Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: David Davis on September 21, 2012, 11:32:02 AM
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Seeing several renovations and now being part of one I'm curious how many of you have lost loved ones (golf holes in this case) to renovations that you were not or perhaps your club was not happy with?
Please explain what was done and why you didn't like it or approve.
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The course that comes to mind is a not one that is world renowned, but it is my local public named Pine Hills in Manorville, NY. The fifth hole is a short par 4 (it had been a par 3 a long time ago). The fifth is a long dog leg left par 4 which is the number 1 handicap. The Seventh is a longer par 4. The fifth hole was a perfect time for a short 4. They have a pond short left of the green, and it is about 10 feet below the green surface. The green sloped hard from right to left. There was a bunker on the right about 70 yards short of the green. If you tried to drive the green, you would have to carry the bunkers on the right, and have the ball roll up, using the slope to get on the green. If you pulled your shot, you would put the pond into play. The safe play was to hit a hybrid and a wedge, but the green sloped hard, and you had to be precise. The club thought that the severity of the greens was holding up play, meanwhile the course plays in over 4 hours no matter what. They decided to flatten the green totally. They did not bring in a construction crew, but decided to do this themselves. They took all the character out of the green, and made a rock hard surface that can not be held. If that is not bad enough, they put an oval flat bunker right in front of this new green, so that you cannot run a driver (or anything else) on. The icing on the cake is that they screwed up the construciton so bad that they had to close the new green down for the season to work on it. They took a nice hole with some character and made it awful.
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Oh my God ... there were so many of these when I started walking around great golf courses thirty years ago, that I don't know where to begin.
Thankfully, quite a few of them have been reversed over the past 15 years. The first of those that I was involved in personally, was the von Hagge rebunkering of The Camargo Club. Just thinking about it is like hearing fingernails on a blackboard!
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Oh my God ... there were so many of these when I started walking around great golf courses thirty years ago, that I don't know where to begin.
Thankfully, quite a few of them have been reversed over the past 15 years. The first of those that I was involved in personally, was the von Hagge rebunkering of The Camargo Club. Just thinking about it is like hearing fingernails on a blackboard!
Tom,
Have you finished with all of the bunker work at Camargo? How deep in scope and far along in progress is the restoration plan?
Cheers
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The Eden.
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The 15th at Bethpage Black. The green was flattened out and will never be the same for me.
Mark
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11th at ANGC. Followed by the 17th and 7th at ANGC.
ANGC is the only top 50 course that has added a significant number of trees over the last 15 years.
I'd guess that the other 49 have net fewer trees today than they did 15 years ago.
Bob
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#7 at Augusta is pretty bad.
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14th at Bandon Trails. A couple of golf writers get their panties in a bunch and the green is vanillaized. Then some fat guy dies walking to the tee and they install a motorized trolley. Stop the madness!!!
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I loved the 17th at Hazeltine, in its original configuration -- 344 yards, playing uphill between stands of trees, to an inverted saddle fairway, and turning right to a green with ponds short right and short left, with a runway up to the green between them.
The pros hit FW woods and long irons to the fairway, then short irons to the green.
A wonderful hole, which produced the most memorable shot of the 1970 US Open: a second-round punched 5-iron from the left woods by the eventual champion, Tony Jacklin, which climbed up the runway to birdie distance -- a birdie he made.
Rick Shefchik can tell you more about it -- including the PJ Boatwright flip-flop, which he recently unearthed.
I guess a lot of the pros (or maybe just the one pro who mattered) didn't like the hole. Which goes to show: Don't listen to the pros' opinions -- particularly when they're complaining about the possible advantage of hitting something other than driver on a par-4 hole.
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John -
What changes have been made to the 14th green at BT?
Bob
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John -
What changes have been made to the 14th green at BT?
Bob
When the hole first opened it rewarded those who hugged the left side near the woods and penalized those who bailed right. The green has been widened so everyone has an equal chance for par no matter where the drive.
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John -
What changes have been made to the 14th green at BT?
