Faxon and Hanse At TPC Boston

Jim McCabe reports on Brad Faxon and Gil Hanse making changes to the TPC Boston after the 2006 Deutsche Bank event.

Brad Faxon confirmed he will join forces with Gil Hanse -- arguably the most unheralded big-time golf course architect in the country -- to give TPC Boston a new look for 2007.

``Most of the work will be re-bunkering, trying to give the course a more traditional New England look," said Faxon. He said there are plans to change a few holes, most notably the short, dogleg right, par-4 fourth, which has confounded golfers since the place opened in 2002. It requires a drive over wetlands and even with the tournament tee pushed back, it leaves good players with an uncomfortable tee shot.

`There's a chance we'll be able to make it almost a drivable par-4," said Faxon. ``It's just such a crazy dogleg."

Changes will also be made to the 16th, 17th, and 18th holes, but Faxon thinks only one or two greens will be affected. If Hanse is involved, it bodes well for this young course. Praised by industry leaders, Hanse was the creative mind behind the Boston Golf Club in Hingham, a brilliant layout that has earned a spot on those lists of the best new courses in the country.

Rees On "Pipe 2"

Rees Jones sat in on the Pipe 2 webcast of Mickelson-Ogilvy-Woods and said that "the reason I do so many redos is that I can put myself in the head of the original architects."

It must be nice. 

He also cited his dad as the source of the famous line about balls finishing in bunkers like being in a car crash, versus finishing in a water hazard being like a plane crash.

Wasn't that Bobby Jones?  

Oh, and they did a nice feature on Rees and briefly showed a photo that was identified as Robert Trent Jones Sr.  It was Robert Trent Jones Jr.!***

***When TNT aired the feature, they got a photo of Trent Jones Sr. in!! Nice recovery. 

Update on 2006-08-17 23:15 by Geoff

He's still on and the subject of the golf ball came up. David Fay will be glad to know that he refuted Jack's idea of doing something with the ball for tournament play and went into the various areas the USGA has been looking at (driver size, length of shaft, etc...).

Other wisdom: "The game is like baseball.  the kids coming up want to hit home runs."

And this: "That's the problem with the game.  Every time we make a change to a course the manufacturers are a step ahead of us."

My Medinah Column

My Golfobserver.com column on Medinah is now posted, complete with photos and that lovely Beat the Bogey Man accompaniment.

Fairway Bunkers Where You Want To Be

In his press conference today, Geoff Ogilvy was asked to compare Hoylake and Medinah, and made this point:

Hoylake was, keep it out of the bunkers; anything you could do to keep it out of the bunkers. The rough was actually not a bad spot to be. It was almost better than the fairways in a lot of situations because you had an angle, but you just had to keep it out of fairways bunkers. So that was the whole goal there. Here it's probably keep it out of the rough. Fairway bunkers are probably a good spot to be in a lot of situations.

It is interesting how many times at Medinah that fairway bunkers are placed where the player might have the best angle of attack or view of the green.

But readers of Robert Hunter's The Links will recall his remark that at St. Andrews, many of the best holes have bunkers exactly where you would like to drive to and approach from.

So, why is that praised at St. Andrews and not at Medinah?

The elimination of width, the high rough and overhanging trees play a significant role.

Also, the bunkers at Medinah are large, while the St. Andrews bunkers are mostly pot bunkers.

Therefore, the player can flirt with the pots, striking a shot in the general vicinity, with fairway all around. At Medinah, the bunkers are too large and surrounded by rough, eliminating the temptation to flirt with the sand to open up the ideal angle.

St. Andrews's pits encourage options and aggressive play, Medinah's fairway bunkers emphasize obedience and caution.  

Some people prefer the latter, especially in response to equipment advances. I happen to like the more democratic St. Andrews approach. 

"We weren't out to make it just dog-long"

Stan Awtrey looks at the latest renovation at Atlanta Athletic Club's Highlands Course, which is hoping to give Medinah a run for most pre-major redos. The Highlands hosts the PGA in 2011, and I know you just can't wait to see it again.

"We wanted to make the course more spectacular," director of golf Rick Anderson said. "We wanted to make the holes more challenging, with some strategy to them. We weren't out to make it just dog-long."

