How Pebble was (American Golfer Article!)

[NAF]

http://www.golfobserver.com/americangolfer/AG_9_29_pebble17.html

[A_Clay_Man]

The similarities, as well as the differences to todays course, was fascinating. Thanks

The 17th's description was really interesting. 216 yards? Wow! That tee was back there. The dunes? Maybe they should restore those?

Hearing that Macatee(sp?) guy on USA network talk about proposed changes to the 15th hole, in order to spice it up, only highlights the level of ignorance prevelant in these decision makers.

How about the curly cue edge on the new rightside bunker on 14?

Did anybody notice what it tried to mimic?

[bakerg]

Thanks for the link.  If you go to the homepage of this link they have a great picture of the old 7th green.  I just love how the bunkers used to look at this place.

[Neil Regan]

Here is the photo from that site.



Pebble Beach #7, in 1929

[JakaB]

This proves my point that Yale is not the only course butchered this century..if it was butchered at all.

[NAF]

The odd part is, those dunes the course used to have were all faux manufactured.. It almost violates what we hold dear here that everything be natural.. But damn, those dunes looked natural at Pebble.

[Kevin_Reilly]

Was the author referring to the Valley Club in the mention of "bad" golf between SF and San Diego?

[JakaB]

By the looks of every single old picture I have ever seen posted on this site I can state the following:  Classic courses go down hill architecturally every year while modern courses seem to improve with age.   Could it be the great classic architects had little idea on how to build a course to last and were thus inferior at their craft...or do these pictures represent an architecture that really wasn't worth saving after all.

[Dan Kelly]

They really don't make golf writers like they used to.

Tell me one modern golf writer good enough to describe Pebble 7's green as a "doily."

Great story. Thanks.

[SPDB]

For comparison's sake. The same hole from 1952: I am perplexed by the ribbon bunker that rings the right part of the green.

[PJKoenig]

"Could it be the great classic architects had little idea on how to build a course to last and were thus inferior at their craft...or do these pictures represent an architecture that really wasn't worth saving after all."  - JakaB


Glad to see that for once you guys are NOT responding to this idiot.

[SPDB]

PJ -
This is the sum total of your posting history on GCA.com:

• "Could it be the great classic architects had little idea on how to build a course to last and were thus inferior at their craft...or do these pictures represent an architecture that really wasn't worth saving after all."  - JakaB

Glad to see that for once you guys are NOT responding to this idiot.  

• Why do you guys keep responding to this idiot?
• Why do you guys keep responding to this idiot?

Are we to take your lack of response to any other posters as an indication that every one else, too, are idiots?

[Dan Kelly]

SPDB --

Whoever put in that ribbon bunker was perplexed, too, and
left his mark.

Look at that bunker. It's almost a perfect question mark!

Question for you historians: What led from 7 as it looked in
1929 to 7 as it looked in 1952?

Maintenance concerns?

"Fairness" concerns?

Some benighted mid-century aesthetic ideal?

What?

[Rick Shefchik]

Dan -- You know I am not enough of a historian to authoritatively answer your question, but my guess, immediately after seeing the picture of #7 in 1929, was that the owners felt that, even on a hole this short, an island green in the middle of dunesy waste areas -- especially one that often played into a strong wind -- was too tough on the resort traffic they depended on for the bulk of their revenue.

Today you could go back to that style and the masses would still pay $400 a round, but that's due largely to the course's TV-inspired popularity. In 1929, I'll bet you had a fair number of tourists coming off 18 saying, "Well, that certainly was as beautiful as I'd heard, but too tough. Once was enough for me."

[A_Clay_Man]

Shivy baby, You didn't hear'em? Macatee said something about bunkers down the left and something else which escapes me now. He referred to it as a benign hole several times. ( I type this as Davis is about to make at least a abogie from the back bunker.)

[paul cowley]

...as i can remember as a greenskeeper there [circa early 1970's]the right portion of the ribbon bunker at #7 was gone,either filled in or grown in .
  the front right was close , but smaller.
  the front left was smaller also and without most if not all of the long walk-in depicted.
  there were still two back bunkers.

...in those days all bunkers were still raked by hand with long handled 28 tooth wooden hay rakes...so one got to know the shapes of the bunkers well.

... i would guess the different  look from 1929 and 1952 evolved more from the vigorous growth of the grasses than anything... one of my various jobs was repairing collapsed bunker faces that got to high from sand splash and would cave in...grass grew well.

...i find the linksy ,un-irrigated look of the green surround interesting , as in my time the rough was not watered.

...cart paths were sand more than anything ,as carts were still rather new to the course...i did alot of path repair..

