Riviera's first fairway

[Matt_Cohn]

Did it always look like that, and is there any reason not to add a bit of shapeliness to it?


1998:



More recently:

[Joe Hancock]

Doesn’t need more shapely, it needs a raised mowing height and then go wall to wall. Quit making it about mowing patterns and let’s just play the damned golf course in a sensible presentation. BTW, 18 at Merion sucks in the same way, only worse.

[Sean_A]

Joe

That was my thought...just mow the grass into the trees and there isn't a "shape" to worry about.

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

Joe

That was my thought...just mow the grass into the trees and there isn't a "shape" to worry about.

Ciao

How do you "mow the grass into the trees" ?  Are you suggesting a 75-yard-wide fairway ?

[Matthew Rose]

Those two photos look like they are two completely different golf courses. Did they used to overseed?

[Peter Pallotta]

Edit - because what a stupid I am.

[Steve Burrows]

I don't have my copy available at the moment, but I am pretty sure that if you look inside the club's official history book you will see an early image of the first hole where the fairway is mowed out pretty much to the edges.  Maybe someone else could post this image?

[Joe Hancock]

Joe

That was my thought...just mow the grass into the trees and there isn't a "shape" to worry about.

Ciao

How do you "mow the grass into the trees" ?  Are you suggesting a 75-yard-wide fairway ?

Tom,


On your courses where it’s pretty much one height of cut (Streamsong Blue and others), how wide are the corridors? You obviously wouldn’t dismiss a 75 yard wide fairway, or is my thinking off?

[James Bennett]

I think there is a beautiful drawing of the first with curves, either in the George Thomas Golf Architecture in America, or the Riviera History book (or both).  I'll see if i can find it.
t was a beautiful thing.

James B

[jeffwarne]

I was just there and the fairway at #1 looks fine.Amazing how the ams pump it out of bounds left there and the pros give it a healthy respect and often/usually miss right rough or right trees.
It's kikuya and the ball isn't rolling far anyway unless super dry (which it isn't out there at the moment)
That fairway sits on angle to the tee and the rough is very light but enough to create spin issues.
A 75 yard fairway wouldn't create options, it would just make it easier on a 500 yard downhill hole.
The current setup creates options  i.e. do I have the balls to aim down the middle of an angle fairway or do I just aim right edge and acccept a less than ideal lie.


And Joe, the fairway height wasn't sniffing the heights I often rail against.
Tight for kikuyu, but not very tight-looked like a lovely surface

[Michael Wolf]

Re Steve Burrow's comment - the picture is on page 79 of the club history. The reason the fairway is able to go all the way out to the present tree line is because there were no trees at all on the left. Just a couple of very small bushes.


Those were the days when Elizabeth Taylor was riding around over on the polo field to the immediate left of the first green. No reason to obscure that view...


I don't know how to download pics from my phone to this website, but I'll post the original first fairway pic to my twitter account @BamaBearcat if anyone want to go have a look.


I also posted a picture yesterday of the monster fairway bunker that used to sit 100 yards in front of the 12th tee.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,

On your courses where it’s pretty much one height of cut (Streamsong Blue and others), how wide are the corridors? You obviously wouldn’t dismiss a 75 yard wide fairway, or is my thinking off?

Joe:


Let's talk practically, shall we?


1.  Riviera hosts a TOUR event every year.  The TOUR prefers 26-yard-wide fairways, not 75.  It looks from the pictures like the fairway used to be bigger on the left, but they have shrunk it down to be in line with everywhere else.  They are more prone to use a tape measure than to use their imagination in setting fairway widths on TOUR.


2.  Riviera is in Southern California, where they have to pay unbelievably high prices [as in over $1m per year] for water, and where the standard of conditioning for fairways is very high.  Widening the fairways significantly would require more of both.




I've got no issue with a 75-yard-wide fairway if it's somewhere that is sustainable, where you can use fescue fairways, say.  [Somewhere like High Pointe, or Bandon, or Barnbougle, or Tara Iti, which are all fescue.] 


At Streamsong, we hashed it out with the superintendent, and he agreed that we weren't spending much more on maintenance with the wide fairways because they don't change the inputs much between fairways and rough - so it was only a question of more frequent mowing.  If he'd said otherwise, we'd have 40-yard-wide fairways and a bunch of short rough, even if it didn't look as cool.


I think we can both agree we wouldn't recommend a 75-yard-wide fairway of bentgrass in the transition zone.   Where Riviera falls on the spectrum is somewhere in between, but water prices in southern California are turning an environmental matter into an economic matter to which even the richest clubs have to pay attention.


I hadn't really meant to go into that sort of detail when I made my original question to Sean, though.  I was just commenting on the practical truth that you have to stop mowing fairway somewhere, and it's usually not "into the trees". 


Anyone paying any attention to the shape of the green or the fronting bunker would notice that more strategy would arise from shifting the fairway more to the left [so you could flirt with o.b. to try and get an opening into the left side of the green], rather than into the trees on the right.

[Carl Rogers]

wider closely mowed grass and a centerline bunker?  or does that defeat the first hole "gentle handshake"?

[Joe Hancock]

Tom,


I like how you completely dismissed my comment about raising mowing heights.


But yea, let’s talk practically. The game of golf would be much better off with higher mowing heights, and less heights of cut. That would reduce water and pesticide/ fertilizer inputs. And, it’s more fun for the high percentage of golfers to have a little grass under their ball. It’s probably not practical to combine architecture discussions with TOUR influence though.

[Sean_A]

Joe

That was my thought...just mow the grass into the trees and there isn't a "shape" to worry about.

Ciao

How do you "mow the grass into the trees" ?  Are you suggesting a 75-yard-wide fairway ?

Well yes, when combined with a bit higher fairway cut as Joe suggested (and should probably be done at most high end courses), its probably a wash for better aesthetics...not that Riviera is hurting for cash.

I wonder how much better the condition of fairways in the UK would be right now if fairway cuts were a bit higher?

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

Where there ever any bunkers on the drive? As Carl mentions above, a centreline?
Atb

[Geoff_Shackelford]

Tom,
I'm  hoping to better understand the logic here, but you believe that widening out the first (kikuyu grass) fairway at Riviera from 26 yards to say, 60-70 yards, would raise water costs? Mowing and labor I get, but a lower height would require vast amounts more of irrigation?