With Highlands in need of major irrigation work, the Athletic Club opted for a major facelift. There's different grass, more bunkers and more water. And, of course, it's longer.

"We wanted to see how many things we could fix at one time," said Anderson, who was only half-kidding.

Superintendent Ken Mangum, the director of golf courses and grounds, was in charge of the project, which began in March. He had an operating budget of more than $4 million.

Can we add that $4 million to the class action suit that the world's golf courses should file against the USGA and R&A to recover expenses?

New championship tees were built on 11 holes. Among the most dramatic is at No. 15, a par 3 which played 227 yards when Toms made a hole-in-one there five years ago. The hole can now be pulled back to play 260 yards.

That's a big yes.

Many fairway bunkers were moved, and others were constructed, to catch up with the pros' ability to fly the ball 300 yards. At No. 6, for example, fairway bunkers have been extended all the way down the right side to the green.

Bet that looks pretty.

Water is more evident, too. A pond was added to the left of the green at No. 6; it draws short shots to it like a magnet. A new back tee at No. 8 requires a 290-yard drive to fly the pond, for those brave enough to take the risk option.

You can now see the water from the 18th tee, which wasn't possible until the alterations pulled the pond 10 yards farther to the right and 10-to-12 yards closer to the tee box.

"I know when I can see the water, it bothers me more," Mangum said.

The 18th, already one of the most famous finishing holes in golf, can now play 528 yards. It will probably play as a par 4 in 2011.

Only 528?

Anderson and Mangum stressed that the changes were needed and would have been made regardless of whether the PGA was returning in 2011. They said the Riverside course, which was redone with zoysia fairways in 2003, had grown to be a favorite with members, and it was drawing more play than Highlands.

Can't imagine why.

"It was more 'Back to the Future'"

The Hartford Courant's Bruce Berlet talks to Rees Jones about his rees-design of Medinah.

"There were substantial changes, and Tiger and Phil [Mickelson] noticed them when they played practice rounds since it's only seven years since the last major was there," Jones said. "They said they liked them because they can visualize shots better and probably execute them a little more efficiently with the blindness taken out and the bunkers in play in the right spots on the fairway and closer to the greens."

Did they now? 

Jones first viewed the course in 1999, and the project was approved in 2001 and renovations made in '02. He likened the overhaul to what he did at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., for the 1988 U.S. Open. He might do more to Medinah before the 2012 Ryder Cup.

"The club is very proud of its heritage and was just trying to keep up with the times," Jones said. "They had a combination of different architects and wanted to consolidate the design style. We took out everything that had been built in the last 20 years and rebuilt the greens as they looked 50 years ago.

"It was already a pretty long course, so we didn't want to stretch it too much. It was more `back to the future,' and now it looks older and more classic."

Oh yeah, those bunkers just scream Wadsworth...errr...MacKenzie. 

Klein On Medinah

Golfweek's Bradley Klein on this week's PGA Championship host:

For those who think narrow, tree-lined fairways are the paradigm of good course design, Medinah No. 3 stands out like an icon. For others who are keen on strategic variety and a nuanced aesthetic of vistas and playing textures, there is no more boring example of architecture in America than this very long parkland layout in suburban Chicago.

And...

Medinah has length. What it doesn’t have is a lot of trouble around (or on) the greens. The modestly sloped greens don’t unduly punish approaches that are short-sided. With the par-5s vulnerable and little trouble elsewhere, expect lots of low rounds and a tight bunching of the field.

And from his  "America’s Best” ballot...            

3. Natural setting and overall land plan: 5
            The 106,000 square foot Byzantine clubhouse gets a 10, and Lake Kadijah helps situate the golfer. But the course is otherwise devoid of vistas or any external sense of place, other than all of those towering hardwoods, and that gets repetitive real fast.
 
4. Interest of greens and surrounding chipping contours: 7
            The newly rebuilt/regrassed greens, average size 4.200 square feet, are modestly sloped, flawlessly manicured, and without a lot of trouble left and right in terms of short-game recovery.
 
