[JESII]

C,mon Sully, It's "anti-intellecualism"

Some well read minority upstart starts pissing on your parade and you don't stand up to the criticism?

It's down right cowardly.

How noble of you to take the fight right to his door...


By the way...that hole appears to clearly reward a drive up the left side...if that helps explain the bunkers a bit. But I haven't been there...

[Mike Sweeney]

Plus, Rees's exclusionary comment about courses with splashy bunkering isnt very Big World. Is it?

"Every golf course with splashy bunkers should not make the (100 Greatest) list."

His statement seems to target one dimensionality in rating list in reference to architecture rather than exclude anything?

[JESII]

Agree...it may have been poorly worded, but he was saying that flashy bunkers alone shouldn't get you on the list.

[Jerry Kluger]

Most bunkers are created and like most anything that is created styles change - some might say they evolve, but in any event, they change as times change.  Look at tee boxes, surely they change as well - the runway tees of RTJ are not seen anymore.

Rees is making a silly statement that is easily challenged but I think a better point is that not any one type or style of bunker is necessarily the only acceptable design to be used on a particular course.  Are we so caught up in what we believe is the only type of bunkers to be used at a course such as Ballyneal or Sand Hills that Bayonne had to have certain types of bunkers to be accepted as a good design? Is Bayonne better than Shadow Creek because of the bunkers?  What if Sand Hills had been built with bunkers that were far more uniform in shape and had no natural grasses around them - the design and strategy of the holes would be no different - would it make the course a lesser quality?

 

[Kyle Harris]

I'd like to stand up for the 18th at Lookaway... does anybody have a view from the fairway?

The bunkers look far less egregious from ground level and in presentation...

[Rich Goodale]

You imply a very good point, Kyle.  Are courses built these days to look good from aerial photographs or to play well on the ground?

[Ryan Farrow]

Did he really call them splashy bunkers?  

[Michael Dugger]

The return of the Mike Cirba pictures of Rees Jones bunkers.

My eyes just recently got over being injured from the last time he posted 'em.

Sour grapes from a guy who doesn't get it, that's all I'm hearing here.

[A.G._Crockett]

Mike,

He's trying, huh?  

What exactly do those bunkers do on that hole?  Seriously..

Drive up maintenance costs?  Raise greens fees?  

[Garland Bayley]

"Every golf course with splashy bunkers should not make the (100 Greatest) list."

I agree.

Well that's it then. Golf is all about the look of the bunkers. If you don't get it right, you can forget about being a worthwhile golf course. Apparently the golfers are so distracted by "splashy bunkers" that they can't play the game.
Augusta bathtub beautification for all (ABBA).

[Michael Whitaker]

I don't think he was saying that every course with "splashy" bunkers should be banned from "the list"... just that courses should not be put on the list simply because they have a certain look that seems (to him) to be in vogue at the moment. He obviously thinks some of these "splashy bunker" courses are not good enough designs to be included on a Top 100 list and are only there because they have this "fad" look that is currently popular with the voters.

[Garland Bayley]

Mike,

He's trying, huh?  

What exactly do those bunkers do on that hole?  Seriously..

It's a reversible hole. You play green to tee and you get the same hole with bunkers down one side. You play one way left-handed, then you turn around and play back right-handed.

[BCrosby]

Whatever problems people have with Rees as an architect (and I have a few myself), he is raising good points.

A lot of splashy bunkering on new courses will become a mainteance nightmare in five or ten years. I actually like the look, but there is no predicting what it is going to take to keep that look in the future.

His other point is that the splashy look is no substitute for good, solid architecture.

It's hard to argue with either statement.

Bob

   

[Mike_Cirba]

Guys,

It's not that Rees doesn't have a point, or that there should only be one style of bunker.  

He seems to be implying that more natural looking bunkers are a draw and a "perceived-positive" unto themselves, which is probably true given that they are generally more aesthetically appealing and tend to fit the eye and landscape better.

He also seems to be implying that they are an unncessary, frivolous frill...even his left-hand complimentary term "Splashy" seems fraught with implied additional maintenance considerations and costs.

My point isn't that he's necessarily wrong in either statement.

My point is that if we're talking about excess, it's the ebony pot calling the kettle black!  

[Mike Sweeney]

Mike Cirba ,

Welcome to the Double Standard club of Golf Club Atlas. Members to date are Doak, Jaka and Sweeney. Congrats!

It looks as though he's trying to evolve from his aesthetic pattern of the past 35 years.  

My point is that if we're talking about excess, it's the ebony pot calling the kettle black!  

Rees is "evolving' according to Mike Cirba, but I remember a thread where you criticized C&C for having the same looks at old Sandwich and Hidden Creek.

Now I personally drink the C&C juice as much as anyone around here and I am a member at a C&C course, BUT the Rees Jones is bad for golf stuff is nuts around here. My Rees list of courses played in order are:

Olde Kinderhook
Nantucket (nudges out Atlantic on atmosphere on the island)
Atlantic
The Bridge
Montauk Downs (assuming you give him the credit for when he worked with his father)
The Currituck Club

If the Currituck Club is the worst course that I play next year, I will assume that it will be one of my best years for golf course adventure.

