[Chris Buie]

Ok, aficionados and jolly lads all, here is a pretty current look the restoration in progress.

A sandy waste area for fairway right.  The right side being the better angle to approach the long green.


The 2nd now has a tee about 50 yards behind where it has been.  Incredibly difficult to make a par-4 on this hole.


Pretty much the entire right side is on its way to being natural.


The left side of the 2nd.


You don't want to miss your approach to the 2nd on the right side.  With that sinister, repelling ridge on the edge of the green short
left is where you would prefer to miss it.


3rd Tee


3rd Left


Another look at the 3rd.


Not much done yet to 4,5 and 6.  Here is the 7th tee.


The mounds on the right side of the 7th.


Looking back on the 7th.


They restored the 8th tee behind the sand path.  Normally called a par-5 but played as a par-4 during the US Open.  Par means very little to me.  A hole is a hole - you play it as best you can.


A very good tee shot can carry the first bunker on the 8th.


They haven't done much to the 9th yet.  The hill on the right and the newly jagged bunker on the left will figure into your second shot on the 670 yard par-5 10th.


The somewhat jagged bunker.


Wire grass all along the right side of the 11th hole.  Hogan's favorite hole on the course, in fact.


Bunkers restored on the right of the 11th.


The 12th tee.


12th bunkers.


Fade your tee shot on the 12th too much and you will tangle with wire grass and sand.  


13 tee.  Is this wide enough for you?


A sandy waste area all along the left side of the 13th.  Fairway right is a better angle for the approach.  But there are nasty mounds
over there.


Behind the 13th green and the 14th tee.


Not much work on the 15th, 16th and 18th yet.  The par-3 17th.


That's all for now.  If you have any questions I'll be happy to attempt to answer them tomorrow.

[Steve Kline]

Guess I don't need to take my camera out there this week.

My dad said the rumor is that all bunkers in areas where the rough has been stripped out will play as waste bunkers and not formal bunkers.

[Carl Rogers]

Some thing tells me this re-work might be one of the trends of the future:
- Large more or less very casually maintained (no effort to have formal turf or formal bunker or formal "waste area") scruffy areas with no explicit penalty for hitting the ball there except the good or bad fortune of the lie.  
- A lot of the strategy of the hole is dependent on these areas.  
- No sprinkler system, no fertilizer and cut the vegetation down a bit depending on the amount of rainfall.
- An informal to non-existant to variable mowing line

[PCCraig]

Looks like the work is coming along well so far. Also seems like there will be a long grow-in period for the "waste" areas. Thanks for the pictures Chris!

[Tony_Chapman]

Can anyone comment on the "mounds" that are on the 7th and apparently some in the middle of the back nine. Were these original Ross features that were lost and that Coore/Crenshaw are putting back?

[Brad Tufts]

Wow....seeing the pics of many of the holes really show a change in look.

I have always had this picture of #2 as a lush, green, wide place.  Now it's more of a green and sandy place.

I'm curious to see how it will play for the regular player...if the areas will really come into play or not.  It still looks like there is plenty of room to avoid the waste areas.  I also think it will look even better once the grass grows in a bit, or the needles cover the areas under the trees to the full extent.

From the pics below, 3, 7, 11-12 really look different than before, the first two especially.

[Jon Heise]

WOW, it looks crazy!  The fairways are going to be widened, right? Will it be enough?  Is there any rough at all?  And this is all to get it back to what it was in the past?  Just WOW.

[Anthony Gray]

  I assume the waste areas will have clumps of love grass or something like it?

  Anthony

[Mike Cirba]

Chris,

Thanks for posting the pics.

It looks like it's got the potential to be pretty amazing once the look "matures".

[Link Walsh]

Can anyone comment on the "mounds" that are on the 7th and apparently some in the middle of the back nine. Were these original Ross features that were lost and that Coore/Crenshaw are putting back?

I think the 7th hole was a redesign by Trent Jones, wasn't it?  I have no idea when this occurred.  But I thought some of those mounds were there already, just covered in rough.  I could be wrong about all of this though. 

[Mark McKeever]

Agreed Mike.  I love how the waste areas bleed into the actual bunkers.  When that grows in and becomes more established, the look is going to be great.

mark

[Chris Buie]

These photos will give you an idea of what C/C are moving toward with the barren areas.  There will be some wire grass planted and other areas will be left to naturally evolve.   It will take some time to get the full effect. 
The mounds on 7 were there before Rees Jones did work for the USGA on the course. 

[jonathan_becker]

Chris,

Going along with what Steve said, I'm curious as to the official ruling on what will be waste area and what will be actual bunkers. 

[Steve Kline]

Can anyone comment on the "mounds" that are on the 7th and apparently some in the middle of the back nine. Were these original Ross features that were lost and that Coore/Crenshaw are putting back?

Those mounds have been there as long as I've been playing the course (20 years). They used to have rough on them though.

[Tim Gavrich]

Maybe it's just me, but the mounding with just sand on it looks quite odd.  Is the plan to have a lot of love grass in the waste areas?  If so, I can see a whole lot of lost balls in the future, both for pros and resort guests and members.

[Chris Buie]

Tim, this is a pretty early state of a work in progress.  As I said before, it will take time to mature.  I posted the second set of photos to give you an idea of what it will look like.  What you are seeing now is a pretty raw state.  I'm sure it will look great and play great in time.
I don't think they plan on having thick wire grass planted closely together so lost balls will continue not to be a problem.

[Tim Gavrich]

Tim, this is a pretty early state of a work in progress.  As I said before, it will take time to mature.  I posted the second set of photos to give you an idea of what it will look like.  What you are seeing now is a pretty raw state.  I'm sure it will look great and play great in time.
I don't think they plan on having thick wire grass planted closely together so lost balls will continue not to be a problem.

