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Great Architects: Donald Ross (feat Bradley Klein) · Designing Golf

0:00
Speaker 1: With the PGA Championship at Aronominc. Golf Club coming up,
0:04
Speaker 1: I thought it would be a good time to talk
0:05
Speaker 1: about the architect behind Ironimink, who is of course, Donald Ross.
0:12
Speaker 1: Ross had one of the most impressive and remarkable careers
0:16
Speaker 1: in the history of golf architecture, but I'm not sure
0:19
Speaker 1: that his design style is particularly well understood. So today
0:24
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about it all in the form
0:27
Speaker 1: of a mail bag. My guest is Bradley Klein, a
0:32
Speaker 1: longtime golf architecture writer and golf course consultant whose book
0:36
Speaker 1: Discovering Donald Ross had a big impact on the revival
0:40
Speaker 1: of interest in the architect that happened toward the beginning
0:43
Speaker 1: of this century. And in this episode, I'm just going
0:47
Speaker 1: to toss Bradley a bunch of questions about Donald Ross
0:51
Speaker 1: that were asked by members of fried Egg Golf Club.
0:55
Speaker 1: So let's see how that goes. I'm Garrett Morrison, and
0:59
Speaker 1: this is designing Golf, all right. Before we bring in
1:08
Speaker 1: brad Kline, let's talk about the five essential Donald Ross
1:13
Speaker 1: golf courses. These aren't necessarily his best courses, or even
1:18
Speaker 1: what I would consider my favorite Donald Ross courses, but
1:22
Speaker 1: I think they're his most important designs. If you want
1:25
Speaker 1: to know about Donald Ross, this is a good place
1:28
Speaker 1: to start. So I think I'm going to take these
1:30
Speaker 1: basically in chronological order. First up is Pinehurst number two
1:36
Speaker 1: in the North Carolina Sandhills. Probably an expected unsurprising choice here.
1:42
Speaker 1: Donald Ross lived in Pinehurst. He kept an office in
1:47
Speaker 1: Pinehurst for many years, so he spent more time tweaking
1:51
Speaker 1: and refining the number two course than really any other
1:55
Speaker 1: course in his catalog. The turtleback greens at Pinehurst are famous,
2:00
Speaker 1: but they're not actually original. They evolved into that form
2:04
Speaker 1: over the course of several decades in the middle of
2:07
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, probably because of some aggressive top dressing
2:12
Speaker 1: from the maintenance staff. But when Coren Crenshaw did their
2:15
Speaker 1: restoration of Pinehurst Number two in twenty eleven, they decided
2:19
Speaker 1: to just keep the greens that way because at that
2:22
Speaker 1: point the crowned nature of the greens had become integral
2:27
Speaker 1: to the course's identity, or at least so they thought.
2:31
Speaker 1: But for me, the greatest strength of Pinehurst number two
2:34
Speaker 1: is the way the course uses diagonals and side slopes.
2:39
Speaker 1: The property at Pinehurst number two really isn't that dramatic.
2:42
Speaker 1: There aren't big elevation changes or eye catching undulations, but
2:49
Speaker 1: what is there is really well used. The fairways are
2:53
Speaker 1: always working on these right to left or left to
2:56
Speaker 1: right diagonals in relation to the direction that you're hitting
3:00
Speaker 1: your shot. They use side slopes just brilliantly, sometimes banking
3:05
Speaker 1: off of one hillside then banking off of another hillside.
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Speaker 1: It's really interesting stuff and it's very subtle. It doesn't
3:12
Speaker 1: come through on TV, but when you're playing the course,
3:15
Speaker 1: all this stuff has an effect on your ball, and
3:19
Speaker 1: in that way, I think Pinehurst Number two has a
3:21
Speaker 1: lot more in common with Links courses than basically anything
3:26
Speaker 1: else Donald Ross designed, and the Pinehurst resort itself is
3:30
Speaker 1: maybe the closest thing that we have in the US
3:34
Speaker 1: to Saint Andrews. It really does feel like a home
3:37
Speaker 1: of golf. It's a special place, all right. The second
3:40
Speaker 1: essential Donald Ross course that I'd like to talk about
3:43
Speaker 1: is Essex County Club in Manchester by the Sea, Massachusetts.
3:48
Speaker 1: This is another course that Ross spent a lot of
3:51
Speaker 1: time fine tuning because he served as the club professional
3:56
Speaker 1: and basically in house architect at at Essex County for
4:01
Speaker 1: several years in the nineteen tens, but since he basically
4:05
Speaker 1: stopped working there in about nineteen seventeen, Essex County feels
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Speaker 1: more old school in its design style than Pinehurst Number Two.
4:15
Speaker 1: Ross worked on Pinehurst Number two essentially for the rest
4:19
Speaker 1: of his life, but Essex County is more frozen in time.
4:23
Speaker 1: The greens are simpler, the features are a little bit
4:27
Speaker 1: less naturalized. But I think all these factors just add
4:30
Speaker 1: to the charm of Essex County and make it feel unique.
