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Post by wildy33 on Apr 16, 2022 2:24:35 GMT -5
Hey gang,
Hope this will stir some emotions for a good debate!
I read a very interesting article the other day about MacDonald et al and one of the points made questioned their "minimalist" design principles and the limitations of horse drawn machinery.
Now, this got me thinking. If these brilliant designers had today's JCB's, would their courses have come out looking the same? Would Cypress have the same finishing hole if it was a bit easier to move dirt around?
My question is - if you had an excavator time machine, where would you go and what would you do with it?
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Post by zacheroni on Apr 16, 2022 8:45:45 GMT -5
I don't know if this classifies as "moving dirt" but I'd go back and change the bunkers at Augusta National back to their original McKenzie shape.
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Post by mattyfromcanada on Apr 18, 2022 2:50:13 GMT -5
Cypress 18 is a worthy finishing hole.
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Post by sandgroper on Apr 18, 2022 4:44:44 GMT -5
Interesting thread. Our course was built during 1927 and opened in 1928. Given most of the fairways were “designed” to fit the land that was there, not a lot of sculpting was performed. This has left a lot of blind shots and of course the snowflakes have complained and now several holes have been changed to aid safety. There are still a couple more to go after a master plan was put in place 10 years ago, but it’s now very expensive to close holes and move them around. 17 and 18 have been done in the past 5 months and are now open to glowing reviews. The 14th is next which is a blind tee shot to a massive left to right side slope where all balls feed off into the rough on the right. To do this the 13th needs to be closed at the same time and some sculpting can be done to the drive which requires a 250 yards carry to clear the uphill drive or your approach is blind. Problem is we’re looking at about $500k to do 13/14 after spending $300K doing 17/18. Interesting times…
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Post by Q on Apr 19, 2022 4:21:34 GMT -5
Hey gang, Hope this will stir some emotions for a good debate! I read a very interesting article the other day about MacDonald et al and one of the points made questioned their "minimalist" design principles and the limitations of horse drawn machinery. Now, this got me thinking. If these brilliant designers had today's JCB's, would their courses have come out looking the same? Would Cypress have the same finishing hole if it was a bit easier to move dirt around? My question is - if you had an excavator time machine, where would you go and what would you do with it? Cypress 18 is an interesting case because the Monterey Cypress that are growing on that hole are an endangered species and regardless of size cannot be modified or altered really. as for Macdonald I'd read into LIDO a bit more, a huuuge amount of land was moved for that course and I believe it was considered the first "modernly built" golf course. Steam Shovel's are quite a cool piece of forgotten machinery from that era. As for going back in time, I'd rather spend it preventing Mackenzie from dieing penniless
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Post by rjwils30 on Apr 20, 2022 8:58:11 GMT -5
Generally speaking, I’m not sure it would improve any of the great golden age deigns as the limitations of the technology forced these guys to 1. Pick great sites 2. Rely on a great routing 3. Incorporate natural landforms which in my mind are far more visually appealing than anything a man can do.
It might be that some courses with less than ideal sites could have been made better and given the increase speed of construction we might have more golden age courses from the greats. But I’d still suspect that many of the things we love about those courses would suffer at the hand of new tech. (See post war era designs)
As far as particular instances go I would have liked to have more Raynor courses around and would have liked to see what he would have done with a dozer given his more engineered style.
Speaking to Zacheroni’s comment about the bunkers at Augusta being restored to their original style. I’ve heard many people suggest this one but to be honest I kind of like the current style even if they aren’t in vogue. They are so pure and simple and are scaled in a way that they don’t distract from the land movement which is the real star of the show.
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jhs
Caddy
Posts: 33
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Post by jhs on Apr 20, 2022 9:32:38 GMT -5
I think it might be worth considering breaking down courses into two categories, the upscale designs from the time and the lower scale designs of the time ( like smaller private clubs and public courses.) For the most part, I think the courses with bigger name recognition today would remain largely similar in design because these courses are already on great pieces of land and have many amazing routings available on that land. The courses that would most change are the ones that were crammed into land that was not really suitable for golf to begin with and are plagued with many blind shots simply because the designer had to fit 18 holes on the property no matter what. A lot of courses where I play,Long Island New York are amazing because the topography is so incredible but the lesser known clubs on Long Island are super narrow and really poorly designed because they either were crammed into small acreage or they had some seriously poor land to work with. I would say those courses that were crammed in and had poor topography to work with would be radically improved if the designers had some of the tools available to them that are out there today.
