what have we learned from a weekend of australian golf?

[Josh Stevens]

Width, firmness, no rough, interesting greens, nice terrain, close cut bunkers, sandy scrub, lots of red wine?

Anything that will stick?

[Paul Gray]

A good post.

I've personally found myself glued to the TV at 1:00am watching amateurs, albeit outstanding amateurs, play golf. From someone that usually can't be bother watching the game on TV that's quite a change.

What's particularly pleased me is to here commentators at both events explaining to the broader audience the virtues of width and the short grass such width promotes. I do hope certain committees are listening.

[RJ_Daley]

Unfortunately, my cable service doesn't have the ESPN channel that the event switched to for the last two days.  Thus, I taped the first two days and probably missed the best of the competition.  Yet, I agree that from what I saw, they had great commentary and observations were made as to the difference and allure that the maintenance meld with architecture presents in the Sand Belt presents vs our normal PGA fare.

[Thomas Dai]

Sky were showing it in the UK and I'm glad they were as any opportunity to see Royal Melbourne is worthwhile.
atb

[DMoriarty]

I only saw a bit online, but from what little I saw and from what I have seen in the past, it seems that as golf architecture goes, Royal Melbourne presents better than any other course I've ever seen on t.v. As someone said on the other thread, I wish those who run the Masters would try to emulate RM.

[Tim_Weiman]

I only saw a bit online, but from what little I saw and from what I have seen in the past, it seems that as golf architecture goes, Royal Melbourne presents better than any other course I've ever seen on t.v. As someone said on the other thread, I wish those who run the Masters would try to emulate RM.

David,

RM isn't just nice on TV. If given the choice to play RM or Augusta on a regular basis, I'd take Royal Melbourne.

[Josh Stevens]

To be fair, both the RM and LK tournaments were televised without the usual mob of buffoons that pollute our airways as they do in the US. They were both surprisingly good commentary and telecasts as the bad channel (10) was not allowed near them

[Mike_Clayton]

DMoriarty

Augusta could have emulated Royal Melbourne by paying MacKenzie for his work.


Josh

Karrinyup played really well and looked fantastic. Almost all the players seemed to enjoy it and understand what the course was about - width,short grass around the greens and well placed bunkers. It's a good course now - more now than just a pretty one.

[Paul Gray]

Mike,

And the credit, I do believe, goes to you. Well done.

[BHoover]

I learned, as I do each year when the Golf Channel televises the tournaments in Australia, particularly the Australian Masters in Melbourne, that we here in the USA would do well to pay more attention to how courses ought to be set up for both tournament and everyday play--width, short grass and little rough, bunker placement and proximity to fairways and greens (not adrift in a sea of rough), firm and fast playing conditions and a realization that a course does not need to be emerald green to be fantastic.

Mike, your work at Lake Karrinyup looks exceotional. I hope some clubs in the USA take note and send more work your way.

[Josh Stevens]

It struck me that the more width you give these guys, the more wayward they become.  LK is not as wide as RM, but is wider than most, and yet those blokes were all over the shop with their drives.  Oleson the winner could barely hit a fairway and young Uihlein was playing his second shots from a different zip code half the time.

Perhaps I am old, but they seemed to be straighter with Persimmon , or at least the bad drives were not so bad.

[David_Elvins]

I learnt that Augusta National seems to be having a serious crack at taking over stewardship of the game from the R&A and USGA. 

[Josh Stevens]

Hm, good luck with that.  Mind you, for us down here, swapping one lot of unelected, upper class, out of touch tossers with another bunch of unelected, upper class, out of touch tossers is hardly going to make a big difference.  At leas they by and large seem to get short grass, although they still have a bit of a tree fixation

[Paul Gray]

Josh et al,

Perhaps you could enlighten those of us that are otherwise utterly ignorant about day to day golf in OZ. Is the appreciation of width the norm in your part of the world or is it, as is typical these days in Britain, limited to a few top end courses?

[Thomas Dai]

Karrinyup played really well and looked fantastic. Almost all the players seemed to enjoy it and understand what the course was about - width,short grass around the greens and well placed bunkers. It's a good course now - more now than just a pretty one.

There were some nice comments from within the Sky TV commontary booth as to the changes to the Lake Karrinyup course introduced by MC-GO.

How much narrower did the course used to be and was the height of the off-fairway grass also lowered and if so by how much?

atb

[Charlie Ray]

It made me jealous!  The greenside bunkers eating their way into putting surfaces.  The pull-carts. Pride and etiquette displayed by the RM members without the stuffiness.     
 As I played my home course yesterday afternoon I attempted shots I had never attempted before (primarily ground game shots:  putts from well off the green, punched mid-irons running onto the greens, etc.)   After my approach shot plugged 5 yards from the green in the middle of the fairway on #17 (a 220 yard par 3, that is clearly designed for run-up shots, I picked my ball up and went home and played bocce ball on the side of a levee.   It was the closest thing I could think of to imitating RM.  (it hasn't rained in 11 days, but the green complexes were squishy under foot.  A maintenance issue; not an architectural one, but nevertheless one that needs to be addressed.)  Maybe we should develop a mandatory superintendent/greenskeeper exchange program.   