5. Variety and memorability of par 3s: 7
            These are like latte breaks during a valium drip. There’s just enough variance among the trio of over-the-water par-3s (2nd, 13th, 17th) to make them interesting. But the shaping is so odd. Rees Jones’ handiwork is evident in the flat horizon line 2nd green with symmetrical, linear outslopes -- it looks like an upside down pie plate. No. 13 is set above and apart from the lake by surrounding bunkers, but the vinyl support wall there that also creates the diagonal effect of the 17th green (much improved over the old green, by the way!) has a hard-edged look out of character with the grounds.   
 
6. Variety and memorability of par 4s: 5
            All of the strategy is along the tree lines; none of it involves bunkering on the inside of a dogleg. At Medinah, the fairway bunkering on par-4s squeezes landing areas laterally or contains the outside of a dogleg. Only the 12th and 16th holes offer dramatic falloffs for slightly wayward shots
 
7. Variety and memorability of par 5s: 5
            Trees are the primary defense here, which gets repetitive. Play here will likely be decisive for the outcome of the PGA, with birdies abundant and little threat to anyone playing boldly given the lack of interesting bunker positioning on second shots or the element of water in play. The relatively short par-5 fifth is very narrow; the tenth offers the one interesting option of a bold play right in order to get home in two; and the long fourteenth hole requires loft on the approach to hold a tightly bunkered green.
 
8. Basic conditioning: 10
            For a (still) heavily shaded parkland site, Medinah No. 3 thrives. Tom Lively, CGCS, like so many other Chicago-area superintendents, deserves credit for working well under demanding conditions.
 
9. Landscape and tree management: 7
            Thousands of mature hardwoods frame the holes and define the place. They’ve done a good job of clearing out heavily shaded greenside areas, removed nuisance conifers and trimmed up the canopies so golfers and visitors can see under the trees. For a densely wooded course, this is the start of wise tree management. The curtain has at least been lifted.
 
10. “Walk in the park” test: 7
            An enjoyable walk, one that’s strong on ambiance and tradition but a little short in aesthetics and variety.
 
Overall: 6.5
            Medinah No. 3 is ranked No. 57 on the Golfweek Classic Top-100 List, with an average score of 7.14. That’s marginally over-rated in my view. The course is a joyless grind.

Ziehm Talks To Jones

Len Ziehm talks to Rees Jones about Medinah.

In general, what had to be done to Medinah in comparison with what you did at other major championship courses.

I liken this redesign project to what we did at The Country Club at Brookline [Mass.], where we took a very old, storied layout that had a lot of history. I liken it to the Sacred Ground of Golf. Medinah was already ahead of the curve. It had the length, it had the green contours, it had great holes. We didn't have to add that much length, but we did take out about 300 trees.

Trees are organic, and they tend to grow in where the sunlight is, so that was another restoration project, to bring the golf course back to the way it had been in the past. The players will notice a different course from '99 to 2006.

What will they see that will be different?

They'll see a course that has more definition because we took some of the blindness out on No. 1 and No. 8. We took out the bunker on No. 16. We brought the 17th green down to the water, and we took the tee back. Then on 18, we made a major change. We elevated the green and took the tee back. It'll probably be a short iron [approach] with the way these guys are hitting it, but it's going to be a much more precise shot.

The par-3 17th hole has become controversial because it has been changed so much. It has been a completely different hole for each of the last four majors played at Medinah. What went into the design of the current hole?

We put [the green] back on the hazard. We only have three holes that bring the water into play. We were able to bring the green back down to the water, regrade the hill [where the tee complex is located] and make the hole as long as it was [with a new tee]. We accomplished both goals -- we got the water into play, the ultimate hazard, as well as maintained the yardage.

Chicago Dream 18

SI has posted the text to the Chicago Dream 18 that I compiled with the help of a great panel. It's only available to subscribers and Gil Hanse's map is not up, but I'll get it scanned in the next few days and post it.

But you can check out the results of an informal survey filled out by the panel on the best of Chicago golf. It's a web-exclusive deal.

Detroit Tiger?

Vartan Kupelian spent a few too many days in the hot Flint sun last week, because he's proposing that Detroit find a way to build the first ever Tiger Woods design to replace the "too easy" Warwick Hills. Oh and he wants to pair Tiger up with Tom Doak.

Apparently Vartan is trying to make enemies in IMG Design Services, Inc. 

