Yarra Yarra

[Peter Goss]

I am fascinated in the reference to Sam Berriman. Mike Duffy - are you sure Alex Russell quoted on the Sale golf course and was beaten by Berriman? As a Sale Golf Club member, I am somewaht devastated if that indeed was the case as I agree that the Berriman ethos and skill was not in the same league as that of Alex Russell, having experienced some of the designs of both gentlemen.
Our recently compiled club history does not mention Russell, but then again, doesn't mention any other tenders.
As mentioned, Berriman designed Horsham, Shepparton, Keysborough, Cranbourne, Albert Park? and a few others if anyone can help out. He was therefore quite influential in golf course design in the 1950s in Victoria.
Besides being way too heavily treed now, Sale features small greens with gaping but unMcKenzie-like bunkers - some guarding  the front of greens on par 4s much to the dismay of the less skilled players. There is little strategy required on the course now mainly because of tree encroachment.
I have not played all Berriman courses but does this sound a familiar theme on his other courses - or how would others descibe the Berriman style?

[Mike Duffy]

Mark,

Unfortunately I don't have a transcript of the interview. the notes were in longhand, and the article under Australian Copyright Law remains the property of the publishers and may no be reproduced in whole or in part without their permission.

The article, such as it was, was published in the "National" a weekly publication, that ceased operations around 1972-73. I believe all publishing rights were bought by either AAP or Davies Bros., but I could be wrong about that Mark, as I was not in Australia when the outfit folded.

[Mike Duffy]

Peter,

I have never played Sale, and from your description it sounds most un-Berriman. Berriman's greens are usually very large, particularly for the era in which they were built. Keysborough and Cranbourne are good examples of that. Maybe he got his ideas from his construction experience and curatorial  duties at Huntingdale, which also feature very large greens.

The information I have appended to the board Peter was passed on to me during several conversations I had with a member of Russell's family.

I did check Keysborough's history and found that indeed, Alex Russell had submitted a tender for the project.

However, after your description of Sale, I must now harbour doubts if Berriman did in fact do the design work.

As for bunkers at the front of par fours, I cannot recall any other examples of Berriman's ORGINAL work with such features.

As for the trees, well what can I say Peter. Most architects do not features jungles on their designs, but neglect and overplanting and failure to prune by club committees over decades produces such annoying and often unsightly features.

[Mike Clayton]

Mike

At Cranbourne several par 4's appear to me to have bunkers in the front including 2,4,6,11,14 and 16 and if they are not all the way across the front they certainly need to be carried to get to most flags.   The 8th at Huntingdale also has that huge bunker across the front -there isn't too much of Berrimans origional left there or at Keysborough for that matter.          

[Mark_Huxford]

Mike may I ask how well you know Steve Williams? Have you ever heard Steve speak on the subject of Architecture?

Has Ian Baker Finch done any work yet/shown interest in becoming involved in the field? Greg Turner??

[Tom Doak]

Pardon me if I missed it, but no one mentioned recent changes to yarra Yarra.  I first went there in 1988, and when I went back ten years later a couple of the best greens -- ones I had made sketches of ten years earlier, such as the eighth -- had been flattened and ruined!

Justin:  I played The National's Norman course with Mike Clayton this past June.  I have a short game, and was surprised by the difficulty around some of the greens.  Honestly, though, it was hard to play it without comparing it to what I thought we might have done with our routing for the course, and no course has a fair shot against "what might have been."  It was very good, but it's not one of the first five courses I'd play in Australia, and I believed it should have been.

[Mark_Huxford]

Michael did make mention of those changes Tom. You'll find them earlier on the first page.

The 120 yard 4th was a tiny but wonderful hole that was trashed 20 years ago when the origional difficult sloping green was flattened in a foolish quest for more pin placements - same thing happened at the 8th, a short 5. At both holes the only defence they had were Russells beautiful greens.

Tom, in The Life and Work of Dr AM you bring up the revised Sandringham plan Russell devised with AT Brown. Once MacKenzie arrived it was shelved but the Good Doctor praises it in his letter to Russell I put up at the start of my post. Have you seen this original plan or the relief model AR made? Does it show a lot of talent?

Earlier in the year you were kind enough to help me a little with my own course. What exactly do you like about PB?
How can I convince people Russell's work is worth saving?

[MikeClaytont]

Mark

Steve caddied for me in Europe in 1984 and after that often in Australia when Greg Norman wasn't playing . He was the best caddy I ever had because he was always decisive,logical and always prepared to back his judgment.


As far as I know he has no interest in architecture but he has seen all of the best courses so I assume he took it in and he was never one to be short of an opinion.All his spare time is taken up with racing his cars and rugby.