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Just made me even more excited about my trip

Everybody has been so helpful and gracious on this site.
Inviatations to play everywhere...wondeful.
We are so lucky to have this great site and good feelings between its members.

Thanks to all.

[Buck Wolter]

More importantly did Billy Payne learn anything?

http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2014/10/26/chairman-billy-payne-loves-royal-melbourne.html



THE grand old dame of Australian golf, Royal Melbourne, can claim another convert after capturing the heart of Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne.

Payne, in Australia to attend the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, told a press conference on Thursday that he and his fellow members had been wowed by the iconic Melbourne Sandbelt club.

“I have been talking to my fellow members about the experience we're having and what we have seen here,” Payne said when asked if the tournament was likely to return to Australia.
 



“And I think it would be appropriate to say that what we have discovered in Royal Melbourne wildly exceeds our expectations.

“It is one of the greatest golf courses in the world.

"It's great to be here, it truly is.”

Payne, whose home club is considered one of the finest tests of golf on the planet, said he and his fellow members, several of whom have also made the journey to Australia, felt they had found a second home.

“I know I speak for every gentleman here in a green jacket,” he said, “we have found a place that we would like to call a second home.

“And I would, therefore, predict that you will definitely see this championship return to Australia in the not too distant future."

[Mike_Clayton]

I'm not sure why Royal Melbourne would 'wildly exceed expectations' It's hardly been a secret it is one of the best courses in the world.
What did they all think they were going to find?
I'm assuming Billy Payne hasn't read the Tom Doak like about Royal Melbourne being the course Augusta wants to be.

Thomas

We widened the fairways at 10 and 11 significantly - probably between 10-15 meters - by tree removal. 11 was a particularly poor hole, ruined by trees planted outside Alex Russell's original clearing lines - which he described as 'being sufficient for all time' back in the 1930s.
The members just couldn't help themselves after he had gone.
14 is wider on the left too - maybe 10 yards and there is a bit more room left of the 1st.
The fairways were already quite wide but it is a course where you have to drive the ball well.
The off-fairway grass heights didn't change at all.

Paul,

It's a good question re width in Australia. There isn't a poor course with wide fairways. Kingston Heath has some narrow holes but also some with plenty of space. Woodlands and Commonwealth too in parts.
Almost all the poorer courses in Australia feature predominantly narrow tree-lined fairways - and there are lots of them.

[Tim_Weiman]

Mike,

You may see things differently, but to me it still feels like only a small number of American golfers have seen Royal Melbourne. I was thrilled to see and play it a few years back during the Renaissance Cup and would much prefer it over Augusta on a regular basis.

[Mike_Clayton]

Tim

True enough - it is a long way away for you guys but it is a course everyone should see at least once. I'm sitting in the office here and it is literally five minutes down the road. The things we take for granted!

In Australia they would look at you as though you were mad for saying you would rather play RM than Augusta. As they say 'you are never a hero in your home town'

[Terry Lavin]

It's easily the most intoxicating course I've seen on television.

[RJ_Daley]

What are we to make of this statement of Mr. Payne speaking also for his fellow ANGC members that attended, when he said, " we have found a second home here.";  if anything?

Of course for the majority of our treehouse gang a bit of excitement would ensue if a learning process occurred along the lines of adopting a bit more of the design and maintenance meld of RM, flowing to ANGC, on the theory and concept that much more of Dr. MacKenzie's ideals remain at Melbourne than can be found in Augusta in this era.

Would it be a pipe dream that ANGC might try yet another facelift by way of modern restoration-rennovation to get back to roots of the original design ideals as these travelling ANGC members may be realising?  That being contemplated due to certain dwindling natural resourses and ANGC up until now being the poster child for over the top and perfectly artificially created Augusta Syndrome imaging, which is not an enduring quality for many more enviornmentally critical voices?

If they can be encouaged to make a modern approach change in their membership policies;  is it possible they are opening their eyes to these issues as well?

[Mike_Clayton]

RJ

It would be a reasonable assumption Labor party voters are as rare at RM as Democrats are at Augusta.

[BHoover]

What are we to make of this statement of Mr. Payne speaking also for his fellow ANGC members that attended, when he said, " we have found a second home here.";  if anything?

Of course for the majority of our treehouse gang a bit of excitement would ensue if a learning process occurred along the lines of adopting a bit more of the design and maintenance meld of RM, flowing to ANGC, on the theory and concept that much more of Dr. MacKenzie's ideals remain at Melbourne than can be found in Augusta in this era.

Would it be a pipe dream that ANGC might try yet another facelift by way of modern restoration-rennovation to get back to roots of the original design ideals as these travelling ANGC members may be realising?  That being contemplated due to certain dwindling natural resourses and ANGC up until now being the poster child for over the top and perfectly artificially created Augusta Syndrome imaging, which is not an enduring quality for many more enviornmentally critical voices?

If they can be encouaged to make a modern approach change in their membership policies;  is it possible they are opening their eyes to these issues as well?

I think this is all wishful thinking, regardless of how much we might welcome the influence of RM on ANGC,  I don't see the powers that be or the general public clamoring for this. But it would be spectacular.