Bob
When the hole first opened it rewarded those who hugged the left side near the woods and penalized those who bailed right. The green has been widened so everyone has an equal chance for par no matter where the drive.
Does everybody get a trophy if they finish the hole?
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Oh my God ... there were so many of these when I started walking around great golf courses thirty years ago, that I don't know where to begin.
Tom, A good starting point might be the 19 greatest holes that no longer exist that you cited in your book.
Montclair has a few holes that were altered, some to make room for tennis courts, ditto Metropolis.
Others for reasons unbeknownst to me.
The 15th at Preakness Hills comes to mind with the 13th not far behind.
Thankfully, quite a few of them have been reversed over the past 15 years. The first of those that I was involved in personally, was the von Hagge rebunkering of The Camargo Club. Just thinking about it is like hearing fingernails on a blackboard!
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Good call on the Eden.
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Good call on the Eden.
Mark,
I agree as well. The Eden is a bit of a 'hotch potch' golf course. Great Colt holes and weak Steel holes - I cant believe a pond was put in - could have they put it on the side rather than in the line of play :)
Another is Luffenham Heath - the driveable short 8th was lengthened from 285 to 330 - and I am not a fan of the new green which does not fit in with the rest of the course greens. The new bunkering is too repetitive. Hole 10 is a improvement but it seems to feel an another course rather than blend in.
Cheers
Ben
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I spose Hoylake must be mentioned in that the use of OOB was systematically removed from Dowie and Royal. Though both decisions could be said were taken for good reasons. In the case of Dowie, the OOB was "artificial" in that thee was more space left of the green. Royal was altered to create space for spectator movement behind the green and to stop balls sailing onto the road (though I am a bit dubious about this having been a serious problem). Still, Hoyake to me was the one club which embraced OOB as a hazard and its awful shame to have te character of the course (agree with the concept or not) altered to make accommodations for the golfer. I think in some cases where history and character are involved, the golfer should bend to the will of the course rather than the other way around.
Ciao
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The third at Harrison Hills? Never saw the original, but the other 8 original holes are so good I'm dying to know what's missing. This hole also tied together what was surely in the discussion for best 9 hole course on the planet. The course certainly wasn't ruined by renovation, Tim Liddy did an admirable job with the task he was given, I just can't help feeling that the club should have left well enough alone.
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The third at Harrison Hills? Never saw the original, but the other 8 original holes are so good I'm dying to know what's missing. This hole also tied together what was surely in the discussion for best 9 hole course on the planet. The course certainly wasn't ruined by renovation, Tim Liddy did an admirable job with the task he was given, I just can't help feeling that the club should have left well enough alone.
I never saw the third either; however, I wondered the same thing after playing the original 9. I would have preferred a longer walk between the new 9 and old rather than eliminate an original Langford hole on that course!!
Chris
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9th hole at Point O'Woods comes to mind for me.
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The third at Harrison Hills? Never saw the original, but the other 8 original holes are so good I'm dying to know what's missing. This hole also tied together what was surely in the discussion for best 9 hole course on the planet. The course certainly wasn't ruined by renovation, Tim Liddy did an admirable job with the task he was given, I just can't help feeling that the club should have left well enough alone.
I never saw the third either; however, I wondered the same thing after playing the original 9. I would have preferred a longer walk between the new 9 and old rather than eliminate an original Langford hole on that course!!
Chris
The problem with the old 3rd hole was that it played around O.B. in the L-shaped corner of the property, where some of the new course is now located. My memory of it is a little fuzzy because I only saw it once, and it seemed so crazy.
The tee was at the back of the second green, perhaps 200 yards from the property corner on the inside left, and then 90 degrees left along the property line for another 300-350 yards to complete the par 5. If you didn't want to try and carry the O.B. and aimed right instead, there was fairway, but you were down in a deep hollow, with no line of sight to the rest of the hole.
As Jud mentioned, the expansion certainly did not ruin the course, but it did ruin its main claim to fame as being one of the best nine-hole courses in the country. It happens often enough that it's relevant to this thread. Rolling Rock was another such casualty.