4:35
Speaker 1: It's a fantastic piece of land. It's rocky, but because
4:40
Speaker 1: the ocean isn't that far away, it actually feels a
4:43
Speaker 1: little bit lynxy as well. The most prominent feature is
4:47
Speaker 1: a huge knull that the back nine plays around. Then
4:53
Speaker 1: the seventeenth hole climbs directly on top of the hill
4:57
Speaker 1: and the eighteenth hole plays off of it. It's a
5:01
Speaker 1: roller coaster at the end of the round. There incredibly
5:05
Speaker 1: daring piece of routing. I can't believe that Donald Ross
5:09
Speaker 1: thought to put those holes in that location, but it
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Speaker 1: makes for one of the most dramatic finishes to around
5:16
Speaker 1: that I know of. Essex County is also one of
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Speaker 1: the best examples I think of golf course restoration of
5:22
Speaker 1: Donald Ross Restoration, specifically, the consulting architect Bruce Hepner and
5:27
Speaker 1: the longtime superintendent Eric Richardson have done an absolutely excellent
5:32
Speaker 1: job making small changes over the past twenty years or
5:36
Speaker 1: so that have added up to big changes, and the
5:40
Speaker 1: result is that Essex County might be the most historically
5:44
Speaker 1: authentic Donald Ross course in existence. All Right, The third
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Speaker 1: Ross course I'd like to discuss is the South Course
5:52
Speaker 1: at Oakland Hills Country Club outside of Detroit, Michigan. Donald
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Speaker 1: Ross designed this course in NI teen nineteen, and I
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Speaker 1: think it's really when he reached full maturity as an architect.
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Speaker 1: His routing ability, his sense for how to create variety
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Speaker 1: and strategy in golf holes, his green building techniques, his
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Speaker 1: mastery of construction and shaping are all fully developed here,
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Speaker 1: and this might be his single best set of greens
6:26
Speaker 1: among championship golf courses. It's probably the closest thing that
6:31
Speaker 1: we have to augusta national in terms of the sheer,
6:36
Speaker 1: inventiveness and boldness of the contouring of the greens, of
6:40
Speaker 1: the variety that you get between different greens. You have
6:44
Speaker 1: everything from the eleventh green, which is very small and
6:47
Speaker 1: kind of tucked into a saddle to the sixth green,
6:50
Speaker 1: which has these wavy, rippling undulations that extend out to
6:55
Speaker 1: the edge of the putting surface and create little pockets
7:00
Speaker 1: and shelves for pins, some hard pins, some easy pins.
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Speaker 1: It's just really complex and striking. But a lot of
7:09
Speaker 1: these features became hidden over the years at at Oakland
7:12
Speaker 1: Hills because the fairways and greens got smaller, trees were planted.
7:18
Speaker 1: Rhys Jones and Robert Trent Jones did some work that,
7:21
Speaker 1: in my opinion, wasn't very good, but Gil Hans's renovation
7:25
Speaker 1: a few years ago brought back a lot of what
7:28
Speaker 1: I love about Oakland Hills. Hans definitely modernized some things.
7:33
Speaker 1: The agronomic infrastructure at Oakland Hills is now very up
7:37
Speaker 1: to date, but the golf features themselves do closely resemble
7:42
Speaker 1: what Donald Ross did back in nineteen nineteen. And I
7:47
Speaker 1: think that when people see Oakland Hills host the US
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Speaker 1: Open in twenty thirty four, that they're going to be
7:52
Speaker 1: really impressed and that they're going to wish that Oakland
7:56
Speaker 1: Hills would host the US Open more frequently than the
8:00
Speaker 1: every twenty years, which is kind of the cadence that
8:02
Speaker 1: it's on now. All right. Fourth Donald Ross course that
8:06
Speaker 1: I think is essential is a Ronoman golf club in
8:11
Speaker 1: Philadelphia or near Philadelphia. This is the current years PGA
8:16
Speaker 1: Championship venue. Really cool golf course that I think got
8:21
Speaker 1: a bit of a bad break with weather at the
8:24
Speaker 1: past couple of PGA Tour events that it hosted. The
8:29
Speaker 1: excellence of the course didn't come through as much in
8:31
Speaker 1: those tournaments because I think that the greens need to
8:34
Speaker 1: play firm. There needs to be a little bit of
8:36
Speaker 1: win So I'm hoping that we get that, but I'm
8:39
Speaker 1: not sure that we will get it in May, so
8:41
Speaker 1: we'll see about that. But yeah, I've heard Tom Doak
8:47
Speaker 1: say that Donald Ross was the best in the world
8:50
Speaker 1: at working out good routings of rectangular constricted properties. Those
8:58
Speaker 1: properties can be pretty tricky because you often end up
9:01
Speaker 1: with a lot of parallel holes or parts of the
9:04
Speaker 1: routing that feel cramped or unnatural. But Donald Ross was
9:08
Speaker 1: always so good at finding ways to make routings on
9:13
Speaker 1: this type of site feel open and organic and multidirectional
9:19
Speaker 1: rather than linear and awkward and constricted and aronom Mink
9:26
Speaker 1: is an excellent excellent example of that. If you look
9:29
Speaker 1: at a map of the course. Just pay attention to
9:31
Speaker 1: the way the routing constantly bounces between the boundaries of
9:36
Speaker 1: the site and the middle of the site, and the
9:38
Speaker 1: ways that holes kind of work on diagonals out to
9:42
Speaker 1: corners and then go out in different directions. The routing
9:46
Speaker 1: is continually changing direction and doing something different. It's really
9:51
Speaker 1: pretty brilliant how Ross worked that out. And then you
9:55
Speaker 1: have the greens, which is it's one of the best
9:58
Speaker 1: sets of Donald Ross green anywhere. I think it's right
10:02
Speaker 1: up there with Oakland Hills. They're very, very inventive, and
10:08
Speaker 1: you know, each green feels like it's part of a theme,
10:13
Speaker 1: but it is memorable in and of itself. So yeah,
10:17
Speaker 1: aronomic great golf course. I hope it comes through in
10:20
Speaker 1: the telecast for the PGA Championship. Finally, we have Seminole
10:25
Speaker 1: Golf Club in South Florida. Donald Ross built this course
10:29
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen twenties, so this was toward the
10:32
Speaker 1: end of his golden period and someone is currently undergoing
10:37
Speaker 1: a pretty ambitious Gilhan's renovation. Hans is making some big
10:42
Speaker 1: changes to the greens. He is, you know, bringing back
10:46
Speaker 1: some planned Ross characteristics of those greens that might or
10:51
Speaker 1: might not have actually been put in the ground. It's
10:54
Speaker 1: a pretty interesting project and I'm curious to see the
10:57
Speaker 1: outcome of it. But for me, what has always made
11:01
Speaker 1: Seminole special is the combination of the seaside wind and
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Speaker 1: the constant changes of direction in the routing. This is
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Speaker 1: another example of Ross just being better than everybody else
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Speaker 1: at coming up with routings on smallish, roughly rectangular properties.
