Tilly on TOC...

[T_MacWood]

Phil
I think you hit precisely on Tilly's message: superiority of American golf architecture. It was a common theme, there was a lot of soul searching in Britain as to why they were being dominated on the links and the design of American courses was often cited as a reason. When comparing the two countries American courses were considered more boldly or severely bunkered, requiring much more precision than the British school.

Ironic that Tilly would shortly embark on de-bunkering of American courses...from coast to coast.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Was this Tilly's only commment on TOC?

[Phil_the_Author]

Tiger,

Yes, he wrote about TOC & many of the old Scots he met there. I sent you a private message on this.

[Sean_Tully]

Was this Tilly's only commment on TOC?

Tiger, refer to my post on the first page, it is an article from 1901. I have another article that he wrote as well that is even earlier, but I have not put it on my homepage. Take a look.

Tully

[Jim Nugent]

I'm not sure that looking at the list of champions who won there says much about TOC's worth.  Year in, year out, the best players in the world play the British Open.  No surprise the winner is ususally a great player.  

If the top 90 or 100 players played the Greater Milwaukee Open each year, I bet that list of winners would look impressive too.  Wouldn't matter what course hosted the event.  

[Jim Nugent]

Tilly says TOC was magnificent when players used the guttie.  But new conditions (i.e. technology) have made the course obsolete.  They must change it, if it is to remain a championship site.  

Where have we heard that before?  

In fact, they did change TOC.  They added 500 to a thousand yards, took out and added a few bunkers, changed some tees.  Still, the course must be counted among the easiest on the British Open rota.  It gives up lots of scoring records.  In 1927 Jones won with 285, smashing the old record.  The lowest scores relative to par have been made there.  

Even in 1921, at least some of the par 4's could be driven.  (And the winner that year used a controversial wedge with grooves that was banned a few days after his victory.  The tech issue is not new.)  Snead drove at least 3 par 4's in 1947: 9, 10 and 12.  

Seems like TOC requires heavy wind and/or lousy weather to protect itself.  That seems to me a weakness in a championship venue.  

[T_MacWood]

Jim
Is the measurement of championship course how it protects itself against par or how successfully it identifies the best player?

You appear to belong to the US Open school of thought.

[Jim Nugent]

Jim
Is the measurement of championship course how it protects itself against par or how successfully it identifies the best player?

You appear to belong to the US Open school of thought.

Tom, I think every pro tournament course identifies the best player that week.  Don't see how it could be otherwise.  Isn't that how the best player is defined?  The one who scores the lowest that week?    

Any course that gets the best 80 or 100 players is probably going to be won by one of them.  TOC gets them.  They usually win.  So would the 500th ranked course, such as Bellerive CC.  

Difficulty -- or lack of it at TOC -- clearly mattered to Tilly.  I was trying to point out some things that back him up.  And that made me wonder if a course that depends on bad weather is really a great championship course.  What do you think?

It is interesting to see one of our most beloved GCA.com architects take a position so diametrically opposed to the one I usually see here.  

[T_MacWood]

Tom, I think every pro tournament course identifies the best player that week.  Don't see how it could be otherwise.  Isn't that how the best player is defined?  The one who scores the lowest that week?    

Jim
So in other word the best player will always emerge no matter the quality or nature of the golf course. Than what separates a "championship" course from the non championship course?

I think Tillinghast's comments were made in the context of the superiority of American golf architecture, I wouldn't read to much into them...especially thirty plus years after he last saw the course. The great majority who knew St. Andrews well considered it the pinnacle of championship golf, although it was certainly not unanimous.  

How well did Tilly know St.Andrews...his main complaint with the course in 1901 were its unseen hazards in the fairway, which he acknowledged were not a problem with those familar with the course.

[Jim Nugent]

Jim
So in other word the best player will always emerge no matter the quality or nature of the golf course. Than what separates a "championship" course from the non championship course?

How well did Tilly know St.Andrews...his main complaint with the course in 1901 were its unseen hazards in the fairway, which he acknowledged were not a problem with those familar with the course.

Tom, I think most if not all pro tournaments are played on championship courses.  The winner, by my definition, is the best player that week.  If 90 of the world's top 100 players are at the tournament, probably one of them will win.  I'm just throwing out this number, but my guess is that is true of any of the 500 top-rated courses in the world.

Tilly himself said he knew TOC well.  I certainly don't.  Never seen it, except on TV.  I do know it has a number of drivable par 4's.  Not just now, either: even in the 1920's they were driving greens there.  Jock Hutchison, the 1921 winner, came three inches from a hole-in-one on number nine.  

I've heard several people on this DG say without wind or bad weather, TOC has no teeth.  The fact that it has yielded the lowest scores at the Open Championship backs them up.  So I still wonder, how championship is a course that needs bad weather to keep the pro's from mauling it?    

[T_MacWood]

Tom, I think most if not all pro tournaments are played on championship courses.  

Jim
We're discussing Tilly's opinion not what someone on this site said about the course in 2006. They play pro tournaments at St.Andrews, I'm still not clear why you don't believe it was a championship course in Tilly's day. IMO a drivable par-4 is not a weakness in a championship course..in fact the more rick/reward opportunities the better (I say good for Jock Hutchison, that eagle helped him to finish at 296 and may have won him the tournament...I think that was the same tournament that Bobby Jones got so frustrated he walked off the course...he later became enchanted by the Old course and modeled ANGC after it).

I see no evidence that Tilly said he knew the course well.