Chris, thanks for the response.  Good to hear about the wire grass.  I'm a big fan of courses that eschew swaths of thick rough when there is another type of challenge that can be offered.  The three Greg Norman Courses I've played--the Great White course at Doral, The Reserve in Pawleys Island, SC, and the Norman course up at Barefoot Resort in Myrtle Beach--all have sandy areas off the fairways and little actual rough.  I'm looking forward to seeing No. 2 in its new clothes sometime.

[Chris Buie]

I found a few more on the roll that you may enjoy looking at.

14th tee.


Behind the 13th green.  13 has got to be the widest fairway on the course.


Hit it in the bunkers right of the 13th fairway and you will have a tough time making par.


This was the back tee on the 2nd before they put another tee about 50 yards behind this.


Looking back on the 2nd. The area immediately in front of the photographer is the relatively new back tee for the 3rd - which is across the street from the rest of the hole.

[Philippe Binette]

I hope they keep the wide fairways and sandy areas for the next Open...
no light rough and bake those 50 yards wide fairways... sounds like fun.

[Steve Kline]

I just finished playing the course this afternoon. When the restoration is complete the look is going to be fantastic. Previously there was only one dimension or texture to the course because it was Bermuda grass of differing lengths everywhere. (On the other courses right now there is a lack of dimension making the courses rather blah.) Many of the holes now have the waste areas you see in the photos although I don't think this work is done. Also, for the what those waste areas may look like I think the Dormie Club pictures might provide a clue. These waste areas along with what I think the bunker restoration will do (the course is closing sometime around November to March) will add lots of texture/contrast/dimension to the course. Virtually all of the grass (I'd say around 95%) is either fairway or green. There is no rough left all. So, the fairways go right into the bunkers. After years of playing narrow fairways on #2 this played with my alignment as I wasn't used to having all this room. But it was great because I could some better angles into some of the pins which were tucked today for the final of the Women's North and South Am. Also, the new look was really throwing off my depth perception. Even though I've played the course hundreds of times everything seemed to look shorter than normal with all of the short grass and no rough.

In spite of these positives of the potential for the new look, I would be mad as hell if I were a paying customer right now. Almost all of the par 3 tees have recently been sodded which makes for bad playing surfaces. The grass is shaggy everywhere. So much so that you can't run the ball around the greens or putt from off the green. You pretty much have to hit sand wedges on every chip. The ball was rolling a little more than in past. Instead of zero yards of roll I'm guessing I got 10-15 yards, which is not where it needs to be on #2. The greens were VERY soft. If you landed anywhere on the green with a decent shot your ball would stay on the green. Every shot left a crater of a ball mark. Even chips and sand shots left decent size ball marks. The greens were very slow and didn't putt very true. I can't imagine having to pay several hundred dollars to play the course right now.

Overall verdict - the intention of the restoration is fantastic. The course will look great given the start of the changes. But, the course condition will have to dramatically change/improve for #2 to move back into the top 10 in the rankings (which it was in the '90s I believe) and to justify anything near the greens fee they are charging.

[Chris Buie]

Nice to have your perspective Steve.  And nice seeing you and your father the other day. 
An employee told me that they put a chemical down to deal with the poa earlier this year and that they ended up almost losing the greens.  That, I'm told is the main reason why they are in the shape they are in now.
Beyond that, I am just very impressed that Pinehurst agreed to this project.  With it in the hands of C/C I have no doubt that when it matures it will really be something.  I am hopeful that the greenskeeper will properly condition the course. 
I'm assuming that it will be matured by when the US Open is held here in 2014.  Do any of the gurus of greenskeeping have any comments on that?

[Steve Kline]

I played with my dad and two other members. It was interesting because I was explaining to them what it appears C&C is after given what I've read and seen on GCA. Most of the people I've talked to aren't able to visualize what the end product will be. They just see how it looks now.

[Michael Whitaker]

Pinehurst has a reaaly good web page with updates on the progress of the changes:

http://www.pinehurst.com/no2update.php

Be sure to watch the videos with Coore and Crenshaw.

[Ben Voelker]

Thanks for the photos.

I have never been to Pinehurst myself, but was curious if the fairways are wider with the new waste areas than with the former setup.  It is hard to tell from the photos how much room there is.  For example, the photos of 2 make the fairway look a bit narrow for the severity of the penalty if the fairway is missed.  With C&C I would assume the playing angles from the fairway have been maintained?

Also, any idea if the USGA will grow in some kind of "intermediate cut" between fairway and waste area?  It seems that could actually make the course less challenging than if they kept the fairways fast and let them take balls into the waste area.

Ben

[Steve Kline]

Ben - the fairways are much wider than they have been for more than a decade. On holes where they have exchanged rough for waste areas the fairways must be near 50 yards wide - almost twice as wide as before. Some holes have not had waste areas added yet (holes 4 and 5 for example). On those holes all the rough has been cut down to fairway, making the fairways probably 80 yards wide.

I hope the USGA doesn't grow in an intermediate cut. One would have to think these changes are being done with the blessing of the USGA since the next Open is just four years away.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the bunkers. A brand new bunker was built left of the tenth fairway about 200 yards from the green. This pinches the drive from the member tees and comes into play after a bad tee shot from the back tees into the left trees when you need to punch back to the fairway. I'm not sure how I know this. This bunker has the sand flashed up high and a broken edge all the way around. This is similar to the original bunker styling on the course that Ross built but in contrast to the current bunkers which have grass faces and smooth, round edges. It will be interesting to see how the bunkers look next spring when the bunker rework is complete.

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