...there were also five to seven very large pines on the right side of 18 green ,in the area they recently planted the new cypress...i can remember quite vividly standing below a tree trimmer who swung from tree to tree because it was easier than coming down and re climbing.


....seems like another life [really was] 35 years ago....

[DMoriarty]

Kevin,

By the description, I think the course they refer to as "Montecito" is probably the Montecito Country Club, credited to Max Behr in the Cornish Whitten book.  I've never played the course, but from the looks of it it is build on a severe slideslope, with at least some of the holes side-to-side across the slope.  When driving south from Santa Barbara on the 101, the course is visible on the hillside left of the freeway.
_______________

Barney,  

One thing worth remembering when we look at these pictures from the the late 20's and before is that they represent Pre-Depression gca.   I think that like much else, the depression drastically altered architecture in america, including gca.  Features that cost anything to maintain were sometimes lost, and I wouldnt be surprised if this is what happened to the bunkers on 7.  

I am not so sure that modern architects have built depression proof golf features.  

[ForkaB]

Great picture of old #7.

My guess is that, interesting as it looks, it was not at all realistically maintable in that state, regardless of the state of the eocnomy.

Sand dunes--whether natural or created--have a strong predilection for peregrination.  We see this even today with course like Sand Hills, Kingsbarns and Pacific Dunes, which were built with much more knoweldge, money and technology.

The exposed position of #7 PB would seem to put the greenkeepers of the time in an impossible situation.  The only way to stabilise that sort of design would be to start revetting the green edges, planting some native stuff in some of the sandy wastes, and or getting huge crews of laborers to sweep and reposition the sand on at least a daily basis.

This is my guess, anyway.  Anybody who really knows anything about the maintainance of dune areas (or anybody else, of course) want to comment?

[Joe Hancock]

Sand dunes--whether natural or created--have a strong predilection for peregrination.

Rich,

Mind if I use this in my signature line? I love how it rolls of the tongue. But first, I have to look up the words to see what it means!

Learning..that's why I'm here!

Joe

[paul cowley]

...rich
 pebble beaches natural state was anything but dunesland [unlike its nearby cousin CP ].....heavier clay soils over ledgerock.

any sand used to create the initial look of #7 was all brought out to that rock promotory...and i feel the look was lost due to golf maintenances lack of commitment to keeping it .

 unless the natural site allows ease of maintenance [ie SH ,PV etc.] the artistically designed ,ragged edge 'natural' look on a site where it is anything but ,becomes a very time consuming and costly venture...requiring a skilled maintenance staffs commitment........something lacking at PB at least when i was there [the work force was primarily close to retirement portigee   who seldom left the seats of thier
equipment ,thats where i came in as a strong back to head up special projects using tools with few or no movable parts].

...as i have said ,the grass grew well in the watered areas and over the course of time it was easier to let grow in than to continually cut out [even CP has the same problem post irrigation when one compares old and current photos ].

i will avoid the larger debate of modern ragged edge design versus maintenance ,but in this situation i am comfortable from personal observation of what did  and did not work......

[JakaB]

__

Barney,  

One thing worth remembering when we look at these pictures from the the late 20's and before is that they represent Pre-Depression gca.   I think that like much else, the depression drastically altered architecture in america, including gca.  Features that cost anything to maintain were sometimes lost, and I wouldnt be surprised if this is what happened to the bunkers on 7.  

I am not so sure that modern architects have built depression proof golf features.  

I have to wonder if this is a brilliant observation...wouldn't it be easier to call me an idiot than actually think about what I have to say.

So, in the midst of financial ruin and and farm land erosion we find our bunkers becoming cleaner...interesting.

[paul cowley]

..barney ..it would be interesting to flash forward 20 years and see if some of our modern courses are able maintain their current 'look'....sometimes its hard to fight mother nature.......

[ForkaB]

Joe

Of course you can use that as a tag line.  I assume, of course, that normal GCA royalty arrangements will pertain......

paul

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience.  I did know that the dunes were artificial, but wasn't 100% sure that would act similarly to natural ones.  I, for one, would love to hear your views on "ragged bunker edges" and maintenance.  I, as a complete layman, but interested observer of golf courses (particularly links courses), have always had a hunch that bunkers have a strong tendency to morph into a relatively rounded shape (particularly when subject to the actions of golfers and even the most sensitive greenkeepers).

ps--we should be happy that the Portugese had such as predilection for perigrination, as well as greenkeeping!  Without that bias, the caravel would have not been built, people like Diaz and da Gama and Magellan (and even Columbus) would never have sailed those boats and we'd all probably still be living in Europe wondering what exactly was on that part of our maps that said ("Here there be Monsters!"

