Can Royal Melborne West host next year's Masters?

[Ran Morrissett]

The host course of The Masters has historically had these characteristics/qualifications:

a)   a MacKenzie design generally considered in the top three or four courses in the world
b)   great risk/reward holes/decisions
c)   fast and firm conditions
d)   width off the tee followed by a superb set of greens
e)   a course that reflects its environment
f)   a sense of spaciousness
g)   the opportunity for heroic recovery shots
h)   a slew of great golf holes

As Augusta National now only has one of these attributes (fast and firm), and Royal Melbourne West has all of them in spades, shouldn’t it host The Masters?

Please……pretty please……..for the good of the game…...

One things for sure: Bob Jones, who worshipped The Old Course at St. Andrews and its playing attributes and one was encouragedto invent shots, would FAR AND AWAY prefer a game at Royal Melbourne than he would at The National Forest of Augusta Golf Club.

 

[Mark Bourgeois]

Let there be no doubt. Point by point:

a) How about this from someone who knows both courses -- sadly, this once might have been an apt description of ANGC:

"I'm not sure that I really want to nail my colors to the mast, but the West Course at Royal Melbourne might just be the best course in the world, period....The way it plays firm and fast-running...the wide fairways that reward the golfer who thinks where best to position the drive, the mix of long, demanding and short, intriguing par fours, the splendid contouring of the greens, the variety of approach shots that you can play into the greens which really reward imaginative shot making..." -- Nick Faldo

b) In terms of great risk / reward holes, (thinking off the top of my head) RM W has 3, 6, 10 (that one ought to count twice), and 11 -- you could throw in 2, 4, 9, and 12, too, depending on hole locations and / or conditions. Is ANGC down to just 13?

c) You want firm and fast? RM haven't watered the fairways in TWELVE months!

d) A hole by hole comparison of the "strategery" would be unfair -- ANGC would take the gas early and often....say, tee shot on hole 1:

ANGC = hit it up the hill left of the bunker as far as you can.
RM W = 60-meter wide fairway. Where to hit it? Where's the hole today?

As to the greens, let a few pros take over here -- from a 1998 Golf Magazine article:

1. "I think Royal Melbourne's greens are faster than Augusta National's," says Bradley Hughes, who played in The Masters for the first time last spring. "The sixth and seventh greens on the West course at Royal Melbourne-well, you won't find greens like that anywhere else in the world."

2. At this year's Masters, for example, Stuart Appleby was not overly impressed with Augusta National's greens. (Everything is relative. Appleby used to be a junior member at Yarra Yarra. If you've learned to drive in a Lamborghini, a Lexus would probably seem a step down.)

If Yarra Yarra's greens are a Lamborghini, RM West's are Schumacher's F1 car...

e)



f) From 17 green of the West, looking over at the East


g) Too many to count

h) Conservatively, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 16, 17 on RM W, and 4, 7, and 12 aren't too much of a stretch, either. (And 15 might be my favorite 15th hole I've ever played...)

Bonus: you want to see pros suffer? Lee Trevino, 1974: "Take a picture of me heading out the gates because I won't be back."

One year the pros walked off, repeat walked off, in protest of the difficulties on the greens!

Mark

[ed_getka]

What heroic recovery shots have been eliminated at ANGC with the recent course changes? Are you primarily referring to shots from the trees and rough? Have any greenside recovery shots disappeared in recent years?
   

[Matthew Mollica]

I've walked Augusta for a few days at Masters time years ago, but never played it. I've played RMW dozens of times and feel it's my favourite course in the world.

RMW's condition currently is a far cry from what it was at The President's Cup in 1998. Greens have been fair to poor with some needing to be relaid over the last year or two.

If course conditions were returned to their former state, there's no question it would be an amazing site for a 4 round stroke tournament featuring a Masters calibre field. It would be a contrast though; RMW is around 6700 yards.

Was it Clayton or Doak who said that Royal Melbourne West is the course Augusta National wants to be?

