The Ghost of Genius

[Marty Bonnar]

i.e. not 'The Spirit of St Andrews'



While the good ranters were in town, we took the opportunity to play the Eden Course. I tried to explain the changes to Redanman, but perhaps a visual might be more useful. Here's a superimposition of the 1940 routing over the 2007 landscape.

Try to spot the original Colt features in what is now the practice range

Golf Course Architecture Minim(VAND)alism.

Maybe more helpful...





Eedjits all around...

FBD.

[Brian_Ewen]

[Marty Bonnar]

Brian,
that is most helpful. I'd forgotten you posted that one on a TOC thread way back. That bunker swarm on the left looks way cool!

Does anyone have a layout plan of these holes? Tommy, did you say you had?

FBD.

[Ally Mcintosh]

could someone please explain the changes to me?... i played the eden just once and know that all the holes now play on the peninsula side of the clubhouse and copse of trees... but what part of the routing did the driving range take away etc... in particular, what hole are we looking at in those photos?

thanks

[Bill_McBride]

You gotta love Brian's aerial with the railroad tracks still in place.  When John Krystynak hit his tee shots over the fence on #16 in both directions   during our last trip, it was much more prosaic.  Imagine if there had been railroad tracks there!

(Let the record show he made a bogey on #16 normal routing after his OB tee shot, made 3 on the second tee ball to win the hole when your correspondent drove into the Principals Nose and had to pitch out backward and went on to muddle his way to a double!)  

[Brian_Ewen]

Bill
If there was railroad tracks there , he might have got a flukey bounce back in-bounds . Happens quite often at Stonehaven.  

I would also love to see an aerial routing of the Eden , but cant remember seeing one on here before ? . Would be quite easy to order one fom the RAF's 1946 aerial archives .

Ally , your answer lies in the archives here somewhere , but trying to find it is ....!

Wheres Paul Turner ? .

[Sean Walsh]

At least this clears up for me why the current 1st was a long par 3.     There was a railroad track between the 2nd green and the 3rd tee.  

I for one lament for its loss.  Even in its current state I like it at least as much as The New and The Jubilee

Was the 1st/17th a double green?

[Mike Hendren]

Wonderful thread, Martin.

Having been denied the opportunity to tee off on the New Course with three hours of daylight remaining because "the starter has gone home" and seeing the replacement holes on The Eden, I am not impressed with the Links Trust's stewardship of golf's sacred grounds.  

I love The Eden as much as The Old Course.  The changes there fall somewhere between a pity and a travesty.  

With apologies to the wives of Dogpatch:

Put em back, the way they wuz.
Put em back the way they wuz.

Mike

[Marty Bonnar]

Mike/Sean,
you neatly express my feelings exactly.

For further evidence, may I present - the Western Front:

Women and children, please avert your eyes...

Heavenly:


Hellishly - note somewhat appropriately shaped PAWND - Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh!!!!


Open Statement to the Links Trust:
I will personally and completely free of charge HAND DIG the West end of the Eden Course in St Andrews if you will allow me free reign in re-constructing its former glories and removing the monstrous carbuncles which pass as golf holes in that area.
Yours Most Respectfully,
Martin Glynn Bonnar.

[James Bennett]

Why was that copse of trees allowed to be in the midst of the Eden?  If that had been cleared (like the rest of the Links) then that idyllic spot for a clubhouse and carpark would not have existed, and the practice facilities might have been built somewhere else.  And the Eden would have survived.

I haven't played the Eden (yet) although I took the opportunity to see much of the original holes still in play when I was there last month.  Wonderful greens.  You are correct Sean.  

I didn't get out far enough to see the 'new' Eden holes.  That will wait till another time.

James B

[Ally Mcintosh]

no one going to help me out here then?

...or point me to the thread that explains the original routing...

thanks

[Paul_Turner]

I do have an old stick plan of the original routing... bear with me, it'll take a little digging.

Nice find with the old pics!

I think Tom Doak is perhaps the only one here who remembers the old holes.  I remember him writing that the big loss was the original 16th par 3.

[Marty Bonnar]

Paul,
please try your hardestest to find the routing. I (and Ally!) would definitely love to see it. Do you remember if it has yardages?
When was Doak first in St A?

cheers,
FBD.

[Tom_Doak]

Martin:

I was actually in St. Andrews the first time with my parents in 1976, but I lived there in the summer of 1982 and that's my experience with the Eden Course.

Ally:

The first two and last two holes were wiped out by the new practice facility.  The original third hole, a great 200-yard par-3, was converted to today's short par-4 opener; and the par-3 sixteenth green was abandoned to extend the hole to the clubhouse for the finishing hole.  The sixteenth was the fourth best of the original four par-3 holes, yet it was a cool green (like two waves with the dip in between) and completed the set well.  I thought the original set of par-3 holes was one of the best I'd ever seen, and I'll stick to my story since no one can prove otherwise.

Holes 1 & 17 did indeed share a double green.  The second hole was a pretty good medium-long par 4 and so was the seventeenth.  The eighteenth was a very short driveable par 4 (even I could drive it), and the first was a pretty good short 4.