[paul cowley]

rich.....i share your appreciation for the portugese...i mean these folks were fishing the grand banks in the late 1490's , established st. johns new foundland well before st. augustine [1530's i think].

...when i was hired at PB ,probably 85% there were older portugese that had morphed into greenskeepers after the canneries failed....good people , i can still see their faces.


we can leave the ragged edge thing for another thread.

p.s. since your support for me some posts past ,i have lost two future jobs,wife left with the first postal service worker that graced  our door [she was a woman too ] , and numerous other small misfortunes too numerous to numerate...
...but i might just re apply at PB ....good days ,lots of memories.................cheers.

[TEPaul]

Peregrination? A predilection for perergrination?

Rich and Joe:

You can begin to scratch your heads about how the forces of nature (wind and water) work on the earth, the land, the soil, the sand, vegetation etc or you can take some time and read something fairly informative such as Max Behr's essays, Thomas's "Golf Architecture in America", Hunter's book "The Links" and a number of other good architecture material to understand why and how golf architecture, and particularly things such as natural dunes or even man-made bunkering, "artificial dunes" bunkering etc evolve over time.

The forces of nature, the effects of golf and golfers, maintenance practices etc all have very definite and very different effects on architecture and the look of it as it evolves over time.

Perergination? That's interesting. I didn't know some of Egan's "artificial dunes" bunkering built at Pebble in the late 1920 peregrinated! Does that mean the "artificial dunes" bunkering on #6 traveled over and did double duty on #17 if the club thought that was necessary for a tournament set-up or something? Does that mean when that particular set-up was done on Monday morning that "artifical dunes" bunkering from #6 flew from #17 back over to #6 again?  

I think the more accurate thought would probably be evolution not peregrination!

The evolved look of the bunkering on #6 Pebble (artifical dunes) from the way it was originally constructed in the late 1920s as well as the same "artificial dunes" bunkering surrounding #17 green is interesting and apparently a bit of a question mark as to why it no longer looks that way or changed in appearance so much between 1929 and 1952, for instance.

My recollection is that GeoffShac did a fairly comprehensive study of why Pebble's "artificial dunes" bunkering evolved and changed the way it did and eventually was just removed. The assumption in my recollection is because those "arctificial dunes" of Egan's at Pebble were probably very difficult to maintain as they appear in that early photo of Pebble's #6.

I feel the same is true of the original look of much of CPC that was built during the same time and very likely with the input of the same group of architects, namely MacKenzie, Hunter at CPC and Egan at Pebble. Matter of fact, it'd be my strong assumption that the same construction company probably built them all (CPC and Pebble). That of course would've been the awesome crew of the famous American Construction Company owned by Hunter and made up of a really interesting group of Irishmen!

There were a couple of letters that floated around in the last 2-3 years, at least one of which made it's way on here regarding the massive dispute Mackenzie had with the Pebble greenskeeper, probably partly over how bunkering such as this would be constructed and maintained. The letters were between Mackenzie and Samuel Morse. It's not certain to me but it certainly appeared that Hunter may have been brought in to resolve the dispute at Pebble (and perhaps who would do MPCC). This may have been why Egan did the job instead of Mackenzie at Pebble.

In any case, it seems those "artifical dunes" bunkers weren't particularly maintenance friendly. Are we right today to question if building such bunkers was a smart idea in a maintenance sense? Of course we are! Should we refrain from asking such questions because that type of bunkering may have been designed and built by the likes of the great Mackenzie, Hunter and Egan? Of course not--it's all just part of good architectural research and education!

Were those "artificial dunes" bunkers extremely beautiful in a natural sense? They sure were to me! Somebody on another thread mentioned that something like Pebble's original Egan "artificial dunes" bunkering flies in the face of what most of us believe, which is architecture should BE natural. That's only partly true, in my opinion. It's wonderful if it IS natural but if an architect such as Egan wants to build "artifical dunes" bunkering on what may have been a rocky promontory such as Pebble's #6 at least he should do it in such a way that it LOOKS natural!

Did he do that as evidenced by the photo of the orginal Pebble #6 that appears on the other thread? He certainly did as far as I can see. By making it look as it originally did is exactly what's meant by an architect "hiding the hand of man", in my opinion. But was it a maintenance headache? It certainly may have been and that may be the primary reason why it didn't survive and was changed.

Should the club have understood the value of the LOOK of that extremely beautiful "artificial dunes" bunkering better and maintained it as it was designed to look anyway? I think so, and some of us may think so, but the question is what did the club think at any particular time?