The Donald In Scotland, Vol. 2

The Donald visited Scotland and as always, the trip produced some fine stories.

Auslan Cramb writes in the Guardian:

A four-handicap golfer, he described Sir Sean Connery as one of his best friends, Nick Faldo as a supporter, and, mindful of where he was, added: "I love your Colin Montgomerie".

Jonathan Coates reports on the bonding between Donald and another emerging architect, Peter Dawson.

Trump is aware of all this - heck, his course hasn't even been approved yet - but he insisted yesterday, just minutes after meeting R&A secretary Peter Dawson in the Old Course clubhouse, that taking the Open to Aberdeenshire was a realistic aim. "What I really hope to do is build the greatest golf course anywhere in the world," Trump said after being ferried by helicopter from Menie to St Andrews. Asked if he thought his course could host the Open Championship, Trump replied: "Yes, I would love that. We are shooting for that. And yes, I think it's realistic."

Trump's right-hand man, Ashley Cooper, elaborated: "When we go out and build big golf courses we build them with championships in mind. So we understand how the infrastructure works, we understand how the medical situation needs to be done, how hospitality has to be done, how viewing has to be done. So what we will do over the next two or three years building the links course is build it with the Open Championship in mind. But whatever happens, the public and some of our private members will have an Open Championship venue to enjoy for the next 100 years."

Having just met Dawson, whom the New Yorker described as "a fantastic guy who has done an amazing job", Trump added: "We had a great conversation and he understands the greatness of this land. He was born in Aberdeen and he understands the greatness of these dunes. I've built a lot of golf courses but there's nothing like the great dunes in Scotland. That's why we chose this site over so many others."

Meanwhile, Lorna Martin reports on criticism of the project.

Old Town

Dunlop White profiles Old Town Club for Links Magazine.

Tait on R&A and Links Golf

Alistair Tait writes:

Credit goes to the R&A for remaining loyal to the tradition of taking the Open Championship to seaside links. All I can say is long may it continue. Given the abundance of links golf in these isles, it is sad that the game's top players only play links golf twice a year at most – the Open Championship and the insipid Dunhill Links Championship.

So enjoy the pictures on your TV screen of this year's Open Championship over the glorious links of Royal Liverpool. Revel in the joy of watching the game's elite play the game as it was first played all those years ago on the windswept coast of the Kingdom of Fife.

Too bad we don't see the big boys playing links golf more often. Too bad the game's oldest championship isn't taken to more traditional courses in the British Isles.

Innisbrook In

I know I'm sleeping better on the news that Innisbrook has been locked up through 2012. Then again, after Redstone and the new Hope Classic host course, it looks wonderful.

Now they just need a sponsor for the event! 

R&A Design, LLC

Mike Aitken reports on the R&A's not so stellar start in the design business.

You may recall that most links have only seen minor tinkering in preparation for Open Championships, but now that the pesky ball is going so bloody far and scores might go lower if something isn't done, why, driver must be taken out of the players hands.

Therefore, the R&A has begun to inflict assorted design atrocities on the rota links that pale when compared to anything the USGA has ever...well I just had an Oak Hill flashback.

Anyhow, Aitken reports:

...after embarking this winter on the first phase of a programme of improvements which will cost around £250,000 and increase the number of bunkers on the Ayrshire links to nearly 100, Turnberry has been advised by the Royal and Ancient to remove a number of traps and soften others because the test was in danger of becoming too severe.

Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the R&A, believed alterations to the first, 12th and 14th on the Ailsa now demanded too much of the golfer and needed to be revised.

You know how much I hate to be sarcastic, but you may recall this post about Dawson's planned February visit to help supervise these changes.

You see Mr. Dawson, there are people called golf architects who do this for a living and...oh I know, they would tell you to do something about the ball instead of littering Turnberry with rabbit-dropping inspired bunkers. Silly me!

Aitken provides the crime report:

On the first, for example, two new bunkers were introduced down the left and a third, large pot bunker was also added on the right at around the 280- yard mark. Dawson's reaction to this hazard was that it might take the driver out of the long hitters' hands and persuade them to err on the side of caution with an iron or utility club.

"Sometimes you can't fully appreciate the impact of an alteration until it's been built and you have another look at them in reality rather than on a drawing," said Dawson yesterday. "What happened on the first was that when we saw the new bunkering, we were concerned the element of risk and reward in going for the green might be taken away and the players would use an iron off the tee. But we haven't gone back to the way the hole was before. The hazard is just less severe than it was going to be."

