Ganton Walker Cup

[Mark_Rowlinson]

In today's Daily Telegraph there's a piece on George Zahringer by their golf correspondent, Lewine Mair.  You might like this extract:
'As to the colour of this legendary inland links - more sun-baked turf than green - it is something to turn Zahringer on rather than off.  He loves it like this, his feeling being that most Americans have a ridiculous obsession with lush, green courses.  "If only," he said, "they would allow courses to firm up and change with the seasons."

I played Ganton a few weeks ago.  It was as lovely as ever, the greens absolutely velvety.  Unfortunately we were subjected to a 3-hour burst of torrential, thundery rain.  Once it stopped, the profuse casual water drained away from the fairways within 15 minutes.  The greens seemed utterly unaffected.  Unfortunately the sand in the bunkers had been compacted and were nigh on impossible to escape from - I know, I found far too many of the blighters!

[Steve Lang]

   

If you were built on rolling sandy soils like that you'd drain well yourself!  Do I rememebr correctly..Is the big tree at 18 still alive and well?  Seems that was a sticky issue with TV and not having some higher profile championships played there?

Ganton isn't unlike some mild territory in northern  lower Michigan..  except in Mich you can you berry picking versus having your arm shredded by the gorse!

[JohnV]

I just saw that the Walker Cup will be on TV this Sunday from 4-6 EST on ABC.  Glad to see that we'll get the chance to see some of it.

[GeoffreyC]

Firm and Fast Ganton is as much fun and challenge as you would want on a golf course.  It has the great variety necessary to keep you interested and the bunkers will absolutely get your attention.  They are among the best in the world.

It should be a great Walker Cup.  I'm looking forward to seeing it on TV
fairway bunker 50 yards short on drivable- but obviously not by me-par 4 14th

cross bunker on #18

[ForkaB]

I have heard it from impeccable sources that our favorite Doyen, TE Paul himself, will be there at Ganton.  Look out for the thin guy smoking Marlboros and walking a sick looking dog named Cooreshaw, that is, unless a la Bernie Darwin at NGLA he gets roped in to play.......

[Nigel_Walton]

Any consideration of the best inland course in England usually comes down to Woodhall Spa's Hodgkin or Ganton. Woodhall Spa is the home of the English Golf Union and the Hodgkin is a fine test. My preference, though, is for Ganton. It is the sort of course that one could play regularly and never tire of. If the US TV coverage is adequate, it should be a real treat for you to get a look at the course this weekend.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Here is the aerial of Ganton, which was AOTD #241 (thread,
which has a number of pics:
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=2406 )

[Paul Richards]

Can't wait to see how Ganton holds up versus today's longer ball!?!?!?!?!?!

[Mike_Sweeney]

The fact that Ganton uses this picture of the "brown" golf course on their website says alot about this place. Looks like it goes on the list of places I need to see.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

As it happens I was working in London over the last couple of days and the train journey from my friend's house to London goes through Beaconsfield GC and past Denham and Buckinghamshire.  Beaconsfield looked exactly like the photo of Ganton, and exactly like Paul Turner's recently-posted excellent photos.  What little I could see of Denham (like Beaconsfield, a Colt creation) from the train showed it to be in much the same condition.  Even Buckinghamshire, a recent John Jacobs course, had this similar classic look, so they must be sparing with their use of fairway watering - good for them if that's the case.

At Ganton it's not really a big tree on the 18th, rather big trees.  It's a classic cape hole, inviting you to bite off as much as you dare of a left-hand dog-leg.  You drive blind over all sorts of nasties, but you can see where you have to go - to the right of the big trees on the left, which stand where the fairway ends as it crosses a road.  Play too conservatively and you run out of fairway and into awful trouble (almost certainly a lost ball) on the right.  Bite off too much and you end up closed out by the trees on the left.  Position is vital.  The only other hole on which trees play a strategic part is the 12th, a hole that was re-shaped after the 1949 Ryder Cup.  We mortals are required to knock a high drive over tall trees to a fairway sharply angled to the right or, if we can't, we have to take an iron for position on the dog-leg and be left with an impossibly long second shot.  It should not trouble these talented folk much.  If you're in any other trees you are off course.

