[Britt Rife]

Gentlemen,

I have tried to find my answer using our search function, but no luck.  Perhaps you all can help me.

In 1907, CBM listed his 18 Great Holes, two of which were from Leven Links.  I don't have Mr. Bahto's book in front of me, but I am pretty sure that it was nos. 7 and 9 which CBM identified as notable holes.  The 7th was identified as a 240 yarder, with a burn running at a diagonal (CBM said that a replica should be a bit longer, in the 300 yard range).  The 9th was a 400 yarder, but CBM didn't say much more about it.

What's confusing is that, as you all may well know, the Leven and Lundin clubs each played one one 18 hole course.  In 1908, they split these out along the Mile Dyke [?], which is that wall that any contemporary visitor to Lundin and Leven will well remember.  Leven took the 9 holes on their side of the wall, and Lundin took the other 9.  Both clubs then built holes inland, above the railroad cut to give themselves a full 18.

Given when CBM's list was written (1907) and when the clubs split (1908), I am pretty sure that CBM's hole references (7 & 9) do not correspond to holes as they are now identified.

So my questions are (a) what are the current holes at Leven or Lundin to which CBM was referring; and (b) have these holes been substantially altered since 1907?

When I played these courses last year, I recall the 2nd at Leven as having sort of a similar strategy to that which Ran Morrissett ascribes to the Leven/Peconic hole at NGLA.  That is, at Leven no. 2, you can easily drive to a right hand fairway and then face a blind shot over a dune to the green or you can take on a forced carry with your drive to the left fairway and then have a nice clear shot to the green.  I must say that this was likely my favorite hole of all of those I played during my trip to Scotland last year (perhaps excluding a few holes at Cruden Bay).

I swear that I saw Tom Doak addressing this subject a few weeks ago, but I'll be damned if I can find the post.  

[Garland Bayley]

I believe Tom addressed it in the Old MacDonald thread.

[Bill_McBride]

Lundin's 16th is the Leven hole that inspired CBM.

[George_Bahto]

Thanks Bill - thanks correct but the interesting part is how CBM reset the side-set berm as was on the original hole to develop the frontal berm at 17-National

Britt - search the Leven here on GCA and you should find a picture of what I describe

[Bryan Izatt]

Britt,

Here's the link to the Old Macdonald thread where there is a couple of pages of discussion on the Leven hole starting at post #332.

The Leven hole is the current 16th on Lundin Links. I think the other hole is the hogback hole, #17, also on Lundin Links.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,44207.315.html

[Britt Rife]

Thanks very much--that was exactly the thread I was looking for.  I couldn't sleep last night, so I was going through Mr. Bahto's excellent book, trying to figure out which of the original templates/CBM Great Holes I've played.  I got a little stumped with the Leven/Lundin stuff.

Thanks again.

[Tom_Doak]

Britt:

When Macdonald knew it, the course started at the clubhouse in Leven and played nine holes straight out to the clubhouse at Lundin ... so what are now the final three holes at Lundin Links were 7-8-9 on the Leven course.  Then, you turned back around on #1 at Lundin Links and played all the way back to Leven.

When the course got too busy, they split it up, with each town taking the holes on its end and adding new holes further up the hill.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Report of the Division of the Leven Links  dated 14th January 1908

[George_Bahto]

One of the other "inspiration" holes from the Leven course was the original 9th but that hole was replaced and it seems we do not know what it was about.


Scotland's Gift-Golf pp 184    item #8

420 yards similar to the 9th Leven

come on Melvin - this is in your court -  help!!

[Melvyn Morrow]

The Leven Links of 1878 by Bob Kroeger


Leven Links 1909


Extract from Robert Kroeger's book 'The Golf Courses of Old Tom Morris' (published 1995)






Melvyn

[Bryan Izatt]

George,

The Kroeger book, albeit published well after the fact, says the current 18th is unchanged from the original Tom Morris 9th. I do notice that the current tee is left of the 17th green rather than right as indicated in the 1878 map. If the hole is relatively close to its original version, then there are some principles in that hole that I could see. 

