Ok, I'm stuck in Hamburg airport with my 50-seater plane's takeoff delayed 4 hours
So thoughts have been drifting to golf, and I wonder what people's thoughts are on the changes at Carnoustie.
I don't mean widening fairways or thinning out rough - I don't know if this will happen although I imagine they will to a degree.
No, what I'm talking about are the changes to a) the trees and b) the area between the 17th tee and 18th green/1st tee.
a) firstly, by the open already they had already chopped the trees behind the 16th green, and rightly so - these trees were only planted a few years ago and looked out of place. Similarly the clump behind the 15th green, although I rather liked them. Chopping these both down had the added advantage of making room for new grandstand positions. But since 1999 they have done more chopping. Most noticeably all the trees behind the 6th green (down the right of the 7th) have gone. These were lovely old trees all leaning at an angle slightly due to the wind, and were perfectly in keeping with the trees all over the buddon army base and out towards the sea. The 15th and 16th trees were planted firs from scandinavia somewhere... but these trees were more natural I thought and in long lines - as I say the same as the ones all over the buddon ness. Just seems a pity to get rid of them when trees are a natural part of the courses in this area - just look at monifieth and panmure - both open final qualifying courses and both littered with trees. I'm all for tree removal when they're overgrowing the landscape but these we just a few trees here and there!
b) in days gone by, the 18th green surrounds were all closely mown... you missed the green either side or long and your ball kept rolling down a slope. Now they've put in mounding all around the back and right and covered it in long grass... and all the area short of the burn where van der velde had his fun has been raised into hills that are higher than the 17th tee which used to be the high point of the landscape. I'm not saying it looks bad, but I wouldn't have said it looks like the natural linksland they were clearly trying to achieve. This part of the course, like the start of st andrews, in natural flat linksland and was part of the character of carnoustie before they plonked in the huge hotel and started mounding.
I still think carnoustie is one of the greatest challenges in golf, and a great design - no only the routing in a giant C shape, but also the individual style of the course, right down to most of the tees being on extensions of the previous green's aprons. But I just think they maybe didn't need to keep tinkering with a masterpiece.
What say ye?
PS. I should say that I grew up playing Carnoustie so I know a fair bit about it! This isn't a 'I've seen some photos from my house in trinidad and i think they've ruined it' posts...