On the back nine, though, the R&A did ask for new bunkers to be removed on the 12th and 14th holes. On the 12th, a new bunker was built on the left of the fairway beyond the existing traps. From what will be the new tee, however, the landing area was miniscule.

That bunker has been filled in as was one of the new traps on the 14th, where there were concerns the hazard couldn't be seen from the tee.

Stewart Selbie, the manager of Turnberry Hotel, was happy to comply with the R&A's wishes, though perhaps not displeased with the notion that the Ailsa had become so challenging.

The original plan was to add 30 traps before the Senior British Open is staged in Ayrshire in the summer and as many as 100 by 2009. Before work began, Turnberry had just 66 bunkers, the fewest of any links on the Open rota.

The second phase of upgrading will take place after the Seniors when Turnberry's finishing stretch will also be toughened up. Although plans for the closing holes have not yet been made public, it's thought the 16th could become more of a dogleg to create enough space to build a new tee which would extend the par-5 17th.

With an Amateur Championship also on the horizon, both Turnberry and the R&A are keen to retain a balance between heightening the challenge and retaining the character of a scenic links regularly ranked in the world's top 20. "What we don't want is to end up making the links unplayable for the regular golfer," said Selbie.

Aitken also outlines changes to Carnoustie to deal with "new technology and improved fitness," and the boondogglery continues...

And, on the treacherous 17th, there was concern a bail-out area now existed on the "island" rather than players having to think about laying up short of the burn or going for broke. This will be remedied by the introduction of rough mounding.

"We did feel that a bit of a bail-out area had emerged since the re-turfing of the 17th and so we've done something about that," acknowledged Dawson.

Rough mounding?

The Lukewarm Reviews Are In

AP's Chris Duncan reports that the Rees Jones-David Toms course at Redstone didn't exactly remind them of Riviera.

The Shell Houston Open will move to the weekend before The Masters next year, a change organizers hope will lure a more star-studded field.

It's not the date, but the course that could keep many away.

The Tournament Course at Redstone, where Stuart Appleby shot 19 under last weekend to win the event, got a lukewarm response from the players, most of whom were seeing it for the first time.

Vijay Singh won the previous two Houston Opens at the adjacent Jacobsen/Hardy course at Redstone. The event moved to the 7,457-yard Rees Jones layout this year.

Singh said too many of the holes look the same.

"The golf course did not grow on me," said Singh, the 2000 Masters winner. "Normally, the more you play, the more it grows on you. I just hope they go back to the old golf course next year. I think that's the consensus of most of the players."

Bob Estes, who finished second to Appleby, didn't like the distance between holes. The second tee was more than a quarter mile from the first green and though players had carts waiting to shuttle them, Estes said the process backed up play.

"It's just so spread out, the rounds were really long, and that's the downside of it," Estes said.

I'm shocked.  Jim Nantz said it was getting rave reviews!

The Signature Hole Has Not Been Established

Garry Smits reports on Tom Fazio's latest masterwork, Florida's Amelia National (aren't we about to run out of names you can put next to National?).

You'll be shocked to learn that the course is going to be tough from the back tees, but still playable from the member tees.

"Tom did a very nice job," said 2005 Players Championship winner Fred Funk, who conducted a clinic and participated in an opening-day tournament, along with Fazio. "It's a very good test from the back tees, but it's also going to be a very good member's course."

According to Smits, the only thing left is a decision on the signature hole.

Although a "signature hole" hasn't been established, it might be the 460-yard, par-4 18th, with a series of fairway bunkers down the right side. But the par-5 ninth hole, reachable in two shots for good players, is a twisting, winding beauty, and the parallel par-4 fourth (424 from the back tees) and par-4 fifth (405) form a picturesque pairing.

 The American Society of Signature Hole Comittees (ASSHCom) will have a tough decision on their hands. I say give 'em two signatures, the front nine and the back nine signature holes.

Work for you all?

Campbell on New Redstone Course

Steve Campbell looks at the new Houston Open design by Rees Jones and David Toms that is debuting this week.

If the Tournament Course lives up to the reputation of its designer, then the SHO should be a breakout hit. Rees Jones has established himself as major-championship course doctor of sorts, the man the United States Golf Association and PGA of America turn to when they want to upgrade a classic layout. The son of renowned course architect Robert Trent Jones, Rees Jones has performed major undertakings at the likes of Congressional, the Country Club, Bethpage Black, Pinehurst, Torrey Pines, Medinah, Hazeltine, Baltusrol, East Lake, Sahalee and Atlanta Athletic Club.