Both Turner and IBF have an interest but Greg hasn't done much because he is still playing.I know he wants to though and we have talked often about architecture and he has some good ideas but nothing yet on the ground.I know he is horrified at what has gone on in NZ in the last decade and I would think he would be easily capable of proving you don't need a British Open to be decent at it.

IBF is now living in Palm Beach and working for Jack Nicklaus.He did a course in Indonesia with IMG (4 visits,I assume) and had a role at Kennedy Bay in Perth but as far as I can tell he has never done anything on his own.

[Peter Goss]

Thanks Mike Duffy and Mike Clayton for your comments on Berriman.
I spent a bit of time today chasing the Alex Russell tendering possibility for the Sale Golf course. Our historian was unaware of the tender, but all records, minutes etc of the era have been lost so you may indeed be correct. Nobody I spoke to could dispute the claim. The Russell family would be very credible sources of information.
There is no question the original work at Sale was that of Berriman and the bunkers on the two par fours always required a full carry to hit the green. 15 of 18 greens are in their original 1951 sites though probably all have been altered to some extent over the years. Local greens commitees have made other changes also.
 I stepped out a few greens during my round this afternoon after my claim of the greens being "small". Most "original Berrimans" measure approx. 23m x 17m. Greenside bunkers average 15m x 10m and are cut harshly into the greens.
It is not pleasant to talk down your own course but unless the deficiencies are recognised ( particularly tree encroachment), they will never be corrected. If you are down this way, I'd be delighted to have a round with you on what is still a reasonable example of Berriman ethos and we could dream of what Russell may have done! Then perhaps return in 5 years or so and see what influence the ideas of this forum may have had upon the course and its presentation.
I can only hope!

[Mike Clayton]

Peter

I played Sale 20 years ago and remember nothing except that it was a decent course. The Mornington Peninsula aside the only 2 really good courses I've found in the country are Horsham and Port Fairy and the universal problem with other so called good courses is the ridiculous overplanting of trees by misguided committees.
I hate to think how many we have cut down at the courses we work at but generally the members hate it initially until they see the improvment in turf quality - which is usually the thing they understand - and some actually even concede the holes are improved.
I imagine at Sale the offending trees are not local natives but introduced exotics -pines etc- planted to 'beautify' the course.It was the ultimate Australian cultural cringe -our attempts to make the harsh,dusty,dry and scrubby land feel more like England .
Read Dunlop White and Gary Sherman in the 'In My Opinion' section for your initial ammunition.

[Peter Goss]

Thanks Mike,
You are absolutely correct about Sale and the totally misguided attempts at course beautification by tree planting at the expense of strategic play. Mainly pines and cyprusses that have contracted the course away from boundaries and even blocked a magnificant panorama across the wetlands to the distant mountain range. Some corridors from the tee would be no more than 10m between trees - not fun for the less skilled.
The challenge is to convince the members that drastic tree removal is not only essential but urgent. As in most clubs, the loudest voices are usually the least informed. The recommendations from your suggested references from In My Opinion will form the basis of the strategy.
I'll give an update either way in another 6 months.

[Mike Duffy]

Mike and Peter

Yes, there are some frontal bunkers at Cranbourne, but if I recall correctly, some of them made appearances after Berriman left the scene. Cranbourne, is I believe, one course that has improved its overall conditioning in recent years.

I recently played a pennant match down there and I left impressed with the quality of the turf. Berriman sure liked his par fives didn't he?

In regards to Keysborough, the course has undergone an immense amount of change since Berriman designed it in 1948. Most of the changes were wrought by various committees over the years, including at least one green designed by the committee of the day and some of the other changes verge on the disastrous.

Every time I stand on the 17th tee, my mind wanders back to the beautiful Berriman original 17th. It wasn't good enough for the committee in the mid 70s, they had to change it into a par five. Every time I think about that act of desacration I don't know whether to be angry or to weep.

After reading Peter's thread yesterday in regards to the trees at his home club Sale, I had a good look at our situation at Keysborough during my round yesterday afternoon, as a couple of my playing partners decided to play most of their golf from the foliage.

Like Peter's club, Keysborough needs a good clean out. Dead trees abound farther back off the fairways, and as you know Mike, there are many Cypresses on the course, which are long overdue for removal. To compound matters, the committee has seen fit to overplant with more shrubs and bushes, so that on some holes one only needs to be about two metres off the fairways to be "dead".

