Olympic Club - Progress or Vandalism?

[Ben Sims]

Vandalism it is !

Having just played the course for the first time, the new 8th hole sticks out in ways few holes can, or, ever will. The actual hole (Teeing ground and Green) is neither here nor there, but, It's placement (It's route) is simply horrible. The walk to the tee from the 7th green seems farther than the whole hole and it's all back tracking. OC is a tough enough walk. Allowing this hole to be built in it's current form is architectural mal-practice. Subsequent thoughts are frustratingly homicidal. Frustrating because one doesn't know who to off.

Adam,

Glad this thread got some new life.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  OC is a classical beauty that has been rode hard and put up wet.  I believe you and I had the same host, and his idea about #7 green to #9 tee rang true with me the day I played there.  I've seen pictures of the shorter/blind landing #8, and it looked to be a better hole.  Were the fairway mowing lines still jacked up on your visit this week? 

God I wish I could've seen that course circa 1962.

As an aside, we drove over to the par three course and it looked delightful.

[Wayne Wiggins, Jr.]

In the end, the Olympic Club is known for hosting US Open Championships.  Doing this is more important to the club than architectural significance thus guiding their decisions on the golf course.  Whether you like the "new" 8th hole or not, they needed to do it to continue to host US Open's and remain a test for the world's best golfers.  No doubt Olympic Club has it's place in history and is an excellent test of golf but I think the California Golf Club is preferred over Olympic.

don't you need to offer a "full disclosure" statement after that one?    

Seriously, i agree that the "championship" angle comes up quite a bit in support of the new 8th, as I've aften heard other Olympians say "can't have any weak holes on an US Open course".  With that said, what about 7 @ Pebble... 13 @ Merion... 12 @ Augusta... etc... just don't think a short hole necessarily means a weak hole. 

My one contention, is that we play this new version of the hole, on a regular basis, about 10 yds too deep... we basically went from a 8I or 9I to playing a 4I and I think if we were to land somewhere in the middle, say a 160 yd. shot, that would sooth some of the wounds.  Oh yeah, take out that back bunker too.

[Kevin_Reilly]

Wayne -- good call on the disclosure.  And I don't know how someone on the outside can opine on what is important to the club or not.   I certainly wouldn't talk about what is important at SF Club, Lake Merced or Cal Club.

Re: the old 8th, I don't know anyone who would include it in the same sentence or even paragraph as the other three short holes you mentioned.  You wouldn't say it was comparable in terms of challenge or interest at a short length as those, would you?  The 8th was certainly a great fit in between 7 and 9, but in my opinion it was never a hole you thought about before or after playing it...it was just a nice connector between the fun 7th and the demanding 9th.   

And re the discussion of the hole from way back in history, I'm still waiting to hear the merits of an uphill, blind 130 yd approach to a hole with a biarritz green.  When your ball is in the swale 99.9% of the time should you pine for a roll-through to the back level like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin?

Improving the walk from 7 to 8 is not the most difficult task in the history of gca.  The young cypress trees around the tee will grow, and I am hopeful that egress for walkers will be improved....I know for a fact that the aesthetics of the transition is something that the club recognizes.  Let's not get carried away and turn the walk into some kind of death march ala Poppy Ridge.

I for one have no interest in playing the Lake Course circa 1998 over the current version.  And I don't know (any)many who would.




 

[Adam Clayman]

Meadow Club was sick good from the go. Loved the opening sequences and the front nine flew by with everyone in the foursome giddy over the fun factor. I adored the 16th especially. The 8th was sureal. The 17th green was pure MacNifficent. As was the closer The whole place exuded simple elegance. The split fairway at 13/15? made me wonder if there aren't a few more opportunities out there for that kind of intimacy.

Tyler, I sunk a 50 footer on 3 for 3. 1 putted the first 3 out of four. It was a great front nine with Jim and two elder gentleman. One of which finished birdie par par.

Saw Tully twice during the round which was a treat. He was witness to my immediate infatuation with 16. Before and after coming up woefully short with my sand wedge.