I think the thing about not having professional tournaments is nothing to do with Ganton, its trees or television, but rather more about those who promote professional golf who would rather go to the Belfry, Forest of Arden, Loch Lomond, Gleneagles PGA, Slaley Hall, Hanbury Manor, Woburn, The Oxfordshire and other contemporary tracks (think of the spin off for corporate golf etc).  At the moment, the Open Championship excepted, the only traditional course played in the UK regularly on the European Tour is Wentworth.  At least they are playing a traditional track for the Dutch Open - Hilversum, which is part Colt, and an absolute joy.  For the record, any Americans thinking of visiting Europe might well consider the Netherlands - excellent value for some super tracks (especially Noordwijk, Kennemer, Hilversum, De Pan, Eindhoven - I have no experience of Royal Hague).

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Thank you for photos and aerial.  They bring back so much.  I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect the photo of someone in the cross-bunker at the 18th is actually someone in the cross-bunker at the 16th.  Nowadays we shouldn't be in the one at 16, ts being about 150 from the tee, but such is life.  There isn't supposed to be a cross-bunker at the 18th, but such is our ineptitude that we'd probably find one that didn't really exist.  

Actually, I feel terribly smug. I managed a model par 4 on the 18th last time out.  (I will not share with you what happened over the previous 17 holes!).

I managed to catch the last few minutes of BBC television coverage of the Walker Cup when I got in this afternoon.  I mean this in no way disparagingly - I am full of admiration for what they do - but it is impossible to reflect the subtlety of the shot in hand.  Ganton hardly varies more than 10 feet per hole, yet those chip shots, those approaches that run through the green, and, especially, those shots which fail to make the 17th green....one can be made to feel so foolish!

I hope to be there tomorrow.

[GeoffreyC]

Mark

I wasn't in the bunker on #18 but just posed for a photo (not so the one on #14).  We were told it was the largest bunker in the UK and I wanted a photo. Sorry for the confusion.

[Paul_Turner]

So what was the general impression?  It looked to be playing perfectly to my eye.  The famous bunkers were getting plenty of use.

Couldn't see Tommy Paul on TV, looked for the smoke, but to no avail!  Looking forward to his comments on the "maintenance meld".

[Mark_Rowlinson]

The condition of the course was absolutely perfect.  We even managed two days of excellent weather when torrential rain had been forecast.  I saw some staggering shots which made the drive-zone bunkering seem redundant, but there were sufficient less-than-perfect shots to show that it was still in the right place, and the bunkering on the approach shots really was relevant.  

On Sunday afternoon we sat beside the 1st green as each match went through.  Everyone drove powerfully, well past the bunkers on the right on the inside of the dog-leg.  We saw 16 pitches to the green varying between 100 yards (Wolstenholme) and 40 yards (Kuehne).  15 of those pitches were knocked in with wedges, with none missing the putting surface.  One was hit low and flat, seaside style.  It was Kuehne and he got a hearty round of applause from the gallery for playing a 'proper' shot!  Sadly for him the wheels came off later in the round and the outcome of the match hinged on his singles with Manley.

For me, the drive of the day was by the old man, George Zahringer, on the 16th in the morning foursomes.  If you look at the aerial it's the hole running parallel with the road.  The vast bunker is irrelevant, about 170 yards out, but he drove so accurately that he found the downslope in the narrowest bit of the fairway and ended up more or less opposite the bunker you can see on the left of the fairway - well over 300 yards.  A perfect chip from Williams and we assumed the match was an inevitable US point.  Not so, in fact, but we had wandered on to the 17th tee where Rubinson and Wittenberg were in trouble.  Eventually Rubinson was unable to find his ball.  Wittenberg hit another from the tee.  He found a bunker short of the green.  He was so cross that he slammed his club into the turf, taking a big divot out of the immaculate tee.  A man in the gallery shouted at him to repair the damage, which he did begrudingly, but it was Williams and Zahringer who did the real repairs.  It was the only sour moment we saw in what appeared, otherwise, to be a good-natured contest, however fiercely it was fought.  

I suppose we saw play on 15 holes and I cannot remember seeing an unfair bounce, yet so often the shot which was almost good enough veered off into a bunker here or a swale there.  The rough was generally gentle (by Ganton standards) and good play was rewarded (David Inglis had 7 birdies in 15 holes).

I have to say that Ganton is one of the friendliest courses of such distinction I knowand its setting is so peaceful.  I'm sure you low-handicappers will have a more critical opinion of the architecture (with any number of contributors) than I, but it is one of the loveliest places on earth to play golf even if you get savaged by the course. And if any of you want to include it in a tour, give me an E-mail and I'll happily suggest other hidden gems within easy reach.  It's a delightful corner of England.

