Would any living architect surpass Simpson's work at Cruden Bay?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Tom

The original design of 1896 had the 17 & 18 plus 1 to 3 kept inland close to current positions while moving 4 to 7 seawards to fit in The Olaf Course. This was an addition not mentioned until circa 1897/8 and opened with the main Course. Certainly the original design had room to the Port Erroll side while the other end was somewhat narrower as it still is today.

Melvyn

[Niall C]

Tom

I didn't suggest it was going to be easy !!! Thats why I was giving the architect the leeway of designing something by the standards of c. 80 to 100 years ago without the safety requirements of today. Yes, even to me it is obvious that designing by todays standards that it would be impossible to design something that didn't involve a half mile treck from finishing one hole to the next tee.

I was wondering if something could be done even if it mean't a bit of a walk, maybe equivalent to the walk upto the 9th but on the flat. Maybe the passing holes could be short par 3's with tees/greens perched into the hillside/dunes depending on direction of play. Perhaps these could even be cross over holes which might provide each with a bit more width. Something of that sort.

Hadn't considered doing away with St Olafs but also didn't realise that there would be enough ground there anyway to compensate for the holes lost on the other side.

Michael

See my comments above. Clearly I'm no architect and any designs I do are academic and purely for my own pleasure so the client is any easy one to deal with !

I suspect your questions were aimed at Tom anyway, but let me say this about the Donald, from what I've heard he hasn't asked for anything ridiculous at Balmedie but whether he's given the architect a free hand I don't know but suspect not. How that compares to Mike Keiser, again I couldn't say, but its hard to imagine these kind of characters not having some fairly strongly held views that you would have to work round.

Niall

[Frank Pont]

Cruden Bay is  my favorite course,anywhere.
However if some genius could redesign the 16th green so it could hold a shot I would be most appreciative.

It isn't the 16th green that is the problem, but the area in front of the green that has been raised about 2-3 feet by sand blow of the beach over a period of 40 years. This has raised the angle of the slope running into the green so much that almost no ball will hold the green.
The solution is very simple, remove this sandblow, resulting in a much more moderate forgreen area.

This is a permutation of the problem we encountered at the 14th (bathtub) green, where over the years the entrance to the green had become so steep that it could not be maintained effectively anymore. When we took the grass off it became clear there had been between 2-4 feet of sand blow there over the years. Removing this allowed for a more moderate slope into the green, allowing this area to cut at fore green height.

[Frank Pont]

Ran

Getting back to your original question, it should really be re-phrased something to the effect of:

1.  Which living architect would have taken Old Tom Morris' routing up over and around the big hill (current holes holes 8-15)?; and
2.  Which living architect would have stuck with Old Tom Morris' routing up over and around the big hill, as Simpson and Fowler did in 1926?

Is ask the latter question because I have always believed (and said so on here) that Cruden Bay could have been a much better course if S&F had abandoned holes 8-15 and used the great rolling linksland over which the 9-hole St. Olaf's course exists to fill out their 18.  IMO it could have been as great as Dornoch if that decision had been made.

So, which living architect would have the cojones to go to a high profile golf club and tell them that they had to almost completely redo their well regarded course?

Finally, don't we have a living laboratory going on now relative to some of these questions in thwork that our own, Frank Pont, is now undertaking at Cruden Bay?

Rich

Funny enough the members play the course in the winter as follows: holes 1-7, 17-18, followed by the St. Olaf course. This because nobody feels like walking the up and down the 9th hole in a freezing wind….

I spend quite some time looking at how one would reroute Cruden Bay if one would start all over again. I would still use the land behind the big hill, rather than use the St. Olaf course, but I would get rid of hole 9. Hole 9 is a very poor hole, with a huge walk up and a huge walk down. Yes this yields great views but they are not enough to compensate for the walk. The hole could be improved , we did make an effort by cutting the gorse to open the views of the cliffs and the fairway was going to be move closer to the cliffs, but this has not happened yet (one can see the gorse removed on Google Earth).

I would therefore not use the current holes 8 (a pity!), 9 (no loss) and 10 (again no great loss other than a teeshot from high above).
Instead I would use the narrow area below the hill to go to and come from the area where currently hole 10-14 lie. Tom Doak is right that the area of holes 14 and 15 are very narrow, and that it is difficult to put two holes next to each other. The only way that would work would be to have two par 3 holes playing along each other.

Where would we find the three holes to make up the loss of 8-10?

That is not too difficult. Fist there already is a spare par 3 hole I built two years ago at the end of the property, between hole 12 and 13.
The other thing to keep in mind is that there is fantastic unused linksland behind green 4, and besides holes 5,6 and 7. (this area is so large in fact that I even managed to design and extension of the St.Olaf course to 18 holes using this area). It would be very easy to put 2,3 or even 4 holes in this area.

Therefore one could think of the following course:

Hole 1, hole 2, hole 3, hole 4, new hole 1 (par 4), new hole 2 (par 4), hole 5, hole 6, hole 7, new hole 3 (par 3 playing from reverse side to green 15), new hole 4 (driveable par 4 playing from reverse side to the green of hole 11), hole 12, new hole 5 (current spare par 3 hole), hole 13 (to a new green closer to the beach), hole 14 (remade into a par 3), hole 16, hole 17, hole 18.

