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Mark Bourgeois

  • Karma: +0/-0

Subtle and not subtle ways tree removal makes your course harder:


1. Loss of depth perception
2. More wind
3. Swinging in your shadow on tee boxes
4. Harder to see contours
5. Greens are firmer
6. Whole course is faster
7. Reveals lines of temptation
8. Very likely, new and challenging hole locations closer to green perimeters
9.
10.
etc etc


Handy reference guide; clip & save in wallet to refute dumb golfer whining
Charlotte. Daniel. Olivia. Josephine. Ana. Dylan. Madeleine. Catherine. Chase. Jesse. James. Grace. Emilie. Jack. Noah. Caroline. Jessica. Benjamin. Avielle. Allison.

jeffwarne

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2018, 08:46:58 PM »
9.-20
Native grass gets planted where trees were
"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

Peter Pallotta

Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #2 on: July 13, 2018, 09:49:52 PM »
Edit:
I will keep it in my back pocket, Mark.
best
P
« Last Edit: July 13, 2018, 09:55:28 PM by Peter Pallotta »

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +3/-1
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #3 on: July 13, 2018, 09:55:36 PM »
Mark:  good list.


Your #7 is especially important.  A good example is the just reopened first hole at Bel Air.  Before, trees down the left blocked the view toward the green, and everyone aimed out to the middle of the fairway.  Now, guys look at the flag on the green and hit it there ... right along the restored barranca down the left side 😉

Niall C

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #4 on: July 14, 2018, 07:25:18 AM »
Mark

I like your list but do you think suggesting that deforestation will make the course harder is a good way of selling the idea ?

I think a lot of the items on your list stand up in their own right and could be described as "adding to the game". As an aside, I'm not sure I'd necessarily agree with the idea that fast and firmer conditions make it harder. For less than average ball strikers like me who don't routinely fly the ball a certain distance (and direction) with each club, being able to guddle the ball along the ground can actually be of assistance.

Niall

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +3/-1
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2018, 08:06:20 AM »
Mark

I like your list but do you think suggesting that deforestation will make the course harder is a good way of selling the idea ?

I think a lot of the items on your list stand up in their own right and could be described as "adding to the game". As an aside, I'm not sure I'd necessarily agree with the idea that fast and firmer conditions make it harder. For less than average ball strikers like me who don't routinely fly the ball a certain distance (and direction) with each club, being able to guddle the ball along the ground can actually be of assistance.



It doesn't make the course harder, so much as it counteracts the fact that removing trees as obstacles makes the course easier.


The primary objection of club members to a clearing program is, "But won't it make the course easier?"  I don't know why they are so worried about that, but my experience is that scoring doesn't go up or down at a course following such work.

Niall C

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #6 on: July 14, 2018, 10:22:17 AM »
Tom

You undoubtedly will have a lot more experience in countering this sort of argument than I have. The deforestation movement on inland courses in Scotland hasn't got off the ground yet and indeed I can't recall having a sensible conversation with anyone about it other than with folk on here.

I think the reason for that is on a lot of courses the tree planting only took place in recent decades so the full effect has still to be felt. I have high hopes however that it will happen eventually in the same way that over the last 10 to 20 years their has been a general movement to strip back gorse on links courses.

As an aside they made the decision to remove all the trees at Glasgow Gailes a couple of years ago and they had a revolt from a section of the membership. The reasons for the objections weren't particularly well articulated but I don't think any of the objectors talked about how it would make the course play, it was about how it would look.

Now that the work is (largely) done at lot of the objections have been forgotten about with the general consensus that the tree removal, and that of a lot of the gorse, has been a general success.

Niall

Peter Pallotta

Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2018, 10:50:14 AM »
Not to say that Niall is doing this, but I think no good ever comes from dismissing or being contemptuous of the 'other' opinion, no matter how inarticulately it's being expressed. Those members at Gailes, it seems to me, have as much right to worry about how the course will 'look' as how it will 'play' -- and surely they are not the only golfers in the world (America, and even gca.com, is apparently chock full of them) who put way too much emphasis on how golf courses look instead of how they actually play, IMO - and in fact often seem to confuse/conflate the two. All of which is to say: I think we might want to guard against the tendency to pronounce from on high to our poor uneducated brethren their blind and misguided love of trees, and to treat our own (current) likes and tastes as if they were eternal truths. Deforestation, I think, simply isn't such an obvious or unalloyed or necessary 'good' as we seem to make it out to be -- neither aesthetically nor playability wise.
Peter
« Last Edit: July 14, 2018, 11:00:20 AM by Peter Pallotta »

