The original Redan....

[Rich Goodale]

....was an interesting hole, to say the least.  I recently found this snippent from the official North Berwick history page:

"The 15th tee close to the previous green required a cleek or iron shot which must pitch over another wall, so far and no further - and then a full drive or brassy shot to carry just over a bunker escarpment not inaptly called 'Redan'."

Note that the hole was played in reverse, first a short shot over a wall and then a full shot to the green.  Also note that it was the escarpment from which the name "Redan" arose and not the green itself.

We have discussed this before, but this is the first tiome I've seen a description of the original hole in print.  For further interesting anecdotes about the course, go to www.northberwick.org.uk.

[BCrosby]

Rich -

Until what date did the 15th play that way? Darwin's book (1910) describes the "famous Redan" in terms that sound something like the current hole, though I might be mis-remembering my Darwin.

Bob

[Rich Goodale]

Bob

I can't remember since I've returned the NB history books I was using to my neighbour, but it was well before 1900.  If you want me to try to find out, I'll go across the street and ask.

Rich

[Paul Jones]

Rich -

Until what date did the 15th play that way? Darwin's book (1910) describes the "famous Redan" in terms that sound something like the current hole, though I might be mis-remembering my Darwin.

Bob

This is from the website that Rich refers too - http://www.northberwick.org.uk/west.html

"Famous Redan Hole

Like many of the great holes in golf, first impressions of the 192 yard, par 3 15th are deceptive, and only by playing the hole several times does it reveal it's hidden subtleties. The mounds, ridges and depressions left after the sea receded gives the West Links it's natural contours and the 'Redan' was part of that evolution. In those days the constraints of the feathery ball determined the length of each hole and the green was positioned on the nearest flat ground. Often a ridge crossing the path of play was used for the green and that is how the 'Redan' was created by nature. The green is laid out on a diagonal sloping plateau with bunkers on the face of the ridge and under the shoulder of the green, on the left and right. The 'Redan' came into play as the 6th hole in 1869 when the course was extended over a stone wall known as the March Dyke to make nine holes.

The name 'Redan' comes from the Crimean War, when the British captured a Russian held fort or in the local dialect, a redan. A serving officer John White-Melville is credited on his return as describing the 6th like the formidable fortress or redan he had encountered at Sebastopol. Conquered only after nearly a year of attrition which left over 20,000 British soldiers dead and four times as many French. The word 'Redan' is now part of the English language, and the definition given by the Oxford Dictionary is 'Fort - A work having two faces forming a salient towards the enemy.'

During the 1880s the bunkers were strengthen with railway sleepers (railroad ties) to allow the green to be enlarged, and in 1895 when the course was lengthened the 'Redan' became the 15th hole. Since then only the position of the teeing ground has been altered. The green is blind from the tee and the player has to shape the shot into the prevailing wind, allowing for the ball to finish below the flag stick. The slope of the green runs diagonally from right to left, and anything above the hole is in three putt country. The bunkers on two sides, deep enough for the player to disappear from view add to the difficulty of securing par. The wind direction plays an integral part on every hole and the 192 yards can be covered from an eight iron to a driver, depending on the conditions. "

[BCrosby]

Thanks Paul. 

[TEPaul]

Richard the Magnificent:

Do you think it matters anymore what that hole might have been eons ago and how it played then, except as an historical curiosity?

I think the way Paul Jones just described all the chararacteristics and shot value playability is the best way to describe what a real redan hole or green is about or should be.

To date, the best I have ever seen are:

1. NGLA's #4
2. North Berwick's #15
3. Piping Rock's #3
4. The NLE "reverse" redan at the NLE Links Club in Long Island

On every one of those holes when the conditions are ideal (F&F) the deal is to play the ball enough away from the direct line to the pin to allow it to bounce and run, generally on the approach, and then filter onto the green and then down and away to the pin (it's all about what they call "weight"). If someone does not understand the design or its playablilty of this kind of ideal redan hole the tendency may be to instinctively play the ball more at the pin and then even with a well executed shot the result is down and away and gone----off the back of the green!

[Rich Goodale]

Tom

Of course it is just an historical curiosity, but it's a real humdinger of one, n'est-ce pas?  A bit like finding out that the 10th at Merion used to be an Alps hole!

Paul

Thanks for the other interesting quote.  Please tell TEP that you didn't write that, or did you?  In either case, well done.

Rich

THIS POST IS AN EMOTICON-FREE ZONE AND I HAVE APPROVED OF IT.

rfg

[Paul Jones]

Sorry, I did not write that - as stated above, I only copied and pasted the quote from North Berwick website and put the quotation marks around it to indicate that.

