[Terry Lavin]

In the spirit of Adam Clayman's roundhouse swing at my gca chin, I offer up this derivation of the Armchair Architecture contest.  What holes need tweaking/renovation/restoration at Pebble Beach in order to diminish some of the nutty effects of the USGA setup for the US Open?  Or do you believe it should be left alone?  Since I'm just a measly judge, I'll let others be the judge of this one and wait until later to write a concurrence or a dissenting opinion.  If you got the job or were invited to be on the committee, what would you recommend?

[TEPaul]

Terry:

I'm going to Italy today for a week but will respond in detail at some point next week. But for now I'd do various things to #4, #10, #13, #14, #15 and #17 and perhaps #16 green. Most of them would probably be restorative in nature.

[Tim Bert]

The two things I would consider:

Set up the 14th green where the right side will not run the ball back 20 or 30 yards. I'm okay with it funneling balls back a little but it was a bit extreme this week. I think the table left and the penal area left and long is fine. It is the ping pong nature that became tiring.  I don't think you need to blow up the green to accomplish this.  The times I have played there the right side didn't do any favors but it didn't run off as absurdly as this week.

Move the tee on 17 just inside 200 when the pin plays left. The tiny section of the green defends the hole location enough. Give a few guys a shot at it.

Otherwise I thought the setup was quite good. I didn't think it had a sideshow aspect to it. I think the best players in the world didn't execute very well. Phil had every opportunity to shoot -2 yesterday. He gave up at least 2 and maybe 3 strokes on 4 and 6. Even pare wa also a realistic number for Tiger.  

[Wayne_Kozun]

I would add bunkers in the left and centre of the fairway on #4 to make it similar to #12 at St Andrews.  This would force players to try to drive the green or lay up closer to the water.

[Adam Clayman]

Terry, It's an interesting caveat to tweak a course for four days a decade worth of use. However, Tim Bert's notion of slowing down the right side of 14 green would be more favorable to blowing it up. IMO, The graduated HOC (height of cut) concept would go a long way in creating a more interesting championship (And every day play). Not only that right side of #14 but the left side too. For those that don't know, the rear is always maintained as fairway height.

The other tweaks I would consider would be to get rid of the added bunkering this ownership has seen fit to bestow on Pebble. The new ones on 3, 4, & 15 are particularly out of place. But, the look of many of the bunkers has been tweaked to give the course a dis-jointed unnatural visual.

The course is great as it was and while the smaller greens have evolved from repeated use of the bunkers, (sand splash) they do their job of testing every level of player.


 

[Mac Plumart]

Here is the deal for me...

I've never played Pebble, but have studied it some.  I watched a TON of the coverage this last week/weekend.  I've looked at past pictures and I saw how the course looks and plays now.  It simply doesn't seem like the same course is was or was meant to be.  And now, they are going to host another major in 2019 and change it again.  Isn't this a bad thing?

Why not leave these golf course gems as much intact as we can?  If they aren't major worthy, so what.  NGLA doesn't host majors and it is awesome.  I understand the same is true of The Golf Club.  

I just totally felt that the Pebble Beach I watched being played this weekend was a much altered facsimile of the real Pebble Beach...and I am getting more and more bummed out about it.  

Maybe I am a weirdo or just plain wrong (it won't be the first or last time that has been the case), but it is how I feel right now.

[Bill_McBride]

Green speed at 10-11 would solve almost every issue.

I loved the fairways that were moved closer to the cliffs and the shaved banks of the cliffs.

I don't what to do about #14...other than rebuilding the right side of the green.

Would the players make more pars on #17 if they played to the front and tried to two putt?

Those small sloped greens really defend that course.

Pebble Beach is still a magnificent golf course, isn't it?  That figure-8 routing really works to maximize and spread out the impact of the cliffs.

[Wayne_Kozun]

Why not leave these golf course gems as much intact as we can?

Intact as of when as golf courses, inclduing PB, change constantly and have changed a lot over time?  If I remember correctly there was a time, perhaps the 1930s, when there were lots of sandy blownout waste areas - is that the look we should go back to?  Or should it be the 1972 US Open Pebble Beach?

The other issue is that you can't just leave PB to nature or else there would be no 18th fairway - hence having to build phony rock seawalls.

[Sean_A]

All these changes when smart green speeds is all that is required.  It makes me somehow believe that most on here really applaud 13 stimping (or was it 12?). You can mark me down as one who would like to see green speeds at 10 tops, anywhere, for any event.  Is that a big enough change? 

Ciao 

[George Pazin]

I'd like to see some green space on 17 reclaimed (assuming my memory is correct).

