Does The National's membership know what it has?

[Geoff_Shackelford]

We've seen many of the supposedly "elite" clubs display unfathomable stupidity with regard to their golf courses in recent years. People pay a lot of money and they put up with a lot of banal cocktail party conversation, all to get into these old clubs with classic designs. Then, once there, they seek to change the course, to leave their stamp, all because their sense of self is so sadly inflated or they're just uninformed enough to listen to the USGA.

So I guess I'm wondering these days, is the membership at The National Golf Links going this way too?

Do they understand that superintendent Karl Olson restored their course after years of neglect, and what that restored architecture means to the prestige of their club?

Something tells me the answer is leaning toward "no," but I will try to remain hopeful that I'm wrong.

[Charles_P.]

Did something happen?

[Geoff_Shackelford]

Karl Olson has moved to another job, the club has a new green chairman, and apparently is receiving some initial consultation from one of America's great rees-toration specialists.  

On the surface, these changes don't seem to bode well for the National, but again, I'm optimistic that the ghost of CB will haunt them if they fail to understand what the course means to American golf and architecture (you'd hope playing there repeatedly would rub off but we know from experience this just isn't the case...).

[wsmorrison]

Perhaps we should file a "Friend of the Course" brief and have the GCA membership and others that appreciate NGLA's place in history sign it as a means to present our unified view that classic courses need to remain intact insofar as design intent.  Let new courses fill the need to respond to the march of technology.  If the base of the pyramid should collapse, so many others  classic designs may fall as well.  

These courses are national treasures that ought to be treated as such.  The slim minority that render these courses obsolete (and only with respect to a par figure) should not dictate so much change.  After all, how much of the membership requires changes to the course for reasons of challenge?  If they are doing it for championship golfers outside their membership, they are truly doing a disservice to themselves and others.  Let's act on William Flynn's suggestion and build championship courses for championships and leave the classics alone.  

BTW, Tom Paul has an excellent solution for NGLA.  I'm sure we'll hear of it shortly.

[Tim Weiman]

Geoff:

WS Morrison touched on an important point. In the past we've seen people tamper with classic courses in the name of modernizing them for "championship" play.

NGLA doesn't need to go down this road, so given its unique place in the history of American golf architecture, let's hope it doesn't.

I was impressed during visits to Prestwick that their members understood they had a treasure. Let's hope the members of NGLA have the same wisdom.

[wsmorrison]

Tim,

Nice point about Prestwick.  I have played Prestwick (with the illustrious BCrosby) and completely agree that they treasure their course and, like many of its sister clubs in the UK, they recognize their place in history and understand the need to keep intact the design integrity of their courses.  Granted Prestwick was significantly altered near the turn of the century, yet it remains 100 years later a lesson in design and a challenge for the overwhelming majority of golfers.  With the weather that is certainly possible at both courses, there are challenges to every golfer, albeit not every day.  I thought Prestwick tough in benign conditions.  What course under ideal conditions could not be overcome by Tiger and his mates, even today's top amateurs?  Who cares?  For all their skills they are just plain that good.  We should feel grateful for their displays of acumen and not subvert designs for the ability to boast at a cocktail party how tough their course is.  It is easy to build a tough course,  designing a classic course is another matter altogether.

[Jeff Mingay]

This is shocking news.

I don't know Karl personally, but have talked with him on the telephone a few times.

I do know though, that Karl was doing restoration-based work at NGLA long before it was fashionable to restore older golf courses to their original design. He clearly has admiration and understanding for CB Macdonald's work and the historical importance of the golf course.

Golf course superintendents was architectural knowledge are invaluable. I have the impression Karl's of the sort.

Best of luck to him wherever he may end up. Hopefully doing equally good work for another club with a classic layout.

[TEPaul]

My solution for NGLA's desire to bring the course into the modern era and change it from what they may think is a "museum piece" to what they may think is a "championship course" (if that is in fact their new desire) is very simple!

They can allocate about $200 and get a ton of cards made up showing the course as a par 70 (it's actually a 73 right now and always has been)!

This is what they should try first if they are dedicated to this idea of changing it from a "museum piece" to a "championship course".

In this particular way NGLA is actually very very fortunate in their latitude and ability to transition this way and so easily--it's very much the option of the rare par 73 golf course. This is something that the likes of PVGC and Merion can not do--as going below 70 will never do--as that too is a perception thing--but unfortunately a very negative one for a championship course! Very ironically this is the very thing Philly Country once did for a national championship--transtion only on the score card from a 71 to a 69!

I will absolutely gaurantee them that in one week after being played by some championship caliber players those players opinions of the course will change and so will the club's and the membership's who might be concerned about this type of thing.

What will actually have changed though is all perception and not a single thing on the course will need to be changed--just the score card.

I'll go even further and predict that within that week those same players will say, "Wow we didn't ever know that NGLA had three such strong and demanding par 4s!"
 
They've been there that way for 90 years so if they're worried, at least, please try this first--they'll only be out about $200 for alternate score cards instead of God knows what for risky and potentially tragic redesign!

And then if the members decide they want to play their old "museum piece" instead of struggling to decide what tees to play and all the pyschology that goes with that just haul out of the drawer those original par 73 score cards and tee it up from the same place!

[wsmorrison]

A simply elegant solution.  It is amazing how strong a force perception is, yet how easily tricked.

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Great idea, Tom!

However, if that doesn't work, how about.........

1.  Having the members chip in a few hundred thousand each from their pocket change.

2.  Buy Atlantic GC and/or the Bridge.  Immediately expel all of the current membership.  Move "NGLA" over there.

3.  Deed over the old NGLA to a charitable trust to be run as a golf architecture museum with Gib Papazian and Geroge Bahto as co-curators.

4.  Start a men's club on the sly with Tom Paul and Pat Mucci as co-chairmen.

6.  Allow me to sit in the background and watch the committee meetings since I thought up the idea.

[von Hayek]

Okay, wait a minute. While #5 should be made a par-4 tomorrow, 7 and 18 absolutely should not. These are wonderful par-5s that are rarely - rarely - hit in two shots. (Note that longer players will often possess enough club to reach in two, but hitting the green is another matter.)

Also, both holes could be lengthened, but they really don't need it.

[Adam_Messix]

Geoff--

First of all, I am surprised that Karl Olson has left National.  Where did he go?

I was talking to a member of Shinnecock Hills the other day and he was commenting on how bad the greens at National were.  They are apparantly in the process of trying to remove the poa annua (good luck) from the greens.  This is amazing considering the outstanding condition that Shinnecock is in currently.  It sounds to me like the new greens chair is up to a lot of stuff.  

[Joel_Stewart]

Geoff:
Does Tucson Country Club know what its getting?

I haven't played Tucson CC and would like to hear what they have that Karl can restore.

[Lynn Shackelford]

Karl went to Tucson CC?
Karl went to Tucson National?
Where did he go?

[Joel_Stewart]

I heard he went to Tucson Country Club which was built in 1949 by Billy Bell.  Karl thought it had some potential for restoration as he compared it to Desert Forest?

[TEPaul]

NGLA may be suffering from a bit of an unusual modern day dilemma!

It very well could be that a course like NGLA that is famous and has many people who travel in real golf circles and also some very good golfers want to play and do play?

I think that NGLA must get a lot of play and keeps the rounds per season really moving and with a very wide spectrum of golfing levels. This kind of use might put some unusual pressure on course maintenance in some interesting ways.

Could the super feel he never really has the opportunity to do certain maintenance related things that need to be done because the course is in use so much?

Could the super feel he has a true juggling act setting up the course at any particular time to suit and accomodate well a really wide spectrum of golfing levels?

If that's so it might be a real unusual dilemma!

It seems that NGLA is a club that does not put up with slow play! It also seems that certain players, probably members, have gotten into some really long rounds for some reason--the course may be too hard for some of them for some reason while on the other hand NGLA may have the reverse opinion that the course may be too easy for very good players (some of whom come around) and even some members.

So if this happens to be true, what's going on and what could be done about it?

NGLA is the place where the "ideal maintenance meld" first occured to me about three years ago--and it was! But that was just before and during the National's Singles Tournament? Could some of the older less adept members have fun on NGLA with those conditions? I don't know but probably not! And it certainly would take them longer to play the course under those conditions.