An expansive driving area that runs off to the right presenting a bad angle to the green with OB in your face to the left of the green.  A very tight uphill second to a long narrow green, with OB tight left and a fearsome bunker and steep hill to the right.  A daunting finishing shot.

Does this sound anything like what CBM was describing in Scotland's Gift?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Innerleven Golf Club Course Map 1878

[DMoriarty]

Thanks for those interesting copies Melvyn.  To clarify, is the 1878 map actually from 1878, or did Kroeger draw what he thinks was there in 1878?  Thanks.
____________________________________________________________

Does this sound anything like what CBM was describing in Scotland's Gift?

Bryan

For clarification sake, the descriptions in question are reprinted in Scotland's Gift, but were originally written upon CBM's return from his 1906 trip abroad.  The descriptions were published in the December 1906 Issue of Outing Magazine, in CBM's article titled Ideal Golf Links, and subtitled "A Standard of Comparison.' Unfortunately, CBM does not provide much description of the key features of the holes, although he does mention the burn and the green guarded by sharp hillocks on the 7th at Leven.   Nothing much on the 9th at Leven though.  

An excerpt from the section on Length of Holes and including the sample listing of ideal holes follows:

The large majority of old golfers— notably Mr. Low, Mr. Horace Hutchinson and the Messrs. Whigham (men all brought up in different schools)—declare that bad as too short a course may be, too long a course is infinitely worse. What a golfer most desires is variety in the one, two, and three shot holes, calling for accuracy in placing the ball, not alone in the approach but from the tee. Let the first shot be played in relation to the second shot in accordance with the run of the ground and the wind. Holes so designed that the player can, if he so wish, take risks commensurate to the gravity of the situation— playing, as it were, "to the score."
. . .
Without generalizing further on the question of the best holes, following are eighteen holes which occur to me as being about right. Of course, the reader must assume that the run of the ground and the hazards are correct:
1.  370 yds.   Similar to the bottle hole at Sunningdale, placing deep graduated bunkers in place of ditch and bunker the green properly.
2.  240 yds.   Composite first shot of the 14th or Perfection at No. Berwick, with green and bunker guard like 15th Muirfield.
3.  320 yds.   Similar 3d St. Andrews.
4.  187 yds.   Resembling Redan. No. Berwick.
5.  510 yds.   Suggested by 16th Littlestone Dog. length 410 yards. Latter route made excessively dangerous by calling for long and accurate play.
6.  400 yds.   Similar 4th Sandwich.
7.  130 yds.   Similar 5th Brancaster with tee raised so player can see where pin enters hole.
8.  420 yds.   Similar 9th Leven.
9.  350 yds.   Similar 9th Brancaster.
10. 340 yds.  Similar 3d. or Sahara- Sandwich, making carry full 175 yards direct then a fair run to green with alternative to play around.
11. 450 yds.  Similar 17th St. Andrews, making very bad hazard where the dike calls for out of bounds, and while keeping the green same size as at present would alter fall of plateau approaching.
12. 160 yds.  Resembling 11th St. Andrews.
13. 400 yds.  Similar 3d Prestwick.
14. 490 yds.  Like 14th St. Andrews, making greens larger and making run up less fluky.
15. 210 yds.  Suggested by 12th Biarritz, making sharp hog back in middle of course.  Stop 30 yards* from hole bunkered to the right of green and good low ground to the left of plateau green.
16. 300 yds.  Suggested by 7th Leven, which is only 240 yards, with burn running at a bias, and green guarded by sharp hillocks.
17. 380 yds.  Resembling 17th. or Alps, Prestwick.
18. 360 yds.  Resembling 8th New St. Andrews, which is now too long for the bunkering. A grand total of 6.017 yards.

These distances are measured from middle of teeing space to middle of putting green. With proper teeing space and putting greens each hole could be lengthened at will from 20 to 30 yards.