Paul

[TEPaul]

Richard the Clever:

In the future please do not speak to me in French---even a word of it. Even that is too close to THOSE people for my liking!


(Another emoticon-free post)

PS:
Actually, you can mention one thing to me in French. How do you say "Ideal Maintenance Meld" in French?

[Kirk Gill]

Here's an illustration of the Redan at NGLA by Franklin Booth from the May, 1909 edition of Scribner's magazine. For those who have played it, or know its history, how accurate would you say this image is? Sure looks like a fort to me !

[TEPaul]

Kirk:

From an "artistic" perspective that one would pretty much have to be called an "interpretation" and definitely not a "representation". 

[Matt_Cohn]

That looks like #16 green at PGA West...

[Ally Mcintosh]

Richard,

I'm just back from playing 36 holes at North Berwick and I can't relate that description to any hole that would play in reverse to the Redan green... I could see it applying to a Par-4 from the current 14th fairway perhaps... unless the wall being talked about doesn't exist any more...

How do you read it?

Thanks,
Ally

[Rich Goodale]

Ally

By "reverse" I meant that it was a two shot hole which called for a pitch off the tee and then a drive to the green, or as it is often referred to, the Moe Norman Conjecture.  Same location (of the green) and in the same direction.  Sorry for being so confusing.

Hope you enjoyed your game and my imprecision did not throw you off.

Rich

[Ally Mcintosh]

Ahhh... Apologies for my ignorance... That makes perfect sense then...

Any idea where that tee may have been?

[Dan King]

I was going to post on this on a new thread, but since the thread came back up this is a good place.

When you said reverse, I also thought you meant playing the hole from somewhere toward the current 17th green.

Dougie Seaton's source for his description of the Redan is Horace C. Hutchinson's The Badminton Library: Golf. His report is of the short 18 hole course, before they got the land beyond the burn. This would have been between 1877 and 1890 (when The Badminton Library: Golf that was reprinted by the Classics of Golf was first published.}

The 14th hole played short of the sandhill which now has to be carried to reach the current 14th green. The tee (assuming their was a tee -- it isn't until 1882 the R&A requires teeing areas) would have been roughly where drives land on the current 14th and then played to the 15th green.

At least according to Hutchinson, the old North Berwick seemed to be covered with walls. A couple walls remain, but it would seem a number of stone walls were removed when the course was expanded beyond the burn.

Putting together Kerr, Blyth and Hutchinson, it looks like North Berwick would have been the equivalent of a par 59-61. But the course record before the expanding was a 72 -- the same as at St. Andrews.
Hole 1: One shotter
Hole 2: Two-shotter
Hole 3: Two shotter
Hole 4: One-shotter
Hole 5: One-shotter
Hole 6: One-shotter
Hole 7: One-shotter
Hole 8: One-shotter
Hole 9: Two-shotter?
Hole 10: One-shotter
Hole 11: One-shotter
Hole 12: Two-shotter
Hole 13: One-shotter
Hole 14: One-shotter
Hole 15: Two-shotter
Hole 16: Two-shotter
Hole 17: Two-shotter
Hole 18: One-shotter?

Hutchinson's account is fascinating. I've quoted Hutchinson saying, "Scenery is not, of course golf; but golf is a pleasanter recreation when played in the midst of pleasant scenery," without realizing he was talking about North Berwick.

Cheers,
Dan King

... and then we come to the stranger is one of the most sensational shots in golf. The high sandhills in from curtailing your horizon, you have to harden your heart to drive, as it seems, into the midst of the German Ocean; but instead, if you played on the line laid down for you, you will find that you have carried a little corner of the beach, which bays in, and are lying on the putting-green of a hole protected by sandhills from the waves, which are splashing on the other side of them.
 --Horace Hutchinson (describing the old 13th hole: Perfection?, in The Badminton Library: Golf 1890)

[Rich Goodale]

Dan

Wasn't the 1st once a par-6, with the tee about 200 yards behind the current one near where there now is a public putting green?

Rich

[Tim Leahy]

That looks like #16 green at PGA West...

Good call, I wonder if Pete Dye considered this.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Of course it is just an historical curiosity, but it's a real humdinger of one, n'est-ce pas?  A bit like finding out that the 10th at Merion used to be an Alps hole!-RF Goodale


I don't understand why this information is a ' real humdinger'. 

[Dan King]

Richard Farnsworth Goodale writes:
Wasn't the 1st once a par-6, with the tee about 200 yards behind the current one near where there now is a public putting green?

There would have been no such thing as a par-6 back in the day. I've seen nothing to support a long hole, starting near the current public putting green. It seems a little weird to me they would give up that land, but maybe they decided to do that when they built the pro shop. Since that dates from 1888, hard to imagine a really long hole to the first green prior to 1888. I could imagine some people deciding to play it as an unofficial starting point when the crowds were lite.

