Opportunity at Machrihanish ?

[Jon Wiggett]

I don't think I do. The only basis I have is what I've personally seen and heard from members who know the courses better than I do. In those instances, I have spoken to members / read books / seen photos of what a course was like previously and now see what's on the ground. Most of the time I wish they'd left it alone.

Think of the total disasters alone:

Wentworth
Stoke Park
Eden Course

Tim,


I agree completely re your three examples. Wentworth in particular has been totally ruined. However, your standpoint seems to be that of no change so condemning them to ruined mediocrity. I doubt this is really the case though.


In relation to Machrihanish. You are against changing it because you seem to think it is an original classic but it is in no way the same course as was there to begin with. It has changed in the past and should be changed in the future to suit circumstances.


Jon

Jon,


I appreciate that Mach has evolved, but I don't think it, or any great course in the UK has gotten that much better from continual tweaks. Either it wasn't a great course before, and therefore, I say tweak away (because if you mess up, you're only messing up an average course at best), or it was a great course and the tweaks made it the same or worse. I fail to see more than a few anomalies where this isn't the case.

Tim,


I understand your point but feel it would only be true if the situation also remained the same. Unfortunately this is outside the various club's control. Any great course taking your advice would now be obsolete in regards to altering things would no longer be of the same standing. Some clubs do evolve through an opportunity that comes along but most clubs change through necessity.


The other thing that should not be forgotten is the club or its members will consider the overall impact not just on the course. Regardless of what is thought about the present first tee shot the positioning of the clubhouse in relation to the second course and practice facilities which is less than optimal.


Jon

[Sean_A]

I generally agree with Tim.  Its very hit and miss if changes to the great GB&I courses these past 25-30 years has actually improved things.  Often change is about adding yardage, dumbing down greens or altering the look or placement of bunkers.  Rarely is a course really looked at from a total package with the idea of a big plan of improvement to meet properly identified needs.  If this was the case most of the time work on greens, mow lines and tree removal would work more wonders than any bunker revamp.  Usually its ad hoc knee jerk stuff. 

At one of my clubs its truly bemusing as to what has been going on with the 6th hole.  One of the best greens on the course has been dumbed down because of so-called lack of hole locations and too severe an approach.  Thats a laugh coming from good players who have a driver-short iron approach.  Not only has the green been made easier for these guys, but the drive as well.  Mind you, it is a nicer drive for all now, but I am not convinced it was worth spending money on when there are far more important issues to take care of...imo anyway.   

At another club I can't get my head around what is going on.  Small changes here and there to the 12th until the original concept has now been tossed aside for a rather dull penal bunker scheme. 

That said, Princes has been improved quite a bit in recent years due to a far better bunker scheme.  However, what happened with the Himalayas is worse than anything I could have imagined. 

Everything is in the eye of the beholder, but you see it all costs money...money I am often convinced is not well spent.

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

Tom

Noted. As an aside, I wonder how much work in the UK is done in the name of restoration and how much is done because it was what the architect thought best given the brief he/she was given ? It seems to me that the restoration craze hasn't really hit the UK as yet to the same extent as the US but not being in the biz I could very well be wrong in that regard.

As a matter of interest, your work at Woodhall, is that a restoration ?

No, you are right, restoration is not much of a thing in the UK as of now.  The old links that date from before 1900 have necessarily gone through multiple expansions, so there is no obvious version to restore them to [other than, the pre- Peter Dawson era].  Some of the heathland courses are starting to think about restoration vs. further renovation, though, as they all value their history and can trace it back to Colt or Willie Park or Abercromby.


As for Woodhall Spa, they didn't ask for a restoration:  the assignment was simply to make the bunkers functional again.  A lot of them had been dug deeper by Col. Hotchkin's son in the 70's and 80's, to the point where they couldn't keep the faces maintained at all.  They didn't want to restore them to shallower, necessarily, but they wanted to make them work. 


Anyway, we fixed up the bunkers that were there and restored a few [but not all of the] lost bunkers, and took down a bunch of pine trees that didn't used to be there.  We shifted a couple of bunkers slightly, but didn't add any bunkers of our own.  It's Hotchkin's most famous course, and I didn't want to start adding my own ideas, even if they might have let me.


The only thing we changed was the angle of the 5th hole, moving the tee to the right of #4 green to get it out of the danger zone between #2 and #4 greens.  I swung the green around some in the process, so the angle back to the new tee would be less severe, and more similar to how it played from the left.