I have notes of many holes equally as good as a number of the above, but this list will convey to the mind of the reader a fair idea of what I have gleaned during the last few months as constituting a perfect length of hole consistent with variety.

*  Scotland's Gift misprints this as "80 yards," which would be quite a swale. (Even 30 yards from beginning to end is larger than most isn't it?

[Britt Rife]

Thank you David--that was the list that I found in Mr. Bahto's book.  And I thank all of you for the information regarding Leven no.9/Lundin no. 18.  I would be interested to know if CBM ever consciously tried to replicate that hole--or if we would even recognize it if he had.

[DMoriarty]

I wonder if there is rhyme or reason to the variations in the descriptions . . .
- Nine of these examples of ideal holes  were described as "similar" to holes abroad, including the 9th at Leven.
- Four were described as "resembling" holes abroad --the Alps, Redan, Eden, and the 8th at St. Andrews New.
- Three were described as "suggested by" holes abroad --16th at Littlestone, 7th at Leven, and 12th at Biarritz.
- One was "like" a hole abroad --14th at St. Andrews, with changes.
- One was described as a "composite" of parts of two other holes.  

Two things strike me.  
    First, the three of the four ideal holes CMB described as "resembling" other holes abroad are three of the four core "templates" to which he remained most true, at least at NGLA (the other is the Road) and are also three of the most recognizable as templates.
   Second, based upon what CBM wrote elsewhere, I suspect that he holes "suggested by" other holes may be the hole where the influence of the hole abroad was most abstract.   Elsewhere he indicated that the twelve at Biarritz as not a very good golf hole but the from which he learned an interesting underlying concept.   As for hole at Littlestone, he basically described it as a missed opportunity, where the hole could have been made much better by adding an alternative route on the other side of a dune (the 410 yard route.) And some here have expressed the idea that his ideas taken from the Leven were a bit not as immediately apparent as they might have expected.  

Perhaps ideal holes he described as "similar to" or "like" a particular hole abroad fall somewhere in between the more abstract "suggested by" and the more particular "resembling."
_______________________________________________________

Britt,

As I have argued before (and do on the other thread about OM) I don't think CBM did nearly as much "replicating" of golf holes as most people seem to think.   Rather I think outside of four core holes (the alps, redan, eden, and road) he was mostly applying principles gleaned from the original holes rather than copying the entire hole, and even the four core holes were no where near replicas even at NGLA and less so at other later courses.

Certainly concepts come up again and again (usually referred to as templates but differing significantly from course to course,) and features show up again and again (hell bunkers, diagonals, bunker en echelon, principles nose, etc.) and perhaps even green-types (double plateaus, punchbowls, offsets, raised horseshoe within, etc.)  But I think outright replicas of entire golf holes are fairly rare.

All that said, I get the drift of what you were asking, and I was wondering the same thing about that hole and some other of these holes, especially the 8th at St. Andrews New.  What supposed "template" was this? 

As for your particular question, I have some ideas about where one might find something "similar to" the 9th at Leven in principle, but my ideas are not really all that well formulated as of yet and they would likely provide a distraction, so I wlll stay mum for now.

[Britt Rife]

David,

I like what your saying regarding how strictly CBM would replicate a famous hole.  I play a lot of my golf at an extraordinarily run down Charles Banks 9 hole course.  It has an obvious Redan and Eden, but the other holes I'm not so sure about.  I used spend time trying to tease out a template from them, until I realized that I should probably not bother.  Though it has been said, has it not, that Raynor (and then perhaps Banks) was a bit more taken with a stricter replication?

[Bill_McBride]

David, the 16th at Littlestone HAD the alternate fairway off to the left of the monster bunker, until motor traffic on the adjoining road became too endangered by hooked tee shots left of that fairway.   Today that area is still there but is knee high rough.   It wasn't a missed opportunity as much as a lost masterpiece. 

Don't understand your question about #8 New.  As far as I know it's just a very fun short 5 with the dune flanking both sides of the tucked away green.  I imagine Old Tom must have created the cut through the dune, just as Mackenzie is said to have done at #2 Littlestone. 