11:21
Speaker 1: Seminole is brilliant in that regard. There's never a moment
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Speaker 1: where the routing feels limited or stuck in a certain direction.
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Speaker 1: And in particular, the way Ross uses the big ridges
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Speaker 1: at either end of the site is brilliant. There's a
11:39
Speaker 1: big ridge on the ocean side portion of the site
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Speaker 1: and then there's a an accompanying ridge kind of parallel inland,
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Speaker 1: and the holes are constantly interacting with these two big
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Speaker 1: topographical features. So there's a lot of action on the
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Speaker 1: golf course on a site that could have ended up
12:02
Speaker 1: being a little bit boring. So those are my five
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Speaker 1: essential Donald Ross courses. Pinehurst Number two, Essex County Club,
12:11
Speaker 1: Oakland Hills, South Brooni, Mink and Seminole. Now, the greatest
12:16
Speaker 1: thing I think about studying Donald Ross is that his
12:20
Speaker 1: body of work is so deep and rich that you
12:24
Speaker 1: never really feel like you're at the bottom of it,
12:27
Speaker 1: or that you don't have more to learn. You know,
12:31
Speaker 1: of the great architects, there might have been a few
12:36
Speaker 1: who built more firstier all time courses than Ross. Maybe
12:42
Speaker 1: Alistair Mackenzie did, Harry Colt probably did, or in the
12:46
Speaker 1: modern period Corn Crenshaw and Tom Doak are running up
12:50
Speaker 1: the score in that regard. But I'm not sure any
12:54
Speaker 1: architect has ever built as many very good slash excellent
13:00
Speaker 1: courses as Donald Ross did. This is partly because he
13:04
Speaker 1: had a lot of reps. He did a lot of projects.
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Speaker 1: He was always on the train, always looking at new sites,
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Speaker 1: always coming up with plans, maybe not seeing some of
13:13
Speaker 1: these courses again after he submitted to plans. But in
13:17
Speaker 1: spite of that working method, he had a really high
13:22
Speaker 1: hit rate. If you go to a Donald Ross course
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Speaker 1: that has been pretty well preserved and was actually designed
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Speaker 1: by Donald Ross, you can almost be assured that it's
13:32
Speaker 1: going to be well routed, well built, have some memorable
13:35
Speaker 1: holes and cool greens, and be really playable and fun.
13:41
Speaker 1: He was the professional architects professional architect, and so beyond
13:48
Speaker 1: just his five essential courses. It's really worth pursuing and
13:53
Speaker 1: exploring Donald Ross's full catalog, so have fun with that.
13:58
Speaker 1: All right, I'd like to continue this discussion of Donald
14:01
Speaker 1: Ross with doctor Bradley S. Klein. Bradklin, as I mentioned
14:08
Speaker 1: at the top, is one of the og modern golf
14:12
Speaker 1: architecture writers. He was doing this stuff in the eighties
14:15
Speaker 1: and nineties before it was fashionable, and he did a
14:18
Speaker 1: lot specifically to enhance people's understanding and appreciation of Donald Ross.
14:25
Speaker 1: So I'm very excited to toss him some questions from
14:29
Speaker 1: members of Frida Egg Golf Club. We got some really good,
14:33
Speaker 1: thoughtful questions from FEGC, and if you'd like to participate
14:38
Speaker 1: in future mail bags. First of all, make sure to
14:41
Speaker 1: join Frida Egg Golf Club. Go to the Friday dot
14:44
Speaker 1: com slash memberships to sign up. I said memberships, but
14:48
Speaker 1: it's actually not plural, it's slash membership. And then make
14:52
Speaker 1: sure to keep up with what's going on in our
14:55
Speaker 1: member forum, because that is where I put out this
14:58
Speaker 1: call for questions. All right, without further ado, here's my
15:02
Speaker 1: conversation with Brad Klein. I'm here with Bradley Klein. Brad,
15:14
Speaker 1: how are you doing today.
15:16
Speaker 2: Great, the beautiful starting to get some spring weather. Might
15:20
Speaker 2: actually go play golf one of these days.
15:23
Speaker 1: It's starting to get to be that week when we
15:27
Speaker 1: make the decision to take the clubs out of the
15:29
Speaker 1: garage and go do our best.
15:32
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, every morning, and still we have frost delays,
15:37
Speaker 2: but it warms up.
15:38
Speaker 1: So yeah. Well, so today we're talking about Donald Ross
15:43
Speaker 1: in advance of the PGA Championship at aronom Ink. And
15:47
Speaker 1: I thought the way that we would do this, Brad,
15:50
Speaker 1: would be to ask some of our members at Friday
15:54
Speaker 1: Golf Club for any questions they have about Donald Ross's design, philosophy, career,
16:01
Speaker 1: or whatever else. I got a bunch of really good questions,
16:05
Speaker 1: and so we're just gonna dive into the mail bag here.
