"Bobby Jones wouldn't have approved....."

[Niall C]

On more than one occasion Peter Allis on the BBC came away with this line as some player was faced with a huge swinging putt going at frightening pace. Do you think that's true and indeed what would his design partner have thought ?

Niall

[Terry Lavin]

Only the Speculation Brothers (Rank and Idle) can answer this question, but I would hazard a guess that Bobby Jones, like the rest of the ANGC establishment, would want to see the pros struggle on all parts of the golf course when competing for a Green Jacket AND a $1.6 million first place check. 

[RJ_Daley]

My thought is that the powers that be at ANGC would say in regard to whether RTJ or AM would approve;  that was then and this is now.   We have a "major"to run in context to modern times of modern equipment and modern day skills of players to maximize the B&I advancements.  The battle of maintenance meld has been fought and technology and modern player skill VS conditions has yielded a victory for the forces of defending par at the cost of sentimentality for whatever RTJ and AM would approve.  

[Sean_A]

I do wonder if anybody ever had in mind a guy putting with his back to the hole.  Seems a bit far fetched to me, but thats what can happen at Augusta with the green speeds that high.  I don't consider that sort of thing terribly clever.

Ciao

[Niall C]

Terry

I doubt whether Jones and MacKenzie would want the course to be a cake walk but would they have approved of that particular element of the challenge ?

RJ

Wasn't looking for ANGC justification for what's there now, I was basically asking whther it meets the original architects design apirations.

Niall

[RJ_Daley]

Sitwell park.  

[John Kavanaugh]

If a number of 50 year olds are able to compete for the championship the course is neither too long or too difficult.  I would think a great champion whose career was cut short would find this situation one of the greatest accomplishments of his life.

[Niall C]

Sitwell park.  

I doubt Sitwell Park would have been above 6 on the stimpmeter. What we're talking about is the meld between design and conditioning. Would MacKenzie have designed Sitwell Park for greenspeeds of 12 plus, or put it another way, having designed greens like that, would he have been happy with green speeds that would have resulted in putting like we see at Augusta ?

Niall

[Ally Mcintosh]

Sitwell park.  

I doubt Sitwell Park would have been above 6 on the stimpmeter. What we're talking about is the meld between design and conditioning. Would MacKenzie have designed Sitwell Park for greenspeeds of 12 plus, or put it another way, having designed greens like that, would he have been happy with green speeds that would have resulted in putting like we see at Augusta ?

Niall

Looking at Sitwell greens, I would have thought 4 to 5 on the stimpmeter would have resulted in the same sort of putts we are seeing at Augusta...

[Sean_A]

Ahhhh, the masses spoke on Sitwell - no thanks was the reply.

Ciao

[Terry Lavin]

If a number of 50 year olds are able to compete for the championship the course is neither too long or too difficult.  I would think a great champion whose career was cut short would find this situation one of the greatest accomplishments of his life.

This is a fair point.  The course seemed brick hard, they have the "wrong" grass on the greens for the design, they've planted trees in a punitive fashion here and there and they've stretched the course about as far as they can.  And yet, Freddy, Jiminez and other old guys were able to compete along with rookies like Blixt and Spieth.  The malaise can simply be written off as the price to pay to have an old classic layout in a form that can challenge the best in the game under major championship conditions.  Same old song as was sung at Merion last year.

Now it's on to Pinehurst.  Let's see if the USGA has the pros playing on green/brown asphalt like they did when Michael Campbell won.  Now there's a name for the ages...

[Niall C]

Ally

Do you really think so ? Would 4 or 5 on the stimp see putts rolling continuously they way they do at Augusta ? My sense of the Sitwell greens was that they were a series of pockets at different levels. When putting from a higher pocket to a lower pocket I imagine the ball would stop OK in the lower pocket. Speed the greens up and they would likely go over the edge.