I don't think anyone has ever said or implied that CBM ever built a dead replica of a template.   

[Bryan Izatt]

David,

Thanks for the 18 holes description.  I was hoping there was a more expansive description of what he thought the 9th at Leven was about.  Absent that, it's hard to say what holes in America that it was the template for.  Would you ascribe any hole at NGLA to the 9th at Leven model?

I think you are micro-analyzing his use of resembling, suggested by, and similar to.  My English teachers, who were well before yours, taught me to not be repetitive in my use of verbs, adjectives, nouns etc.  They encouraged the use of synonyms.  If I were to guess, I would guess that CBM just thought it would look like poor use of the English language to have 18 holes where each one resembled his ideal hole.

I take it that there are no published reports that more fully describe CBM's views on the 9th at Leven.  I suppose he must have had notes and drawings at some point, else how would he convey the concepts of the hole to his (non-paying) clients and those he provided advice to.  

His comment on the 8th at the New is perplexing.  It is a par 5, not 360 yard par 4.  Perhaps Melvyn know if it was once a shorter part 4.  The comment suggests it had recently got longer and that that messed up the bunkering.  Perhaps it has to do with the three pots that blockade the LZ.  As Bill says, the most notable feature of the hole is the gap in the dunes leading to the green.

Also as Bill said, "I don't think anyone has ever said or implied that CBM ever built a dead replica of a template."  I have said that I sometimes have a hard time discerning the principles in holes that are reputed to be templates.  On the OM thread, the Leven hole is a stretch as Tom said, whereas others like the Redan are more obvious.  At NGLA, I can't comment, never having been there.  Clearly, CBM said that he wasn't trying to duplicate the ideal holes from Scotland in all their detail.

[Garland Bayley]

I think you are micro-analyzing his use of resembling, suggested by, and similar to. 

Resemble and similar to are synonyms. But, suggested by seem to me to be a different concept. On that aspect, I think David has it right.

[DMoriarty]

David, the 16th at Littlestone HAD the alternate fairway off to the left of the monster bunker, until motor traffic on the adjoining road became too endangered by hooked tee shots left of that fairway.   Today that area is still there but is knee high rough.   It wasn't a missed opportunity as much as a lost masterpiece.

Not sure where you are getting this information because you don't say, but according to CBM there was no alternate fairway, and it was a missed opportunity.

Here is what CBM wrote about the hole is Scotland's Gift:

"The fourth hole at the Lido I considered one of the finest two-shot h9ole in the world of golf, but fully 90 percent of golfers will have to play it as a three shot hole. I absorbed the idea from the sixteenth hole at Littlestone, but the Littlestone Club never took advantage of the remarkable natural opportunity they had there of making a separate fairgreen among the dunes, where there was a perfect setting for it, a fairway set in the dunes some thirty to thirty-fife yards in width and 100 yards long, with a carry of 190 to 200 yards.  Heaven knows when a player would get out of the rough if the didn't make this narrow fairgreen among the dunes, but once they did the had a wonderful driving iron or brassie shot into the green, which was on an eminence some fifteen or twenty feet above the fairway, with a deep bunker across the face of the green some forty or yards from the hole.  The bunker at Littlestone was about 15 feet deep."

I don't think anyone has ever said or implied that CBM ever built a dead replica of a template.  

I don't think I ever accused anyone of saying or implying "that CBM ever built a dead replica of a template."  "Replicate" was Britt's word, and I explained to him that I did not think that CBM was doing nearly as much replicating as some people seem to think.

But now that you mention it, I do think that early on and even before NGLA was built it was fairly common for commentators to say or imply that that CBM was trying to create a golf course made up of exact replicates or copies of great holes abroad.   While most now may realize he wasn't trying to build "dead replicas,"  I nonetheless tend to believe that many people don't fully understand that the "template" was more about applying underlying principles as they fit the land, rather than trying to recreate particular physical characteristics.