16:08
Speaker 1: The first question I have for you is from Zach Anderson,
16:12
Speaker 1: and Zach asks if you were blindfolded and led onto
16:17
Speaker 1: an anonymous golf course, what elements routing, hazard placement, green
16:23
Speaker 1: shapes would tell you it's a Ross design. And I
16:27
Speaker 1: like this question a lot because it kind of gets
16:29
Speaker 1: that what you think is distinctive about Donald Ross's design style,
16:34
Speaker 1: which can be a little tricky to pin down because
16:37
Speaker 1: there are many Donald Ross's, so to speak. So how
16:42
Speaker 1: would you answer that question?
16:43
Speaker 2: As first of all, it's a great question, and I'm
16:46
Speaker 2: always appreciative of anything that is different than what are
16:50
Speaker 2: your three favorite Donald Ross courses? Right, So that's actually
16:54
Speaker 2: a very thoughtful question. So the first thing is that
16:58
Speaker 2: Donald Ross were a century ago. It's now twenty twenty six,
17:04
Speaker 2: and we're going to be looking at golf courses that
17:06
Speaker 2: have evolved over one hundred and twenty to eighty years,
17:12
Speaker 2: so there's a little bit of a qualifier. But the
17:14
Speaker 2: first thing I would look at is the routing. And
17:16
Speaker 2: by what I mean by the routing is the sequence
17:21
Speaker 2: of the holes, how they fit onto the parcel. And
17:25
Speaker 2: with Ross, it's fairly distinctive that there is an intimate
17:32
Speaker 2: relationship between green to next tea. You're not walking a
17:37
Speaker 2: long ways. He fills up the space. As someone once
17:42
Speaker 2: described it, it's like a bowl of baby shrimp. They
17:45
Speaker 2: all fit together and there's not a lot of superfluous space.
17:51
Speaker 2: He'll have the occasional triangle of one hundred and fifty
17:55
Speaker 2: yards for a practice area, but for the most part,
17:58
Speaker 2: the dog legs fit in a way that is really intimate.
18:03
Speaker 2: So that's what I would look for is kind of
18:06
Speaker 2: an intimate connection. Most but not all of his golf
18:10
Speaker 2: courses are returning nines the later the second half of
18:17
Speaker 2: his career. You know, he came to the United States
18:20
Speaker 2: in eighteen ninety nine. He designed about four hundred and
18:23
Speaker 2: ten courses until his death in nineteen forty eight, roughly
18:28
Speaker 2: a couple of different phases in the middle, but a
18:30
Speaker 2: little more strategic. I would say that more of his
18:34
Speaker 2: courses are returning nines in the second half of his career.
18:37
Speaker 2: But I would look at the intimacy of the routing.
18:39
Speaker 2: That's the first thing. The second thing, and are the
18:45
Speaker 2: green contourse. Now, this is tricky because over a long
18:49
Speaker 2: period of time and maintenance and neglect and alteration, a
18:55
Speaker 2: lot of his greens have shrunk, They've become more circular,
18:59
Speaker 2: they've lost some of then a lot of the contour
19:01
Speaker 2: because of top dressing. The square edges up front have
19:05
Speaker 2: been rounded off through triplex mowing or normal practices. So
19:10
Speaker 2: that's a little harder to determine. But I would I
19:13
Speaker 2: always look at his the position of the greens, so
19:18
Speaker 2: that they're set on a little bit of a rise,
19:22
Speaker 2: and the back that tends to fall off because what
19:25
Speaker 2: he would do or has met his construction crew. You know,
19:29
Speaker 2: he was building or having his golf courses built by
19:32
Speaker 2: hand labor, dozens of laborers with wheelbarrows for the most part,
19:38
Speaker 2: and they would build up the fill pad of the
19:40
Speaker 2: green by taking the dirt from behind and then just
19:43
Speaker 2: piling it on. And you know, a couple of days
19:46
Speaker 2: of that, and you have a fill pad that rises
19:49
Speaker 2: three feet in the back one foot in the front.
19:52
Speaker 2: So I would look for those fall offs in the
19:54
Speaker 2: back that balance the cut and fill that comprises the
19:58
Speaker 2: fill pad. So that's the second thing I would look for,
20:01
Speaker 2: and then I would look for the fairway bunkering and
20:05
Speaker 2: the green side bunkering. His fairway bunkering tended to be
20:10
Speaker 2: about two hundred yards to twenty off the tee of
20:15
Speaker 2: what was then the back tape the turnpoints. Some of
20:19
Speaker 2: those have been a lot of those have been lost
20:21
Speaker 2: over the years. But I always love looking for what
20:24
Speaker 2: the ghost bunkers, the sort of abandoned hollows. I remember
20:29
Speaker 2: when I was doing my preview of Oak Hill for
20:31
Speaker 2: the twenty three PGA, and I went around with an
20:33
Speaker 2: assistant pro and I was pointing out to him the
20:37
Speaker 2: old ghost bunkers from the shorter part placement that had
20:42
Speaker 2: been altered over the years, and you still see those
20:44
Speaker 2: in the ground because when they abandoned bunkers over the years,
20:49
Speaker 2: they wouldn't fill them in, they just let the grass grow.
20:52
Speaker 2: So you sort of look for those signs of the
20:54
Speaker 2: ghost bunkers. And also you look for the fill pad,
20:58
Speaker 2: the green, the platform that sits on with the bunkers
21:02
Speaker 2: tended to be put at the base of the fill pad,
21:04
Speaker 2: so that you had a natural rise of a foot
21:07
Speaker 2: or two down into the bunker and a foot or
21:09
Speaker 2: two up to the green, and that formed your three
21:12
Speaker 2: and a half four foot the depth of the bunker.