P.S.  I still believe that Dr. MacKenzie had a lot to do with the design and construction of the Eden Course.  He bent over backwards to give credit to Colt in his book, but that is when they started working together, and several of those greens are much more severe than anything Harry Colt ever built anywhere else.

[Marty Bonnar]

Tom,
thanks, those are great recollections - and definitely assisting me place the holes now.
I first saw the Eden in its original state as a wee lad attending an Open but have absolutely no memory of it. I think I was more interested in the famous players I could see!
I only first played it about 14 years or so ago when it had already been - fairly recently - emasculated.

It was a great joy replaying it last week and seeing anew it's glorious charms. As James B says, the greensites are truly wonderful.

I do have one other quibble with the Links Trust though. They seem to me to be fairly systematically 'oldcoursing' the Eden (and the other courses) bunkers. There seems to be little of Colt/MacK's original bunkerwork left untouched. Circular pots and simplified shapes and contours, like Japanese Knotweed, seem to be relentlessly creeping in...

FBD.

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Martin,

I hope you are making a photographic inventory of the Eden Course  - ready for the Restoration after the St.Andrew’s Trust have standardised the Links at St.Andrews so all the bunker surrounds have had their little bumps and hollows removed around the edges and simplified geometric revetting so it’s “easy to mow” around the edges”  - gradually dumbing the course down and diminishing it’s appeal - the diversification of the contours.

Really - the Trust should have a Contract with the City where they are committed to maintaining the original contours and style of the course or be “utterly cryit doon” . (I hope that means something really unpleasant)
 

[Paul_Turner]

Here's the plan from when the course opened in 1914.  Some criticism back then that it was too hard.  Also interesting that they were petitioning for the land by the cottage.





Run through the holes:

1st gone
2nd gone
3rd current 1st (now longer)
4th current 2nd
5th current 3rd
6th current 4th
7th current 5th
8th gone but does the current 17th use its green?
9th current 11th
10th current 6th but longer
11th current 13th
12th gone (but fallow you may be able to see the old hole)
13th current 7th
14th current 8th
15th current 9th
16th gone (is green site still there?)
17th gone
18th gone


It's Colt's course...here's his preview of the Eden:





Mackenzie may have had input, they were friends, but I've never seen him mentioned in connection with the course.

I'm not aware of them working together on any projects around 1914,  the short collaboration at Alwoodley was earlier in 1907 and their loose partnership wasn't until after WW1.

Wild greens...  I'd agree with Tom regarding the current 1st (old 3rd) being wilder that anything else Colt built (and just about everyone else!).  But I've seen some of his greens that are as wild as the rest.  I think the greens should be taken in context with what was already there on the The Old Course.

Either way,  it was must have been a great honour to get the commission to build the 4th course at St Andrews and Colt would have made sure he was happy with the end result.
And I doubt he'd like the changes.

[Rich Goodale]

Excellent, Paul.

PS--what makes you think the current 1st green was "built?"  I've always considered it to be one that was found.

[Paul_Turner]

Rich

Perhaps as Colt writes in the article:  "the existing undulations be accentuated and made bolder."  ??

[Ally Mcintosh]

thanks very much tom and especially paul... that was way more info than i was expecting...

interesting to read about the old 14th (current 8th) green complex... there has obviously been a softening of the hole in the interim years and obviously with the better equipment it has become much more playable... it's still mighty tough and i reckon it's a brilliant hole... sounds fearsome in its day...

[James Bennett]

I think these are photos of the current 1st (old 3rd) and 8th (old 14th).  There is a rear view of 8 and a front view.  The 1st is shot from short right.

They are very hard greens to film from ground level, as there is so much movement and it is difficult to capture in a single picture.

Enjoy.  

#1 Eden from near the Old Course (about #15 TOC)


#8 Eden from the back of the green.


#8 Eden from the front of the green


James B

[Rich Goodale]

Thanks, James.  I'd never thought of it before, but 8 Eden is very reminiscent of at least 3 of the 3's at Muirfield, with the huge false front.

That being said, the fact that observers seemed to think that this hole was a bear says more about how hard golf was 100 years ago than what it is like today.  Today, the 8th is a very modern hole--hit it high and soft and you'll get your three (much like the Redan at NB ).  Far better is 8's counterpart, the 5th.  Now that is a golf hole for the ages.....

PS--I don't really see much of the hand of man in the now 1st green.  Lovely natural slope up to the shepherd's cottage.  Maybe a cut short left and a build-up long right, but I'm just an amatuer.

[Ally Mcintosh]

rich, from the description though, it sounds like some of the gorse on the 8th has gone and possibly a couple of bunkers... the 5th is pretty wonderful indeed... definite options with that one as my 28 handicap playing partner showed when boning his tee shot along the ground to find it horseshoing the hole and finishing 6 inches away... nicely nestled against the hill is the 5th... lovely...

[Paul_Turner]

Any chance someone can get a pic of the old 12th?

Thanks

[Marty Bonnar]

Paul,
#2 not entirely gone...greensite remains pretty much intact, albeit de-bunkered in the main, as the practice green at the practice centre. (See my original 2006 aerial - whoops, there it is!) One of the original fairway bunkers is still there too.

Hopefully, Redanman might post some of his snaps. He definitely took one over the fence at the back of current #1 tee.

FBD.