Also this two-shotter Redan hole would not have been the original Redan. The original Redan, the one C.B. Macdonald would have first seen, dates from 1868-1870, when the course expanded from six to nine holes. From Uncle Blyth's account, it was a one-shotter coming from the southwest. It would seem when the hole was turned into a two-shotter, when the course became an 18 hole course, the shot came from the opposite side of the green.

Cheers,
Dan King

If your heart fails you and you drive to what looks something more like  terra firma, to the right, you will find yourself wedged up somewhat too firmly against the too solid masonry of the wall of the woods – for we are again passing through the ‘Shipka.’
 --Horace C. Hutchinson The Badminton Library: Golf describing the 14th hole at North Berwick)

[DMoriarty]

I was looking through Horace Hutchinson's The Badminton Library: Golf and trying to make sense of the description of the holes at North Berwick and recalled this thread.   As Dan mentioned above, the author of NB's official history appears to have been relying on Hutchinson's description, but as I read it he may have been slightly confused when it came to assigning hole numbers.  

From the North Berwick history site:
"The 15th tee close to the previous green required a cleek or iron shot which must pitch over another wall, so far and no further - and then a full drive or brassy shot to carry just over a bunker escarpment not inaptly called 'Redan'."

Hutchinson, page 309:
"Then comes a cleek or iron shot which must pitch just over another wall, so far and no further—and then a full drive or brassy shot to carry you just over a bunker escarpment not inaptly called 'the Redan.'"

One can see that Hutchinson was the source, but Hutchinson's description does not mention the hole number.  After looking at the descriptions of the rest of the holes I think the North Berwick history site may have inadvertently combined the 14th and 15th holes into a single hole.  Here are Hutchinson's descriptions of the holes from pages 308-309.  I've added the corresponding hole numbers in bold:

10 HOLES OUT
1st:There is the first, ' Point Garry,' high up above you, with every prospect, unless almost perfectly played, of your ball rolling down a steep place into the sea.
2nd: Then at the next hole you are most apt to find yourself by the sad sea waves, if you heel at all; or if you pull, to be under the garden wall of St. Anne's house.
3rd: Then comes a hole on a little plateau most exasperatingly difficult to stay on—  
4th: after which a hole, which is just a comfortable drive, in a little triangle formed by a wall and two bunkers.  
5th: Then we play a cleek shot into an angle of a wall, for our next hole,
6th: and then a full iron shot over two walls and the corner of a fir-wood.
7th: This brings us to the ' Shipka Pass' hole—a very narrow course between the wall which skirts the wood and the sandhills which line the seashore. It is only a cleek shot, but any error in line or distance is fraught with disaster.
8th: Then, another little hole—just an iron shot in the angle of the wood and a fence of a field. So that, altogether we have in succession five holes which on a calm day may be easily reached in a stroke a-piece, and we begin to forget what our driver feels like.
9th and 10th:  The last two holes out are rather uninteresting, though there is a chance of getting into a quarry in one of them and into a burn in the other—and so we have finished the ten holes out and start upon the eight of the home-coming.

8 HOLES IN
11th:  Not described.
12th: The second in gives a pretty little pitch for the second shot, just over a wall, with sandhills beyond,
13th: and then we come to what to the stranger is one of the most sensational shots in golf. The high sandhills in front curtailing your horizon, you have to harden your heart to drive, as it seems, into the midst of the German Ocean ; but instead, if you have played on the line laid down for you, you will find that you have carried a little corner of the beach, which bays in, and are lying on the putting-green of a hole protected by sandhills from the waves which are splashing on the other side of them. If your heart fails you and you drive to what looks something more like terra firma, to the right, you will find yourself wedged up somewhat too firmly against the too solid masonry of the wall of the wood—for we are again now passing through the ' Shipka.'
14th: Then comes a cleek or iron shot which must pitch just over another wall, so far and no further—
15th: and then a full drive 01 brassy shot to carry you just over a bunker escarpment not inaptly called 'the Redan.'
16th and 17th: Two more holes—of respectable length, these—bring us again on the height of ' Point Garry,'
18th: thence to drive off into space, gravitating in ' the season' into crowds of children and nursemaids, for the home hole beside the Club.

To me it looks as if the 14th was a pitch over a wall, then the 15th was over the bunker escarpment called the Redan.   Otherwise the hole numbers don't add up.    Does this make sense, or am I missing something here?  

Thanks.  

