Monty Calls For Ball Limits

Monty saw the new-look Wentworth, and decided it's time to do something about the ball. And for that, he joins The List of noted figures in golf who have made similar calls in the last few years. 

From a BBC interview today:

"The ball's going further and further - changes like this are almost demanded.

"I wish we could control the length of the golf ball and it would save this happening," he told Radio Five Live.

Els has also added 30 bunkers to the course, and Montgomerie said the changes were inevitable.

"It had to be done - the new owners wanted 300 yards on it, Ernie did and I think we all did," added Montgomerie.

"It's a shame in many ways because it has changed the course, but then again it's been very well done.

And this...

"We can't keep on borrowing land from people's gardens around the Wentworth estate - the easy option is to change the golf ball to make it go less far, to put a speed limit on it if you like.

"That's what we need to do but obviously the manufacturers haven't got together to make that possible."

Haven't gotten together to make that possible. Who said Monty has no sense of humor!

Wentworth Reviews

Some rivetting architectural analysis of Ernie Els's changes to Wentworth, courtesy of some of the Euro Tour's finest:

"I think Ernie has done a good job," said the 30-year-old Englishman [David Howell]. "I saw the majority of the course yesterday and it seems more difficult - longer, tougher, better."

Why Rees

Frank Jemsek on bringing in Rees Jones to renovate Cog Hill #4:

"In recent years, 75 percent of the courses hosting a U.S. Open or PGA (Championship) were designed or renovated by him," Jemsek said. "Rees does good work. He doesn't destroy what's there. To me, what he does is enhance the product. He understands how to make it harder for the great players and still be fair for the average players."

Nicklaus Would Redesign For Ball Rollback In "Half Second"

Boy I'm losing it. This was a post I forgot to publish from Sunday, which would help explain the "Nick-enzie" reference (Jack's, not mine!).

Rich Radford reports on the opening of the 7,417 yard Jack Nicklaus-designed Bay Creek Resort and Club in Virginia. course a few interesting comments from the Bear...

On technology...

He rails against it, wishes the United States Golf Association would reel in the technological growth, hopes that it happens soon. He went so far as to say that if the USGA cut back ball flight by 15 percent, he’d be back to redesign his Bay Creek course “in a half a second.”

On the Ohio State redo...

Ohio State asked if he could give the campus course, which was originally designed by Alister Mackenzie, a face-lift. Nicklaus calls the new Ohio State course “a Nick-enzie design.”

Tour OSU's Nick-enzie Course

(click image to enlarge)Beth Ann Baldry previews the NCAA Women's Championship at the Ohio State University course, where Jack Nicklaus updated the Alister MacKenzie (on paper anyway) design.

You can take an excellent hole-by-hole tour that includes before and after shots. Starting with the first hole.

*Thanks to our art department for the "Nick-enzie" rendering. 

Els Messes With Wentworth To Help Euros End Majors Drought

This is just the kind of Ernie Els quote that makes you feel so glad Max Behr, H.S. Colt and Alister MacKenzie aren't around today:

"I know I could be getting some stick from the guys for what's been done, but at the end of the day they will be better equipped for the majors," said Els. "Anybody going to the U.S. Open will have a much better feel of what they are going into. Miss a shot in a major and you're either in rough, a bunker or in danger of three-putting."

The Donald Has A Thing About Wind Turbines

From Mark Macasill in the Times:

DONALD Trump, the American billionaire, has forced the relocation of a wind farm that he claimed would blight his planned golf course in Aberdeenshire.

The property tycoon had threatened to abandon his £300m luxury development unless the proposed wind farm in Aberdeen Bay was moved elsewhere.

Now, following talks with Trump, energy companies have agreed to shelve their plan to erect 33 turbines in the North Sea between Aberdeen and Newburgh.

Amec, one of the firms behind the project, said the £40m wind farm will now consist of 23 turbines clustered off Aberdeen’s coastline. The nearest will be more than three miles from Trump’s course.