Sean_A

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #8 on: July 14, 2018, 12:21:54 PM »
In my experience, it is extremely rare for a course to have trees which don't effect how it plays in terms of strategy, aesthetics (interior/exterior views) or healthy turf.  Usually, its quite obvious there are tree issues.  Sometimes, the trees are okay, but not ideal.  Sometimes its a matter of compromise to block views, provide safety or the trees are awesome specimens that should be preserved and the course plays second fiddle here and there.  Unfortunately, in a great many cases the tree issue is so far down the line that clubs cannot afford to properly deal with the problem. Trees just creep on clubs.  I recall playing Knole Park (centre of the great storm of 1987 when the course lost countless trees) recently and noticing many self-seeded trees which are okay now, but in 10-15 years will be a problem.  They need to be dealt with now while its affordable and before members can think of them as something worthwhile.

Bottom line for me, trees are perhaps the single biggest problem mucking with the enjoyment of parkland golf.

Ciao
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

Thomas Dai

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #9 on: July 14, 2018, 12:37:04 PM »
Removing tree cover allows ball-hugging, ball-losing, clubhead-twisting heather to re-grow/re-generate/be replanted.
Atb
« Last Edit: July 14, 2018, 12:38:38 PM by Thomas Dai »

Peter Pallotta

Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #10 on: July 14, 2018, 01:12:26 PM »
Arbs - I play a heck of a lot of parkland courses, probably 80-90% of all the golf I've ever played. I just don't see it as so black & white as you seem to. When done right (ie back during the original tree planting craze) and now maintained properly, a well-treed golf course has and offers its own -- and totally legitimate -- style and challenge and charm and aesthetic, a 'brand' of golf as welcomed and enjoyable as any other it seems to me. My own home course, a modest public built in the 1970s on flat land/farmer's field is (now) very well treed and lovely and a fun challenge AND manages to have the most 'golfy' turf and the smoothest & healthiest greens in town, even compared to (I'm told by those who know, including former members) the expensive and very private course up the road, which has a 10k initiation and charges $600+ a month in dues, and which is certainly spending many times more on maintenance than my home course does (and which has, not surprisingly, been engaged in a 'renovation' that includes tree clearing). Do I sometimes get stymied by, and lose a golf ball among, the trees? Yes. Am I called on almost all the holes save the Par 3s to try to work the ball left or right to get around the tree-created doglegs? Yes. Are there a few holes that would play differently and just *might* be more 'strategic' and allow for more room/choice off the tee if the trees weren't there? Yes. But I thought that the ethos of the game was to play the course as you find it and the ball as it lies,  and so I'm not so quick to condemn a golf course for being *this* instead of *that* or to complain that it asks me to play *these kinds of shots* instead of *those kinds of shots* -- especially when 'that' and 'those' are merely the fashion of the day and not inherently better than 'this' and 'these'.
P


« Last Edit: July 14, 2018, 02:58:25 PM by Peter Pallotta »

Sean_A

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #11 on: July 14, 2018, 06:38:27 PM »
Pietro

I am not suggesting trees aren't a legitimate design feature.  However, I am saying because of the potential damage trees can do to courses in terms of playablity, agronomy and aesthetics that super duper extra care should be taken about the planting of trees (or their being allowed to mature from self seeding) and how they are maintained.  Meaning, a very detailed tree plan should be in place.  Folks argue the toss about bunkers and other stuff, but in most cases trees are far more impactful than any other feature.  Once trees are allowed to grow, all other course considerations are impacted, so there should be very specific reasons of why and where trees are planted.  Instead, people treat trees virtually the same as grass...expected aspects of golf.  IMO, ideally that shouldn't be the case unless courses are carved from forests/woodlands etc. Trees should be seen as features, just as water, bunkers, shaping and green shapes are. I think what we often get are green walls surrounding fairways which dictate play not only from the tee and fairway, but also for recoveries.  I understand you like that sort of design, I am only pointing out the difficulties caused by trees and how easy it is for trees to quickly dictate the restrictive nature of how courses are presented, played and maintained.  As I say, I rarely see a course with trees that doesn't have some sort of issue.  Its an expensive endeavour to properly maintain and control trees so it is often not dealt with properly. 