Kevin, As I qualified, I saw OClub from a far. And my recollection from 98' is nothing to bank on. But, I seemed to recall more cross carries, with different sharper angles on the few holes I did see. The tree removal is a start but apparently not on going. Heck it was practically dark on the north and/or east end of the property by 4 pm. I don't see any fix for the routing catastrophe going to the 8th.

Ben, The rough lines were arbitrary and made ZERO sense. Even though the rough was cut. 16 was an awful long slog. But by then, I was total F'd out and out of gas.

[Mike Benham]

And my recollection from 98' is nothing to bank on. But, I seemed to recall more cross carries, with different sharper angles on the few holes I did see.

Huh   Cross carries?  Sharper angles?  Can you provide more color on what you mean by those definitions.  I checked the GCA bible and couldn't find one ...

[Adam Clayman]

Think Raynor on steroids.

The best I can do is bring up similar type greens. Harbottle's 17th at the course in Nampa Idaho. Bunkers that are in front of the green with the entrance to the green on a side with a steep uhphill nature to them. Hey, Mike, Can you understand how feeble my recollection is? If you would just tell me the approach looks have not changed I would believe you. But, in either case, the bunker right, bunker left, green front, is not how I remember it. Nothing special in my book. Been there seen that a zillion times.

[David_Tepper]

Adam -

I have played golf on the OC Lake course for almost 30 years, I do not think the greenside bunkering and/or the shape/slope of the greens have changed in any material way over that time. The obvious exceptions are the 7th & 8th holes and the 18 green, which was flattened and the re-sloped.

In my mind, the tree removal over the past several years is far & away the most dramatic change on the property over this period. I would love to see it continue on the lower portion of the property.  

DT
  

[Adam Clayman]

Thanx David. That's all I needed to hear to know my observations were long ago and from far away. It is amazing they are able to grow grass with so little direct sunlight. MAybe thats why it's so soft?

[David_Tepper]

Adam -

Between the dense tree lines, the coastal fog and the fact that the property slopes away from the afternoon sun, the Lake Course has always played on the soft (to very soft) side.

To Mr. Finlen's credit, he did engage in a multi-year project to spread a lot of sand over the Lake course several years ago. The course certainly drains better in the winter months than it used to.

To amend my prior post, the green and the greenside bunkering on the par-3 15th hole has also be altered a bit since the 1998 Open.

I should also add that the idea to alter the 7th & 8th holes did not originate with Pat Finlen. I recall the possibility of those changes being made was raised a good 5-10 years before he was hired by the club.

DT  

[Mike Benham]

 Hey, Mike, Can you understand how feeble my recollection is? If you would just tell me the approach looks have not changed I would believe you. But, in either case, the bunker right, bunker left, green front, is not how I remember it. Nothing special in my book. Been there seen that a zillion times.

To clarify, are speaking specifically to the 8th hole?  If so, yes, the current configuration is 100% different then the old version for the definition you stated.

I thought that you were commented on many other holes on the course that had "Cross carries" and "sharper angles" ... All the other 16 holes remain unchanged in their direction/set-up since 1998 or so when you last saw it.

A comment about the trees, sunlight and softness.

The aforementioned superintendent and staff did a remarkable job in firming up the course, at least for a while. 

Unfortunately, it has become soft again and at the risk of getting myself in trouble by making a stupid uneducated statement, I question why they even TURNED ON the irrigation system in the past month or so.  It should be getting firmer this time of the year, not softer each week.

[Carl Nichols]

The first time I played Olympic Lake I was amazed by how damp it was.  That, together with the cool weather, made the course play much longer than its yardage.   

[Kevin_Reilly]

Mike, the course in recent years has played firmer than the other courses adjacent to Lake Merced (all of them) and in my experience that is still the case. So that is a "relative" comment, FWIW.