[Rich Goodale]

David (and Dan K, et. al)

There is ample historical evidence that the Redan was played as a two-shot hole for some number of years.  At that time the green for the 14th (now "Perfection", then called "Alps") was short and lft of the current one, and the tee for the 15th (Redan) was to its right.  It did indeed seem to require "......a cleek or iron shot which must pitch over another wall, so far and no further - and then a full drive or brassy shot to carry just over a bunker escarpment not inaptly called 'Redan'."

In your hole by hole above it is clear that what you call the 12th is actualy today's 13th (the famous "Pit").  What you call the 13th is the 14th Perfection/Alps/Shiska, and what you call the 14th is just the tee shot for the 15h "Redan."

Rich

PS--Jim K, see above as to why I called the 2-shot Redan a "humdinger"
PPS-Dan K, you are tight that there were not par-6's in ye olden days.  They were called "Bogey-6's".  Mea culpa....
PPPS--don't expect any immediate replies as I will be in an internet free zone from the next two days.

[Melvyn Morrow]

I thought you may be interested in a couple of old reports on North Berwick Golf Course.

First is from February 1877 and is part of a report about the current extension from 9 to 18 including what was done between the existing Redan & Gate Holes.








The Second is from November 1906 on the Alternations on the North Berwick Golf Course.



Hope it is of interest.

Melvyn

[Wayne_Kozun]

Is there any reason why NB wasn't used for The Open Championship after these changes in 1877?  The event was still held at the Musselburgh Links in 1877,80,83,86,89 and then Muirfield first hosted in 1892.  After the resumption in 1872 there seemed to be a 3 course rota of Prestwick, TOC and Musselburgh.  Surely NB would have been a strong course then Musselburgh after these changes, but I presume the politics would have meant that the HCEG still wanted to hold the event at their home course?

[DMoriarty]

David (and Dan K, et. al)

There is ample historical evidence that the Redan was played as a two-shot hole for some number of years.

Aside from the history you site above, what evidence is their that the hole was playes as a two-shot hole for some number of years?  What years?

At that time the green for the 14th (now "Perfection", then called "Alps") was short and lft of the current one, and the tee for the 15th (Redan) was to its right.  It did indeed seem to require "......a cleek or iron shot which must pitch over another wall, so far and no further - and then a full drive or brassy shot to carry just over a bunker escarpment not inaptly called 'Redan'."

In your hole by hole above it is clear that what you call the 12th is actualy today's 13th (the famous "Pit").  What you call the 13th is the 14th Perfection/Alps/Shiska, and what you call the 14th is just the tee shot for the 15h "Redan."

Then Hutchinson had it wrong, because he wrote that there were 10 holes out and 8 holes in, and he definitely refers to what I call the 12th the "second hole in."

Also, It looks to me like early on what you call the "Perfection/Alps/Shiska" used to be two holes (the 13th and 14th) not one.  See Hutchinson's description the report posted by Melvyn below, where he describes the 13th as a one shot hole if played properly.

Also, see the report Melvyn posted below.   My understanding is that the boundary wall of the old course was not far behind the Redan tee.  escribing the new section of the course, it again describes this narrow portion of the course as "two holes" and notes the second hole was a pitch to the home side of a wall.  

Of the return journey through the mountainous country of the bents, which is now regained, all that need be said is that this comparatively narrow course has been so well manipulated that outgoing and incoming parties never need embarrass one another, and that rough as is the country off the course, balls that are deserving will ever lie in "safety." With two holes in this part of the links, the last pitched on an exceptionally fine putting green on the "home" side of the boundary wall of the old course, the play over the new ground finishes, and beginning with the "Redan" hole, the hitherto well-worn track is resumed.

From this report it seems that the "boundary wall of the old course is the one just west of the tee for the "Redan" and the 14th green must have been just over that wall.  

As far as I can tell from this report, the IN portion of this course was:

11th:  Similar distance to 10th.
12th:  Two shot hole which required tee shot over the over the gap (or pit) of the quarry.
13th:  First of two holes back through the narrow mountainous portion of the course.
14th:  Second of two holes back through the narrow mountainous portion of the course, requiring a pitch to a green on the home side of the boundary wall.
15th-18th:  Same final three holes, starting with the Redan (formerly the 6th.)  The  tee for the Redan was on the home (east) side of the boundary wall and therefor must have been a one shot hole.  

Look, I realize that you guys know this place and I don't.   But, based on the old accounts, if the Redan was a two-shot hole as described by Rich, then the numbers just do not add up.   What other evidence is there that the Redan was a two shot hole?

Also, in the description quoted by Rich, the second shot was "either a full drive or a brassie shot."   I've never seen reference to a "full drive" for a second shot before.  Normally this means a driver off the tee.  A full drive off of the ground on an approach?    In my experience, those old drivers were not made for driver off the deck.  

__________________

Melvyn, thanks very much for posting those reports.  Great stuff.