By the way, did you look at Fay's comments on page 31 of his Ross book? Fay said Ross handled changes in elevation in an unconventional manner. While many of his peers dealt with elevation suddenly and abruptly, Ross's approach was far more subtle. He would walk the player up the hill gradually, almost imperceptibly. An elevation change of 300 feet could take as many as five or six holes...
What do you think?
Mark:
To be honest I don’t agree with that at all; almost the opposite in fact. I say that knowing I certainly haven’t seen anywhere near as many Ross courses as Michael Fay has but of those I do know of Ross, I don’t see that at all, and I’ll give you numerous examples of holes to prove it. As I’ve said many times on here about Ross I see a marked penchant on his part to find almost as many high tee/valley/high green site holes as any site that has significant topographical changes will offer. And, matter of fact on at least two holes on my course he took the golfer from an approach area to a green-site that was so high and so abrupt those holes basically had to be redesigned early because obviously weaker players and ladies simply could not get a ball up that high in one shot! Our last hole goes from one of the lowest points on the property to practically the highest and has always been considered a killer climb at the end of the round.
Ross mentioned that he did not like to create green surfaces that were not visible from the approach area. If he really meant that one really does wonder why he created so many of them. Was it because in too many cases he never actually saw them? Was it because he simply counted up contour lines without the benefit of actually knowing what they specifically looked like on the ground? One the other hand, I believe that Ross courses have as many or more "false front" greens as any architect simply as a accomodation for visibility for some many of those high greens whose surfaces would otherwise be not visible to the golfer approaching the hole.
In my opinion, and the Ross courses I know that have topographical change, Ross may’ve created more uphill approaches than any architect ever did. In a way, that may’ve actually been a bit of a theme of his---and when one thinks about that today, and the result of that in play, it's most interesting. It certainly does make many of his courses actually play a lot longer than they appear to be on the scorecards.