Dawson’s case for Old Course changes

[Jeff Taylor]

Thank you Tom. That is exactly the kind of detail I was hoping to get.
Does this situation say anything about Dr. Hawtree? I would assume that there was a "well if it's going to be done, better do it right" moment for him.

[Tim Fenchel]

But for many years I have advocated some sort of system by which the great courses could be preserved, so that architects aren't put in the position described above.

I love this idea. We need a Section 106 for the great courses. Most certainly will never happen...clearly the USGA and R&A would'nt be fit to pull it off...but I like the idea.

[Niall C]

Niall,

Rebuilding bunkers due to normal wear and tear is significantly different than moving bunkers and changing green and fairway slopes to challenge top players once a decade and you know it.  Frankly it's a poor attempt to bolster your argument.

Jud


The example I gave of was the way altering surrounding bunker contours can mean the difference of a ball gathering into a bunker or missing it quite easily. Add into the mix the difference of then either being in a high faced steep sloped bunker or a bunker thats not nearly as deep and with a sloped face that gives you a chance to go forward. Thats the kind of differences we have been seeing with the Road Hole bunker. Thats a huge difference in the defining feature on the hole that for many is the most iconic hole on the course.


Therefore the comparison between the changes to the Road Hole bunker "complex" contours and the 11th green absolutely bear comparison IMO. Both have remained "static" over the years but have varied in the way they have played due to maintenance and upkeep. That's quite obvious.


Niall

[Mark Bourgeois]

The two main discussions around the altering of the eleventh green have centred on a couple of things: 1. Whether there was due diligence in the decision making and 2. The ability to get a new pin position.
 
No one has talked about what is - for me - one of the main reasons it shouldn't have been altered. That is the pure aesthetics of the green. There is something glorious about the long sweeps and slopes of golden age and before greens. There are no greens that are designed that way nowadays. That 5 or 6 or 7% slope may not have been pinnable for the big boys but it looked fantastic and messing with the shaping of a portion of a green like that changes the aesthetic of the whole green.
 
Regards the top-dressing observation Adrian made, I'm not sure I agree. In my (admittedly lesser) experience, the opposite is true. Top-dressing has more potential to soften greens by gravitating to low points and hollows. It doesn't accentuate high points and slopes.

Ally

I keep thinking of the line from the Yeats poem: "Was there ever a dog that praised it's fleas?"

By flattening the green for the first time ever recorded, Dawson has made the green more like its copies.

[Paul Gray]

So I want them to be hitting a 4-iron rather than an 8-iron. The problem now is that the course is as long as it is ever going to be.

There wasn't a lot of deferring to the golf course architect in that article, was there? 


He makes it clear he got [most of] what he wanted.

Exactly. This is just an extreme example of the chief idiot on your local greens committee deciding he knows better than the world's best professional architects. In any other industry this would be acknowledged as being the incompetent interference of senior management which it so clearly is.

[Matthew Delahunty]

“The big change on this hole is the new bunkers to the right of the green. At the 2000 Open we had two bunkers miles from the green that had no real relevance to the play. So what we have done is fill in the old ones and introduce two new bunkers green side and, behind them on what used to be dead-flat ground, there is now some undulation. We did this because, whenever the pin was to the right on the green, the challenge was diminished. All you had to do was miss the green to the right and you had a flat putt. It wasn’t demanding in any way. Plus, it was so flat I suspect it wasn’t natural. It looked like it was constructed. It was probably a tee at one time. What we won’t do is put the pin just over the bunkers. The traditional strategy at St Andrews is ‘easy drive up the left, challenging drive up the right’. So where the pin will be is at the bottom of the slope on the green. If you drive left you can’t get at it, the ball will either kick off into the bunkers or into the new undulations. Having said that, three pins out of four in the Open will be on the left and high side of the green.”


... one pin position for an event held every five years

How many golfers have found Dawson's Spectacles (as Matt Mollica has coined them) this week?


Further to Ian's point, why build bunkers for an event held every five years and then not bring them into play for the pros for whom you've introduced those bunkers?

[Sean Walsh]

I'm against Matthew on Dawson's Spectacles as I feel it just fluffs up an ego that does not require it. My suggestion on another thread was "The Dundee's" A place no-one visits. Apologies to any Dundeans

I loath the changes to #2. Hate the changes to #11. Most of all I think the method in which the changes were implemented is the gold standard in egomania. The harshest description I can give it, especially in light of the man's utterances on John McCain, is that it is something Trump would have done.

[Terry Lavin]

I appreciate the knowledgeable, wistful and even bitter dissents, but TOC is not the Mona Lisa. It's not a museum. I'll leave it to the real purists, but, "sacred ground" is the sort of reference that leads to suicide bombings these days. The R&A wants to keep St. Andrews in the rota and these changes may seem like putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa, but at least the Home of Golf is still marginally relevant enough to host the best playing for the best championship in golf.

I was chatting with Buddy Marucci the other day, talking about the various tweaks to Merion for the U.S. Open. They made the course relevant for our biggest championship. Almost all of those mustaches have been removed.

Maybe a new regime will one day restore TOC to the time before Low and Fowler made their changes. By that time the Open Championship will probably be played annually in a Trump links playing at 8000 yards., but all of us chops can play TOC and wonder (wish) if it could still host an Open.

