Trees & Wealth - or how members messed up perfectly good golf courses

[Dan Herrmann]

I had a great conversation with a friend last week.  He was once an assistant pro at a well known, classic era design club. 

We were talking about recent renovation work at that classic course, and how the master plan called for a large number of trees to be removed.  He mentioned how many of the long-time members were strongly against tree removal and had essentially stopped the completion of the master plan.   The powerful members also called the restoration work at Oakmont a "failure".

He then recounted the history of the club.  The original Ross design was essentially treeless, but after the first year, the board compelled every member to plant at least 2 trees on the course - their opinion being that treed golf courses symbolized wealth and privilege.

How common would that opinion have been back then (1920's)?  Does that sort of thinking persist today?  If so, how can we protect modern design from another "beautification" movement?

[mike_malone]

 

[Mac Plumart]

Members at Sahlee must be loaded!

 

[Joe Bausch]

Members at Sahlee must be loaded!

 

Snarky.

I like it. 

[Tim Martin]

That is an interesting correlation-trees to wealth. How often have we heard this same story where the older members resist these tree programs? The thing that currently puts these projects on the fast track in many instances is showing the decision makers on club boards the before and after pictures of an Oakmont,Yale or a St. Georges L.I. Trees equate much more to stubbornness than wealth.  

[Brian Hilko]

It is very sad to hear. We may have recently lied to our membership that certain trees were diseased to get them removed. I hope nobody tells on this site

[Dan Herrmann]

I know first-hand of the story at Riverside CC in Portland (H. Chandler Egan).  Apparently there was a big flood many decades ago that took out many of the trees on the course.  The BOD had every member plant a specified number of trees.   This on a course that I'm almost certain had no trees when it opened.

Likewise, two years ago I played a course in NJ that had been subject to tropical storm tree damage.  This course was a real jem, but was really overtreed, and I hoped that the storm would start a tree thinning project.  Nope.  Turns out that they were replanting in the spots that lost trees.

Is this "trees = wealth and success" idea one that will pass as time goes on, or do most people today still equate a course without a lot of trees to a club with little stature or cachet?

[TEPaul]

Dan:

The thread title is an interesting point indeed.

I've got a story to tell you on that note that pretty much spans the eras and articulates that point as well as it can be articulated.

The way it happened was just so amazing and should give us all hope. When the man said it, it really did bring tears to the eyes of everyone on the committee.

He was about 94 when he said it. He's gone now. His name was Willis De LaCour and I guarantee you if every golf club had a man like that they would be just fine both now and well into the future!!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Dan,

Is that opinion documented or just hearsay ?

[Dan Herrmann]

Patrick - which opinion?

[Dan Boerger]

Tom - Question for you ... I really like the way a number of tee boxes at Gulph Mills seem to have a corresponding Sycamore tree. Provides some excellent shade without intruding on play. Are those trees so old that Mr. Ross and team designed around them, or were they planted post course construction?

[TEPaul]

Dan:

Those sycamores on either side of GMGC's tee boxes were planted on the instruction of Donald Ross and their purpose was shade.

[Dan Boerger]

Thanks Tom ... Really a wonderful touch.

[TEPaul]

Pete et al (I got your IM Pete);

Here's what Willis De LaCour said:


We had a Restoration Master Plan Committee that we formed when our Ardrossan project ended. The idea was if we did not move to Ardrossan we would restore our golf course. We hired Hanse and we formed a "Restoration Committee." It was a big committee that included most of the Green Committee and Golf Committee and a few others who we figured would sort of cover the GMGC demographic.

Willis De La Cour we felt would represent the older member demographic. Willis was one of the most dignified and courtly and intelligent gentlemen I ever knew. At that point he was about 90, he lived in a fine retirement home in Bryn Mawr and I would drive over there and pick him up for every Restoration Master Plan Committee meeting. He had been a past president and the Green Chairman for years in the 1950s and early 1960s.

He was always neatly dressed in coat and tie and he always sat in front. We had maybe 30-40 meetings over about two years and he never missed a meeting.

