomly internally contoured green ."  jeffwarne, February 24, 2017

Paul_Turner

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #18 on: November 07, 2004, 02:13:32 PM »
Whenever I visit the links, there's something different about the light.  
« Last Edit: November 07, 2004, 02:14:01 PM by Paul_Turner »
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

cary lichtenstein

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #19 on: November 07, 2004, 10:17:08 PM »
Most seaside courses you can not even see the sea, but they are special because of the sand, wind, dunes, grasses, the fog and mist.

At Pebble, the sea really only comes into play on 8 (18 is no different than a 1000 other courses where a lake runs the length of the left side of the hole.

Cypress has 15, 16, and 17 where the sea comes into play.

Friar's Head is so special as are the other 2, and you never see the sea.

Old Head is THE ONE where you really see the sea as well as Teeth of the Dog.

Do you ever see the sea as St. Andrews? Nope
Live Jupiter, Fl, was  4 handicap, played top 100 US, top 75 World. Great memories, no longer play, 4 back surgeries. I don't miss a lot of things about golf, life is simpler with out it. I miss my 60 degree wedge shots, don't miss nasty weather, icing, back spasms. Last course I played was Augusta

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #20 on: November 08, 2004, 04:56:29 AM »
Cary,

Yes you do see the sea on the Old Course, or at least the Eden Estuary, as you tee off on 6 and climb onto the double 7th and 11th green, but you are right in saying that you hardly see the sea on many links.  Porthcawl is one of the few where you can see the sea from some part of every single hole.  I think you could say the same of Nairn (OK, you've got to turn your back on the hole at 13 - you can slice into the sea off six of the first seven holes).  

ForkaB

Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #21 on: November 08, 2004, 06:35:20 AM »
"Saturated in suspended minute drops of the sea water and rich in negative ions, sea air stimulates the immune system and gives the body greater resistance to microbial assault and to certain sources of stress. Rich in iodine, sea air acts directly on the thyroid gland and helps the body to break down lipids. Rich in ozone, the sea air also excerts a natural antibiotic action. And with the airs ultra-violet the body accumulates vitamin D, a regenerating factor for bone tissue."

Stolen from a new-age website......

Yes, ye who worship at the altar of THE FACTS, you really cannot see the sea at the Old Course, but if you are in any doubt that it is a seaside course, formed from the sea, you are not using all the senses that were bestowed upon you at birth!

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #22 on: November 08, 2004, 09:58:10 AM »
7th or 11th green at St A's.  The Eden estuary is tidal seawater and from where I'm putting you can see the sea out to my left.

Bob_Huntley

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #23 on: November 08, 2004, 12:01:13 PM »
Mark,

If you were to go fishing on the tidal estuary, would you say you were going to sea?

Bob

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re:What is it about the sea?
« Reply #24 on: November 08, 2004, 12:25:13 PM »
No, but I would if I were out in a boat on the estuary when one of those easterly gales is playing havoc with the waves and the golf.

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