Trump is understood to have approved an artist’s impression of the view from the clubhouse at the course. The 490ft turbines are barely visible in the drawing.

“The nearest turbine to the Trump hotel will now be more than three miles away,” said Iain Todd, an adviser to Amec and spokesman for the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (AREG), a private-public partnership. “We have given them the drawings showing what the view will look like from there. The changes mean the visual impact will be much less. I’m happy that we are moving to a position where the two projects can exist together.”

OSU Redo Update

An AP story on the renovation of Ohio State's course...

It's Maximalism

My latest Golfdom column on minimalism in architecture is now posted.

Colonial Times

Gil LeBreton in the Star Telegram writes about Colonial's struggle to lure long hitters, how the once feared course is too short and reveals plans to make changes. Gee, all so that...eh.

But, as even Gentle Ben observed, "I don't think there is any question today that, with the distances that people can hit the ball, [Colonial] may be not quite what it used to be."

Earlier this month, architect Keith Foster of St. Louis presented Colonial members with his latest plans to redesign the old course.

Don't reach for your heart medicine. It's a subtle redesign, not a makeover.

The course needs its bunkers redone to aid their drainage. And, while Foster was going to be digging up the course, club officials asked him to draw up a proposal for how he would "improve" the late Marvin Leonard's riverside pasture land.

No big deal, according to Leonard's daughter, club vice president Marty Leonard.

"There will be some minimal yardage added in some areas," she said. "It's more about reshaping things. Maybe lowering some tees that have been built up that are not the Maxwell style."

The Old Architects Loved Small Greens, Vol. 281

Mike Dougherty reports the surprising news the Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw are consulting on restoration work Wykagyl Country Club, host to the LPGA's Something Classic. This marks a return to work that they have long passed on after their glorious experience with Riviera Country Club's management team, and comes as welcome news to traditionalists.

Anyway, Dougherty writes:

Donald Ross, A.W. Tillinghast, Robert Trent Jones and Arthur Hills all had some input at Wykagyl over the last century. The rolling layout has always placed a premium on accuracy and creativity.

"It's funny," said Helen Alfredsson, who's making her 12th appearance here at Wykagyl. "I'm not conservative with many things, just golf courses. But with the way everybody plays much longer now, it's sad to have a course become obsolete, too. For us, I think this is one of the best golf courses. It's so fun to play."

Okay, she gets points for that comment.

However, after learning that the club will be enlarging greens to restore many lost hole locations...

"But that's what makes this course so special, the greens," Alfredsson said. "They made them small in the old days. I'm not a fan of big greens, but that's what the trend is and sometimes I guess you have to go with the trend."

I think the real confusion on the green size issue is due to the scale of large modern green complexes, versus the scale of large classic complexes. The old guys managed to tie in a 6,000 square foot green much better than today's giants. The USGA green does make it more difficult to get the scale and feel right, but still...

Sawdust at Sawgrass

Doug Ferguson took a tour around the TPC Sawgrass and noticed a few of the changes being made to the course and clubhouse as it prepares for the 2007 Players Championship THE PLAYERS.

Also daunting is a new tee being built on the 219-yard eighth hole, making it play closer to 240 yards. David Pillsbury, chief operating officer of the tour's golf course properties and the man in charge of the TPC project, said the new tee on No. 8 is among five holes that will be lengthened by a combined 75 to 100 yards. But that's not to say the tees will be used.

"The winds will be different in May," he said. "This gives us flexibility for setting up the course."

Now, does this mean that flexibility is the new, clever way of adding length without acknowledging changes in the game. Or do they think that flexibility is being able to move tees around to make the course play the same every day depending on the wind?

Ideal flexibility would the chance to really play holes in diverse ways from day to day in order to best test the players, many of whom don't like to be inconvenienced with a thought.

There were other subtle changes, beyond reconditioning the fairways and greens. More than two dozen oaks, pines and palm trees have been planted on the left side of the par-5 ninth fairway, making for a difficult escape. Pine trees have been added to the right of the sixth, seventh and 10th fairways.