21:16
Speaker 2: So you look for those kind of characteristics generally, and
21:21
Speaker 2: that's the start. I would say of Moross, you'd often
21:28
Speaker 2: find a very short part three surrounded by bunkers. I
21:31
Speaker 2: could five of them right off the top of you know,
21:33
Speaker 2: want to moist it. The third hole to Ujica, the
21:36
Speaker 2: seventh hole, SIOUTA, the ninth hole for example, come right
21:43
Speaker 2: to mind. And very often a short, very short part
21:50
Speaker 2: three surrounded by bunkers, with a little bit of a
21:54
Speaker 2: hollow and a and then a little bit of a
21:58
Speaker 2: ledge behind the hollow for the whole locations. So those
22:04
Speaker 2: are the things you look for right away or tell
22:07
Speaker 2: tale I would say.
22:09
Speaker 1: Follow up question from Zach Anderson related to what you're
22:13
Speaker 1: just saying, are there any kind of template holes Donald
22:16
Speaker 1: Ross template holes that people should look for? You just
22:18
Speaker 1: named the short par three surrounded by bunkers. Something that
22:22
Speaker 1: comes to mind for me is a you know, a
22:24
Speaker 1: volcano green, so called volcano green, although there aren't an
22:28
Speaker 1: overwhelming number of those, but they are very memorable, and
22:33
Speaker 1: so you know, whenever you see one of those holes
22:35
Speaker 1: with the that where the green kind of set on
22:38
Speaker 1: a knob that falls off on all sides, you remember it.
22:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. The best one is the thirteenth of Franklin Hills
22:44
Speaker 2: in Detroit. That's absolutely three hundred and ten yard hole
22:47
Speaker 2: with a yeah, probably a two thousand square foot green
22:51
Speaker 2: perched way up in the air.
22:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool hole and interesting that it's not a
22:56
Speaker 1: part three in the case of Franklin Hills. But there
23:00
Speaker 1: are a few of those Ross Ross volcano greens. There's
23:03
Speaker 1: another one at Lulu country Club, I guess, and the
23:07
Speaker 1: Country Club of Buffalo, and there are a few here
23:11
Speaker 1: and there. But are there any other It was was
23:14
Speaker 1: Ross somebody who thought in terms of template holes at all?
23:18
Speaker 2: No, did not. So just as an example, you name
23:23
Speaker 2: Country Club of Buffalo, the volcano hole, there is a
23:26
Speaker 2: middle length part three, the sixth hole, you know. And
23:30
Speaker 2: then so here's the thing with Ross. He was trying
23:33
Speaker 2: to work to puzzle out all those shrimp falling together
23:37
Speaker 2: on that platform or in that bowl that he was
23:40
Speaker 2: working with, and so you know, he would often, I
23:43
Speaker 2: would say that he often relied upon a very short
23:46
Speaker 2: part three if there's a template hole, although they differ dramatically,
23:51
Speaker 2: but I've seen a lot of the very short little
23:55
Speaker 2: drop shot part three. And again we've mentioned a few
23:58
Speaker 2: of them already, the restored fifth hole at Oak Hill,
24:02
Speaker 2: for example.
24:03
Speaker 1: There's a great one at Roaring Gap. It's kind of
24:05
Speaker 1: a combination of a volcano hole and a and a
24:09
Speaker 1: and a drop shot par three. It is, I believe
24:12
Speaker 1: the sixth hole, but don't quote me on that. In
24:14
Speaker 1: any case, striking hole.
24:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, But you know, sometimes they were uphill, like the
24:19
Speaker 2: fourteenth at Augusta Country Club. So it varied a lot here.
24:24
Speaker 2: But I've seen, you know, I would say I've seen
24:28
Speaker 2: that a lot on US courses and I've also seen
24:30
Speaker 2: a very long part three two thirty, the fourteenth that
24:38
Speaker 2: ok Kill, the thirteenth at Wamping on the fourth at Worcester,
24:43
Speaker 2: for example, come immediately to mind. The seventeenth at Brayburn,
24:49
Speaker 2: come you know, so they the ninth at oak Kill
24:56
Speaker 2: also you'll see a long part three. But having said
24:59
Speaker 2: that the bunkering would have varied, the contouring would have varied,
25:04
Speaker 2: I will say that I have seen more of that
25:07
Speaker 2: short part three with the thumb print green up front
25:12
Speaker 2: and the little shelf around the back of it, and
25:17
Speaker 2: but I haven't seen it. At every course you will
25:21
Speaker 2: often see a shorter I wouldn't call a driveable part four,
25:26
Speaker 2: but you'll see a three hundred and fifty three hundred
25:28
Speaker 2: and forty yard par four very well bunkered in the
25:32
Speaker 2: landing area with a small green idle hour in Kentucky
25:36
Speaker 2: in Lexington, Kentucky. The fourth hole, although they keep changing
25:41
Speaker 2: the nines, but it's the fourth hole there Uphill comes
25:44
Speaker 2: to mind. A third at Pinehurst, number two kind of
25:47
Speaker 2: a classic.
25:48
Speaker 1: Yet will yeah drive on a pedgehole?