I love 14.

I would move the entire Monterey area approx. 2500 miles east.

[Mac Plumart]

Wayne...

Per your comment...

If I remember correctly there was a time, perhaps the 1930s, when there were lots of sandy blownout waste areas - is that the look we should go back to?  Or should it be the 1972 US Open Pebble Beach?

that is my point, what is Pebble?  Or any other course for that matter from yesteryear.  An amalgamation of architects, designers, tweaks, and twists...and a lot of the time, not for the better. 

Again, I could be way off base...but it just seems a bit sad, like we are chasing something that can't be caught as we try to keep golf courses relevant given all the advances in the game.

[Ted Cahill]

George- I got a chuckle out of your " move Monterey 2500 miles east" comment. I understand. I have had the good fortune of residing in the SF Bay area the last two years. I have gotten down to Monterey often to play the cornucopia of wonderful PUBLIC ACESS courses. (not to mention a few impulsive road trips to Bandon Dunes). This area is a incubator for the aspiring GCA nerd. I volunteered at PB fir the open this week. It was a ear to ear grin experience.

[Jeff_Brauer]

In general, I was impressed with the changes and think it made PB a better golf course - tournament and even every day wise.  Granted, there are a few changes I MIGHT have kept more similar to the original look, like the FW bunker on 6, but I can't quibble too badly about bringing the ocean in play and adding bunkers to modern landing areas, plus a few back tees.

As Wayne said, all courses are tweaked at and tinkered with. A few seem to draw the ire here, if they have a strong proponent - Geoff Shack for Thomas Courses, the Merion crowd, the Flynn crowd, etc.  In general, these tweaks seem well regarded, and I am not sure if that is because there is no PB fanatic on this board.......or if they have just proven themselves at this Open as adequate.

[Ed Oden]

This has probably been suggested before and I know it will never happen, but I would change the 17th green into a redan.  Yes, it plays slightly downhill, which isn't ideal.  But the thin angular green and shot shape needed to get to the back left section just screams redan to me.  I'd much rather see the top players in the world using contours to feed a ball in rather than one hopping everything into greenside rough or bunkers.  And I think it would improve the hole for regular play as well.  Plus, I doubt there is a redan in the world that can match the setting.  Just a thought.

[RJ_Daley]

I agree in principle with the idea of a redan, but not in practicality or design style.  I think for championship calibre play, a redan at that location would have to play 240-250.  Also, I don't think they could build up the kick plate high enough to not make it look horrible.  They could almost keep the Dr Mac bunker, but the back would have to be built up so high, that it would be impossible with the lack of room to slope out the built up right and back, given how close the 18 tee is. 

I think it is a sort of odd deformed redanish play in a strange way now.  All I can think of is make the two globes in the hourglass about 3-4 feet wider in diameter.  Even that seems impossible with the lack of room on the far left given the chunk that fell into the drink. 

As for other changes, I guess a very moderate expansion of the right side of the 14 green, making it raised higher from the right side and out into the foregreen fw.  But not so much as to take away the demand to get it up there and not go long.  I think it needs that penalty of the steep back of the green to a small tabletop back pins, and danger of chipping it off the front.  Just a few more feet of forgiveness by raising the right side just a wee bit and smoothing that slope just a we bit out farther down into the foregreen.  As it is presently, the smart play for the confident sand player may be into the front bunker in two, it seems to me. 

I don't know so much about other changes.  Maybe change the greens fee by 1/3    ...

[Wayne_Kozun]

I don't know so much about other changes.  Maybe change the greens fee by 1/3    ...

Up or down?

[RJ_Daley]

Maybe leave it all alone and have a USGA tournament ball... 

[jonathan_becker]

I would:

E.  Get rid of that little tree on the right side of the first fairway that Els and Dustin Johnson almost hit into.  What is that doing there in the first place?

I want to fly out to pebble and cut that tree down myself!!  I couldn't stand looking at that thing throughout the telecast.

[Phil McDade]

Anyone interested in changes to 18? Par 5 finishing holes in majors seem to have an inherent weakness that McDowell exploited. I know he hit a tee shot with a driver under some pressure, not knowing Havret's outcome on the green, but once he knew he was still one-up after Havret left the green, he chose 8-iron/wedge or something similar (I heard his caddie at one point say, "Let's just do 9-iron/9-iron" or something like that at one point while studying his options). I think a finishing hole on a major ought to require a player holding a one-shot lead to hit one gut-wrenching, tough shot, and the 18th doesn't really seem to require it.

