Hi again,
I'm pleased to see DM's modern overlay for #2; it brings to mind a couple of further comments:
1. Indeed, the latest back tee can make it play 455 on a crow's line to the middle, (but up to 470 with a two shot segment and a back pin). That newer bloc of teeing ground (built across the broken utility road you can see notoriously in the lower left of the 1929 picture) feels so distant and Herculean; it can be a wallop just to achieve the fairway from that newest strip and the left fairway bunker becomes a true obstacle.
2. But thankfully, NO ONE plays from there; it is unusual to see the rear-most tee of the day set up "across the road" at all. I believe it plays like 430 from the front of that newest "across the road" teeing strip. However the most common distance to play this hole for "blue" tee players is about 405-415, and about 380-400 for "white" tee players. For most, playing from their proper tee, the left fairway bunker is not in play (except for a lazy hook). I think the 1984 US Open was played from 410, but I can't track that down just now.
3. A sublime feature of the ground in the left half of this fairway's drive zone is that it twists and banks to the left with gradually-increased sharpness, right into today's left rough. It appears that the 1929 margins, which are enormous on the outer left curve, were a natural collection point for this subtle feature, and would've likely helped a drawing or low ball to gain extra yardage .
4. I realize no one was implying laser precision in these considerations, but I think this hole also has "straightened" somewhat with tee aiming over the years. While indeed nearly twice as broad in 1929, the hole had much more of a boomerang path of play; you were encouraged to play to that enormous outer left corner (which is still a longer players' best miss) for an exceptionally better angle into that green. But the "tee aim" of the hole inaugurated that strategic encouragement. In the following two images, I'm attempting to show what I mean.
In the first image, I've appended DM's overlay with "lines of aim" in parallel with the visible walking path aim (red for 1929, yellow for 2014):
In the second image there is no overlay, but I degraded the clarity of an Oct 2014 image (so it looks a little more like the photo quality of the 1929 base images) and placed a the same yellow line to show the tee aim of the contemporary walking path:
While the scales and orientation from photo to photo are not precise, including DM's overlay, hopefully you can see that the modern iteration of the hole aims much straighter down the narrowed fairway; the end of the aiming point (created squarely with the walking path in both cases) is some 25 yards more left in 1929, than what the evolution has yielded today, where the aiming point ends closer to left of the 6th tee.
An interim conclusion for me is that:
A. In 1929, the hole was "just this much" short of a Drive & Pitch for crack players, leaving them 135-115 in, and about 155-165 left in for more middling abilities.
B. The key for both parties was to get into the left side of the fairway, accept a "slightly" longer tack to that side, so you
a). did NOT have to carry the ferocious right greenside bunker and,
b).
keep alive the option of a "run-up" approach directly towards what was a much more generous alleyway at the green front between the framing bunkers. There is an area in the 1929 fairway from where the player can actually see the back center of the green unobstructed, a sight not possible from anywhere in today's left side of the fairway--in 2015, you "always" have to confront that massive front right bunker and the angled calculation of carry. Precise driving was rewarded with options; imprecise driving was sanctioned by having to play an aerial shot. In 1929, you had to "tack" to the left on the drive, today you perform the "tacking" on the second shot..."go straight as far as you can, and then go 20 degrees right."
C. Today, the hole is rarely a drive and pitch, even for crack players, if they are playing at 430 - 450. And a player trying to play up to such a tee across the road for vanity sake will get crushed...all of the sudden the fairway is like 150 yards out and that left bunker is in play. It is not that a true crack player is incapable of playing it as a Drive n Pitch, but that the odds of hauling off a near-300 yarder that both stays straight in flight, as well as avoids the contour-lean to the left rough when it lands aren't very good. And the "price" for NOT pulling it off is, in 2015, that the crack player will have to play a 150-170 yard aerial shot from indefinite/and or shut down rough. However, played from a 410 distance these days, the quality player can get down far enough that, even if in the rough, it's at least played with, at worst, a 9 iron of some sort...there is at least a fighting chance. On today's 2nd, the average guy playing from 380-390 or so, is really trying to stay out of the right rough. He knows, the best he is going to have left, will STILL have to navigate that front right bunker on approach...whether it's from 175 or 130 is one thing; it has its own set of problems...but it is impossible from the right rough...you have no angle, a view obscured by the enormous "maw" of that front bunker, and who knows what with the rough?
I think, on balance, the evolution of the hole has come to command that the player
must confront that front right greenside bunker, whereas the 1929 version allowed a player to strategically skirt it with precise driving. Along with what must have been a substantially softer and more receptive green surface for that aerial shot, it seems obvious that there were multiple ways to play the hole coordinated by the quality of the drive, most importantly a run-up or punching shot was available.
Now the quality of the drive only positions you for the one and only way, aerial route...from a slightly longer "effective distance" than your tee's brethren of 1929.
I wonder if the rumored restor-vations, in conjunction with the success of the East work and the run-up to 2020, will be so bold as to assess this evolution on holes such as this and:
* Reconfigure this fairway to restore the large outer curve found on the left in 1929...thus promoting what seems to be the original strategy of this drive and this hole.
** To do so, while also maintaining the spirit, if not the letter, of breadth on the right side, at least for when after the Open leaves.
*** To not get cute and re-position the left fairway bunker, so it is "more in play for a modern era" That bunker never has, does not, and should not come into play for all but a terrible shot, or for a fool who isn't up to a 430+ tee, but goes there anyway.
**** Restore some of the width at the approach throat of the green between the two bunkers.
sorry that took so long...few comments, my ass.
cheers
vk