[Brent Hutto]

Thanks for posting that, Terry.

[Rich Goodale]

Thanks for posting that, Terry.

Agreed, Brent.

Terry and Niall seem to be the only people on this thread who are thinking realistically, rather than romantically.

[BCrosby]

Terry states the comfy party line:


"The R&A wants to keep St. Andrews in the rota and these changes may seem like putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa, but at least the Home of Golf is still marginally relevant enough to host the best playing for the best championship in golf."

Before the conventional wisdom is carved in stone, I have a question. What effect have the changes had on world class golfers? The evidence so far:

- the new bunkers on the 2nd are irrelevant;
- the reduced slope back left on the 11th created a pin position with no historical precedent (on a hole dripping with history) and for any other pin position it has made the hole easier.

As a romantic squish let me ask again - to what purpose were Dawson's changes? Other that opening the door to his successors for further annual "improvements" to TOC, I'm having trouble seeing one.

Bob

[Rich Goodale]

Bob

You and your fellow squishy romantics must be drooling at the speed of the greens, which seem to be stimnping at 6-7, just like the good old days....

Rich

[Sean Walsh]

So everyone's entitled to an opinion as long as it accords with yours Rich?


I do not consider TOC to be the Mona Lisa or any other artwork but it is the foundation stone of the game and a wonderful place to both play and watch golf. I also do not believe it can't be changed under any circumstances, I just believe the right to make such changes should be hard won. These changes were done in a manner similar to the Friday dump politicians use for hiding inconvenient truths. I do not believe these changes have improved the course and although some in practice have not been as odious as they seemed in print, nothing so far has convinced me otherwise.

[MCirba]

And, the new volcano-like surrounds of the Road Hole bunker look like Shite.   

On that I'm hoping we can all agree.

[Rich Goodale]

So everyone's entitled to an opinion as long as it accords with yours Rich?

No Sean

Any romantic is entitled to his or her opinion, as is any realist.  I just tend to prefer being real rather than being romantic, at least when it comes to golf courses.  You and others prefer to be romantic.

Vive la defference!

Rich

[Sean Walsh]

What is romantic about what I have written?

What is Romantic about asking for the person who suggests change to present a cogent argument for why that change is needed?

[Sean_A]

Sean


Using 11 as an example, creating a hole location on the far left side of the green is a cogent argument for change...no?  This is not an uncommon thing to do and generally...is widely applaued on this board. 


BTW I don't believe for a second the 11th green was rolling 10.5ish on Thursday.  The putt for off the green left and down the slope didn't look too bad.


Ciao

[Kalen Braley]

I see TOC more like a classic structure or building.
 
Sure it might go thru removations from time to time to upgrade the wiring and plumbing....but to make changes like adding a new Veranda based on a twice per decade visit by a few dignitaries seems rash/unneeded.
If the R&A wanted to get serious about things, it could be fixed by one simple change.....tournament ball.  You want to play in The Open, here is the ball you will use.  If not, then don't bother showing up.
Most other sports don't let the players choose their balls/pucks, and when they do mess with them they get spanked like Brady...If golf really is a game of Integrity, how about better control over its instruments of play.
 

[Sean Walsh]

Sean,


Yes it is and it has provided an extra pin position so I can see the logic in it but you could hardly say the cogent argument for change was well aired before the work was commenced. That logical base is part of the reason I am marginally less critical of the change to 11 than 2. is it better than it was? some say yes, some say no. I just would have thought the standard of proof required to justify change would have been a fair bit higher for one of the more iconic holes in golf

[MCirba]

Kalen,

Nice post and very apt analogy.

[Adam Lawrence]

Sean,


Yes it is and it has provided an extra pin position so I can see the logic in it but you could hardly say the cogent argument for change was well aired before the work was commenced. That logical base is part of the reason I am marginally less critical of the change to 11 than 2. is it better than it was? some say yes, some say no. I just would have thought the standard of proof required to justify change would have been a fair bit higher for one of the more iconic holes in golf

Sean - I agree with your last point in spades. Question, then: what do you think would be a good process for proposing and evaluating potential changes?

[BCrosby]

Rich -


I'm not sure on what basis you robe yourself as the realist in our spat.


As far as I can tell Dawson's rationale for his changes to TOC has no connection with the real world.


It turns out that the realists in this debate are the romantics.


Bob

[Sean Walsh]

Adam,


For that I'll defer to those that have more experience in making changes to golf courses.


As a principal I would have thought detailed plans provided well in advance to all the golf clubs that use the course, along with invitations to the European and U.S. Archy bodies to provide some input into the assessment of the proposed work, evidence from green keepers and management staff as to what difficulties the current state of the course was causing. That's just brainstorming but as a guiding principal about twice the oversight required to make alterations to any top 100 private club.

[Mark Chaplin]

Having played TOC a couple of times before and after the changes you wouldn't notice any difference other than the removal of the gorse in front of the 7th tee.

[Adam Lawrence]

Having played TOC a couple of times before and after the changes you wouldn't notice any difference other than the removal of the gorse in front of the 7th tee.

Sixth tee