Pine Valley...Old v. New...restoration

[cary lichtenstein]

I happened to just take out my Pine Valley book, 1982 edition, inpired by a photograph in one of the posts today about Golfweek's Classic Course Lists.

I was pretty surprised by how much dirt was apparently moved to create the greens and bunkers at Pine Valley. Appears to be the antithesis of minimialism in its day.

I was also surprised at how overgrown the trees are now and how much of the original flavor has been lost, although in other pictures, alot has been gained by how they maintain the areas between the tees and the fairways.

Any history buffs out there that can tell us how much dirt was moved, etc and if they have any plans to restore it to its orginal glory or somewhere in between

[Patrick_Mucci]

Cary,

I don't know why there's a fixation with not moving dirt, especially when an outstanding golf course is produced.

Didn't someone just say that Doak moved 800,000 to 1,300,000 at the Rawls course ?

Didn't CBM, SR and CB all move alot of dirt ?

As to the trees, it's clear that they've been allowed to grow unrestrained.

Could you post the pictures ?   Thanks

[wsmorrison]

I like to differentiate between manufactured, minimalist and naturalist architecture.  The naturalist tries to be as minimalist as possible exploiting what nature presents yet may need to move a lot of earth to create the best golf course on a given site.  But he does so in a way that looks natural and therefore appears minimalist.  

Flynn's work at the Cascades is the best example I know of man-made looking otherwise.  It was a huge earth and water moving undertaking but to all but the most expert eye appears nearly perfectly natural.  

My own sensibilities regard using nature as much as possible but when necessary disguising the hand of man with natural looking results.  This extra degree of artistry is what differentiates good golf design (which may have great shot values) from great golf design.  It is a significant reason why I regard Mackenzie and Flynn above Raynor and Langford.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Cary,

While there are excellent "green sites" on every property, it's very, very rare for the inherent ground in those areas to be ideally suited for a putting green. Some shaping work is almost always required. That's the reality of golf course construction; even at Pine Valley in the early 1910s.  

Today, "natural greens" are even more rare. Modern green construction methods required the area to be cored out, fit with subsurface drain tile, filled with gravel and imported materials, etc. So, even if it's your intent, preserving native contour is a challenge.  

Sorry to ruin everyone's "minimalist dreams"  

[Paul_Turner]

Wonder where the most earth had to be moved at PVGC?  Perhaps the 5th, where the entire right hand side had to built up.  You'd have to take a close look at the contour plan to be sure, but that's my guess.

[wsmorrison]

The least was surely on 16.  That is about as natural a greensite that exists anywhere in the world.

[TEPaul]

The greens that had quite a lot of earth moved to make them are #1, #3, #5 (and approach), #7, #8, #10, #14, #15, #18. Some tees took quite a lot like #1, #4, #5?, #18. Not much of the mid-bodies of the holes are manufactured other than bunkers were reamed out of the sand but that's not all that much earth moving really.

[Tom_Doak]

Cary:

Unfortunately I have never seen the topo map of Pine Valley "before".  You are right that a lot of earth was moved to build it, for that day and age, but I suspect that the total was still only somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 cubic yards.

It's shocking to me that some architects move 300,000 yards and more on nearly every course they build.  That's a lot of earthmoving.  Yes, The Rawls Course was more than that, but:

a)  none of it surface drained anywhere at all, and it all had to, because the perk rate of those soils was pretty near zero; and

b)  more than half of the 800,000 cubic yards are in the berm around three sides of the course to hide the roads and buildings across the street.  The golf features of the course really only took about 350,000 cubic yards of earthmoving, and that was to regrade every inch of 18 holes.

[cary lichtenstein]

Tom:

The only point that I was trying to get across with this post is that it is not a sin to move a lot of dirt, especially if you can create something as wonderful as Pine Valley.

The other point that I was trying to make is that Pine Valley is so overtreed, and it gets the #1 rating from nearly everyone, I just wonder why it is such a scared cow here.

Granted it was an amazing course when it was done, and is still an amazing course, but maybe if it was recognized more as a manufactured course, we could some how redefine minialism to mean something other than to just not touch a blade of earth.

[JESII]

Cary,

You seem to imply in your last sentence that Pine Valley is viewed as minimalist, is that a fair assesment?

[cary lichtenstein]

JesII,

I would think so, but I don't know how the minialists view it here, so perhaps I overstepped?

I think most of the great old courses are probably viewed that way.

Cary

[JESII]

Cary,

I was going to add a sentence in my post along the lines of what you said there...

I think most of the great old courses are probably viewed that way.

and I'd agree with that. I wonder why that is.

Is it because we view their earth moving capabilities as less than that of today? Or is it because after 60-80-100 years golf courses just appear so much more natural than the new courses coming on the scene today?

I agree, the course would gain an invigorating shot interest and excitement if the trees were cleared ou tto the outer limits of all fairway and greenside bunker complexes but I have no idea if that is in the plans.

[cary lichtenstein]

I think there was much more earth moving in the green complexes in the grand old courses than any of us realize.
Punch bowl, redan, barritz most probably did not happen by themselves.

On the otherhand, in Scotland and Ireland, the land is so rugged (how wonderful), they probably did the opposite, and tried to tame it.

[JESII]

I agree on both counts.

I would like to hear what today's architects have to say, but I can't see how a course could be considered minimalist with the sophistication of irrigation and drainage systems being used.

[George Pazin]

Obviously biarritz greens are manufactured, but I doubt it's all that difficult to "find" redan and punch bowl greensites.

[ForkaB]

George

I would think that you could find lots of Biarritzae just by looking for natural "washes."  All you have to do is put some drainage under the wash, grass it over, and Voila!, or Zut Alors! as the Dunn's were often wont to say....

You can see such an effect at about 100 yards out from the green at the 9th at Dornoch (not recommended to putt from that distance, as you have to go through yet another chasm before you get to the green.....).

[TEPaul]

cary:

I just can't imagine where in the world this idea came from that to be a great golf course or great architecture there had to be almost no earth moving.

That is one definition of "minimalism" but frankly another very useful definition of "minimalism" to me is if and when it's virtually impossible to tell if there was any earthmoving or where.

But even if one can see earthmoving as in NGLA, some parts of PVGC or Merion, Oakmont, Seminole and most of all the great old courses so what?

This idea of quality architecture having to be no earth moved is one of the misconceptions of this website on what must constitute great architecture, in my opinion.

This is one of the reasons I think it's always a good idea to question very carefully some of the things that are floated on this website that may be suspect or unfactual. If one doesn't challenge them it seems like a week or a month or a year later the person who said them tries to pass it off as fact and gospel.

To me this was the problem with the article entitled "Arts and Crafts Golf". It seems for some reason too many just took it as gospel without first really looking into the facts and the reasoning behind.

By the way, I feel I've looked about as carefully as is possible to do at the pre-construction contour lines of PVGC. So, I'm pretty confident I know where earth was moved and where it wasn't.

Other than those greens and tees I mentioned above I don't believe much earth was moved at PVGC. I feel one of the real expenses at PVGC was when Crump finally decided to get into the marshland that's now #14 and #15 tees. Neither Crump in the beginning nor Harry Colt were within 200 yards of that area when the course was routed. If one understands what that area looked like pre-construction it's not hard to see why.