In saying that I'm thinking of the 18th at Duff House Royal with the double tiered green that has a steep slope for a backdrop on the upper tier. I've tried a number of times hitting the ball up the bank to see it come down and stay on the top tier. Perhaps on competition days with an extra cut the ball might just go down to the lower tier, I don't know.

What speed do you think the "average" UK inland green would be at during the summer ?

Niall

[RJ_Daley]

Niall, these questions have been a traditional dicussion for many years already.  And I suspect the questions will continue to be asked for many more years around Masters season.  As long as new people turn their interests towards subjects of GCA and maintenance meld, as they get past just the drama of the annual event competition and which golf personality is up or down, those folks that turn to AM'sbook and RTJ's writings will raise the questions, I guess.  

I'm of the mind that both RTJ and AM would have capitulated to the practical arguements that things had to be done to keep the rising arc of the prestige of the toon-a-mint in line with the design presentation with the maintenance meld technology as needed to defend par in a reasonable way.  Not defend par in the US Open extreme, but as JK mention, so that a couple of 50yr olds could compete with some skill and cleaverness, and yet not shoot 30 under.  To me, the one most valid arguement would be over the added trees, not so much the speed of the greens.  I even speculate they would have compromised to add a bit of rough.  All, just mre grist for the mill of the annual discussion.

[Niall C]

Ahhhh, the masses spoke on Sitwell - no thanks was the reply.

Ciao

Sean

Not sure it was the masses, I think it was a fairly autocratic decision from what I recall.

Niall

[Carson Pilcher]

I do wonder if anybody ever had in mind a guy putting with his back to the hole.  Seems a bit far fetched to me, but thats what can happen at Augusta with the green speeds that high.  I don't consider that sort of thing terribly clever.

Ciao

Even if the greens were running at an 8 on the Stimp, with that much slope on #9, that putt would still break 15 feet and his back would be to the hole.

The greens at Ballyneal are "slow" and you have to stroke some putts "away" from the hole to get them close or in the hole.

[RJ_Daley]

We know what Jones said about his enduring fondness for "the Old Course".  Do you think he had or witnessed some putts there where the stroke had to be played on a line far from a direct to the hole, regardless of speed?

[John Kavanaugh]

I have never met a man who enjoyed the finer things in life that would not love to putt on those greens exactly as we witnessed Sunday.  Fast cars, beautiful women, fine clothes...where do frightening greens come in?  There is zero evidence that Jones would change a thing with the possible exception of televising the event so clueless morons could question his taste.

[Niall C]

We know what Jones said about his enduring fondness for "the Old Course".  Do you think he had or witnessed some putts there where the stroke had to be played on a line far from a direct to the hole, regardless of speed?

I'm sure he did but not nearly as often as you get at Augusta. Likewise MacKenzie who referenced the old greens at Machrihanish as providing large borrows however would he not have been looking for an element of playability about them, not referring to fairness but to avoiding uncontrolable putts ?

If you think of MacKenzie and his bunkers, he liked to place them such that they challenged the tiger but left a way open for the rabbit. He also gave the player the chance of getting out of them albeit perhaps a direct approach to the hole might have been a higher tariff than say an easy knock out sideways. In that sense there was a bit of playability in the design that's maybe missing with the Augusta contours/12 plus speeds, don't you think.

Niall

[Peter Pallotta]

Yes, I think Mr. Jones would continue to approve. As Jack Nicklaus recently said in comparing the Masters to the other majors: it was always meant to be a "tournament" first and foremost, while the others are "championships". The practice of inviting past winners back, the easy bogie/hard par mantra, and the ongoing reality of golfers like Langer being able to hold their own suggest to me that  Mr. Jones would be happy with the way the tournament played out, including the challenges presented by the greens. After he'd retired from competitive golf, Jones himself struggled year after year to shoot good scores at the tournament/course he started, so I think he would see as a positive the fact that, at the Masters, if you're not at the top of your game you'll struggle.  

