Ted Robinson, R.I.P.

The prolific Californian passed away at the age of 84. Here's the ASGCA news release.

"But does that make it fun? No. It makes it a kind of algebra.”

Tom Mackin catches up with architect David Kidd for the NY Times Play Magazine. I enjoyed this:

“As human beings and golf-course designers, we want perfection. And because of equipment and technology, we can go in and create that. On the perfect golf hole, I would have framing mounds everywhere and bunkers that set up the perfect strategy and line of sight, all making it conform to every single rule of thumb ever written about course design. But does that make it fun? No. It makes it a kind of algebra.”

East Lake Changes

Thanks to readers Rob and Patrick for Stan Awtrey's story on the planned changes to East Lake.

Six holes will undergo changes, the result being a course that will play 7,300 yards to par 70 from the championship tees.

• No. 3: A new fairway bunker is being added to the left side, about 310 yards away from the tee.

• No. 7: An additional bunker is being placed on the left side, about 310 yards away from the tee. The green is also being moved about 40 yards up the hill, lengthening the par 4 to 440 yards.

• No. 8: The championship tee box is being moved back 20 yards, stretching the par 4 to 435 yards.

• No. 15: A new championship tee is being built 35 yards further back, making the easy par 5 to a bit testier 525 yards.

• No. 16: The fairway bunker complex is being 30 yards farther down the fairway.

• No. 17: This hole features the most significant change. The trees along East Lake on the left of the fairway have been taken out and the fairway moved 8-10 yards toward the water. The green will be moved about 20 feet to the left, giving errant shots a better chance to get wet.

I know from talking to some folks involved with the work that the new No. 7 caused a lot of consternation and disappointment with the USGA's lousy job regulating technology. But that was most offset by their excitement surrounding the new No. 17, which figures to be a promising upgrade for both tournament and member play.

Cuba National In The Works?

Fidel Castro steps down and according to the Wall Street Journal's Jose De Cordoba, developers are salivating at the idea of building golf courses on the island.

"The message from Cuba is: bring on golf projects," says Mark Entwistle, a former Canadian ambassador to the island.

Mr. Entwistle hopes to develop Cuba's first golf community on the island's eastern end, with hundreds of villas and apartments centered on a 36-hole course. Mr. Entwistle says he knows of at least 11 other projects, in various stages of development, involving Canadian, British and Spanish developers.

The man driving Cuba's golf effort is Raúl Castro, the long-serving defense minister who became acting president when his older brother Fidel took ill in July 2006. Raúl, who is more a fan of cockfighting than golf,

...hey, to each his own...

is the odds-on favorite to be named president tomorrow. Alarmed at the decline in the number of tourists to Cuba, Raúl has urged senior officials to make golf happen. The government is setting up an interagency golf task force. Cuban officials involved in the program say they are not authorized to comment on it.

Not so fast...

If history is any guide, bringing back golf won't be easy. "Cuba is the sand trap from hell," says John Kavulich, senior policy adviser at the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, who has followed the travails of entrepreneurs trying to develop golf projects in Cuba.

Just ask Walter Berukoff, the mining tycoon behind Vancouver-based Leisure Canada. For more than a decade, Mr. Berukoff has been nurturing a project, approved by the Cuban government, to build some 600 condos and villas for foreigners around three golf courses and a marina on Cuba's north shore, close to Havana. But for a variety of reasons, including Cuba's search for oil right next to his property, the project has gone nowhere.

"We had to stop the project because no one will build a multimillion-dollar project if there are oil wells in front," says Guy Chartier, Leisure Canada's man in Havana. Mr. Chartier says the Cuban government told him it has given up its search for oil. "We plan to move the ball forward in 2008," he says.

To make golf tourism work, Cuba, which does not recognize the right to buy and sell property, will have to permit leases of as long as 75 years for foreigners, to entice them to invest in the villas and condos on which modern golf development depends. Some believe those leases are the tip of the spear that will, over time, reinstate full property rights.

"Best hole in the world"

The Cumulative ShotLink Scatter Chart For No. 10 (click to enlarge)I made a point to spend as much time as possible watching Northern Trust Open play on Riviera's 10th, and while I'm sure most of you have moved on to the match play, I thought I'd share a few observations from the week while I'm away this weekend and posting infrequently. Here goes...

Why Not Lay Up? That's the question I kept asking all week as guys fumbled their way to pars, bogies and the occasional double, even though laying up left will rarely result in worse than par.  Check out the ShotLink scatter chart (above) for the week and the clusters speak for themselves. A new high of 72% went for the green, up 10% from last year and up about 40% from three years ago. Yes, that's fun to watch but it does mean some risk/reward temptation has been eliminated by the lack of distance regulation by the governing bodies. And yet...

The green continues to baffle.  In 2007, just 62% of the plays here resulted in a green hit in regulation, about 20% lower than on most PGA Tour par-4s of comparable distance. The number was 60% in 2008 and the scoring average has remained steady at about 3.8 and change. 

It's the grooves. Even with the green firm and fast, I saw way too many guys lay up down the right and hold the front portion of the green with ease, Jeff Quinney's amazing second shot Saturday being the most prominent example. But I believe the grooves have a greater impact by compelling guys to drive the green (or past it), knowing they can mop up with a flop wedge shot.
Many players opt to lay up where Steve Flesch did even though it's a harrowing shot...change those grooves! (click to enlarge)

72%. Is it a bad thing that more guys than ever go for No. 10 without contemplating a lay up? Yes and no. I would love to see more guys face an internal debate over the lay-up option instead of the decision being between 3-wood and driver. The hole was drivable in Bobby Jones's day (pre-kikuyu), so it's an important part of the design. Either way, it's such a joy watching the world's best get into so much trouble driving it all over the place and doing absolutely mindless things!

Addicting. Mid-morning Friday I was heading back to the press room when I stopped in to watch a group come through. It turned into five groups and a chance to watch the action with the AP's Doug Ferguson. He made the interesting point that other than 12 at Augusta and maybe 16 at TPC Sawgrass, Riviera's 10th is the only hole where players all seem to watch what the group behind them is doing as they walk off the 11th tee. And as a spectator, it's astonishing what you see with each group. They really need a grandstand here and round-the-clock video coverage on PGATour.com. It's that interesting.


Rise to prominence. Ferguson asked me while we were standing there why the 10th had risen to prominence in the last few years. Obviously I would have referred him to my recent Golf World article if we had web access on the spot, but more than that I pointed out that it wasn't very driveable until recent years, except by the bombers. I would also say that the final piece to the puzzle in No. 10's resurrection has been the removal of the coral tree grove that surrounded the green until the late 90s. They have left the green more exposed, only adding to the drama and fear factor.

When I was standing with Ferguson, the pairing that included Joe Ogilvie and Davis Love came through. Ogilvie drove it in the front left bunker, hit it into the back bunker and made par en route to a missed cut. As he was walking off the green, within earshot of us, Ogilvie shook his head and muttered, "best hole in the world."
 

Close Encounter of the Congressional Kind?

Thanks tor reader Ari for the Leonard Shapiro Washington Post story on Congressional agreeing to host the 2009 AT&T National.

Congressional also is the site for the 2011 U.S. Open, and club and USGA officials plan a major restoration of the club's greens to make them suitable for Open play. The project will begin after Woods's tournament in 2009 and is expected to be completed by the spring of 2010.

The club plans to use the proceeds from the 2009 AT&T event to help pay for the restoration, estimated to cost about $2.5 million. The Tiger Woods Foundation also has pledged $500,000 toward the green restoration project.

Isn't that cutting it a bit close to the U.S. Open? Considering the problems they had with the greens last time, I'm amazed the USGA would sign off on such a short window between seeding greens and the tournament.

"I still get a kick out of somebody wanting this old man to come and develop a golf course"

Greg Hansen reports on Jack Nicklaus's site visit to, gulp, The Ritz Carlton Golf Club's Tortolita Course, host of next year's WGC Match Play.

For the last act in his wonderful life, Nicklaus has become the Tiger Woods of golf course design. He retains such clout that when an entourage of six SUVs drove down a dirt road Tuesday afternoon, kicking up dust near the 17th green of the Ritz-Carlton's Tortolita Course, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem was in the group awaiting Nicklaus' arrival.

Why does the image of that scene make me laugh? And Jack probably enjoyed it too.

"I still get a kick out of somebody wanting this old man to come and develop a golf course,'' Nicklaus said in his typical self-effacing style. "It's a legacy from my standpoint, something that will be here long after my life and my golf game.''

It's ironic that the man who played in just one Tucson Open (1963) in his superb career is involved in preserving Southern Arizona's place on the PGA Tour.

Ironic, absurd, take your pick. 

Rumpled Is In...

...Ron Whitten says so and lists some of the better examples of old-looking, manufactured-but-natural designs. I'm not sure about a couple of the inclusions, but love to see this kind of attention paid to the movement.

"Don't let them just stick a peg in the ground and bomb it."

A couple of interesting bits over on GolfDigest.com flesh out the Chambers Bay-2015 U.S. Open story, starting with this hunch-confirming item from Ron Sirak that indeed, the USGA was hoping to not prevent a repeat of Whistling Straits.

When Whistling Straits opened to raves in 1998, the PGA of America acted quickly and in January 2000 awarded the Wisconsin course the 2004 PGA Championship, essentially planting its flag on the property. Whistling Straits performed so well it was given the PGA in 2010 and 2015 as well as the 2020 Ryder Cup. The USGA made certain it did not miss out on Chambers Bay.

"I think that is a fair representation," USGA president James F. Vernon said when asked if Whistling Straits provided a lesson. "We thought we had found something special [in Chambers Bay], and we wanted to, not stake a claim, but we really did want to make it clear that we wanted to have an opportunity to have a championship on it."

Meanwhile Ron Whitten does an amazing job on short notice (or did he have advance warning!?) filling us in on details about Chambers and the quest to get an Open. One of the more interesting things we learn is this note on the tees:

There is hardly a flat spot on the premises, and that includes the tee boxes. In what may be the first truly original design idea of the 21st century, Charlton convinced his colleagues to abandon traditional tee pads in favor of long, skinny, free-flowing ribbons of teeing space. Many are not much wider than walking paths; many are recessed rather than elevated; most are gently contoured with a variety of flats spots just the size of throw rugs. The idea is to pick the lie that might best help shape a shot off the tee: sidehill lies if you wish to fade or draw the ball, a slightly uphill lie if you need help getting airborne, a downhill lie if you want to keep it under the wind, or a flat lie. It's too early to know whether USGA officials will accept those unorthodox teeing areas for the U.S. Open. Jones hopes they will.

"We'll probably address that after the [2010] U.S. Amateur," he says. "But it's not like there are no flat spots out there. We have dozens of 'batter's boxes' within the undulations. I would hope they'd position the markers far apart and let golfers chose their particular lies. Our goal was to get into the players' minds, even on the tee, and to put some integrity back into tee shots. Don't let them just stick a peg in the ground and bomb it."

Wouldn't it be great if they USGA embraced this and sent a message that tees do not have to be perfectly level? Or is that just too retro for you? 

Bandon Crossings Review

John Kirk provides the most extensive review yet of Bandon Crossings in the latest Links. Sounds like it's a worthy addition to a Bandon itinerary, particularly if you are looking to save a few bucks.

Bobby Gets A U.S. Open Before Rees!

Bradley Klein reports that the awarding of Chambers Bay near Tacoma makes it three muni's in the unofficial U.S. Open rota. Hopefully by 2015 the weird Close Encounters of the Third Kind dunes scraping look will have disappeared. Chambers also gets the 2010 U.S. Amateur.

More interesting is that Robert Trent Jones gets a U.S. Open awarded to one of his original designs before brother Rees. That ought to spice up an already heartwarming feud!  (Even though we all know Bruce Charlton and Jay Blasi did the real work on Chambers Bay, it's still going to enhance the brotherly dynamic.)

Also intriguing is the news in the press release print that Erin Hills gets the 2011 U.S. Amateur, which surprised me because only recently I've heard from USGAers that the course needed a lot of work before they would award a big prize there. So either the course will see some big changes, or the U.S. Amateur isn't a "big prize."

Here's the full release, which oddly is not up at USGA.org yet *now posted (but annoying videos that play unprompted now are!):

_{USGA AWARDS 2015 U.S. OPEN, 2010 U.S. AMATEUR
TO CHAMBERS BAY IN WASHINGTON STATE AND 2011 U.S. AMATEUR TO ERIN HILLS GOLF COURSE IN WISCONSIN
 
Far Hills, N.J. (Feb. 8) – The United States Golf Association has announced that it has awarded the 2015 U.S. Open Championship to Chambers Bay, the spectacular municipal links course located on the scenic lower Puget Sound in University Place, Wash.
          
The USGA also announced that Chambers Bay, designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Bruce Charleton, will play host to the U.S. Amateur Championship in 2010.
 
Chambers Bay will be the third municipal course to play host to the U.S. Open, following Bethpage Black in New York (2002, 2009) and Torrey Pines in California later this year.  Chambers Bay will be the first golf course in the Pacific Northwest to hold the U.S. Open.
 
"We are excited to take the U.S. Open Championship and the U.S. Amateur to such an awesome site,” said Jim Hyler, chairman of the USGA Championship Committee. “This is the first time the U.S. Open has been to Washington and we are confident that the golf course will provide a challenging test for the best players in the world, as well as a great spectator experience for those who attend the event and watch it online and on television.
 
“The local leadership provided by Pierce County has been superb and we look forward to partnering with them and the great sports fans in Washington to host a truly unique Open Championship. And, the U.S. Amateur will give us great insight into the golf course architecture and championship setup. For the first time, the National Open will be played on fine fescue grasses, including the putting greens,” continued Hyler.
 
Chambers Bay, opened in June 2007, is the centerpiece of a 930-acre park purchased by Pierce County, Wash., in 1992 that today features scenic trails and coastline vistas where a sand and gravel quarry once stood.
 
“Our hard work has paid off as we have done everything possible to attract the attention of a prestigious championship,” said Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg. “Even so, we never dreamed we’d be chosen by the USGA to host both the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open championships. Especially not so close to the opening of the course. It is a true honor.”
 
“Chambers Bay golf course is a jewel for the entire state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest,” said Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire. “The U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur Championships will be a wonderful opportunity to showcase the natural beauty of our state and share it with golf enthusiasts from around the globe. I applaud County Executive John Ladenburg for his hard work on delivering the championship events to Pierce County.”
 
The USGA also announced that Erin Hills Golf Course in Wisconsin will play host to the 2011 U.S. Amateur. Erin Hills is located in Hartford, Wis., about 30 minutes northwest of Milwaukee, and is also home to the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship in 2008 – a USGA championship awarded to Erin Hills before the golf course had opened in 2006.
 
Erin Hills is a links-style championship course designed by Mike Hurdzan and Dana Fry of Hurdzan-Fry Architects, and Ron Whitten, Architecture Editor of Golf Digest magazine. Golf Magazine named Erin Hills its Best New Golf Course in January 2007.
 
“Erin Hills is a wonderfully unique golf course that really takes a minimalist approach to the golf course design and architecture,” Hyler said. “The course is cleverly routed on a great piece of golf landscape. The venue will be a terrific test for the competitors in the U.S. Amateur.”
 
“On behalf of the entire state of Wisconsin, we look forward to the incredible opportunity to host the 2011 U.S. Amateur at Erin Hills Golf Course,” said Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle. “As a public course open to all, Erin Hills fulfills the USGA promise and is a world-class facility that showcases Wisconsin’s future as a premier golf destination.”
 
“Everyone associated with the journey of Erin Hills is pleased and we look forward to the unique opportunity to host the 2011 U.S. Amateur,” said Bob Lang, owner of Erin Hills.
 
The awarding of championships to Chambers Bay and Erin Hills was approved by the USGA Executive Committee at its Annual Meeting in Houston. The formal approval of all three championships is pending contractual agreement.} 
 

"But working with guys such as Pete and Greg, and considering how much I can learn from them, I think it is nice to get a head start like this."

Emirates Business caught up with Sergio Garcia to ask about his Dubai design gig with Pete Dye and Greg Norman, among other vital topics:

You are the co-designer of the Wind course here. Have you made a site visit over there lately?

—Not yet, because we are still working out the design of it. We haven’t done any groundwork yet, so we haven’t been able to go and see. I’ve seen how the project site looks, but we haven’t started with the work. I think we will get going sometime later this year, or the start of next year.

Time permitting!

How excited are you to work with two of the proven masters of golf course design – Dye and Norman?

—Yeah, two of the very best, no doubt about it. I think it’s a great opportunity for me, great learning experience. Golf course design is something that I want to get into very seriously later in my career.

But working with guys such as Pete and Greg, and considering how much I can learn from them, I think it is nice to get a head start like this.

Think the "dream team" will ever be in the same room other than at the announcement press conference and opening day? 

Can you tell us about your course design philosophy and which course you really like playing around the world?

 —Well, I’ve always liked challenging courses; courses that have several doglegs that make it tough for you on your driving and ones that usually have small targets, small greens. That’s probably why two of my favourite courses have been Valderrama and the TPC of Sawgrass.

See, I always knew someone liked Valderrama. 

Apocalypse Now: Ames and Johnny Form Design Dream Team!

Lorne Rubenstein's latest Globe and Mail column reveals the dream design pairing between Stephen Ames and Johnny Miller. 

The background here is intriguing. Calgary-based Windmill Golf Group hired Miller's design firm to do a course as part of a new community at Harmony, on the northwest corner of Springbank Airport, in the city's western suburbs. Windmill has done a few well-received courses in the province.

"We pride ourselves on doing master-plan communities," Miller's son, Scott, who works in his father's firm, said during a telephone interview this week. "We feel it's fairly unique, our ability to take a project from raw land to the end."

Unique is certainly way of putting it. 

The Millers have visited the site twice.

The devotion these player architects have to their craft...

They weren't considering a course that could stage the Canadian Open until Ames suggested the idea. He was aware of Windmill's other projects in Alberta, including the Elbow Springs course near his home. He got wind of the project, contacted Miller and offered to get involved.

"We heard about it through the grapevine," Ames said the other day while having breakfast at a restaurant in Calgary. "My guy [Kim Koss] looked into it and approached Johnny. He just wanted to build a course, but I asked about a course that could hold the Canadian Open."

Miller liked the idea, and Ames came aboard. Ames said, "It's been a treat working with Johnny and Scott. Johnny's been very obliging. For me, I want to learn to build courses. When I mentioned the idea of a Canadian Open, their eyes opened up."

So you'd put them to sleep prior to that?

Ames said plans are to build a course that can stretch to 8,100 yards. Calgary's altitude, along with how far players are hitting the ball today, means that's not a ludicrous length. It doesn't mean the course will play that long should the Canadian Open come there. But it doesn't hurt to have the yards available.

No, at 8,100 it's already a lost cause, so what's another few hundred unnecessary yards?

Drivable Par-4s

My Golf World feature on the rise of driveable par 4s in PGA Tour golf is now posted at GolfDigest.com.

Make sure to check out the "scatter charts" Golf World created using the Tour's ShotLink data to see what players scored from the location of their tee shot. (Mini version here on the left, the full version is embedded in the article.)

"We're really good for selling real estate"

Thanks to reader Hugh for this Martin Blake story on Karrie Webb cutting back on her schedule, with this nugget:

The good news for Golf Australia, which is bringing the national women's Open to Kingston Heath for the first time, is that Webb has had an eight-week break at home in Queensland and feels fresh. Retirement is not on the doorstep quite yet, and she will start a short-priced favourite in this week's tournament.

Venturing out to the course for her first practice session yesterday, it occurred to Webb that many people in golf have no clue how good Melbourne's sandbelt is. The LPGA plays three-quarters of its tournaments on dreadful, new courses.

"We're really good for selling real estate," Webb said. "We go to a lot of courses that are new developments. Obviously, it costs money for tournaments to go to golf courses. Newer golf courses will waive the fee or even pay us to go there because they're trying to sell houses. They can say, 'The LPGA plays here'."