Interested in opinions on The Biarritz style at Yale and Fishers

[Jim_Kennedy]

Pat,
Meant to say 'push' shot. Probably a freudian slip, when I try it I fade.   

Bill,
What's a nice photo, thanks for posting it again.

Is that a twosome holding up the foursome?    

[TEPaul]

Pat:

You will definitely find this hard to believe but The Creek's Biarritz apparently had sand bunkers on either side of it originally. Just think about that for a moment and you'll realize that is really insane!  

It sort of looks like the Macdonald/Raynor record shows to some extent that if you put those two around some complex hydrological problems some things were not going to work out so well, and that is surely pretty ironic with Raynor since he was certainly a very competent professional surveyor/engineer. This seems to have been the plight of some of the holes of The Lido and definitely a few of them at The Creek. At The Creek, the fix itself actually cost more than it cost to build most any entire golf course. It also looks like the reason for Macdonald's departure!

[TEPaul]

Bill Brightly:

That is quite a photo of that Hackensack Biarritz in 1930. Just look at that thing and tell me how any golfer is going to get off something that big to the next hole without walking right through the sand in one of those formal bunkers. There was quite a bit of that originally on holes like that in the early days but I would love somebody to show me any photograph of a hole where that kind of thing lasted into the 1960s and 1970s and on with formal bunkering. What you will see is either wholesale sectional bunker removal or at the very least segmentation that's created by strips of grass walkways.

My suggestion with Fox Chapel's biarritz was for them to restore those two big flanking bunkers before the swale (all gone now) and just put grass walkways through the massively long bunkers on either side right out of both sides of the swale.

[Bill Brightly]

Tom,

You mean do this?

[Bill Brightly]

Here's what it looked like before. After Gordon worked on it in the 60's...(but we had already started the process of maintaining the front section as putting surface)

[DMoriarty]

The description of Yale's Biarritz published in Yale's magazine, published soon after the course was built:

Number 9. 225—210—190 yards. Par 3.
Has a water carry of 163 yards from the back tee. The green is guarded by a deep trench across the front; the approach is narrow, flanked by bunkers with water jutting in on the right front. The fairway is Lake Griest. This hole is copied from Biarritz and is the driver hole.

If the trench guarded the green "across the front," then the green must have been behind the trench, right?

ASIDE:  Jim Sullivan,  I am not sure if you are reading this thread, but notice that the approach was described as "narrow."  Looking at the photos (previous page and below) it was hardly what we would think of as "narrow."   In fact it looks to have been close to 30 yards wide; wider than the green.  But it does seem to be what we would fairly shallow, meaning that there isn't really too much room between the beginning of the approach and beginning of the swale (at least when one considers what comes before the approach.)   This reminded me of the early description of the "hog's back" approach where it is possible that the hog's back might be across the line of play instead of with it.)

[JESII]

I am.

Are you suggesting that the entire "approach" on that hole is representative of the Hogsback?

The Wigham definition better fits #17 at Merion than any other "Biarritz" I've seen (on here, or in person) and that's curious to me. Nobody would ever try to land the ball in the trench at Yale or any others posted here. Did CBM, Wigham, Raynor decide the defined hole was too dificult and they did not use the hogsback feature (whichever direction it may have been)?

[JMEvensky]

Is that a twosome holding up the foursome?    
 

Is it possible that these holes were,because of length and/or difficulty, treated as drivable 4-pars where it was common practice for the group on the green to wave ahead the group on the tee?Kind of like the hole in Connecticut(?) on the PGA Tour?

[Jim_Kennedy]

Jm,
I don't know, but most of these holes are on private courses so that's probably not much of an issue. One thing I do know, when you get done playing a Biarritz you don't find anyone on the next tee.  Good hole to stretch out the field.

[JMEvensky]

Jm,
I don't know, but most of these holes are on private courses so that's probably not much of an issue. One thing I do know, when you get done playing a Biarritz you don't find anyone on the next tee.  Good hole to stretch out the field.

