Ok, it is time to view some 'before' and 'after' photos of RG. The 'before' photos are from a visit to the course in 2007, the 'after' from last Friday afternoon with Mayday Malone (he shot 71, BTW) and a couple of other friends of mine, one of which is also a RG member.
I'm basically going to hi-lite mostly some of the bunker changes. To me the obvious is that they enlarged and deepened many bunkers, the result being many greenside bunkers are closer to the green, and they combined bunkers in a few places as well. It seems many of the greenside bunkers were brought closer to the green by simply taking off the grass faces that most bunkers possessed.
No 1 before, where left of the green are two bunkers:
No 1 after, where these two bunkers have been combined:
No 2 before, showing the three FW bunkers left:
No 2 after, where the biggest bunker is now 'on top':
I asked Mike to step into that top bunker so that we have some idea of the size of them:
Some other changes at/near #2 green is that the bushes and wall and some trees have been removed which has really cleaned up the look of the area, as this before pic shows:
Here's a similar 'after' pic from a slightly different angle:
And this 'after' pic from standing on the tee of the par 3 3rd, which has been moved back some, better shows how nice and clean this area is now:
The 'before' pic on #3 shows two bunkers left:
And here are two 'after' versions:
Here's an 'after' photo of one of the greenside bunkers left on No 4 looks, where the top-line of the bunker is not so grassy and as a result it is a bit closer to the green:
On the par 4 5th hole, there was a FW bunker right that was not really visible from the tee. It is now:
This 'before' pic shows two greenside bunkers right on the 5th:
This 'after' version shows they've been combined, and the front of the bunker extended out 35 yards from the green. This pic also shows my drive in the lower left-ish part of the photo, and it is in the FW, which has been widened out from an area that used to be rough:
The 'before' bunkering on the par 3 6th:
And 'after' bunkering:
I think of all the changes made in this restoration, the most talked about involves a couple of bunkers added short and right on the par 5. Here is a 'before' photo taken from behind the green that shows the way the whole land short and right is canted, which allowed a shot to be tumbled down onto the green:
Here is the 'after' photo showing that two bunkers have been placed in that area:
Why were they added? Perhaps Mayday wants to comment further on this. Or not.
It seems to me that this was sort of a nice 'breather hole' before playing the next three holes, which are all pretty tough, so I would have preferred no additional bunkers added to the 7th.
'Before' pic of the greenside bunkers at the 8th:
And 'after' versions:
On the par 3 10th, which plays uphill and 250+ yards now, this 'before' pic taken from behind the 9th green shows all kinds of recent and not so recently planted trees left of the hole:
And here is the 'before' pic from the tee, showing the trees left:
And here is the tee 'after' views from behind the 9th green and from the 10th tee:
Bunkers were combined left of the green on 10 as well:
The 'before' pic showing the FW bunker left on the 11th:
And the 'after' pic showing the enlargement and shape change (also note the greenside bunkers are larger):
A comparison of greenside bunker right on the 11th, before:
And 'after' where the grass face is much less pronounced in this zoomed photo:
As we waited to tee off on the 12th, we learned why a catbird nearby was chirping like mad: a young red-tail was nearby and it decided to land on the ground near the 11th green. The darn thing was practically domesticated and I got as close to a wild one as ever, snapping many pics. All I could hear was Mayday in the background doing his Marlin Perkins imitation..."while Joe is up documenting the young bird from about 6 feet away, about to be attacked, I'm back here on the tee drinking my Dana Safari coffee"....
The 'before' bunkering at the green of the par 4 12th:
And 'after':
The 'before' on the uphill par 3 14th:
And the 'after' which I think has a new bunker added short and right of the green:
A 'before' tee view of the green at the par 3 16th:
And the 'after' view from the tee where two back bunkers have been combined into one:
A close-up of those two bunkers 'before':
And now 'after' as one bunker:
Perhaps a distant 2nd in terms of chatter to those bunkers added on the 7th hole are a change at the par 5 17th. Here is the 'before' view from the tee on this dogleg left hole:
The 'after' shows a new bunker added right:
A close-up 'before' view of the bunker left of the green:
A view 'after' of that bunker looking up to the green:
Overall I'm very impressed with the changes made at Rolling Green. Sure, there is some room to quibble, maybe even squawk a bit (like on the 7th), but IMO the course is even better now than before, and it has always been one of my favorites.