Rank the Raynors

[TEPaul]

JohnC;

Thank you, but I'm sorry to say I'm really illiterate with computers and I have no idea how to cut and paste to another thread.

[brad_miller]

Tom, thank you for the wonderful post, Maidstone over NGLA and CPC for every day play for the rest of your life? You know there is an alternative route to 16

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Some deranged individual is posting under your name.

Maidstone over NGLA ?

Clearly, this individual is not in possession of his faculties.
AND KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT GOLF COURSE ARCHITECTURE.

Post a retraction as soon as possible, otherwise lurkers may be lead to think you actually believe what this deranged individual has posted.

[Mike Hendren]

Thurston was a better proprietor.  Seth was a better golf course architect.  

[Scott_Burroughs]

When Biarritz mentioned the Road Hole at Yeamans, I was stumped.  I couldn't remember any hole that looked like a Road Hole (it's #7).  The tee shot over water threw me off a little, but the fact that it's a dead straight hole, instead of the usual dogleg right, threw me off a lot.  I would have never pictured a straight Road Hole.  You learn something every day.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Don't get too concerned over my mention of Maidstone as a course I'd like to play for the rest of my days. If I could play half as well as ten years ago maybe I would say something different.

These are my feelings about certain architecture and I guess I have a different way of looking at things than people who think of everything in the context of rankings and Doak scale numbers etc.

I really love Maidstone but I'm not recommending it for a future US Open! But I do love difference in architecture too and I think there is something that anyone who's really into architecture can learn from Maidstone that's unique to it and its style of architecture!

Look at it this way--it's a course that has tees, occasional "body of hole" bunkering but basically the architecture doesn't really start until you get on or very close to the green and green-end. Then go back and think about the golf course generally, playing it, and what it feels like and what that means exactly and you might find as I do that it's  pretty damn interesting, cool and unique! And then ask yourself why that is!

[BCrosby]

Scott -

I too was scratching my head when reference was made to the Road hole at Yeamans.

Are you sure it's no. 7?  If so, that's a real flight of imagination.  The left greenside bunker doesn't look or play much like the Road Hole Bunker.  Is the long bunker along the back right of the green supposed to be an imitation of the "Road"?  There's no dogleg.  Moderate length, less than 400 yards as I recall.

Not that it's a bad hole, it's just that I would have never imagined it to be the Road Hole.  Let alone ranked as Raynor's best.  Frankly, I was guessing that it was no. 15.  (That's how poorly developed by Raynor instincts are.)

I have the same problem figuring out how no. 14 at Mid-O is supposed to be a Road Hole, though I've heard it was changed by RTJ in the '50's to its current look.

Bob  

[Scott_Burroughs]

Bob,

I had to look it up on the GCA writeup on Yeamans here:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/yeamans1.html

since I certainly couldn't find it here (7 goes through the middle, narrow part of pic):

[SPDB]

piping's in my mind is the best road. I know tom paul disagrees. with the new tee that spear has created in the polo field, the hole is even better with the angles more closely resembling the original.

i also think piping wins the knoll match over Yeamans as well, mainly because of topography

[George Bahto]

hole 7 at Yeamans Hall is the Road hole - a letter by Raynor left to the club verifies it - it's right after #6 Redan

in the mapquest above, the Road bunker is partially obliterated by the shadows of the trees