Oh wonderful. Hootie Pine Fungus has traveled to Ponte Vedra.

The Trevails of The Donald

According to Bob Pool in the L.A. Times, Donald Trump wants to rename Ocean Trails Drive leading to his Trump National Los Angeles clubhouse. The city of Palos Verdes wants The Donald to rename the course Trump National Rancho Palos Verdes, or Trump National Palos Verdes, or Trump National Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Got that?

Trump hasn't directly participated in the negotiations. He sent Vincent Stellio, a Trump company vice president, to last month's council meeting. Explaining the name change, Stellio said Trump merely wanted to capitalize on his golf course brand while distancing himself from the stigma of the Ocean Trails course's 1999 collapse and its bankruptcy.

Stellio added that Trump has started marketing the property as being on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. To prove it, he handed council members $30 golf hats with that name affixed to them.

"Originally, when we first came out, 'Los Angeles' seemed like the right thing to do because, basically, we're an East Coast company," Stellio said. "But with me spending some time out here, we realized that a better market standpoint is the peninsula. Pebble Beach is on a peninsula too."

Nothing gets by these guys!

Though The Donald has said that his course is the only California classics actually on the Pacific Ocean, and the only on a peninsula.

"Pebble Beach really isn't on the ocean. It's on Carmel Bay," Trump told Golf Digest in 2002.

How about Trump National on the Pacific Ocean of Palos Verdes Peninsula? Too many prepositional phrases? Wait...

Still, "if we market it externally outside, we'll probably refer to it as 'Palos Verdes Peninsula Los Angeles.' Internally, we'll be marketing it as you see on that hat."

Trump National on the Pacific Ocean of Palos Verdes Peninsula Los Angeles. Now there's a name that works!

Stellio was on the line during Monday's interview with Trump, who seemed irritated by the street-name controversy.

"If they've pushed you around, Vinnie, I'm not interested in doing business with them," Trump said.

Meanwhile over in Scotland, The Donald has found a much more willing politician, and it may just jeopardize his project. From Scotland on Sunday:

Jack McConnell has been accused of breaking the ministerial code of conduct by backing a luxury golf resort planned for Scotland by billionaire Donald Trump.

Scotland on Sunday can reveal the First Minister's close association with Trump may have broken strict rules which require ministers to remain neutral about planning applications before they are decided.

And...

The tycoon wants to invest £300m in a links course, luxury hotel and housing on the estate. But opponents of the plan say it will ruin one of Scotland's most pristine stretches of coastline. Despite the mounting concern, McConnell has already met Trump twice in the US, and had numerous phone calls with him.

But on planning issues, the ministerial code of conduct clearly stipulates that ministers "must do nothing which might be seen as prejudicial to that process, particularly in advance of the decision being taken".

It adds: "Action that might be viewed as being prejudicial includes meeting the developer or objectors to discuss the proposal, but not meeting all parties with an interest in the decision."

"The Nelson Puddle"

Gary Van Sickle on the new lake decorating the 18th at TPC Las Colinas: "it resembles a swoopy Las Vegas hotel pool with a fountain in the middle. Plus, not many water hazards naturally occur halfway up a hillside."

Hopkins Reviews Wentworth West Renovation

John Hopkins in the Times reviews the redesigned West Course at Wentworth, which has been getting universally wretched reviews from devotees who have seen it.

It has regained some of its testing qualities and although there are a couple of places where Els’s enthusiasm might have overruled his sense of what Colt was trying to do, he has, overall, updated the 80-year-old masterpiece with reverence. Take the 6th and 8th holes, for example.

He proceeds to describe many strange sounding features, which I just didn't have the heart to copy and paste. Young children might be reading.

One had not realised quite how much Els knows or cares about the ground beneath his feet and the trees and shrubs that line the fairways. Spend time with him on a golf course and you understand not only that he has an appreciation of colour and beauty but that he has a devilish eye for where to position bunkers. This is not to mention details he has at his fingertips, such as the width of a fairway, the roll of a bunker, the borrow of a green.

One appears to be starstruck too.