[Jim Nugent]

Tom, I think most if not all pro tournaments are played on championship courses.  

Jim
We're discussing Tilly's opinion not what someone on this site said about the course in 2006. They play pro tournaments at St.Andrews, I'm still not clear why you don't believe it was a championship course in Tilly's day. IMO a drivable par-4 is not a weakness in a championship course..in fact the more rick/reward opportunities the better (I say good for Jock Hutchison, that eagle helped him to finish at 296 and may have won him the tournament...I think that was the same tournament that Bobby Jones got so frustrated he walked off the course...he later became enchanted by the Old course and modeled ANGC after it).

I see no evidence that Tilly said he knew the course well.

Tom, here is the quote attributed to Tilly in the 1st post in this thread:

"but we assert (and we know the old course well) that as a collection of holes it has too many weaknesses to be regarded as truly championship. "  

I didn't say TOC is not a championship course.  I'm searching around for possible reasons Tilly said that.  Sounds to me like he thought it wasn't hard enough or long enough.  Paraphrasing, he said it was great for the old guttie ball, but had not changed to reflect the new golfing technologies.  He gave that as a reason British golfers aren't as good as American.      

This thread asked why, given Tilly's opinion, we consider TOC among the finest championship courses today.  Opinions today seem pretty relevant to me.  And those same opinions -- TOC only is hard when the weather is bad -- may have been part of what Tilly was talking about.  

I agree a drivable par 4 is not a bad thing.  But when there are 5 or so?  

Is it true that TOC depends on bad weather to be competitive?  If so, can such a course truly be considered of championship caliber?      

[T_MacWood]

Is it true that TOC depends on bad weather to be competitive?  If so, can such a course truly be considered of championship caliber?
     

Jim
You are right, he did say he knew the course well, but based upon his comments I don't see any evidence to back it up. You yourself said the course had changed since he last saw thrity plus years earlier. To claim it wasn't a championship course in 1933 is asinine.

There were prominent golfers who didn't like the Old course, but I don't recall any of them claiming it was a championship course. And there were some of the old guard who said it wasn't as challenging as it had been in the gutty days and with the encroaching whins....but that is all relative. The Old course was the one pre-Haskel course that had industructability...the par-5 Road Hole as a prime example.

Tilly's comments were made in the context that superior American golf architecture produced superior American golfers...I wouldn't take them too seriously.

Five drivable par-4s in 1933?

What is your definition of a course of true championship caliber? I do not believe the Old Course needed bad weather to produce compelling championship.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

I find it pretty interesting to observe where and when you decide to take Tillinghast seriously or not. Quite similar actually in how you decide to take what Bernard Darwin wrote seriously or not.  

[T_MacWood]

TE
The more you read of Tilly, Darwin and other commentaries of that period the better feel you have for the underlying background or context of their comments (and what is said in tongue and cheak ).

For example: Tilly was not saying the Old course would only present a championship test if the weather was bad, he was repeating the common wisdom that the British Walker Cup team could defeat the Americans if the weather was bad. In other words the Brits were counting on the American's inablitity to handle difficult conditions to give them a competitive edge. The fact of the matter was the Americans were better in good or bad weather.

[ForkaB]

Accordong to a letter from Harold Hilton to CB Macdonald, Bobby Jones only used a wooden club 10 times in his Open win in 1927 (inlcuding the qualifying round), so the course must not have been playing very long for the top players in those days.  It still does not play long, even at 7,300 yards (I saw a big South African hit driver 6-iron to the middle of the 618-yard 14th this year).

All that being said, it is and always has been a "championship" course.  The fact that it can be had (in or out of the wind)and might not demand high, soft, faded 3-irons might be seen as weaknesses by some, but they are wrong.

[TEPaul]

"TE
The more you read of Tilly, Darwin and other commentaries of that period the better feel you have for the underlying background or context of their comments (and what is said in tongue and cheak ).

Tom:

Of course I disagree with that.

That's no different than saying "If he was here today I know what he'd say to do on this golf course."

Saying because you've read so much of what they've written you know when they were being tongue in check is nothing more than a rationalization to fit anything they said into a preconceived agenda.

[T_MacWood]

TE
Sorry. I think Darwin was trying to interject humor with his steeplechase comment....but who knows maybe you're right and he was literally trying to make the case Victorian courses were inspired by horsemen.

When can we expect your Steeplechase essay?

[TEPaul]

"TE
Sorry. I think Darwin was trying to interject humor with his steeplechase comment....but who knows maybe you're right and he was literally trying to make the case Victorian courses were inspired by horsemen."

Tom MacW:

Inspired by horsemen? Why would you say that? A far more logical answer to me is that the model of the obstacles of steeplechasing simply worked just fine for INLAND golf at that point where inland golf outside Scotland had just begun and was at about its most rudiementary period. As Max Behr so cognently said, this was the first examples of golf when it first departed from land so naturally suited for it and emigrated to land that was not naturally suited for it.

Furthermore, I completely realize you think Darwin was trying to interject humor with his steeplechase remark. I also realize if you said you thought he was being serious that would be the word of one of golf and golf architecture's greatest observers and chroniclers basically shooting down the entire premise of your article "Arts and Craft Golf" as being primarily a reaction to the dehumanizing influences of Victorian industrialization or to some crude artistic influence of what you called the "Victorian Aesthetic"   .  

I guess he was also just interjecting humor when he detailed how some of those early layout people rushed from the planting of one stake to the planting of another, huh?

"When can we expect your Steeplechase essay?"

I don't know.