So maybe NGLA has had an ongoing "maintenance meld" dilemma basically trying to suit, please and accomodated an unusually broad spectrum of playing levels at the same time to keep play moving well at the same time, to basically offer a challenge to one end of the spectrum without clobbering the other end of the spectrum!

This might not seem like much to some of you but it might to them.

And if that is part of their dilemma, what can they do about it?

Certainly none of us think even a thought of any kind of redesign is the answer. I hope no one at NGLA is seriously considering that either!

I wonder if the answer may be in the height of the rough and the lack of firmness on the course sometimes!

The answer may be to concentrate on keeping the course really firm and fast as much as possible and also keep the green surfaces as firm as possible as much as possible but to cut way down on their roughs, maybe to 2-2 1/2 inches!!

This way the poorer players won't lose their balls much and the good players will have that ideal firmness "through the green" combined with firm green surfaces (that make the aerial shots more intense)!

And when I talk about firm greens I'm not talking about green speeds either. That could be tricky too to accomodate a real spectrum of levels all the time. Good players love very fast greens and poor players struggle to get the ball in the hole of very fast greens.

Maybe something around 10 on the stimp would be ideal for everyone and just reserve something like the 12 they told me they were at one of the Singles tourneys for special occasions.

Another way, again, though, just might be to alter the par for various levels of player by using different score cards!

[Paul Daley]

Tom:

Well done on espousing your super simple preliminary solution: "suck it and see" ... if no go, hey, let's rethink.

Just like in medicine, often best for the patient to
exhaust drug and alternative options, prior to radical surgery.

[Oscar Brown]

The salary advertised for the job at Tucson was 100-150K, negotiable.
Think that had something to do with it?

[C.B. Mac]

Motoring to Southampton, I pass a goodly number of new courses like Atlantic and The Bridge. As I view the putting greens it appears to me they are all built similarly, more or less of a bowl or saucer type, then built up toward the back of the green, and then scalloped with an irregular line of low, waving mounds or hillocks, the putting green for all the world resembling a pie-faced woman with a marcel wave. I do not believe any one ever saw in nature anything approaching these home-made putting greens. Then scattered over the side of the fairway are mounds modeled after haycocks or chocolate drops. The very soul of golf shrieks!

Please don't let that man touch my masterpiece. Please!

[Tom Doak]

Tragically, the new guard at The National may be thinking ahead to the visits of touring professionals from neighboring Shinnecock in 2004.

I've been told that several of the pros (including Phil Mickelson) played at Garden City Golf Club before or after the Open at Bethpage, and as a result many of the members are suddenly interested in lengthening the golf course.  (None of them talked about the 12th green, though.)

Garden City is also a par-73, so I'll get to work on some new scorecards immediately.

[Kevin Smith]

Haven't talked to Karl in quite some time but I know he is originally from New Mexico.  I suspect the location had more to do with his move than the $$$.

[TEPaul]

Tom Doak:

I know you're a very good architect but I didn't know you were such a full service operation! I certainly didn't know you were a scorecard printer too!

Unfortunately, I sure do agree that as odd as it seems that when tour pros are in the vicinity and they stop by and play your golf course it can have a very unsettling effect on the club and the membership's perception of things! At the very least, no one can deny it creates a great deal of conversation and discussion.

NGLA really should get some alternate par 70 cards printed up in the spring of 2004 and get their course set up into it's best tournament condition about a month before the Shinnecock Open and keep it that way until the tour pros are out of town!

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Tom

Why not go all the way and call 1 and 2 "par" 3's.  After a few visiting pros start off double-double maybe the members won't feel as inadequate as they do now.

Rich

[TEPaul]

Rich:

As ususal you seem inclined to overdo a simple and good thing!

It's not necessary to create a perception change by make #1 & #2 par 3s, thereby making NGLA a par 68, because when Tiger, Phil, Ernie and Sergio go double, double on them (as par 3s as you predict) it's overkill!

Watching those superstars drive at those driveable par 4s and go bogie, bogie instead will do just fine for perception, thank you very much!

[brad miller]

Rees at NGLA, isn't he doing work at Maidstone also? And who might be doing the bunker work at Shinnecock?