[Joel_Stewart]

Bump.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Kevin you are correct as to the relative softness. the Cal club is the only true firm and fast course I know of in the area 12 months a year. MPCC Shore is the only firm and fast course on the Monterey Pen.

[scott_wood]

Joel,THANKS for the bump......timely....and rivetingly interseting.......I feel sheepish to have missed it......

And now, back to  NBC.......
did Johnny really just call the final twosome "anal"......love Johnny, (most of the time)

[Gib_Papazian]

Many years ago, we had a Green Chairman/Autocrat named Dr. Carl Borders, who was every bit as pedantic on the subject of golf architecture as I am, the difference being that I did not have a dozer at my disposal (as he did) to test out design theories on the Ocean Course.

The idea of lengthening the 8th hole had been discussed for years prior to the Bill Love redesign (or debacle, depending on how aesthetically challenged the observer happens to be) - including possibly lengthening the 7th hole by placing the putting surface either in the gully or as a terraced target on the hillside. The idea was to preserve the integrity of the routing so we would not have an idiotic backtrack.

At the time, I was against the change under the theory that #2-6 were so difficult that a pair of short holes provided a necessary breather. I cannot believe I'm admitting this, but Dr. Borders had an excellent solution that we ought to have revisited. His thought was to leave #7 as it is (or restore it to two tiers as we have done, but without lengthening it ) and build an alternate tee up the hillside so that #8 could effectively be played from two directions.

Naturally, two cypress trees would have had to go and the bunkering modified so that the aesthetic would work from both angles, but compared to the mess of awkward tees and cement cart paths we ended up with, we must be out of our minds to have chosen this option.

From the tee, the new hole is pretty - and taken as an individual architectural expression, competently executed. The problem is that it has not grown on me. It is still a disjointed, artificial, CCFAD golf hole that blows chunks all over the intimacy and flow of the routing. It reminds me of #2 at Bandon Dunes - an obtuse, poorly conceived, out-of-context non-sequitur forced on the land against the laws of nature and geometry. There is a reason David Kidd put those terrific tees above the 1st green at Bandon; having played them several times, I cannot fathom why the resort still chooses to have everyone go through the exercise of backtracking down the hill.

We were not smart enough at Olympic to construct alternate tees, so now we're stuck with a ribbon of cement and a golf hole that sticks out like a nun in a cathouse.              

[Joel_Stewart]

I can't help but bring this back up.  Written many years ago, I warned the club, the board, the greens chairman, the superintendent and the green committee they are heading down the wrong path. 


Finally, someone in 2019, made the decision to fire the person responsible and in 2020 they have hired a competent architect.  I'm not going to be a homer and expect Olympic to rise in the ratings significantly, but it should at least become stable.
 

[David_Tepper]

Just to offer another point of view, how "wrong" could the path be if the OC Lake is hosting a US Women's Open, a US Am, a PGA Championship and a Ryder Cup over the next 13 years?

[John Kavanaugh]

I was just out there and played the par three course. Most cars I had ever seen at a golf course in my life.

[Eric LeFante]

I'm curious how much work Gil Hanse will be doing prior to the US Women's Open, June 3-6, 2021, and if he will be doing any work after that championship.

[David_Tepper]

Eric -

Per my comments on this other thread (http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,67947.0.html), Gil Hanse will likely be doing little or no work on the Lake prior to the 2021 Women's Open.

His initial brief is to develop a master plan for the entire property, to improve the club's practice facilities and to make changes to the Ocean & Cliffs courses as needed.

DT

[Eric LeFante]

Eric -

Per my comments on this other thread (http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,67947.0.html), Gil Hanse will likely be doing little or no work on the Lake prior to the 2021 Women's Open.

His initial brief is to develop a master plan for the entire property, to improve the club's practice facilities and to make changes to the Ocean & Cliffs courses as needed.

DT

David,


Sorry I missed your comment in the other thread. The reports are that Gil will make a presentation in the summer and work will begin in the fall, which is why I questioned the timing. Makes perfect sense that work won't begin on the Lake until after the Women's Open.