Monty Does It Again!

Lawrence Donegan reports on Colin Montgomerie's latest architectural triumph.

Colin Montgomerie, who blew his chance of winning his first major championship when he double-bogeyed the 18th hole on the last day of the US Open this summer, has come up with a solution for golfers who have trouble coping with the pressure of playing the last: a course with an extra hole.

And...

Normally they would play the 1st or 18th again to reach a result. At Rowallan they will be able to play what the Scot calls the "money hole".

Key word there: Scots.

And now for the uh, money quote... 

"We just thought, why not? The 19th is the stuff of golfing legend," he said. "It was time to make it a reality. When players finish their round they will be able to come in, have a drink and check their scores. And if there's anything still to settle they can go back out and play the money hole."

These player architects are so innovative! Always on the cutting edge. 

Logan On Inniscrone

Joe Logan returns to Inniscrone and warms to (most of) Gil Hanse's design now that it is an upscale daily fee.

"Right In Front Of You"

Reader Sam wanted to know why I don't like it when Tiger Woods praises a course for being "right in front of you," (as he did again today with Warwick Hills and will inevitably do when he answers dumb questions lobbed his way by the inkslingers.) Oh, and check out the doozies he was asked today. No wonder he can't stand the media.

Anyway, the "right in front of you" thing is simple.

Woods, like Jones, Hogan and Nicklaus before him, thrives on strategic courses that reward local knowledge. These courses nearly always tend to contain mysterious design features. Even the ones that seem straightforward (Pebble Beach, Riviera), are loaded with subtlety and elusive qualities.

The elite players have always embraced this mystery and recognized that it separates them from the merely great player.

So for someone who adores the Old Course like Tiger does, it's hard to fathom why he also loves courses that are "right in front of you," when they have little to reveal after one or two rounds, and therefore, lack an intelligent purpose.

Then again, if Woods told the media that thoughts of Warwick Hills make for an ideal sleep aid, he'd be tarred and feathered as a negative, spoiled Tour pro. So he's probably wise to keep on repeating the same line.
 

"We're trying not to do perfect anymore"

Thanks to reader Nick for this Seth Soffian story in the News Press, where Jack Nicklaus is teetering on the edge of Phil status:

"I watch Tiger a lot, obviously," Nicklaus said. "His golf swing that week was right on the plane it should have been. He gets himself off of plane very easily, particularly when his swing gets longer. Then he can hit it anywhere.

"He's such a great iron player because he's so much under control," said Nicklaus, beginning the demonstration of various club positions on the backswing.

"His swing is not very long with his irons. He keeps it pretty much in here. Once he gets the driver back in here, that's when he gets off plane, and then he can bring it under this way or around this way."

And...

"He was on plane the whole time with the driver," said Nicklaus, throwing one last variable into the mix to consider for the year's final major championship.

"Obviously, (Hank) Haney is doing something with him that (Tiger) feels confidence with, because he's getting great confidence with his other clubs," Nicklaus said of Woods' swing coach.

"It could be he's got a bad driver, too. I don't know. If you're hitting everything else good and you're hitting your driver bad, it may be your driver, not him. I don't know."

He also had this to say about his design work, which Nick was possibly a reflection on his collaboration with Tom Doak:

Q: We heard you said the course was "too perfect."

A: Sometimes, yeah. We're trying not to do perfect anymore. We used to work really hard to get everything absolutely dead perfect. I don't think nature's too perfect. We try to bust up a few things to make them look a little irregular at times. Perfect is a description I drove my guys crazy with for about 20 years.

Lengthy Erin Hills Review

Rob Schultz in The Capital Times writes a lengthy story about newly opened Erin Hills and the USGA's infatuation with the Hurzan-Fry-Whitten design.

The usually staid USGA is so completely gaga over Erin Hills that the mere mention of the place makes many of its officials act like 13-year-old boys debating how to ask a girl to dance for the first time.

Many golf courses have been waiting for decades for the USGA to give them one of their national championships held annually. Erin Hills has the unique status of being given the USGA's 2008 Women's Public Links Championships even before it opened. That tournament will tell the USGA if the course is ready to handle more. If it passes, Erin Hills will be on the fast track toward getting an Open.