My tranchant criticism at the club is well known and mostly despised. I'm hopeful that one day we will have a committee that will take the bull by horns and get in an accomplished crew such as your own Michael to spruce the place up and restore Keysborough to its rightful position in Australian golf. In the meantime, the place lurches along with the attitude of the Dickens character "Macawber" - waiting for something to happen. Yes, you are unfortunately correct Mike, there are only a few pieces of evidence remaining that Berriman was ever there.

In regards to the 8th at Huntingdale, yes that is most certainly a frontal bunker, but I think it is one that works quite well don't you? It took me a few rounds there before the light came on not to hit a driver from the tee.

A short par four, but nonetheless if care is not taken, it is one that can bite hard.

Peter, I will take you up on your invitation to play Sale one day. From your remarks, I would consider  23 x 17 to be a fairly good sized green, probably bigger than most in the era in which they were built.

[Mike Clayton]

Mike

The 8th at Huntingdale is indeed a wonderful hole -one of the best there.

I first played Keysborough in an under 14 schoolboys tournament so the only original hole I didn't play was the 1st.With all the changes that have gone on there only the 18th is ,arguably, better.Every other change seemed to be solely a quest for more difficulty and length. And all that grass facing of the bunkers is awful espcially in Melbourne where great sand faced bunkers abound. No doubt they used the maintainance excuse.

However turning 17 into a par 5 was simply amazing.16 was already a terrific ,albeit short ,5 and 17 was a fine hole and a perfect 17th.The current par 5 is just a rank bad hole with the blind water on the right.

Members who are even percieved as being critical of there own clubs always get a hard time because they just get branded as negative but at Keysborough it's obvious many decisions have been made out of ignorance.sadly because it was a very good course and maybe could be again but it would take an awful lot of restoring.

[Danny Goss]

I must agree with the sentiments expressed here regarding Sale and Keysborough and others. In my opinion the hardest thing in these types of Clubs is to get the members to even admit there is a problem. That can only really be done by getting oneself on to the Board or alternatively to keep trying to "influence" those who are in power. At my Club (Warragul) we have suffered from all these problems but the smartest thing we did was to get the members to agree to a Course Master Plan. That was after we had an "information night" where all members had their say in small groups on what they perceived the problems to be. Of course there were no surprises in what people said but nobody talked about tree encroachment etc.

The Master Plan was done by Mike Clayton and John Sloan. The next thing was to get the members to agree to its implementation. Because there was nothing really radical in the MP the members agreement was easy. Since then we have systematicaly followed the recommendations. Any time anything needs to be done referral is made to either the MP or to Mike or John......because how can we go against the experts?

Fortunately a recent storm relieved us of some dreadful Cypress trees and we took the opportunity to get rid of a few others. Unbelievably hardly anybody noticed! However tree removal is still sensitive and I believe the best way to  ensure it happens is to keep educating members as to why it is necessary.

We have a decision soon as to whether to make our worst hole ( a short par 4)  into a Par 3. I have been busy (as Green Chairman) pointing out to all members I play with that there are 6 good reasons to change and I am asking for any reasons they can think of to leave it as it is. Nobody has any real reasons to leave it ( except that it is a "good hole"......hard to argue against such a silly notion) so the decision in the end will hopefully become inevitable. I have found this to be an easier route than any other alternative to achieving change on our courses. As Mike said members who are seen to be critical of their own Club always get a hard time however the trick is to get the members to admit there is a problem. Until that happens change cannot occur. By the way Mike - when are you coming up to have a look at that hole?
I think Mackenzie spoke somewhere of "benovalent dictators" running Clubs Green Committees. All these years later he is still right so long as the dictator is coming from the correct direction.

[Shane Gurnett]

Spot on Danny.

At Commonwealth we have a "Course Master Plan" about to issue to the memebership for comment. Without pre-empting what will be in there, I have already sharpened up the pencil in the expectation of much correspondence.

As you quite rightly put it, the plan needs to have some credible people involved (not just the greens commitee of the day) and should be focussed on restoration, rather than redesign, excpet in very few cases. When they start talking about moving bunkers and redesigning greens, you know things are heading downhill.

Committee's have to understand the responsibilities they have in preserving the integrity of our great designs. Most just do not understand what a priviledge (rather than a right) it is to play on these courses day after day. Good luck with Warragul, and keep those buggers honest.

[Mike Clayton]

Danny

The 5th at Waragul is in the top 3 worst holes i've seen in the world and to defend it is to just expose ignorance. I will talk to John about the next visit -maybe the week after the NZ Open.

Shane

Who did the Master Plan at Commonwealth? Just get out the old photos and the chainsaw.