"I've been very fortunate in my life to have done a lot of these championship venues," said Jones, whose body of work includes Redstone collaborations at Shadow Hawk and The Houstonian. "The more I do, the more I understand what you must do to challenge the best."

Nothing like learning on the job!

To that end, Jones designed a course that plays longer from the back tees than any on tour so far this season. The Tournament Course is also 51 yards shorter than the adjacent Peter Jacobsen/Jim Hardy Redstone Member Course, which served as SHO's halfway home the previous three years. Jones describes the Tournament Course as a "neo-classic" design that favors strategy and shot-making over raw power.

Longest on the Tour so far, but it favors strategy and shotmaking over raw power. Makes sense.

One of the distinctly Toms touches was No. 12. The 338-yard par-4 is, depending on the wind, drivable. With the reward of a possible eagle comes the risk of hitting the tee shot in the lateral water hazard right of the green.

"I'm hoping they set up the golf course to let guys use that risk-reward strategy," Toms said. "We don't get that very often. There's always thousands of people around those holes, trying to see what the pros can do, seeing if they can make an eagle or a double (bogey). They're well-received with the spectators, and the pros like them as well."

Wishful thinking based on this year's course setups.

"The golfer has a choice," Jones said. "I think that's great for a championship. We're making them strategize. The winner will be under par. But we're making him manage his game by the green contours and the angles of the greens. He knows the easy route may lead to a three-putt or the harder route could lead to disaster but has a greater reward."

It all sounds so good.

Huggan On Musselburgh

John Huggan offers an update on the Musselburgh Links situation where a public inquiry has been ordered.

And therein lies the crux of the debate: is the links in its present configuration and condition worth preserving? Or has the damage already been done? One of the few areas on which both sides are agreed is that the course is a long way from the one on which those five far-off Open champions learned the game.

So is it too late to save what is left of the Musselburgh links? And is it worth saving? While any number of mistakes have been made over the years - the short fifth, for example, had two nonsensical and wholly inappropriate bunkers added behind the green as recently as the past decade - and the course itself is best described as shabby, it is difficult for any golfer not to hope instinctively for its salvation.

As to what may or may not still happen, both sides are already preparing for the on-going battle.

"I'm still confident the golf course will regain its pride and that the interests of the club will be looked after," says MacGregor, at the same time acknowledging that the public inquiry came as "a bit of a surprise".

On the other hand, Colville is delighted at the latest development. "I'm still not sure of ultimate victory; far from it," he adds. "But I think we have a far better chance of winning in a public forum than we did when it was up to the Executive. We have support across the town from all sorts of people, and that has to count for something."

No More Waste Areas...

I'm not sure if this is a victory for the "Play it as it lies" school, or a defeat?  Or none of the above.

Rain Delay Flashback: 1937 and Perry Maxwell

Courtesy of reader Michael... 

AUGUSTA COURSE TO HAVE FACE LIFTED FOR MASTERS' TOURNEY

By Charles Bartlett, Chicago Tribune, Sunday, January 23, 1938

Major league golfers who have been swinging clubs for the last four years in the annual Masters' tournament at Augusta, Ga., which brings a man named Bobby Jones back for his single yearly appearance as a competitor, are going to do a bit of eyebrow raising and glove flexing when they step upon the first tee for the fifth all-star show there, beginning March 31 and ending April 2.

(click to enlarge) The reason for their concern may now be called work in progress. It consists of transforming the course from its original Scotch motif to one more adapted to the American topography upon which it was constructed. No official announcement of the revisions has been made, but the presence of a sharp eyed little Oklahoman named Perry Maxwell on the Augusta National course these last few months would indicate that the lads will find a new layout when they set forth in quest of the $1,500 first prize.

Mr. Maxwell is a livestock farmer who, in his spare moments, has become one of the nation's leading golf architects. He has been assigned the chore of making the Augusta National acreage an American course rather than the overseas composite layout it was intended to be when the late Dr. McAllister McKenzie, and Jones himself collaborated on making it a replica of the more famed seaside links.

