CC of Birmingham (West) - Ross / RTJ / Dye - A Photo Tour!! - All 18 Up

[Mark Saltzman]

A short par-4 opener that quickly identifies the course as a Ross/Dye combo with the carry bunker and mounding near the green.






Back up the hill to near the first tee, the par-4 second features a fierce false-front and an angled and highly contoured green:




Strategic though not particularly aesthetically pleasing bunkering at the third, a mid-length, downhill par-4 played to a long and severe green:






The par-5 4th crosses the same stream on both the tee shot and second shot.  Challenging the hazard on the right will be very helpful to those hoping to reach the green in two as a deep bunker protects this front-right to back-left angled green.






The 5th is a monstrous par-3, stretching close to 240 yards from the championship marker.  From the tee, there appears to be no room to miss, though a small plateau short-left of the green will give the golfer some leeway.




One of several up-and-over par-4s, the 6th is a mid-length par-4 made longer by the fairway sloping back to the tee.  The approach must be all carry as another false-front / deep bunker combo awaits the short miss.




Up-and-over again at the 7th, a 450 yard par-4 whose approach is played severely downhill to another angled green, this one protected by a small stream on the left.




Like the 5th, the 8th is a par-3 that looks more difficult than it plays (though it's still pretty tough!).  




Not quite returning nines, the downhill par-4 9th ends a couple of hundred or so yards from the clubhouse.  Bunkering is staggered from the tee, and many golfers may well choose to lay back from the second set of fairway bunkers 130 yards from the green.

[Nigel Islam]

Wow those greens look fantastic

[Tom_Doak]

Mark:

I was working for the Dyes when this project was in planning, and Pete was telling John Gustin and the membership that he was going to restore the Ross course that Jones had changed so thoroughly.  By the time they built it I was working on Riverdale Dunes, and I never got back to see what happened, though I heard the course was very very difficult and the renovation didn't sit well with some of the membership.  This is the first time I've seen pictures of it.  The routing is Ross' routing intact, but the features obviously are not.

The reason the club reached out to Pete to start with was that their bermudagrass greens were pretty much all dead because of shade issues.  Looks like they didn't take down all the trees when they fixed them!

[Mark Saltzman]

Tom, some of the top shot bunkers are similarly placed to those depicted in the routing map at the beginning of my post. I don't know that I've seen Dye use these anywhere else. Maybe there was some attempt at restoration and not just re-design?

[Nigel Islam]

Has Pete ever done a restoration?

[Tom_Doak]

Has Pete ever done a restoration?

Pete says he does not really believe in restorations, although I swear he used the word in Birmingham back in 1984, even though nobody was using it then.  The closest thing he's done was the work at Piping Rock that I oversaw for him in 1985 ... the mission there was to update the course for the times but to retain Macdonald's design.  He also set me up to be the one to restore Camargo although I guess he would have done it somewhat differently.

[Nigel Islam]

I'm hopeful to see your work at Camargo later this year. I loved what I saw at Pasatiempo. I think it takes a unique talent to use restraint. I think Pete has defintely rid the state of Indiana of a lot of Bill Diddel's work. Whether that is good or bad I am not sure. I think Mark's pictures here show a lot of what I would expect from a Ross course. Perhaps he did do some restoration in Birmingham.

[AKikuchi]

Mark,

I just wanted to say those pictures really do an excellent job of highlighting the contours of the course. I likely won't understand your response, but I would be curious to know what sort of filters you used to bring out the details so well. The angles you've chosen to shoot also seem particularly well chosen, and paint a great picture of the challenges of each hole. Thanks for sharing.

-Alan

[Matt Kardash]

Looks like a fun course. When reading Doak's review in the Confidential Guide I was expecting this place to look like a disaster after Dye's work. It really kind of looks like a Ross/Dye hybrid, which I actually think is kind of cool.

[Mark Saltzman]

Mark,

I just wanted to say those pictures really do an excellent job of highlighting the contours of the course. I likely won't understand your response, but I would be curious to know what sort of filters you used to bring out the details so well. The angles you've chosen to shoot also seem particularly well chosen, and paint a great picture of the challenges of each hole. Thanks for sharing.

-Alan

Alan,

I appreciate the kind words, but I'm far from a professional photographer.  I use a regular old Nikon Coolpix s9500. 

I think the good pictures are mainly the result of some great early morning light.  I often increase the contrast/definition in iPhoto to help show off the contours, but these are mostly untouched.

[Tom_Doak]

Mark:

One thing I couldn't quite tell from your photos:  what did they do with the pond in front of the 7th green?  Mr. Jones dammed up a creek and turned it into a pond there; it looks like Mr. Dye turned it back into a creek going across the front.

The Jones version of the hole was actually the first photograph I sold ... to Bill Davis from GOLF DIGEST, for his book 100 Greatest Courses and Then Some.  For some reason, CC of Birmingham was one of three courses they weren't able to locate pictures for, and when we met just before I left for my year overseas, I happened to have one.

[Brent Hutto]

I've found myself in Birmingham a couple times over the last few years but never bothered to take my clubs. Next time I might try to get on at the Country Club and stay over an extra day to play. I'd love to experience those greens!

[Mark Saltzman]

One thing I couldn't quite tell from your photos:  what did they do with the pond in front of the 7th green?  Mr. Jones dammed up a creek and turned it into a pond there; it looks like Mr. Dye turned it back into a creek going across the front.

[Tom_Doak]

So, they piped the stream 2/3 of the way across the fairway?  Interesting, but not surprising to me:  Mr. Dye tries never to have a cross-hazard on the approach shot because women golfers struggle with them so much.

[Mark Saltzman]

Up and over yet again at the short par-5 10th.  A surprisingly deep green guarded by water short and left:






Some interesting Dye mounding at the 11th and 12th.  Not so easy to see from the tee, but the 11th green sits in a 'tunnel' of mounding.  The 12th is a good short par-4, where the golfer that can play away from the Line of Instinct and near a stream leaves a clear view of a green protected short by mounding.




The stretch from the 13th through the 15th is a difficult one.  The 13th is a mid-length par-3 with a sharply angled green protected short by water. 





The 14th requires a tee shot over an angled stream, though the fear of hitting a tee ball into the employee car park will have most golfers playing well away from the trouble.  And the 15th is a par-5 whose interest is largely created by the rolling land on which it sits.

The 16th plays along the property boundary and the approach drops sharply to unique green with distinct front and back portions.






After semi-blind shots from both the tee and approach on the 17th, the golfer reaches the mid-length par-4 18th where golfers must challenge well-placed fairway bunkering to open up a green set in an amphitheatre and protected by a vast and deep bunker on the right.