[Richard Chamberlain]

Mike C and Mark Hux

Why don't you shoot off to the speedway with Tige and Steve during the Open.
You will all look choice with those caps on with the beercans on top with the straws into your mouth.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1055392a1823,FF.html

[Justin_Ryan]

Mike

That is quite an effort on the part of Warragul to have one of the three worst holes in the world, I'll have to get down there and have a look before you change it.  I don't suppose you would care to name the other two, but for my money, the worst hole I have ever played is the dogleg par three fifth at Westgate

[Shane Gurnett]

Mike

From what I can find out to date, the Commonwealth plan is mostly an internal document with little outside input that I am aware of. That worries me enormously. Hopefully Hartley is nowhere near it, considering the damage he has already done. I'll make some enquiries reagarding the old photo's and keep you posted. Right now my biggest concern is how many of the untouched 13 holes are likley to be under threat. I suspect that restoration is not a major part of the plan.

Theres a lot at stake here. It would kill me if the membership took the easy option and rubber stamped a blueprint which could lead to further devastation (as happened with Huntingdale). I'll lay down in front of the bulldozers if I have to this time.

[Peter Goss]

One of the difficulties with this format is the very worthy tangents that crop up under the guise of the original headline, meaning quite a few interesting conversations are occurring simultaneously.
I do feel however the topic of the worst hole in the world deserves an individual thread and will therefore post it as such.

[Mike Clayton]

Justin

Possibly somewhat of an exaggeration to call it one of the worst 3 but it's up there. It's especially bad in summer when it's all but impossible to hit the fairway.#11 at The Grand where not one player who hit a wood off the tee hit the fairway is also in the finals (in the Aus.Open)

Shane

It never ceases to amaze me that someone like Tom Doak who has written of his fondness for the old course isnt consulted. Surely its been proven the custodians of the course are not capable of restoring it internally.I'll join you in front of the bulldozers.

[Mike Duffy]

lMike C

Indeed the grass faced bunkers are a disgrace and not indicative of bunkers found on Melbourne's golf courses.

There is no definition left at the course. One can only survey an endless sward of green from any vantage point across the course.

You might be interested to know Mike tht the club had a "critique" done by one of the Medallist  (Norman) specialists.
Guess what one of his major points of criticism was? Yes, the grassed faced bunkers (the committee has kept very quiet about that document). His second critisism: too heavily wooded (quietness reigned again!). third point: the fallacy of a "two-grass" policy (not a word to be heard). fourth point: inappropriate location of two greens that had been moved (complete silence).

In fact the critique, which I have not seen, but have heard enough about to fill me with some hope, contains every bit of advice that myself and one or two others have proffered over the years.

Is suspect that the report is now gathering dust as the advice did not coincide with "club objectives".

However, there are now many disgruntled members at the club, with their disenchantment directly related to the course condition or lack thereof. The wheel slowly turns.

Finally Mike, I'm intrigued by your description of the first hole at Warragul being amongst the world's worst. Having never played Warragul, could you elaborate as to why it is so bad?

And as regards Commonwealth, that is another club where the committee should have a case to answer. Committees should remember that they are custodians and not innovators. If that precept is accepted the ruinous changes that we have talked about at clubs such as Commonwealth and Keysborough would not have happened.

I applaud clubs such as Warragul for having the foresight to call in the experts, draw up a master plan and hopefully stick to it. The only result can be a great improvement in the clubs' appearance and condition thereby enhancing the ejoyment of all who are fortunate enough to play at such courses.

[Mike Clayton]

Mike

The 5th at Warragul is a 300 yard par 4 on a tiny strip of land with OOB left hard against the fairway edge.The fairway slopes from left to right and if you miss the right edge there is a drop of about 20 feet.It might be 25 yards wide and it's all but impossible to hit with anything more than a 6 iron when the fairways are bouncing in the summer -all clay remember.

It really narrows down by the green -maybe 15 yards from the OOB fence to the right edge of the green and an awful buggy track.

It's probably not worth a trip to see it but if you are in the area play the Morcom course at Trafalgar. -it's not bad at all and if they could get some money they could finish Morcom's bunker plan and that would really make a differance.

[Danny Goss]

Mike Clayton

I knew the fifth at Warragul was bad but gee.......that bad? The problem is that members who play there regularly become used to the hole and tend to forget its problems. My personal opinion is that you guys could build us a great par 3 in its place. However the trick is, as always, is to get members to firstly see that there is a problem and then provide a solution. If the problem is correctly pointed out to members constantly over a period of time and then dealt with sensitively then change can occur. As a Board members we must not forget it is their club and that persuasive arguments can usually win the day with most fair minded people.

[Mike Clayton]

Danny

No its not that bad but the answer maybe to take the doubters to the Heineken Classic for a day and a lesson in architecture and what great holes are. ( I can organize some tickets)