Matthew

[Chris Kane]

No - at 6700 yards its too short.  The risk-reward and heroic characteristics we love about it wouldn't come into play when the players are hitting it so far.  Unless it blew a gale all four days, thirty under par would be threatened.

If they could add 600 yards, it would be amazing for a tournament.  

[Mike_Clayton]

Ran,

Royal Melbourne Composite Course at 7000 plus yards can and for the good of the game it is not a stupid suggestion.
The members certainly respect the legacy of MacKenzie a deal more that those who have organized this weeks event.
It would be a par 70 with two playing as a par four.
There are some who have been critical of changes to the East but it is unimaginable that the members would countenance the growing of rough and the planting of trees on the sides of the fairways.

There is no issue with the condition - given the right incentive the course would be perfect.

Matt,

It was Tom who said 'Royal Melbourne is the course Augusta wants to be".
More now than ever perhaps.

The real question is 'would the game be better served by an Australian organization  - as opposed to the USGA and the R@A - with a reverence for maintaining the intent of MacKenzie and the other great designers?'
We are tired of the modern ball ravaging our best courses and even if Americans and British don't care about making their best courses obsolete, we do.

[Mark_F]

Would it be possible for the greens to be at the speed they were when Trevino stalked off, or do various factors render that unlikely?

Or necessary?

I seem to remember when the Presidents Cup was here, a long article in the Herald Sun saying that the greens would be at 11, maybe 12, as opposed to the higher speeds under Claude Crockford, because they wouldn't be able to handle higher speeds in their current guise.

A Masters at RM would be special, but would it be as dramatic and thrilling as The Masters as the old Augusta?  

There's no 12,13, 15 or 16 to provide do or die moments.

[Shane Gurnett]

With the morphing of all the US based majors into the same basic event and set up ( ie complete yawnfest), I would vote that they have one of their majors taken away and relocated to a new venue yearly based here in Australia. Take away the PGA's major status and give it to the Australian Open or even give it to another links event in the UK.

One indifferent year at the Masters is not enough to make a conclusive judgement - perhaps the Augusta National folk will see the error of their way and reinstate the playing width and remove some rough and trees??

[Andrew Hastie]

As much as Augusta has been changed and we don't necessarily agree, it's still the Masters and that belongs at ANGC.
Lets hope ANGC see's the error of there ways and pushs back the changes.

[Mark_F]

perhaps the Augusta National folk will see the error of their way and reinstate the playing width and remove some rough and trees??

Anything's possible.

Even Commonwealth have seen the error of their ways, and there's surely a lot less trees to pull out of Augusta.

[Rich Goodale]

This is a GREAT idea!

Once that is done, let's relocate Wimbledon (too chauvinistic, too wet, too many strawberries, too much cream, etc.) to Boca Raton.  Then, let's hold the World Cup perpetually in the USA, where the weather is always balmy and hooligans get shot on sight.  The America's Cup?  How about letting landlocked nations (e.g. Switzerland) compete.  Oops, already done..........Finally, get the top sumo tournaments out of Japan and into Hawaii, where most of the best Yokozuna come from and Japanese tourists go to anyway.

As great as RM (North, East, South, West or Composite) probably is, holding the Masters there would be a joke.  Where are they going to get the water to lovingly refresh the azaleas anyway?

[Tom_Doak]

Mike C:

Is Mark Ferguson even close to on the mark about the old speeds on the greens at Royal Melbourne?  

I suspect they were only 11 or 12 the day Trevino walked off, but he was used to 8 and had never seen 11 before.  But I'm sure Bruce Grant would have a better idea of the truth.

[Bill Gayne]

It wouldn't be the Masters if it wasn't played at ANGC. It didn't start out this way but the Masters is a tribute to one of the early American golfing greats Bobby Jones. Today and it's been this way for a long time, it's all about the legacy of Jones and golf played at the highest level. It's not about Mackenzie and the golf course he built for Jones.

[Philip Gawith]

Roughly the last time Ernie played good golf was going round RM in 60 a few years ago! It sure would make for a different tournament from the attrition of Augusta (though as i recall that week, when the wind started to blow the scoring went soaring up).