25:51
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah? The sixth that Oakland at Oakland Hills, for example,
25:55
Speaker 2: comes right to mind there as well, you'll see a
25:59
Speaker 2: shot a much shorter hole. They were never drivable in
26:04
Speaker 2: those days. They've become driveable. But he was very good
26:09
Speaker 2: at throwing in the occasional short part four, not usually
26:14
Speaker 2: at the start or at the end of a round,
26:16
Speaker 2: although when he got squeezed for territory like fourteen the
26:20
Speaker 2: eighteenth hole in Inverness, and he wasn't averse to using
26:24
Speaker 2: a short hole to end Wooster the same thing. Beautiful,
26:27
Speaker 2: short little hole, but with a lot of contour and
26:32
Speaker 2: a lot of complexity to the landing zone. So there
26:35
Speaker 2: was always a challenge and thoughtfulness required. What you don't
26:41
Speaker 2: see with ross our long par fives. A lot of
26:46
Speaker 2: his par fives were for eighty four seventy. You know,
26:50
Speaker 2: the best one is Holston Hills, the seventh hole down
26:54
Speaker 2: in Knoxville, Tennessee, with multiple paths to the green. He
26:59
Speaker 2: was a master at delineating alternative paths, and unfortunately those
27:04
Speaker 2: holes have lost their strategic value given the distances that
27:07
Speaker 2: people are hitting. But when he would map out, you know,
27:10
Speaker 2: a t shot of two twenty and a second shot
27:12
Speaker 2: of two hundred and a wedge shot, and then you
27:15
Speaker 2: had alternate paths. Those are really intriguing. So I've seen
27:19
Speaker 2: a lot of those mapped out over the years, which
27:23
Speaker 2: I think have in effect become essentially long four parts.
27:28
Speaker 2: But I would say, of you know, it's certainly not
27:30
Speaker 2: like Rainer or for example, you didn't have the tilling
27:33
Speaker 2: Hast array of part three's, for example, where you had
27:37
Speaker 2: your standard refol. For example, you didn't have your beerits
27:43
Speaker 2: or He built one pseudo Beirits, as far as I
27:48
Speaker 2: can tell, not Beirits re Dan. The only Redan that
27:53
Speaker 2: I know for sure is the ninth hole. Had built
27:56
Speaker 2: more forest in Asheville, North Carolina. He built the occasional
28:01
Speaker 2: punch bowl, not very often, you know. Nothing was sixteenth
28:06
Speaker 2: and augusta country club comes to mind, but not real severe.
28:11
Speaker 2: So he was always very i would say, more varied
28:15
Speaker 2: in his design genres than most architects.
28:18
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So well, why don't we apply some of
28:23
Speaker 1: these ideas that you're laying out here to a particular course.
28:28
Speaker 1: Ironom Inc is coming up as the venue of the
28:30
Speaker 1: PGA Championship. I think ironom Inc is a very interesting
28:34
Speaker 1: example of one ross routing and two ross green building.
28:41
Speaker 1: Irono mi Ink has outstanding greens, and this may not
28:44
Speaker 1: come through on TV very well. But a really interesting
28:48
Speaker 1: set of Donald Ross greens, and the routing is is brilliant.
28:53
Speaker 1: You know. It's one of those Ross routings that's on
28:55
Speaker 1: kind of this rectangular site. And Ross was maybe better
29:00
Speaker 1: than anybody at figuring out how to route rectangular sites
29:05
Speaker 1: with variety, and the way he does it at Aronomic,
29:08
Speaker 1: I'd like to get your thoughts as well, but I really,
29:11
Speaker 1: I really think it's interesting how he uses these diagonal
29:15
Speaker 1: holes at at Ironomy, the way the holes work on
29:19
Speaker 1: diagonals in relation to the rectangle that is the property.
29:23
Speaker 1: He has holes kind of playing out to corners of
29:25
Speaker 1: the site in ways that open up land to use,
29:31
Speaker 1: and and it's you know, it really works well. At Ironomy.
29:35
Speaker 1: The two nines kind of kind of do similar things
29:38
Speaker 1: in relation to the site where where they play into
29:41
Speaker 1: the middle of the site and then out corners on
29:45
Speaker 1: similar cadences. So the routing is is pretty brilliant Aronomic.
29:49
Speaker 1: The greens are are fantastic. So what are some of
29:52
Speaker 1: your thoughts, Brad about how you know how Aeronomic embodies
29:56
Speaker 1: Ross's design style.
29:59
Speaker 2: Well, you've laid it out pretty nicely. And the brilliant
30:04
Speaker 2: thing about ironomy is you're always turning a corner. Once
30:10
Speaker 2: you come off the first The first green heads to
30:12
Speaker 2: the southeast corner of the property on a fairly complicated
30:15
Speaker 2: piece of terrain. Then you tack inside diagonally on two,
30:20
Speaker 2: then you go up three into the corner. On four
30:23
Speaker 2: and the fourth you're down to the south west corner.
30:26
Speaker 2: Then you work your way up to the north a
30:28
Speaker 2: little bit, and then you come back and then you
30:31
Speaker 2: end up at the ninth green, back in the right,
30:34
Speaker 2: top right corner. Then you turn right around, so you're
30:37
Speaker 2: always tacking. You're always turning around after the tee to
30:40
Speaker 2: go to the next hall. I think I counted fourteen
30:45
Speaker 2: changes of direction when you walk off of the t
30:48
Speaker 2: which is remarkable. You know, the only time you're going
30:51
Speaker 2: in the same direction at all is four or five, thirteen, fourteen.
30:57
Speaker 1: That's it.
30:59
Speaker 2: Everything else you're moving to the right or left, turning
31:02
Speaker 2: around completely.
31:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not very often that you that you
31:05
Speaker 1: go back in the opposite door. It's not like you're
31:07
Speaker 1: always going back in the opposite direction. It's not. It's
31:10
Speaker 1: not the sardines. Yeah, it's like different kinds of turns,
31:14
Speaker 1: which makes it in well.