For over a year he sat there in front listening and never said a word. We were always complaining about how treed up our course had gotten compared to what it was when Ross designed and built it. Our Master plan called for quite a lot of tree removal and we just constantly complained about how through the 30's and into the 50s and early 60s they had purposefully just tree-lined the course and how much it contributed to shade and the sucking out of turf nutrients.

So after over a year sitting there quietly Willis De La Cour raised his hand and started to speak. He said; "I have listened very carefully for over a year to what you have been saying about how over-treed this course has become and I just want to tell you I am the one in the 1950s who recommended the planting of all those trees and who oversaw that program."

I will never forget how we all looked at one another with looks on our faces like:  "Oh Shit, we have been completely insulting Willis De La Cour for over a year without knowing it.

But what he said next floored us. He said: "I have been listening to everything you have said very carefully and I want you to know that when we planted all those trees back then we not only were not aware of any of this, we never even thought of the entire issue of what it might come to someday, and therefore if you want me to go in front of the entire membership and explain that to them I am willing to do that."

There really was this sort of elongated silence. Most of us just had our heads down and some did say they were trying not to cry.

I actually told that story as a form of a eulogy at Willis's funeral and it pretty much got the same reaction.

Every club would do well now and in the future if they had a man amongst them like Willis De La Cour. He was a man that many in that golf club looked upon as a personification of the ethos of everything GMGC ideally was and wanted to maintain and to be.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I like trees.  I don't think that every course needs to be treeless.    They are hazards like bunkers or streams.  I belong to courses that are tree lined and others that have few. Both kinds have something to attract them.  That said they need to be placed judiciously. There needs to be airflow for greens and tees.  Some. courses would be benefited by the planting of a few trees for hole separation.

[Jason Topp]

When I was a kid, new courses would have spindly trees between fairways that did not affect play much.  They never seemed like real golf courses until those trees grew enough to create some interest from tee to green.

[Tom Ferrell]

Great story, Tom Paul!  Trees seem to me to be one of the most misunderstood aspects of golf course design, even among design enthusiasts.  To me, any tree that plays into the strategy of the hole is a good tree.  On the old goat track where I grew up (the "old" Okefenokee GC in Waycross, GA), we a short 4 (the 13th) that bent around a beautiful live oak.  Big hitters could try to bomb it over the tree.  Daring players could try to scoot a hook around it, setting up a short pitch to the green.  You could always play out to the right and leave a clear approach, but bring in a bunker that otherwise would not be a factor.  I measured my progress as a young player by my relationship to that oak tree.

The problem comes when trees eliminate, rather than presenting strategy.  An overabundance of them that removes the opportunity for a recovery shot.  Unkempt trees that essentially serve as little non-recoverable ponds (small blue spruces have almost NO use on a golf course).  Volunteers that show up well after a golf course has been routed, designed and opened for play. 

I remember sitting with Mark Fine in a room of the Cherry Hills clubhouse in Denver when he was working on a documentation project prior to the club's adoption of Tom Doak's restoration plan.  On the wall was a plaque with all the names of the people who had "donated" trees during the club's 1950s-era "beautification program," from which it is still recovering.  Somewhere, I thought, William Flynn must be rolling.

[Doug Siebert]

People like trees!  When someone builds a new house in a former farm field, what's the first thing they do?  Plant some trees, while wishing they had some magic dust to spread on them so they could be big mature shade trees right away rather than right about the time they retire and sell the house.

People like trees.  Nothing is going to change that, so rather than trying to get people in the US living in areas with lots of trees (i.e., everywhere, except the desert SW) to want courses with no trees, they need to kept under control.  If they're in play, limb them up, and remove all the junk trees with low hanging branches or evergreens that lead to lost/unplayable balls.  Use the argument that it speeds play, use the argument that this is what the courses they play on tour do.  But its silly trying to convince people that golf courses in areas where there are trees in every direction to the horizon should be devoid of all trees.  They won't accept it.  They like trees!

[Dan Herrmann]

Sure, they like trees.  I love trees, but not planted willy-nilly on a golf course because they look nice or because having a tree'd golf course represents "success".

Sure - some trees make sense, but those are usually the ones planted or left by the original architect or a restoration architect.   Put it this way, how many restorations ADDED trees?