Of course the one place that Rees Jones screwed me is that he fixed up Bethpage so well, that I can't get on it anymore because the other 99.99% of the golfers who don't post here think he did a great job.  

[Kyle Harris]

You imply a very good point, Kyle.  Are courses built these days to look good from aerial photographs or to play well on the ground?

Rich,

I just say that because I caddied at Lookaway for their first 3 seasons and have come to admire the hole as a great finisher. The course has some very good stuff and just average stuff - probably a Doak 4 - but the presentation and difficulties in playing the 18th are commensurate with a sound golf test. .

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike Sweeney,

How is it a double standard to point out that C&C often seem to force the same "look" and type of holes even when the terrain is vastly different as well as say that Rees Jones is the king of excess?

I played Falcon's Fire a few weeks back.   It's a pretty good course, all around...probably a Doak Scale 4.   However, aesthetically it was a trainwreck with rows of mounding paralleling down the lines of each fairway and fields of circular and baroque bunkering interspersed throughout.  

I did point out the course's attributes as well, and made the statement that if you gave me a bulldozer to knock down the 5,000 mounds, and enough topsoil to grass over about 2/3 of the bunkers it would be hailed here as a minimalist masterpiece!  

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike,

BTW, my comments are based on playing;

Original Designs;

Arcadian Shores
Belle Terre (NLE)
Bristol Harbor
Eagle Lodge (NLE)
Falcon's Fire
Flanders Valley (9)
Huntsville
Ledgerock
Lookaway
Montauk Downs
Olde Kinderhook
Pinch Brook
Tattersall
Waterway Hills
Wild Wing (Falcon) (NLE)

and his redesign/restore/revamp work at;

Baltusrol (Upper & Lower)
Hollywood
Quaker Ridge
Ridgewood
Sleepy Hollow


Generally, I like the stuff he did between 68-74 with his dad (i.e. Montauk, Arcadian, Eagle Lodge), think he fell and hit his head between 75 and the late 90s (JUST KIDDING! ), LOVE Olde Kinderhook, like Huntsville, think his restoration work all comes out looking the same, and hope his newer courses show a little more surprise, and offer a little more in the way of FUN and strategy.

He could always build a tough course...wish I saw him building more interesting ones.

[Adam Clayman]

No one is saying everything the man's firm produces is drek. Just as he does not specify that it is the look alone he's talking about. How some of you have interjected that qualification is intriguing.

The statement says "every course", how do you congnoscenti read that as the look alone?

[Garland Bayley]

I don't think he was saying that every course with "splashy" bunkers should be banned from "the list"... just that courses should not be put on the list simply because they have a certain look that seems (to him) to be in vogue at the moment. He obviously thinks some of these "splashy bunker" courses are not good enough designs to be included on a Top 100 list and are only there because they have this "fad" look that is currently popular with the voters.

I am sorry, but I am not a mind reader. I suspect Michael is not one either. I do know that oft times what you meant and what you said are not the same thing, because oft times we are not careful enough in what we say (or write). If Rees were a member here and realized that he did not communicate as well as he wished, he could explain himself. However, he is not a member here.

Oh Well!

[Mike Sweeney]

Arcadian Shores
Belle Terre (NLE)
Bristol Harbor
Eagle Lodge (NLE)
Falcon's Fire
Flanders Valley (9)
Huntsville
Ledgerock
Lookaway
Montauk Downs
Olde Kinderhook
Pinch Brook
Tattersall
Waterway Hills
Wild Wing (Falcon) (NLE)

We agree on Olde Kinderhook and Montauk, which is all that I have played from your list, so he/we are batting a 1000%!

Of the others on your list, where did he get good land that he did not live up to expectations. You can make that argument at The Bridge, but recent pics tell me that all the tree removal in the last couple of years tells me that he had a number of restrictions with the initial routing. I would like to see it again at some point in time.

[Garland Bayley]

Mike,

You need to get out and play Sandpines so that you will have a ready answer for guys like Mike.
 

[Adam Clayman]

To the point on maintenance costs of the native transitional look. Old Wild Horse has been in the ground for nearly a decade now and would be a worthy example for these discussion purposes.

Paging Josh Mahar

How does poor old WH stay afloat with such a low green fee and those pesky, costly, splashy bunkers?

[Michael Whitaker]

Mike,

BTW, my comments are based on playing;

Original Designs;

Arcadian Shores
Belle Terre (NLE)
Bristol Harbor
Eagle Lodge (NLE)
Falcon's Fire
Flanders Valley (9)
Huntsville
Ledgerock
Lookaway
Montauk Downs
Olde Kinderhook
Pinch Brook
Tattersall
Waterway Hills
Wild Wing (Falcon) (NLE)

Arcadian Shores is a good course.
Belle Terre & Wild Wing are gone, covered in condos.
Waterway Hills is Robert Trent Jones.

[Mike_Young]

I have played plenty of RJ courses that I like...and recently rode the Bridge one afternoon.  Also played some C&C and TD and afew others that I like as well.  I would wager that most on this site could not tell the difference between most bunker complexes before the sand lines and sod are installed.....and what I think he is saying is that many shaggy bunkers will not survive....I think I agree.

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