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Tom,
Thanks. OK maybe not the best hole lost but it still sounds like the kind of quirky hole that fit right in with the rest of that rollercoaster.
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The 8th hole at Olympic Club.
Ruined by a superintendent who has no respect for classic architecture.
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How about the 2nd and 3rd at Yale.
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The ninth hole at Ridgeview Country Club in Duluth MN. There was a fantastic peanut shaped green perched up in the air surrounded by bunkers. You could drive it to to bottom and risk having a downhill lie to an uphill green or lay back off the tee and have a level lie with a six or seven iron. When the wind blew it was daunting.
Knocked it down in an odd renovation plan and was replaced by a bad green with way too much slope back to front and left to right. It is almost as if they said "we need a new green now that we tore the other down so let us put it here because it is cocktail hour!"
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Holes 14-17 at Granville. I'm not sure that "renovation" is the correct term..."travesty" seems more appropriate.
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David Davis,
I wonder what the relative percentages are, between in-house renovations and outside consultant renovations ?
In addition, I wonder what the relative percentages are when the idea for the renovation originated within the membership or from outside sources ?
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Losing the original Seaside 9 (Colt and Allison 1928) that were part of the old Sea Island Resort. They were merged with the Marshside 9 to be part of the new Seaside 18 during a Fazio renovation about 10 years ago.
These nine holes were my favorite of anywhere.
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The 5th hole at Silloth which got a new green about 6 or 7 years ago.
Tom MacKenzie did the design and while I like what he did at Craigielaw, what he produced at Silloth was a poor substitute for the original green. For those that played there recently the original position of the green was on the flat area short left of the new green. On the left it was guarded by the rough and on the right by a couple of bunkers that sat on the slope making any short chip from the right near impossible to get anywhere other than left side of green. There were no other bunkers tee to green. Given the open but narrow approach, and the hole being a bit shorter, it encouraged players to go for it in two however to do so you had to generally look to hit a tighter line off the tee and make sure the second shot didn't go in the rough which runs hard up the left or bail out to the right where scrambling for a par even short right wasn't easy.
Now with the added length and the spectacle style bunkers guarding, it almost dictates a three shot approach to playing the hole which in turns means you would be as well hitting a safe drive, safe second and concentrate on the third shot approach. The joy and challenge of picking an aggressive line off the tee has been lost as there's largely no point, a great shame.
To my mind, an inferior hole has been created. It would have been far better, in my not so humble opinion, to enlarge the medal tee which is further back on the dune and make that the normal/medal tee. That would in turn give the hole back somne length that it was needing and make it more of a challenge to pick your line off the tee. In the present circumstances I would still be inclined to do that and I would also convert the spectacle bunkering , which is really just a cross-hazard, to a single bunker in the middle of the fairway and built into the slope as it rises to the right side rough. This would allow the weaker players to still try and run a ball up the right side through to the green.
Niall
edit: I note that this thread refers to restorations which clearly wasn't the case at Silloth
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What USGA has done to the 5th at Chambers Bay is tragic.
It was a world-class hole where you really had to think. The fairway was extremely wide but the ideal angles were limited due to the pot bunker guarding the center of the green. Your tee shot was dictated by the pin placement. Add to that a secondary driveable green to the left and the fantastic view of the Puget Sound, and it was easily one of my favorite par 4 anywhere.
Now, the 2nd green is gone and there are rows of bunkers on both sides pinching in from 250 yards out with a very narrow opening aroud 300 yards. All thinking elements (and what made hole special) have been designed out of this hole.
Now it is just like the 18th at Bethpage... with a view.
I could have cried...
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I'll nominate Portland, Oregon's Riverside Golf & Country Club's 18th hole.
I was a member here until I moved back East in 1993. After I left, they tore down their perfectly functional clubhouse and built a McMansion-style clubhouse. Unfortunately, this huge building needed more space, so they did two things - shrunk the driving range (c'est la vie), and made 18 a LOT shorter. What was a really cool 18th hole (fairly long and straight with nice ground movement and a fantastic green) was turned into a pedestrian hole with a forgettable green.
Pretty sad.