Principal changes in the National course will be in the vicinity of the greens. It was around these that the original sketches aimed to reproduce the foreign touch of St. Andrews, Muirfield, and other noted courses. Four years of competition have proved that while the experiment may have been a worthwhile effort as such, the lovely Georgia countryside is not adapted to it. The quarter mile arch of century old magnolias, leading to the antebellum clubhouse, are only a preface to the wistaria and dogwood with which the course abounds. Attempting to duplicate the austere Scottish coast line, where the early morning mist makes it difficult to distinguish the rolling sand dunes from the gray of the North Sea, is a feat not in tune with the terrain at Augusta. The abruptness of the dunes contours, which frequently caused well-hit approach shots to kick awry, has been done away with. So also have the peculiar undulations in the ground adjacent to the greens been reduced, although at no sacrifice to testing a shot.
(click to enlarge)

The greens at the fifth, seventh and seventeenth holes have been rebult, and an entirely new tenth green has been cut into the hillside behind and at the left of the original green, on high ground. The hole has been lengthened to 449 yards, and is a fine two-shot test for the experts. P.J.A. Berchman, the horticulturist who was born on the site of the course and who has been resonsible for its general beautification, has removed seventy-five pine trees to make way for the new tenth. The change has been made not to eliminate any peculiarity in land formation, calling for what was at best a freakish second shot, but to try a player's ability to hit a long ball to a well built-up modern green. The green proper is the largest on the lot, and will call for precise approach putting.

Not all of the old country features have been eliminated. The "schoolmaster's nose" bunker in the middle of the eleventh fairway, built to duplicate one of old St. Andrews' most notorious sand pits, is still there. It remains the same as it was on that day when Col. Bob Jones (father of Bobby) hit a good drive into it, and was moved to inquire, "What jackass dug that in the middle of the pretty?"

Boswell: US Open On Magnolia Lane

Thomas Boswell in the Washington Post column (thanks reader Tim):

Welcome to the U.S. Open on Magnolia Lane. Gentlemen, check your charisma at the gate. Hit it straight, but not too far. Aim away from the flags. Think pure thoughts. Don't make the Masters galleries cheer too loudly. And win a green jacket.

They've finally done it. They're taken the "Ahhhhh" out of Amen Corner. They've Tiger-and-Phil-proofed the Masters. They've transformed Augusta National, the home of imagination, channeled recklessness and swashbuckling recoveries, into a golf penal colony. Think bad thoughts -- like "make eagle" -- and end up in jail. It's April in Georgia. Get ready to yawn?

For the past five years, Augusta National has been messing with Bobby Jones's masterwork, trying to adapt it to a new golf world where every ambulatory male crushes his tee shot half a football field farther thanks to a trampoline-faced driver and a ball designed for space travel. No additional talent required. Just buy that extra 50 yards at the pro shop. Credit cards accepted.

The Masters has found itself precisely at the center of this battle between golf equipment commerce and classic golf course architecture. So, to defend its layout from strategic obsolescence, the Masters has added almost 500 yards of length, narrowed fairways, added forests of magically mature pines, put its sand traps on steroids and built mountainous mounds.

Rubenstein On Augusta's 3rd

Lorne Rubenstein looks at one of the only holes not lengthened at Augusta, and includes this classic line from Nick Faldo:

Three-time Masters winner Nick Faldo was dead on when he said, "All the great holes in the world are the twitchy ones."

He also writes:

"There are three or four options on the hole," Stephen Ames said yesterday before going out to play the par-three contest. "It all depends on where the pin is." His brother and caddy, Robert, said: "It would be nice if we had three or four of these types of holes on every course. All the classic courses have that kind of hole."

Meanwhile, told that Augusta National could find 40 yards behind the third hole to lengthen it, Ames, the recent Players Championship winner, said with his characteristic, and appealing, bluntness, "I'm surprised they haven't done that yet."

Let's hope they never do.

Crenshaw On Augusta's Architecture

From Jerry Potter's course redesign feature in the USA Today:

Ben Crenshaw, a two-time Masters champion, says the Augusta National that Jones built after winning the Grand Slam in 1930 was "revolutionary in American golf course design at that time."

"It was completely different architecture," says Crenshaw, a golf historian when he isn't designing courses or playing senior golf. "The course Jones wanted had as many options to play a hole as was necessary to keep any golfer's fascination."

Jones wanted a course that was a pleasure for a recreational player and a challenge for a skilled player. It wasn't too long, it wasn't too narrow and it had no rough. It did have undulating greens that placed a premium on the second shot at each hole.

"There was a safe way and a dangerous way to play each hole," Crenshaw says. "It set itself apart from other courses."

U of M Notes Inclusion In Dream 18

Though the SI Dream 18 that appears in this week's stand-alone issue was not meant to make news, the school paper at University of Michigan noted the inclusion of its sixth hole. There is an interesting aerial shot with the article, but it in no way does justice to just how wild this green is.