Ciao
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

Andrew Carr

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #12 on: July 14, 2018, 10:27:57 PM »

Per the USGAs David Otis' article The Right Tree in the Right Location:


Walter Travis flatly stated
that “trees have no place on a golf
course,” while Harry Colt called them
“fluky and unfair hazards.” Then there
was Max Behr, who stated, “It goes
without saying that trees lined to hem
in fairways are not only an insult to golf
architecture, but the death warrant
to the high art of natural landscape
gardening, aside for the fact that, of all
hazards, they are the most unfair.”
Alister MacKenzie also fell into the
camp of architects who held no great
love of trees: “Playing down fairways
bordered by straight lines of trees is
not only unartistic but makes tedious
and uninteresting golf. Many green
committees ruin one’s handiwork by
planting trees like rows of soldiers
along the borders of the fairways.”


Those are seemingly compelling competent individuals stating their opinions.  I think we try to rationalize the work of Green Committees working on a trend of planting trees but that's what it seems to have been a trend, which I'm grateful to say we are undoing.  I agree there is a current consensus that trees are to be removed but I think the blip on the long arch of golf architecture was the planting of trees in the first place.  There are no trees on sod farms and no great grass at arboretums... That's sufficient for me.

mike_malone

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #13 on: July 14, 2018, 10:41:59 PM »
Attempting more challenging shots versus pitching out.
AKA Mayday

Tom Bacsanyi

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #14 on: July 15, 2018, 02:58:23 PM »
So what courses are "perfectly treed" in y'alls opinion then?


I would offer CommonGround as an example.  Most trees are well out of the way but provide a nice parkland feel, while only a couple holes could be classified as "tree lined", the 4th and 16th, but the tree lining adds a nice variety as most holes have no trees in play except for exceedingly wayward shots.  I am especially fond of a tree or two adjacent to teeing areas as they provide some shade and don't screw with the agronomy of more critical areas such as greens/approaches/fairways.


As for the original topic, I find that my wildest tee shots tend to be on wide open treeless holes. I find the sheer amount of space disconcerting somehow.  I once missed the first fairway at Old Macdonald (left)!  Not even sure how that's possible.
Don't play too much golf. Two rounds a day are plenty.

--Harry Vardon

Niall C

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #15 on: July 16, 2018, 08:22:30 AM »
Peter

I wasn't dismissing those that fought against the tree removal or at least wasn't intending to. What I was intending to convey was how their objection was more emotional than say looking at it in a logical functional way. A lot of the trees were well out of the line of play and behind greens to create a backdrop so really didn't affect play at all unless you thinned one through the back of a green.

It should be said that the pro arguments weren't much better in terms of articulating the case in the fashion Mark did with his OP, although the agronomy reasons were mentioned in passing. The basic reason for the work was a desire to get the course back to a links feel as with the trees, the gorse and the heather it was gradually turning into more of a heathland feel.

Niall

Dan Herrmann

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #16 on: July 16, 2018, 08:46:55 AM »
I play what is essentially a treeless course, and has been since it opened in 2003.  Things I've noticed in that time:
1.  Errant shots just keep going left or right.  There isn't anything to knock down the ball.   
2.  Due to #1, I've noticed that I have more lost golf balls than on a parkland course, especially if the rough is up.
3.  Wind is a much bigger factor.    Comes into play near the perimeter of the course property where trees do exist.   We can get 15MPH winds in one part of the course, and 2MPH on another.
4.  The views are fantastic.   
5.  It requires more concentration.   You really need to focus on your target line.
6.  I think it's much healthier for the turf.   Lots of sunlight and airflow.  No need for greenside fans!

Thomas Dai

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #17 on: July 16, 2018, 10:23:06 AM »
Perhaps we need to differentiate between specimen trees, whether planted or not, and self-seeded trees or scrubby underbrush that's grown under or around or into the canopy of the specimens since the course was opened. For example, in UK terms oaks would be specimens, ash would be something that's grown in a self-seeded manner of it's own violation or through lack of prompt removal.
A very good reason to have grazing animals on a course is that self-seeded trees and scrubby underbrush don't grow, they're nibbled away as soon as they rear they're ghastly head.
atb

Kalen Braley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #18 on: July 16, 2018, 11:43:36 AM »
I agree with this post in concept, but am a bit confused with #4.


In my experience, shadows from trees typically make seeing contours more difficult, not less so....especially on greens.

Doug Wright

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Subtle and not subtle ways deforestation makes your course harder
« Reply #19 on: July 16, 2018, 03:45:07 PM »
On the topic of trees, I commend to you Dunlop White's 2002 GCA.com In My Opinion piece "Below the Trees":

http://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/below-the-trees-by-dunlop-white-iii/
Twitter: @Deneuchre