[Jim Nugent]

Suppose RM composite were used for a big tournament, and they wanted to protect par, similar to how Augusta does.  Would they have to do the same kinds of things ANGC does?  Could they maintain the integrity of the design, and still make the course challenging enough for the world's best players?  

[Chris Kane]

There isn't room for significantly more yardage, and rough would (in my opinion) completely destroy the integrity of the design.  I don't even want to think about how additional trees would look!

[Mark Bourgeois]

Jim,

I think the point is they wouldn't try, but if they wanted to toughen it up they could put such a sheen on it you'd see your face when you looked down at the green, and they could put the pins in some ridiculous positions. If they wanted to...

Firm and fast causes players to struggle with control over their ball.

Everybody who notes the relative lack of length on the west or even the composite, what do you think of this quote from Wethered and simpson as a strategy for next year's setup, when we move the Toonament to RM:

"The problem could not be better tested than by a reference to St. Andrews, where excessive length was never necessary under the old conditions of fast greens and fairways-fast enough, that is, to make control supremely difficult....St. Andrews is difficult, not because bunkers are placed to catch inaccurate shots, but because the result of a misadventure is to make the next shot infinitely more difficult than it would otherwise have been."

Mark

[Mike_Clayton]

Tom

Mark is right about the greens.
When Claude Crockford prepared them for tournaments there were fearsome -faster than they ever were after he finished there in the early eighties.
I don't think there was a tournament on the Composite Course in the sixties (the '63 Australian Open was on the West I think) so Crockford did the '72 World Cup and followed it with tournaments in 74 (Trevino's walk off) '75,'76 and then the Australian PGA from '78 - '82.

They were never quicker that they were in 1974.Bob Shearer won the Chrysler Classic with 285 after a first round 65 by seven shots.It was a 71 par then with 4 West playing as a 4.
The 6th was always the fastest green and players just aimed for the front of the green and putted up to the hole.I saw Bob Charles knock a six footer clear off the front of the green there in one of those early tournaments - and he was as good as Crenshaw with the putter

I know what Pete Dye's theory is about green speeds being exaggerated but they had to be close to 14 or 15.There was very little grass on them and the new greens have never come close to being as scary - which is the main reason the scors have come down so much in recent years.
If they had those greens again and played a par 70 with one par five (17 east) 280 would be a decent score given any wind.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Mike,

Even in today's state, there's still trouble out there. From extreme back left, I putted a "two incher" that rolled off the green front right!

Mark

[Mike_Clayton]

Mark,

It's a pretty good shot to get it up into the back left corner - it's a pity the pin wasn't up there!

[Jim Nugent]

I don't believe ANGC only wants to avoid ultra-low scores.  They don't want the pro's hitting wedges into every hole, rendering the course architecture pointless.    

I'm not at all familiar with Royal Melbourne.  Would today's top players hit wedges into most par fours?  Would they have medium irons into most par 5's?  If so, would that make for a great tournament?  

[Matt_Sullivan]

Yes Jim, there would be a lot of wedges to par 4s and irons to par 5s, particularly on calm days. See Ernie's 60 (admittedly over the composite course, but that brings in the long par 5 17th from the East) at the Heineken a few years ago. I believe he only hit driver four times that day too!

[Mark_F]

Royal Melbourne is a bit more exposed to the wind than Augusta, so it would be unlikely that all four days they would have short irons into all the par fours.

11W and probably 2 E they may have a mid-iron under most conditions (they are par fours), but there is also a bit more scrub and rough around, as well as OB on a couple of holes, to render it 'tighter' in a manner of speaking.

[Tim_Cronin]

Ran,
I'd say RMW can still host this year's Masters, since it hasn't been played yet. How two U.S. Opens got on the 2007 schedule is beyond me. Must be the Hootiefication of golf or something...

[Garland Bayley]

I'm surprised no one mentioned leaving the course as is and using a "Master's Ball". The weather down under ought to be delightful in December. Does Greg Norman have enough pull to invite a special field and hold the "anti-Masters"? Or, perhaps a better name would be the Parallel Masters.