Tom - Thank you for the story of Mr. De La Cour.  Memories like that should be treasured.

[Sean Remington (SBR)]

Mr. De La Cour was obviously a great man in many ways.  It takes a very confident man to make such an admition and resist the urge to defent a potential legacy.  That is a wonderful story and one that could help many clubs.

In the 20's and 30's the golf courses were being built by men who had seen or been well educated about what golf looked like overseas.  They selected many of their building sites based on a lack of trees and cost savings associated with that.  So they open their great designs based on width and angles and topography and in walks a entierly new set of golfers who are mostly new to the game and had no real knowledge of the links lands.  The vast open landscape most have seemed very waste like to them who had gown up on tree lined streets and gone to the best schools on tree covered campuses.  I'm sure they wanted trees for direction, shade and separation.  Maybe safety was a concern as the game grew in popularity and rounds increased.   Wealth did play a role for many reasons, most obvious that it was costly to plant and maintain a new tree.  Nursery plants and trees did not become common until the late 30's and then really boomed after WWII.   Most golf courses couldn't affort to plant trees until after WWII when the Federal Government started giving away hundreds of thousands of white pines for free in the late 40's and 50's.

Most trees are planted with the best of intentions.  Trees are the only real monument the average person can leave behind as a 100 or even 200 year legacy. 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick - which opinion?

The "Board's"

[TEPaul]

"Mr. De La Cour was obviously a great man in many ways.  It takes a very confident man to make such an admition and resist the urge to defent a potential legacy.  That is a wonderful story and one that could help many clubs."


Sean:

In my opinion, Mr De LaCour was a great man. Just about everyone at the club felt that way about him and always. But I do not think any of us ever expected him to say what he did at that meeting. To all of us that just completely confirmed the depth and breadth of what a wonderful person he really was.

He was quite a quiet man and I think most who just saw him would probably say he was "old fashioned" in some ways.

I did say in that last post that I told that story at his funeral and it got quite a reaction that seemed to confirm what so many felt about him. But like in anything, in life nothing ever seems to be that simple. Right after I said that at his funeral one of his children (about my age) came up to me and just unloaded on me a whole life history of problems she felt she had with him, her father. She said as hard as she tried throughout her life she just could not figure out if he loved her, or really even cared about her. She said that particular problem had just crucified her throughout her life and now there was going to be no way to deal with it because he was gone. Actaully she was remarkably angry.

Apparently he was just one of those old fashioned fathers who was aloof and perhaps could not, or did not know how, or understand very well, how to show emotion or even love. I've seen so many people like that of that generation and particularly the generation before it, both mothers and fathers but particularly fathers. Often they even have trouble touching their children! I spoke with that lady over the phone for the next few years and at the end of it she did say she was beginning to understand it better and was feeling a lot better about it after all those years. I hope she meant it!

[Kevin Robinson]

It's really funny how some people view trees with regard to golf course architecture. The course that I play quite a bit, Hulman Links in Terre Haute, Indiana, is, in my opinion, a tremendous golf course with some really wonderful golf holes that are marred by the city's inability to properly maintain the course.
I understand that, prior to a major tree removal program 6-8 years ago, the golf course was borderline unplayable...but I've only played it since 2010 as it's my golf team's home course.
The 5th hole is a marvelous mid-length par-4 of 425 yeards from the reg. tees that bends gradually right and has a really great green complex with a huge variety of potential hole locations. The primary hazard here, unfortunately, is that there is a large tree with a huge canopy that sits on the right side of the fairway, at approximately the beginning of the dogleg. This canopy comes into play for almost everyone who plays the hole at some time or another. For the better player on the back tees, or the mid-handicapper from the regs, a well hit tee shot to the center of the fairway can often lead to an approach shot that must be cut/sliced around the trees canopy to any hole location that is right of the green's center.
Most of the people who play there have grown so accustomed to this intrusion on the line of play that they just accept it as a legitimate hazard on the hole.  Playing in a money game last year, and after expressing dismay that I needed to hit a 30 yard cut after a 280 yard tee shot to the middle of the fairway, I was told by a playing companion, "....this is a great hole, and you just need to learn how to play it".