31:15
Speaker 2: The only time you actually turn right around and flip
31:18
Speaker 2: is five to six and then fifteen to sixteen.
31:23
Speaker 1: Yep.
31:23
Speaker 2: So but you're always moving. And the other thing that's
31:27
Speaker 2: interesting is that it's a bunch of basically demanding four
31:31
Speaker 2: pars that are on the lengthier side. On the front nine,
31:35
Speaker 2: the average I just wrote this for PGA tour dot com.
31:38
Speaker 2: On the front nine, the six par fours average four
31:42
Speaker 2: to thirty five and on the back nine, the six
31:45
Speaker 2: par fours average four sixty five. So there's a that's
31:49
Speaker 2: a two club difference to every green. That's that's not
31:53
Speaker 2: a mistake. That's amping up the challenge. You know. The
31:58
Speaker 2: two clubs is even on the tour. That's a big difference.
32:00
Speaker 2: That's a difference between a nine iron and a seven iron,
32:03
Speaker 2: which is a lot for those guys. So you're constantly
32:07
Speaker 2: changing directions. That's the first thing. And it's a big site.
32:11
Speaker 2: That golf course was originally intended for twenty seven holes.
32:15
Speaker 2: The area that was going to be the third nine
32:19
Speaker 2: is now designated or used for the range and some
32:23
Speaker 2: kind of open club area, but the property itself is moving.
32:30
Speaker 2: Andy Johnson described it as sort of descending into a
32:33
Speaker 2: bowl where you go from one, two, three, and then
32:36
Speaker 2: you drop down and then you come back up a
32:38
Speaker 2: little bit. But every green where every fairway is sitting
32:42
Speaker 2: on a side slope, so you're not just dealing with
32:46
Speaker 2: a direction, you're dealing with an angle where it kicks,
32:50
Speaker 2: which is resulting in a very interesting setup. The fairway
32:54
Speaker 2: is their average in the landing area between twenty yards
32:57
Speaker 2: and fifty yards. I asked Carrie Hey, who's responsible for
33:01
Speaker 2: PGA Tour for PGA of America set up on championships,
33:05
Speaker 2: what's your average fairway with He says, there is no average.
33:08
Speaker 2: It varies dramatically because of the way in which they've
33:12
Speaker 2: allowed the slopes to dominate the play. So there are
33:16
Speaker 2: some very tight landing areas. You know, there is a
33:20
Speaker 2: short There is one short par four the thirteenth hall.
33:24
Speaker 2: It's back to these three eighty five, but at least
33:27
Speaker 2: one maybe two days they're going to play it at
33:29
Speaker 2: two ninety five, and it's got the very tight landing
33:33
Speaker 2: area and out of bounds on the left right along
33:36
Speaker 2: the green, So it brings the hazard into play that
33:38
Speaker 2: is actually a worthy risk, which isn't always the case
33:43
Speaker 2: on these shortened parf furs. So I give them credit
33:46
Speaker 2: for the variety. So what's great about that golf course
33:51
Speaker 2: is you're constantly changing. You don't get comfortable with the wind,
33:56
Speaker 2: you don't get comfortable with the terrain, and you don't
33:59
Speaker 2: get comfortable with where you have to work the shot
34:03
Speaker 2: left to right, right to left. That's the first thing.
34:06
Speaker 2: The second thing is it's an extraordinarily powerful set of greens.
34:10
Speaker 2: And I should have said this early on. The first
34:15
Speaker 2: thing you do when you're dealing with Donald Ross is
34:18
Speaker 2: you forget about Pinehurst number two. Pineher's number two is
34:22
Speaker 2: a complete anomaly. The greens had nothing to do with
34:25
Speaker 2: anything he ever built anywhere else. Those turtlebackgreens are an evolution,
34:31
Speaker 2: probably a mistake, unintended. They're not what Ross initially designed.
34:35
Speaker 2: They've evolved over the years. They got higher and they
34:38
Speaker 2: got more pronounced, and Ben and Bill Color and Crenshaw
34:42
Speaker 2: I didn't have the nerve to change them when they
34:45
Speaker 2: did their big restoration in twelve twenty thirteen. So that's
34:50
Speaker 2: become the anomaly which people mistake for the paradigm. It's not.
34:56
Speaker 2: It's completely uncharacteristic. Then when you get to aronomic, it
35:01
Speaker 2: is stunning in terms of the complexity the boldness of
35:06
Speaker 2: the severity of the slopes, and the potential if they
35:11
Speaker 2: wanted to, they could set that golf course up for
35:13
Speaker 2: seven hour rounds that nobody would ever break eighty just
35:17
Speaker 2: with whole locations on the margins, on the edges and
35:19
Speaker 2: so on. They're smarter than that, and these guys are
35:25
Speaker 2: good enough that they can actually handle it. But you know,
35:27
Speaker 2: those greens are going to be rolling at thirteen and
35:29
Speaker 2: a half cut to a tenth of an inch rolled
35:33
Speaker 2: and mode daily, probably roll twice, and it's going to
35:39
Speaker 2: be a stunning set of complex contours where you're going
35:44
Speaker 2: to have to really figure out where the ball is
35:47
Speaker 2: going to end up and where it's going to slow
35:49
Speaker 2: down and stop. And they're going to be twenty foot
35:52
Speaker 2: plots that break nine feet on that golf course that
35:55
Speaker 2: they're going to have, which is going to be fascinating
35:58
Speaker 2: to watch. So now this is the interesting part of
36:04
Speaker 2: the whole construction of Ironoming. We know, first of all,
36:09
Speaker 2: we know Ross was there because he has fairly detailed drawings,
36:13
Speaker 2: but also there's a fascinating eight millimeter film. It's a
36:19
Speaker 2: four minute movie that somebody made of the construction, and
36:23
Speaker 2: it's very rough it's all they're hands sawing trees that
36:27
Speaker 2: are sixty eighty caliber. That's a lot of work. Yeah,
36:30
Speaker 2: so they did a lot of clearing. And then there's
36:33
Speaker 2: about thirty seconds when Ross himself appears on the film.