[Darren_Kilfara]

It certainly made for fantastic television yesterday - not least because of the fog in the morning, which added 90 unscheduled minutes or so to the BBC coverage at the end of the day. I think the architecture is fantastic, and it ranks very highly among courses in England I've played which I would go back to play again, but my wife (and Jim Reilly's ex) probably thinks it stands as the epitome of English snobbiness, when she came out wearing casual clothes looking to meet us on the 18th green, only to be encountered by the club secretary and an aloof "Can I help you?", followed by them stating that they were meeting their husbands and him inquiring, "And who might they be?", clearly not believing them...

Cheers,
Darren

[TEPaul]

I couldn't have been more impressed by what I saw while at Ganton last weekend. It's been a very dry summer in England and Scotland so obviously the courses are remarkably firm. And yes I sure would say that Ganton was in about its perfect maintenance meld for it's design.

From what I could see, although many of the greens are subtly interesting and good the meat of that golf course is in the bunkering, their placements, their penal construction, but particularly in their ability to pull balls into them from off the surrounding topography.

Off tee shots Ganton could be one of the most strategic courses I've ever seen, particularly for quality players like the Walker Cuppers. From what I could see the only holes where everyone seemed to drive it was #1--ironically--and the 470 yd (into the wind) par 4 #6.

The holes of real architectural interest to me were, #1, #3, #4!!, #7!, #9, #10, #14!!!, #16, #17!! I particularly liked how some of the tee shots on some holes would be what I'd consider super mis-direction tee shots. In other words where it looked like you should drive it some of those Walker Cuppers weren't using those lines at all, particularly #1 and Kuehne on #7. I think he only hit about three drivers per round there and the line he took on #7 for four rounds was amazing. He particularly was using some interesting strategies to me--for instance driving it apparently almost at the green on #7 (over an enormous gorse area needing about a 300 yard carry (434 yd hole) while on #9 (a 505 yd par 5) he hit 4 iron, 4 iron to about 6 feet on Saturday afternoon. Ganton has 3 par 3s, 2 par 5s and 13 par 4s of all kinds of lengths. The tee shot strategies on some of the holes on that course was some of the most interesting combination direction and distance decision making I've ever seen.

[ForkaB]

Tom

On TV the Ganton greens looked greener and softer (although that is a very relative term) than others I have seen in the UK this summer, in person and on TV.  Balls seemed to be holding better than at Royal St. Georges, for example, particularly when hit from tight fairway lies.  What was your up close and personal impression of the way the greens looked and played?

[TEPaul]

Rich:

Good question about the green firmness and color at Ganton. Generally I'd say it was probably close to ideal for those guys. The speed might have been somewhere around 10 maybe a foot higher and the firmness seemed to be good too, with a bit of an element of unpredictability here and there.

I don't think any of the players were attempting to fly any ball (even from the shorter par 3 tees) all the way to pins as the greens were a bit too firm for that. The green firmness also seemed to be such that putting the ball in those tight hard fairways was of a necessary premium although it's been so dry over there that getting the ball just off the fairways in the fescue wasn't that bad as it's fairly thinned out (until one got farther out into the roughs--and then of course there's the constant danger of getting it into the gorse from which an unplaybable or lost ball is almost inevitable).

What I'm trying to say is it seemed the green firmness was such that it was able to really dictate optional strategies all the way back to the tees. I saw a few guys fix ball marks on some holes particularly the par 3s and many other times I saw them wandering around looking for their pitch marks without finding them obviously because they weren't making any on some holes with aerial approaches.

So that kind of green firmness was just about perfect to get the golfers thinking of a whole array of approach shots options although when in the fairway and light rough most seemed to hit it high to the fronts or pay a price. In some cases balls were going from before green fronts all the way over greens and sometimes not depending on what distances they were coming in from and from where.

I'd say all this adds up to what I'd consider just about a perfect maintenance meld for mulitple strategies and shot choices. But they didn't appear to be anywhere near as firm as The Open at RSG where basically the ground game run-in approach seemed to predominate and the aerial approach deep into green surfaces virtually nil.

Both the architecture and the maintenance meld at and around the Ganton greens was really excellent though as everything was shaved down and tight particularly around the bunkers and balls that arrived in the wrong places at and around some greens were getting into places that were unintended by those players putting added pressure on them to study the nuances of that architecture and play accordingly.

The overall team strategies of play was interesting to me too. It seemed the GB&I players were far more aggressive off the tees, hitting far more drivers, than were the US players.