Peter

[Joe Hancock]

I do wonder if anybody ever had in mind a guy putting with his back to the hole.  Seems a bit far fetched to me, but thats what can happen at Augusta with the green speeds that high.  I don't consider that sort of thing terribly clever.

Ciao

I think there are those who had that putt in mind. And, while I don't know how "clever" it is, it sure can be fun. At Kingsley, because of design AND maintenance, I find myself with the option of taking a conventional route or a route with my back to the hole, or maybe something in between. Unless I need to score for the sake of a match or a partner, I take the unconventional route.....because it's more fun(for me). How different of an idea is it to ask the golfer to play past the hole to get close or have a chancing of holing it vs. aiming drastically offline for a similar result?

But having to putt with your back to the hole for a Green jacket is a different matter, a matter I have no problem with.

Joe

[Patrick_Mucci]

There's not a doubt in my mind that Bobby Jones would have approved.

Bobby Jones was a ferocious competitor at the highest level, having competed in and won Major Championships.

Bobby Jones ALWAYS wanted ANGC to test the best golfers.

I think that Peter Allis was indirectly expressing his sentiments.

[Jim Nugent]

ANGC did make tons of changes, almost from the start, through the years and decades -- and Bobby Jones was there for a whole lot of them.  Unless Roberts totally ran the show, Jones did approve of many of them.  Always, it seems to me, to keep the course a challenge to the world's top golfers. 

So my hunch is he would not object to the green speeds either, even given the contours. 

There is zero evidence that Jones would change a thing with the possible exception of televising the event so clueless morons could question his taste.

He approved televising it for decades.  That brought in millions of dollars a year to the club.  It would shock me if his view about that would ever change. 

[Tom_Doak]

Bobby Jones was VERY capable of spelling out his own thoughts, and he wrote about Augusta National's design clearly and concisely in his book, GOLF IS MY GAME.  This was written in 1959, not 1934, so many of the changes to the course had already been made.  Here's what he had to say about the greens:

"Generally speaking, the greens at Augusta are quite large, rolling, and with carefully contrived undulations, the effect of which is magnified as the speed is increased.  We are quite willing to have low scores made during the tournament.  It is not our intention to right the golf course so as to make it tricky.  It is our feeling that there is something wrong with a golf course which will not yield a score in the sixties to a player who has played well enough to deserve it.

On the other hand, we do not believe that birdies should be made too easily.  We think that to play two good shots to a par four hole and then to hole a ten-foot putt on a dead-level green is not enough.  If the player is to beat par, we should like to ask him to hit a truly fine second shot right up against the flag or to hole a putt of more than a little difficulty.  We therefore place the holes on tournament days in such locations on the greens as to require a really fine shot in order to get close.  With the greens fast and undulating, the putts from medium distances are difficult and the player who leaves his ball on the outer reaches has a real problem to get down in par figures.

The contours of the greens at Augusta have been very carefully designed."  


I suppose there's some meat there for either side of the argument, but that next-to-last line about "a real problem to get down in par figures" is still pretty much what the golf course gives, that is the basis of this thread.


I do note one other quote from Jones, a page or two later:

"I believe it is true that with modern equipment and modern players, we cannot make a golf course more difficult or more testing simply by adding length.  The players of today are about as accurate with medium or long irons as with their pitching clubs.  The only way to stir them up is by the introduction of subtleties around the greens."

And you wonder where I get this stuff.  

P.S.  Also, don't forget, Peter Alliss is a great commentator and a wonderful man, but he was never a very good putter.

[Mark Pritchett]

Would Crump approve of PV today?  Fownes of Oakmont? 

[Rich Goodale]

I think that Peter Allis was indirectly expressing his sentiments.

Bingo, Pat.  Allis couldn't even hit the edges of the hole with uphill 2 foot putts at the end of his career.  He just wants to think that he and Jones are soulmates.  Not!