[Bill_McBride]

David, I don't have written evidence of the one time fairway left of the giant bunker at Littlestone but need to check Darwin when I get back from thenOregon trip I'm on.   Also not sure why Tom Doak would call his alternate fairway hole at Old Macdonald "Littlestone" unless there had been an alternate fairway at one time. 

Maybe CBM meant an alternate fairway to the right of the existing fairway...

[DMoriarty]

I don't think it plausible that CBM meant an alternate fairway to the right. That would have added distance to the hole rather than cutting off 100 yards as CBM had described.  

I assume at OM Tom Doak called his alternate fairway hole "Littlestone" because CBM based his alternate fairway hole on the hole at Littlestone, even though Littlestone apparently hadn't yet seen fit to mow this alternate fairway when CBM saw the hole.  Plus it sounds like the alternate fairway did exist at some point after CBM saw the hole . . . I checked Darwin, and he did mention the shorter route in Golf Courses of the British Isles (1910) but he also noted that "in old days" the left passage was not in existence.  Here is an excerpt of what he wrote about Littlestone on page 57:

"Still if there are no little hills, there are, at any rate, some alarmingly big ones, and the holes that we remember best are those that are mountainous and more than a little blind. . . . The sixteenth is another fine slashing hole, where we have to make a momentous decision, whether to try heroically for a four or ingloriously for a five. In old days it was really a case of Hobson's choice. It was hopeless to attempt to carry over that cavernous bunker cut in the face of the hill, and there was nothing for it but to play a dull, safe second, and hop over with the third shot. Now, however, a short cut, a kind of north-west passage, has been cut through the rough ground to the left, and two shots, perfectly steered and perfectly struck, will see the ball disappear over the hill-top to lie in safety on the big, flat green beyond."

So it sounds like shortcut must have been added sometime before 1910, but sometime after CBM saw the hole.  Since CBM included this alternate route concept on the list written after his trip in 1906, he must have seen the hole that year or on one of his many other previous trips.

[DMoriarty]

The Kroeger book, albeit published well after the fact, says the current 18th is unchanged from the original Tom Morris 9th. I do notice that the current tee is left of the 17th green rather than right as indicated in the 1878 map. If the hole is relatively close to its original version, then there are some principles in that hole that I could see. 

According to Lundin Links website, before the split of the clubs in 1907 the entire course was between the old RR line and the Firth of Forth.  On the aerial the tee on the 9th looks like it is on the other side of the old RR line, so as you wrote it would seem the old map is correct and at least the tee has been moved to the other side of the previous green.   Seems like it would have even been a tougher and perhaps more strategic hole with the RR (presumably OB) running all the way up the left side. 

[Bryan Izatt]

The Kroeger book, albeit published well after the fact, says the current 18th is unchanged from the original Tom Morris 9th. I do notice that the current tee is left of the 17th green rather than right as indicated in the 1878 map. If the hole is relatively close to its original version, then there are some principles in that hole that I could see. 

According to Lundin Links website, before the split of the clubs in 1907 the entire course was between the old RR line and the Firth of Forth.  On the aerial the tee on the 9th looks like it is on the other side of the old RR line, so as you wrote it would seem the old map is correct and at least the tee has been moved to the other side of the previous green.   Seems like it would have even been a tougher and perhaps more strategic hole with the RR (presumably OB) running all the way up the left side. 

I'm not sure I'd call it more strategic.  Maybe more penal.  The preferred line, then and now is up the left side for a shorter second shot and a better angle to the green.  A continuous OOB wouldn't make the left line more or less desirable than it is now.  It would certainly make it more punitive if you missed it on the left side.  And it would certainly have been more intimidating.

There are still holes today, earlier in the routing, that run parallel and close to the tracks.  They are intimidating and punitive, because if memory serves, the tracks are an internal OOB.

 

[Melvyn Morrow]

Leven Links Threatened

Reports from the 1907 & 1908 Newspspers.






Leven & Lundin

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