This would be the routing I would use if I had to start again, and what an exciting mental exercise it is to think this through, but I do not believe for one moment that classic courses like Cruden Bay should be changed this much… I will use that creative energy on my own new build courses.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Frank

Check out your email and also another post on Cruden & T Simpson "What exactly did Tom Simpson do at Cruden Bay ? "

Melvyn

[Frank Pont]

Melvyn,

thanks for the old map of the original OTM+AS course, it is the same as the one shown in the 100 year golf at Cruden Bay book.

[Tom_Doak]

Frank:

Just a friendly reminder that I used Cruden Bay as the prime example in my book of how routings should be done to feel as though one is wandering the property.

I would be sad to see it changed.

[Ulrich Mayring]

I don't know how it is for the members, who play there every day (lucky bastards, they!), but for me as a visitor playing 3 rounds in 3 days the walk up to the 9th was fantastic. It's an all-world view from up there, only weak characters would rather trot along the base of the dune instead of climbing it ;-)

That being said, #9 is really a weak hole for Cruden Bay standards. But the tee shot from #10 is again something that no visiting golfer would want to miss - maybe the members get tired of it, I don't know. I also played the par 3 at the end of the course, but am not sure how well it would work: first off, I wouldn't want to lose the any of the three fantastic one-shotters on the back nine, especially not #11, which may not have the cult status of the other two, but is actually the best from a playing perspective. Second, I don't know of a good way to get up to that tee. I don't mind climbing, as evicenced by me loving the climb up to #9, but I want it to have a sense of getting on, going forward. Leaving the bag down there, climbing up to the tee and playing down to the bag again does not instill that sense of making progress, it's more of a backpedaling thing.

Ulrich

[Niall C]

Frank

Many thanks for your thoughts on a new routing. I wish I could get Cruden Bay on google earth/bing maps or whatever its called so that I could look more closely at what you suggest. To me the 9th is like the 7th at Dornoch, a means of getting round a bottle neck (also both holes have different turf to the rest of the courses) although I would say the 7th at Dornoch isn't a bad hole in its own right with an interesting and challenging green.

Ulrich's mention of your par 3 at the end of the course reminds me of another thread and the suggestion that the green could be approached with the beach on the right rather than behind the green. If the club could take in those lower fields in that area then I imagine you could get a couple of holes in there.

Niall

[Ulrich Mayring]

Yes, but how are you going to get there? Basically you'd have at least two additional holes, one going out and another coming back to the existing extra green. So that means you have to lose two other holes on the way there, unless you're going to make it a 20 hole course, which might be fitting for a course like Cruden Bay

If the fairway of #9 could be moved to the left, that would provide some opportunities to build a great hole.

Ulrich

[Frank Pont]

Frank:

Just a friendly reminder that I used Cruden Bay as the prime example in my book of how routings should be done to feel as though one is wandering the property.

I would be sad to see it changed.

Hi Tom,

Fully agree with you, I think you missed the last two lines of my post: "This would be the routing I would use if I had to start again, and what an exciting mental exercise it is to think this through, but I do not believe for one moment that classic courses like Cruden Bay should be changed this much…"
 
I did this exercise because Ran asked us specifically: "could you imagine a more fun course being built on that land today if any living architect was given the same untouched land that Simpson first had?". My answer to that specific question is a firm yes.

Ironicly I specifically got involved at Cruden Bay to make sure they were not going to change the routing and massively alter some of the key holes.

PS. Of course I know your quote very well; I use it every year in the routings section when I give my one day GCA class to course managers and green chairmen...

[Frank Pont]

I don't know how it is for the members, who play there every day (lucky bastards, they!), but for me as a visitor playing 3 rounds in 3 days the walk up to the 9th was fantastic. It's an all-world view from up there, only weak characters would rather trot along the base of the dune instead of climbing it ;-)

That being said, #9 is really a weak hole for Cruden Bay standards. But the tee shot from #10 is again something that no visiting golfer would want to miss - maybe the members get tired of it, I don't know. I also played the par 3 at the end of the course, but am not sure how well it would work: first off, I wouldn't want to lose the any of the three fantastic one-shotters on the back nine, especially not #11, which may not have the cult status of the other two, but is actually the best from a playing perspective. Second, I don't know of a good way to get up to that tee. I don't mind climbing, as evicenced by me loving the climb up to #9, but I want it to have a sense of getting on, going forward. Leaving the bag down there, climbing up to the tee and playing down to the bag again does not instill that sense of making progress, it's more of a backpedaling thing.

Ulrich

Hi Ulrich,

I have so far played CB about 40 times and I can assure you it becomes a drag to slog over the hill playing hole 9.

Hole 10 has a great view of the tee but lacks any strategy, just make sure you land somewhere on the fairway before the burn. I suggested moving the tee to the right of the green of hole 9, so that at least the shot into the fairway would be diagonal, something Simpson was a key advocate of (we did the same for the tee of hole 13, which we moved closer to the beach, creating a diagonal angle to the fairway).

I agree with you that hole 11 is a good par 3 (and is a Simpson original).

The current spare hole tee is a temporary tee from which the views are great but I agree its a hike up. The much better angle is along the beach, from where it is a much better hole. Unfortunately the club does not own that land yet.... Getting to this tee you could walk down from the current green of hole 12, or extend hole 12 into a very interesting par 5....

Moving the fairway to the left on hole 9 will indeed make it better (thats why I recommended it), but it will never be a great hole unless you apply some major surgery with significant cut/fill.