The problem is that when nobody's waiting on the next tee,there's usually somebody waiting on the current tee.

You're probably right about the small membership part.But,if pace of play was such an issue in the day,maybe waving ahead the group behind was part of their solution.Maybe the philosophy was "you're not going to hit this green in regulation anyway so go ahead and fire and we'll putt out while you're walking to your chip/bunker shot".

All this from a 70 year old picture which,for all I know,just shows a guy swatting at an insect.

[Jim_Kennedy]

But it's been fun. In retrospect I think it's a threesome waiting, and it looks like Bob Toski taking a (practice) swing. 

[Niall C]

Gentlemen

If you want to see a great example (at least I think it is !) of a Biarritz then go to the Courses by Country section and click on Silloth on Solway in England. The very first photo that comes up is a side view of the 4th green (the Biarritz hole). Further on in the review there are further pics of the green, one of which shows a bit better the swale that runs half way through the green.

It might not look much but I can assure you on a links course where there is hard firm turf, that swale makes it very hard to judge the right distance to the pin whether it was before or after the swale.

The ground in front of the green gently slopes down from a bit of a hogs back as well as tending to shed poorly hit balls towards the pits on either side of the green. In summer you are generally hitting a half wedge for the second shot and it can be an achievement just holding the green. In front of the hogs back short of the green there is a depression in what is now the landing area in the fairway. Depending on where you land you have an obscured view of the green which makes it even harder.

The Course by Country review gives the course provinence to Willie Park but the original layout was by Davy Grant, a good East Lothian lad, and I think from memory of the clubs history that one of the Dunns might have had a hand. Anyway MacKenzie came along and suggested moving the tee back and the hole now plays 370 yards from the back tee although you can still see the original tee and I reckon it plays 220/230 yards although haven't checked. From the original tee location you have to play directly over the depression.

If you look at the hole on google earth, the location of the original tee is right of the path just before the fairway.

George Bhato - fyi it might be worth contacting Silloth to see if they can tell you whether the front section before the swale was intended to be green. Apparently when they built the greens at Silloth, as at a lot of early links courses, the put a layer of clay underneath to trap water. The club have in recent years rebuilt a couple of the greens and I suspect have tested most of the greens to determine whats underneath. It is possible that they have tested the 4th and might be able to tell you whether or not the front section has clay underneath.

I would suspect it wasn't as Cecil Leitch, the famous Silloth golfer from the early part of the century used to refer to Silloths pocket handkerchief size greens.

Niall  

[Ari Techner]

I have played most of the Raynor and MacDonald Biarritz holes.  IMO the only one that really still plays the way that it was originally intended is the 4th hole at Lookout Mountain.  Only the back half is green but the topography of the hole is such that it plays slightly dowhill and very much down mountain so that any running shot that lands short will bound forward through the swale on the green.  When it is dry and firm a ball that lands on the green, even in the front, most often will come to a stop over the green leaving the player with an extremely tough recovery. 

I really enjoy the varied clubs that you can hit on some of the full length Biarritz greens.  One time on consecutive rounds at Shoreacres I hit a 9 iron followed by a 3 wood which imo is great fun.  But the only Biarritz that I have played that actually still plays as described is the one at Lookout Mountain. 

[TEPaul]

Ari:

You make an interesting point there----eg that most all biarritzes today have green-space before the swale (with perhaps Lookout Mountain being the sole exception) while research seems to show that none of them had green-space before the swale originally. Pretty ironic really.

[TEPaul]

Niall:

I just checked out your post and the fourth on Silloth. That's a great looking green but I don't see it as a biarritz even though I guess I can see why you might say that. Does the club refer to it as a biarritz?

If Ran did that course review he mentioned it was something like PV's first green and that certainly isn't a biarritz. I'm afraid if we get too general about these kinds of things we will begin to lose the differences and distinctions in golf architecture which is most of the interest.

That is precisely why I think the promotion or attribution of Merion's 17th hole on here, at least by one contributor, as a biarritz is not just untrue but sort of counter-productive. I think it's an attempt to pigeonhole something into a concept that just doesn't fit into that concept.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Ari,
Why do you think the clubs changed their mowing patterns, and when?

[DMoriarty]

Niall,

Thanks for the description of the 4th at Silloth on Solway.  Looks like fun.  On their website they call it the Mill; when was it called the Biarritz?

Here is a photo from Ran's review. . .


Are you saying the swale is the area where the pin is located?

[Jim_Kennedy]

Ari,
Donnie Beck mentioned earlier on this thread that FI diesn't mow the front of their Biarritz at green height.

Does that make two? 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Ari,
I forgot EssexCCC. The front of their Biarritz is mowed at fairway height.  So we have 3. 

[Tom Dunne]

Mid Ocean's front section was at fairway height when I was there in '07.

[TEPaul]

"Ari,
Donnie Beck mentioned earlier on this thread that FI diesn't mow the front of their Biarritz at green height."

Who on here even knows the so-called front section of FI's biarritz that well? Of any of the Macdonald/Raynor biarritzes that one is far more akin to what the actual chasm hole of Le Phare in Biarritz was probably all about than any other Macdonald/Raynor biarritz I have ever seen or am familiar with. The swale on that one is nowhere near as abrupt or prominent compared to all the other biarritzes and frankly whatever one would conider a front section on FI's biarritz is unpinnable anyway because its grade is too steep to be pinable and I can pretty much confirm that having spoken once with Donnie Beck about it.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tom,
I think you should go back and read what Ari said, that he thought only LM's Biarritz played as intended. Why don't you ask Ari how he knows what was intended?

You surely seemed to know when you answered him by saying, and I'll quote you: "You make an interesting point there(Ari)----eg that most all biarritzes today have green-space before the swale (with perhaps Lookout Mountain being the sole exception) while research seems to show that none of them had green-space before the swale originally. Pretty ironic really.[/b]"

So the intention in question was green space versus no green space. FI is not green space, the Superintendent says so, and it wasn't green space when I played it. Since then a couple others have been mentioned, bringing the total to 4 so far, not the 1 that Ari thought was the case.
The point about the front being unpinnable is moot, Donnie has already mentioned that, and anyways, that's what the whole question was about, i.e. maintaining the front space as was intended. 

[DMoriarty]

I am.

Are you suggesting that the entire "approach" on that hole is representative of the Hogsback?

I am.  On that hole that and about every other biarritz type hole.  Whigham was envisioning balls landing on the hog's back and running through the dip.   The dip was the space between the hog's back and the plateaued green.   So the front landing area (usually set up above the surrounds) is the hog's back.

The Wigham definition better fits #17 at Merion than any other "Biarritz" I've seen (on here, or in person) and that's curious to me.

Can I quote you on that?  Or at least make up a misleading, over-the-top paraphrase?  "Jim Sullivan, the Philadelphia golf expert, declares Merion's 17th to be most authentic Biarritz hole in existence.  Club embraces high praise, commissions life size bronzes of CBM and Sullivan."

Seriously, I think that the model of the Lido's biarritz was a very good representation of what they had in mind, although the swale is not quite 30 yards like Merion's is at its widest.

Nobody would ever try to land the ball in the trench at Yale or any of the others posted here. Did CBM, Wigham, Raynor decide the defined hole was too dificult and they did not use the hogsback feature (whichever direction it may have been)?

I agree that nobody would have except at Merion and at the Lido (if the hole resembled the model.)  But they wouldn't have had to because there was room enough on the other holes to land short of the swale.   As I said elsewhere, they may have chopped off the "sharp hog's back" part and made it into a plateau.  

[RSLivingston_III]

Sorry if I missed it but I read through the thread quickly, but where does Mid-Oceans Biarritz stand with the others being discussed?
Are fronting "carry" bunkers considered a required element?

[George_Bahto]

front of their Biarritz is mowed at fairway height:   add The Knoll - Sleepy Hollow - Blind Brook there a many more

interesting, when I stated there were just 2 or 3