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Post by jwtexan on Apr 20, 2022 10:14:45 GMT -5
Cypress 18 is a worthy finishing hole. Trasssssssssssssssh
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Post by BaconJunkie1 on May 5, 2022 5:29:37 GMT -5
Interesting topic, THE HOLE that came to mind is "Home" or the 18th at Yale. It can be played several ways, It's design is pretty out there and speaking of out, the jury is still out on why does it look the way it does. Were McDonald and Raynor so tired from chiseling 17 uniquely different holes out of a really difficult piece of property to build a golf course on that they got to 18 and kind of mailed it in? Naaaa, I doubt that. Then there's the rumor that they ran out of dynomite and had to leave the mounds? It's an interesting story to add to the lore of this course, again Naaaa, I doubt they had a shortage of dynomite. What I do believe is that they were so brilliant that the 2 of them said "Let's build a hole so out there that people many years later will still be talking about it" and here it is, almost 100 years later and here we are stilling wondering, marveling and discussing the strategy of this almost sadistic hole. "Charles Banks in 1925 “This is a long fellow. To relieve the tedium of the drag through a long hole where distance is the only commendation, this hole has been broken up into three distinct parts. The first shot should carry over a shoulder at the right and at the angle of the dog leg. By carry the brow of this shoulder and making a roll over, the ball is brought to a smooth area of playing ground for the second. The second play to the top of the hill which has been leveled off and cut down so as to make the green visible from the second play area. The shot is to the green on the third. Should the player desire to avoid the hill he may play around the right with a penalty of increased distance. The two playing grounds for the second and third shots are practically two greens to shoot at but of twice or three times the area of ordinary putting greens. ....”Getting “home” is a severe test of blind shots, multiple options, and rugged topography. It is indeed a “natural” design and unique challenge! "The question was would they do things differently if they had today's modern equipment? I hope not! Article thefriedegg.com/yale-golf-course-profile-review/Video
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Post by sandgroper on May 5, 2022 8:47:53 GMT -5
Boy that looks like fun!
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Post by sroel908 on May 5, 2022 8:55:33 GMT -5
Steam shovels were able to do pretty amazing things: These are from Lawsonia - Links, which was built in the 1920s with steam shovels. The second picture is of the Hole 7 green, under which a train boxcar was buried. Kind of wild to think what they could do with the equipment available at that time.
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Post by rjwils30 on May 5, 2022 9:56:38 GMT -5
Interesting topic, THE HOLE that came to mind is "Home" or the 18th at Yale. It can be played several ways, It's design is pretty out there and speaking of out, the jury is still out on why does it look the way it does. Were McDonald and Raynor so tired from chiseling 17 uniquely different holes out of a really difficult piece of property to build a golf course on that they got to 18 and kind of mailed it in? Naaaa, I doubt that. Then there's the rumor that they ran out of dynomite and had to leave the mounds? It's an interesting story to add to the lore of this course, again Naaaa, I doubt they had a shortage of dynomite. What I do believe is that they were so brilliant that the 2 of them said "Let's build a hole so out there that people many years later will still be talking about it" and here it is, almost 100 years later and here we are stilling wondering, marveling and discussing the strategy of this almost sadistic hole. "Charles Banks in 1925 “This is a long fellow. To relieve the tedium of the drag through a long hole where distance is the only commendation, this hole has been broken up into three distinct parts. The first shot should carry over a shoulder at the right and at the angle of the dog leg. By carry the brow of this shoulder and making a roll over, the ball is brought to a smooth area of playing ground for the second. The second play to the top of the hill which has been leveled off and cut down so as to make the green visible from the second play area. The shot is to the green on the third. Should the player desire to avoid the hill he may play around the right with a penalty of increased distance. The two playing grounds for the second and third shots are practically two greens to shoot at but of twice or three times the area of ordinary putting greens. ....”Getting “home” is a severe test of blind shots, multiple options, and rugged topography. It is indeed a “natural” design and unique challenge! "The question was would they do things differently if they had today's modern equipment? I hope not! Article thefriedegg.com/yale-golf-course-profile-review/Video Great example.
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Post by boynsy on May 5, 2022 15:38:36 GMT -5
Most of the big name courses would be pretty much as they are now, just built in a shorter time frame (in my opinion). As has been mentioned before, they were already built on great sites and a lot of them had plenty of manpower (and horse, steam, and whatever else!) behind them to get the earth moved.
Designers then faced different challenges with different solutions back then (I’m thinking drainage and irrigation mainly) but certainly had a surprising array of tools available to them to get things done, and could always lean on a HEALTHY helping of dynamite when all else failed!
Some “golden age” courses, particularly those on sub-optimal sites that may have been built on more than of a budget would certainly be different today - my local course has been through a myriad of changes since it’s 1929 opening, including a recent rebuilding of two green sites, and there is a stark difference between the land movement when comparing the old holes to the new ones, but the old greens have plenty of movement to them. It’s only the sculpting further out from the green sites that is absent when comparing them to the newer builds, so creating interesting land movement certainly wasn’t a problem back then, it just couldn’t always be done at the same scale.
The two new green sites took ~3guys around 2-3 weeks to build. There are photos of the original construction process with a dozen or more men all working on one green, but I can’t tell you how long that would have taken!
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