I saw this old article today. With Pinehurst and LACC fixed, and Yale getting close, who should make the list? Of course my vote is Olympic Club but there must be others.
10
Great Architectural
Crimes of the 20th Century
by Ran Morrissett
Ever since a trip to Scotland in 1981, Ran Morrissett
has been hooked on the study of golf course
architecture. With help from his brother, he started
golfclubatlas.com in 1999 to promote a frank and
serious discourse on the subject.
Augusta National: When Bob Jones founded the club,
Oakmont and Pine Valley were the established titans in
American golf. The design that MacKenzie came up with
was truly revolutionary, with its apparent lack of
hazards. Please rename it the Masters Course, as
MacKenzie's startlingly original design of wide
fairways and less than 30 bunkers has devolved into a
course with rough and ever narrowing treed corridors.
In short, it has become a straightforward parkland
course. Translation: yawn.
George Thomas: The mistreatment of his courses in
Southern California-the hatchet jobs at Bel-Air, LACC
North and Riviera. It is alarming that more excellent
alternate shot holes, like the 11th and 17th at
Bel-Air and the 8th at Riviera, have been lost or
wrecked than have been built since. Why should one of
the three or four greatest architects of all time have
his best work so mistreated?
Oakland Hills: The pinching of the fairways in the
hitting area and the frontal bunkers spelled the end
of options and the ground game for at least 40 years,
while promoting a boring type of "championship" golf.
Also, the work set the horrible precedent for future
changes to other classic courses including Oak Hill,
Inverness and Scioto.
Decades of neglect at Yale: Ranked No. 29 in the world
in 1939, Yale Golf Club now does not even rank among
the top five courses in the golf-weak state of
Connecticut. The bunker work done in the last several
years shows either a lack of understanding of Seth
Raynor's work or a lack of ability -- or both.
No. 12 at Garden City: In an ideal world, an architect
would resist when a club wants to destroy a unique
hole that has good -- though rarely seen -- golfing
qualities. However, in the real world, architects need
to make a living too, so it is hard to blame Robert
Trent Jones, Sr., for accepting a project at
prestigious Garden City on Long Island. However, he
can be held responsible for coming up with, first, a
bad hole and, second, a poorly conceived hole that
never looked like it belonged with the other 17 on the
course.
Royal Liverpool (Hoylake): Royal Liverpool should have
shown better judgment and left well enough alone --
but instead it wiped away the distinctive playing
attributes of the once feared 7th and 17th holes at
Hoylake, the out of bounds hard left and right of each
respective green. Tom Simpson's love of the course was
based largely on his belief that out of bounds is the
truest test of a golfer's mettle, and his love of the
course would now, no doubt, be tempered.
Pinehurst : Sandy soil is the one common denominator
among 90 percent of the world's top 30 courses. In
addition to the courses at Pinehurst Country Club,
Ross took full advantage and built numerous engaging
courses on such soil -- like Pine Needles, Mid Pines
and Southern Pines. However, since Ross's death in
1949, architects have squandered the advantage,
building little that is special. An example is Fazio's
expensive makeover of Ross's No. 4 course at
Pinehurst, featuring countless small pits for bunkers
which the locals refer to as Fazio's tribute to Rees
Jones. How could course design have gone so awry,
given that a man with a team of mules and scrap pans
gave us a how -- to blueprint decades ago?
Pebble Beach: Of the 10 greatest courses in the world,
Pebble Beach in the 1930s also rivaled Royal Melbourne
West as the most handsomely bunkered. Today, Egan's
imaginative imitation sand dunes are long gone. The
course is left with obviously man-made, formalized
bunkers instead -- a very poor substitute, especially
with Cypress Point just down the road. And yet no one
seems to care. Equally bad is the way the 12th and
17th greens have been allowed to shrink to the point
where both of these one shotters on the back are now
hit and hope shots in any kind of wind. The new owners
should make a concerted effort to review the course as
it was in the 1930s, via aerials and other
photographic evidence, and bring back as many of
Egan's features as possible.
The Medalist: The best type of golf committee is a
committee of one, as clubs like Pine Valley, The Golf
Club and Oakmont have shown in past years. Initially,
Pete Dye gave founder Greg Norman a superb low profile
course with some of the best medium sized greens built
in modern times. In its scrubby natural state, with
its ground hugging features, it was a thing of true
beauty and in many ways as original as the more
heralded TPC Sawgrass. Unfortunately, many of the
original members were active golf professionals,
fixated with the card-and-pencil mentality. Ten years
later, after listening to whining about the course
being too tough, Norman has shifted his view of what
he wants it to be and his persistent tinkering has
watered down Dye's work. Whereas the 1st and 6th
greens were once glued to the ground, they are now
elevated four feet and blandly bunkered front left and
right a la the dark days of aerial golf design in the
1960s. The 8th green is now bulkheaded and would fit
in on countless other modern courses -- the original
beach bunkering was more imaginative and natural.
Worst of all are the changes to No. 18. What was once
a par-4 where the golfer hooded a 3-iron under the
wind to an immense, rolling home green tied into the
practice putting surface, now is a par-5 right out of
Myrtle Beach with huge mounds left and a silly water
feature right. It rivals No. 18 at Whistling Straits
as a horrible finishing hole. But Dye can at least
live with the fact that he is solely responsible for
the one at Whistling Straits.
The Stimpmeter: A countless number of some of the
wildest greens in the U.S. have been "softened" --
i.e. their character stripped away-in an effort to
accommodate speeds of 11 and higher on the Stimpmeter,
particularly in the northeast at neat designs like
Herbert Strong's work at Engineers Country Club on
Long Island. Rather than chase pace, why not encourage
character