Kuehne particularly seemed to play ultra conservatively off most tees while I believe that Brock MacKenzie may have been more aggressive and benefited from it. It seemed to me on #9 on Sunday afternoon GB&I was driving the ball on #9 tee and most of the US team were playing irons and basically we got killed on that hole!!

Some observations about the players I saw. Wolstenholme is clearly an excellent strategist on the course but the GB&I player I was most impressed with was Oliver Wilson. For the US team Brock MacKenzie was clearly the star. Most all of them were at the Manchester airport early yesterday morning milling around and I should have asked them a few things for GOlfCLUBATLAS but didn't. I should have spoken to them at the dinner the night before but I was more interested in Shiraz than golf strategy at that point!

Sometime later I'll say a few things about the speed of play of some of those players. Jeeesus did a few of those young GB&I players take too much time particularly on the greens while a few US players particularly Bill Haas (really a wonderful personality and calm young player) and Kuehne played with rapid dispatch. Haas should be the poster boy for the USGA for speed of play!! I followed him alot and had to basically run around gorse bushes or he'd already have played and gone!!

Most all those guys hit the ball very impressively but My God is Kuehne an impressive ball striker. One can see he's immensely strong but he has perfect fundamentals and appears to do things effortlessly except in that two foot hitting area. If anyone thinks players today can't move the ball around bigtime with this new equipment they should see Kuehne hit the ball. On a few holes he hit draws (with a 2 iron, 3 wood or driver) that must have curved 70 to 80 yards on purpose!! Not only is his swing speed probably around 130 mph but he must have that face moving from open to closed at probably the same speed!

The gathering of only two points on Sunday afternoon was definitely a collapse on the part of the US squad and I could see with about an hour and one half to go a scenario that would have been something. I felt in match 7 Williams (definitely Corey Pavinish) was going to hang on for a point and I really felt that Kuehne at 3 down after 11 was going to turn his match around for at least a half. His opponent, Manley, was clearly excitable and jittery and Kuehne was super focused and sure enough on #12 he birdied. He should have won #13 but got too close to the face of the greenside bunker for a reasonable chance at birdie. On #14 tee I thought his strategy might dictate the overall outcome if he went for the green but to my dismay he teed his ball real low as if to hit a lay-up iron and then stood by his bag talking to his caddie for the longest time. There was a pretty stiff wind in his face on that tee but then without reteeing he took out his 3 wood and hit the hardest, best looking low trajectory super draw into the wind I ever saw to that 284 yd hole. But then when he drove it into the fescue on #15 and 16 (an iron from the tee again) and Edwards sunk that increcible putt against Williams just ahead on #17 it was over!

But that Ganton golf course is something else!

[ForkaB]

Tom

Thanks for the great comments.  ON TV, it looked to me like our side (USA, although I'm considering switching over if we keep losing these things.....) was generally too conservative, whilst the GBI guys seemed more willing to take risks and bet on their ability to recover if the execution wasn't good.  The US guys rarely seemed to claw back pars when they got into trouble, while the other guys did.  I think we could have used you on our team!

Rich

PS--you should have let me know you were spending the night with Shiraz.  She is a very good friend of mine......

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I was sorry to read Darren's post about English snobbiness at Ganton.  I'm surprised, as I've always found it very friendly.  I am afraid I have a similar tale of American snobbiness.  Some fifteen years ago my secretary (I had one in those days) and her husband went to visit their daughter who was then living in Boston.  I happened to mention that if they were anywhere near The Country Club at Brookline could they look in and get me a course planner or something of the sort.  They were near Brookline so they drove in - or, rather, tried to drive in.  They were turned away and told to get off the property immediately.  It was my secretary's only contact with golf - she was not impressed.

[Darren_Kilfara]

I was sorry to read Darren's post about English snobbiness at Ganton.  I'm surprised, as I've always found it very friendly.

Oh, we found Ganton to be very friendly - my point is that my wife thought it to be snobbish. You can understand how any club secretary in Britain would have been suspicious of a couple of women, one of whom was wearing jeans, ambling out in front of the clubhouse and in the direction of the 18th green, apparently without a clue of what they were doing...

That incident at Brookline also sounds very out of character for Brookline, to me - I can't imagine anyone getting stopped while still in their car on the way to the parking lot, unless security has tightened up considerably there in the last few years.

Cheers,
Darren

[RT]

The TV really does injustice to the many slight rolls and nuances of Ganton.  Some very tricky greens to read.  I'd highly recommend it.  That fourth green is a wonder.