[RJ_Daley]

Phil what about the other side of that contender issue?  Was it a good hole for those chasing the leader down with a chance to make a two or even three shot swing with some heroics?  If you've outplayed and outwitted your opponents for 71 holes, is it not a reasonable thing to protect your hard earned lead?

[Terry Lavin]

Calling all pro archies!!!!

[Phil McDade]

Phil what about the other side of that contender issue?  Was it a good hole for those chasing the leader down with a chance to make a two or even three shot swing with some heroics?  If you've outplayed and outwitted your opponents for 71 holes, is it not a reasonable thing to protect your hard earned lead?

RJ:

Although I can barely stand myself for writing this, I think the 18th at Torrey Pines might have been a better final hole for the '08 Open compared to this year's. It just seemed like a somewhat easier hole to birdie than Pebble's (I don't have course stats in front of me...), with more options on how to play it. I think the USGA had a choice of making 18 at TPines a par 4 or par 5, and chose to make it a birdie-able par 5. I'm not sure they could really do that with the 18th at PBeach.

Having said that, I like the 18th hole at the US Open to be a real ball-buster -- maybe a half-par hole where you have to execute two very good shots just to make par. Oakmont and Shinnecock come to mind as ideal in this regard.

[Terry Lavin]

Phil what about the other side of that contender issue?  Was it a good hole for those chasing the leader down with a chance to make a two or even three shot swing with some heroics?  If you've outplayed and outwitted your opponents for 71 holes, is it not a reasonable thing to protect your hard earned lead?

RJ:

Although I can barely stand myself for writing this, I think the 18th at Torrey Pines might have been a better final hole for the '08 Open compared to this year's. It just seemed like a somewhat easier hole to birdie than Pebble's (I don't have course stats in front of me...), with more options on how to play it. I think the USGA had a choice of making 18 at TPines a par 4 or par 5, and chose to make it a birdie-able par 5. I'm not sure they could really do that with the 18th at PBeach.

Having said that, I like the 18th hole at the US Open to be a real ball-buster -- maybe a half-par hole where you have to execute two very good shots just to make par. Oakmont and Shinnecock come to mind as ideal in this regard.

Phil,

You should be ashamed of yourself for thinking that ANY FINISHING HOLE in a major was worse than Torrey Pines.  But I will excuse your error in judgment because the 18th at Pebble is all about what's to the left because the hole itself is a little bit goofy with the trees in play in the fairway/rough and the tree in front of the bunker/green and the very unfortunate looking fake sea wall and appurtenant ginormous bunker.  It's only a passable hole because of the history of the place and the many championships that have been contested there and because there's at least the possibility of making eagle to win or put it into extra holes.  But this is one hole that I'm guessing nobody wants to touch...

[Phil McDade]

Terry:

My argument isn't necessarily what hole is better as a speciman of GCA (or the kind of GCA endorsed generally by this panel...). For what the USGA wanted to do at Torrey Pines with the 18th -- seemingly a half-par 4.5 par 5 where birdie and even eagle were a real possibility -- it succeeded. It seemed they tried to do something similar with PBeach's 18th, but I'm not sure the hole lends itself to that, particularly in US Open set-up conditions.

I don't recall anything of note happening on the 18th at Pebble at a US Open. Both Kite and Watson had the tournament sewn up when they hit the fairway with their tee shots in the final round.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Calling all pro archies!!!!

How the 18th is set up is purely a matter of opinion.

I was surprised to see it at 513 on Sunday.  It appeared most players used 3 wood, leaving shots of about 290/225 to the green after a 280-290 shot off the tee.  I suppose it could have been maintained at 535-545 or so to keep the driver/225 for those who wanted to go for it in two.  It would have been a little tougher for the catch up guys incrementally.

The thing is, the next time the leader could be up by two or tied and we might complain how it should have been different under those competitive conditions, no?  Obviously, the USGA thought the shorter par 5 made for the most potential drama, even if it didn't work out that way.  What if a shorter hitter was in contention and needed four?  At 513 that leaves more players in a good position to take advantage of the par 5.

For the few that have suggested major alterations to PB (more than was done this time) such as making 18 a par 4, I don't agree.  It was a par 4 on opening and deemed to easy, so they lengthened it.  Its one of the great holes in golf. 

Again, I think most of the changes took PB's weaker holes and improved them. It even improved the strong ocean holes by taking the fw right back to the ocean.  How many times and courses would have Els, Woods, and Phil all hitting water hazards in round 4?  In some cases, twice on one hole?  Good stuff.  But little need to do more than tweak the icons. 
'
BTW, I believe Palmer extended the strip bunker more int to the second DZ, no?  I thought that was a nice little tweak.

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