Some other time and place would be a blessing. The unmentionable shouldn't infect every thread.
Which is why I said some other time and place.
As to the Leven hole and it's principles and concepts, I think that the link between OM #13 and the Lundin Links original is a bit stretched. Maybe you could describe how it "capture(d) the concepts of the original Leven hole and what those concepts are. I guess we all have our own interpretations about what the concepts and principles of template holes are and which and how many are required at a minimum to warrant calling a hole a template of the original. (What a mangling of the English language. The original should be the template on which the reproductions are based.)
I haven't played the hole at Lundin Links so you may well be correct with reference to that hole. I can only go by descriptions.
As for the hole at OM, I thought the strategy of the hole was dictated by the big dune on the left, and the slope of the green off of that dune thus creating a difficult approach for the left side and an easier approach from the far right side. While not a replica of anything, this hole seems to captures the strategic "problem" CBM highlighted with his 17th at NGLA, and by Tom's description of the original, it seems to capture the strategic problem presented by that hole as well. At NGLA an easier drive straight at the green leaves a more difficult shot over (or partially over) mounding, with the green running somewhat away from and/or harder to hold from that angle. Whereas a drive away from the mounding may be more difficult, it will leave an easier approach where the golfer can try to use the same slope to control the approach.
But my approach is much different than yours in that I am not looking for "templates" at all, because for the most part CBM was not either.
There are a relatively small group of holes at NGLA which bear a distinct physical similarity to an actual single hole abroad, but the rest of the holes are more loosely based on not only an amalgamation of principles and concepts from abroad, but also on CBM's own ideas, and of course on how those concepts and ideas fit into the landscape with which he had to work. Here is how CBM himself described the process early on, To better understand how this process worked, here is what CBM had to say early on in the project early on, June 1906, after he had returned from abroad but before he had Whigham secured the site on Peconic Bay:
In the thousands of holes I have played and studied abroad with the one idea in view, the principles that make a good hole have cropped up again and again. I found myself classifying the holes on their basic priniples, forming them into groups in which the desirable features were due to the reproduction of the same characteristics. On our new course this princiuples will be introduced to gife attactiveness to each hole, and, according to the nature of the land finally selected, some three or four holes may be exactly resembled. In this country the monotonous corss bunkers for the first or second shots bring up one principle again and again; abroad there are is an infinite variety of hazards from which one may collect ideas.
The best holes have not been found on the five British championship links alone. There was not a hole at Muirfiled or Hoylake I would care to imitate, but on sever the principles were good and furnished suggestions. Prestwick and St. Andrews abound in lovely holes, whole Sandwich was prolific in ideas. I have formulated plans for more than eighteen holes, the last choice to be dependent upon the ground selected, and the inspiration for the plans has been supplied in instances by links not in the championship group. The idea for one hole comes from Biarritz. The hole in question is not a good one, but it revealed a fine and original principle that will be incorporated into my selection.Indeed this looks to have been what CBM eventually did at NGLA. He created reasonable approximations of relatively few holes, and the rest are more based on concepts and ideas, as they fit the land. If at NGLA CBM was for the most part not copying holes abroad, then why would you expect Doak and friends to copy holes either from NGLA or abroad?
The trouble is, many if not most of us think of NGLA as being made up mostly of holes the
where CBM tried to replicate a specific hole abroad. But in reality
there were only four or maybe five of these holes, depending on who is counting --
the Alps, the Redan, the Eden, the Road, and perhaps the Sahara. They are all named after a hole abroad, and CBM described these as
"almost unanimously considered the finest of their character in Great Britain." And at least four of these could be called replica or "duplicate" holes, even though with all of them feature significant differences from the original, differences some of which CBM liked to consider "improvements." As H.J. Whigham explained,
"He did not, it is true, reproduce 18 classic golf holes. The holes [CBM] copied in detail were the Redan at North Berwick, the Alps at Prestwick, and the Eden and Road Holes at St. Andrews."[Note that Whigham did not include the Sahara as a duplicate, and I am not sure CBM did either. Here CBM seems to have been borrowing the general concept of a diagonal carry providing an advantage to the player who successfully cut off more of the carry, along with the cool bunker. CBM described this hole as follows:
"In one sense it is not a replica, but it is a mental picture of that fine hole, embodying the underlying principle --a golfers reward is granted to him who can negotiate the carry he is capable of accomplishing." Whether one considers it a true replica or not, I don't think CBM built many "Sahara" holes. However the underlying principle - the diagonal carry - appears throughout his work and is one of his core concepts.]
But that is it. Four, maybe five duplicates or replicas, and even these are far from exact. So, while we like to try and compare many of the rest of the holes to a particular hole abroad, according to Macdonald and Whigham, they were not attempting replicas or even close approximations of any particular holes. As CBM put it in Scotland's gift,
"All the other holes are more or less, composite, but some are absolutely original." As Whigham explained it,
"But it very soon became apparent to CBM to Macdonald . . . that nature, here too, had her own suggestions and that it was far better, and certainly much more amusing to utilize existing features of the land than to copy slavishly from the great masterpieces. Indeed, what Macdonald actually accomplished was finer than he had originally planned."The reason I go through all of this is that I think that Doak was true to true at OM to CBM's methodology at NGLA, in that he concentrated on sound principles underlying great golf holes rather than slavishly trying to reproduce exact features of either holes at NGLA or even abroad. That is in large part what CBM was doing at NGLA. (Even his supposed replicas fit naturally at NGLA.)
So perhaps that is the reason why I see this is a terrific CBM=type hole -- it uses the natural features of the land to bring out an interesting strategic problem, similar in principle to the problem created at the original (by the various descriptions) and CBM's 17th at NGLA.
Here is the diagram of the "Leven Hole" from HJ Whigham's article in 1909:
