The Amateurs contribution to Golf Course Restoration... what should it be?

[Carl Rogers]

From the casual observer's perspective on the subject it seems the greatest hurdle is complete and accurate documentation of what the course was at some point in time in the past.

I continue to be baffled by how revered many courses were (are) and yet such woefully meager efforts to document.

Let's assume this problem will continue to occur into the future .... So, go find a course you like, take enough pictures (with the date indicator turned on) from all different perspectives.  Keep these CD's at home and make them part of your estate, Willing them back to the Club many years from now.

Of course, whether those pics represent the "heyday" of the course will be debatable, it will at least establish a baseline.

[Tom_Doak]

Carl:

That's a great post, hopefully more people will read it.  A lot of times, we architects are so worn out by the time a course is finished and we are busy with others, that we don't expend much energy to go back and document what got built.  It's terrific when others appreciate the course enough to follow through on that.

One of the clubs that had such an archive is Riviera ... there was a member who went around in the early fifties and took photos of every hole from the tee, the middle of the fairway, and the approach to the green.  When they were interviewing architects for the work to the greens in the early 1990's, they showed those photos to all of us and asked what they ought to do ... because the bunkers were not nearly as deep or as sexy in the 1950's as they were after forty more years of sand splashed out from heavy play!!  In the end they decided they preferred to keep the look of the bunkers as the members knew them.

[Niall C]

I recall when I was at College and one lecturer on building construction stated that after each building gets built, the contractor should produce a manual on how to "use" the building the same way a car manufacturer might for a car or a manufacturer of a washing machine or television or whatever.

I wonder if thats whats needed for a golf course. As built drawings coupled with both a statement of the architects intent and a guide on future planned maintenance including grass height, tree lines etc. It would help the course both now and in the future.

Niall

[Andy Stamm]

This is one of the reasons why I love to watch old golf matches. They can give a great look at how a course looked at a specific point in time as regards conditioning and maintenance as well as layout. And, what I think you get that you can't get with photos is how the course played. It's vey interesting to see top pros play driver, 5 iron into the first at the Old Course. That hole has physically changed very little, but how it plays has changed a great deal.