36:37
Speaker 2: He's on the site. He's in his three piece jacket
36:41
Speaker 2: with a little handkerchief, and he's looking very proper and clean,
36:44
Speaker 2: and all these laborers are struggling and you know, trenching
36:47
Speaker 2: and putting an irrigation pipe. And then Ross goes up
36:50
Speaker 2: in an airplane and they fell him flying getting in
36:53
Speaker 2: the airplane and flying above the site. He's surveying the side,
36:56
Speaker 2: so we know he was there. It's a precious piece
36:58
Speaker 2: of film, and it's available on the It's available on
37:03
Speaker 2: YouTube somewhere.
37:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's on YouTube. That's the thing about it. I've
37:07
Speaker 1: encountered this as well, and it's kind of surprising to
37:09
Speaker 1: me that something like this is on YouTube, but it
37:11
Speaker 1: is there if you search for it.
37:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've seen both the black and white and the
37:15
Speaker 2: colorized version. I have to say the black and white
37:17
Speaker 2: is starker, but in any case, so the first thing
37:21
Speaker 2: is we know Ross was there, and we know he
37:23
Speaker 2: appreciated it because later on in the little book that
37:26
Speaker 2: Ron Witten came up with called Golf has Never Failed Me.
37:29
Speaker 2: There's a famous sentence that Ross author. He says, basically
37:38
Speaker 2: the golf course he knew it was going to be
37:40
Speaker 2: a great championship course. It turned out better than he
37:42
Speaker 2: ever thought. The reason it turned out better than he
37:45
Speaker 2: thought is because the green chairman, who was also construction supervisor,
37:50
Speaker 2: was JB. McGovern. JB. McGovern was Donald Ross's right hand
37:54
Speaker 2: man for twenty years. JB. McGovern was hired by Ross
37:58
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventeen or eighteen. He was a skilled landscape architect.
38:03
Speaker 2: He was based in Philadelphia. He was green chairman at
38:06
Speaker 2: Ironomy Ink, and he oversaw the project so Ross didn't
38:09
Speaker 2: have to worry about the quality of the construction. And
38:13
Speaker 2: then the other thing that's really amazing is that Ross's
38:17
Speaker 2: plans for Ironomy Ink are very sketchy. In terms of
38:20
Speaker 2: the bunker plan. They generally indicate where he wanted bunkers.
38:25
Speaker 2: But mcgovernent went nuts with bunkering and put one hundred
38:30
Speaker 2: and seventy five bunkers out there, which is I think
38:33
Speaker 2: probably more than any I can recall off the top
38:36
Speaker 2: of my head in any other ross course. So over
38:39
Speaker 2: the years, those bunkers got what's the word, joined up,
38:44
Speaker 2: and they you know, by nineteen ninety they were down
38:48
Speaker 2: to seventy five bunkers. And when Ron Pritchard first restored
38:52
Speaker 2: the golf course in the nineteen nineties, he rebuilt those
38:56
Speaker 2: seventy five bunkers. And then the superintendent discovered the old
39:06
Speaker 2: aerial photography of the golf course that had been made
39:11
Speaker 2: in the early thirties, and they counted and they found
39:14
Speaker 2: all these bunkers, and so they then went back and
39:17
Speaker 2: restored all of those. So now the golf course has
39:20
Speaker 2: the original count and the proliferation of one hundred and
39:23
Speaker 2: seventy five bunkers, and it's an astonishing scattering in you know,
39:29
Speaker 2: there was holes where there are bunkers one hundred yards
39:31
Speaker 2: off the tee and they put them back, and then
39:34
Speaker 2: there are others downfield. They moved them a little bit
39:36
Speaker 2: for visibility and for positioning and strategy. Where the terrainal
39:40
Speaker 2: out for this was Gill Hands and Jim Wagnerhood did
39:42
Speaker 2: this in twenty sixteen and they did a great job,
39:49
Speaker 2: and they expanded the greens back out about twenty five
39:52
Speaker 2: percent to recapture all those whole locations. So now what
39:55
Speaker 2: you have is an unusual, distinctive, an array of features
40:02
Speaker 2: which I think are among Ross's strongness that he ever
40:07
Speaker 2: actually created, and that will be the show piece for
40:10
Speaker 2: the PGA Championship.
40:13
Speaker 1: Well, in the case of the bunkers, Ross didn't necessarily
40:18
Speaker 1: even really create them. It sounds like it was JB.
40:21
Speaker 1: McGovern who is the primary influence behind this bunkering style,
40:25
Speaker 1: which is unusual in Ross's ubra. Right, That's something that
40:30
Speaker 1: makes ironomyk stick out a little bit, is that it
40:33
Speaker 1: has this kind of clustered bunkering style that has been
40:36
Speaker 1: restored by by Gil Hansen and Jim Wagner in recent years.
40:40
Speaker 1: So this gets to a kind of philosophical question about restoration.
40:45
Speaker 1: Do you restore the as built, as represented by early photographs,
40:51
Speaker 1: aerial photographs especially, or do you restore the plans because
40:57
Speaker 1: Ross's plans probably were different, right, they.
41:00
Speaker 2: Were different, but they were also incomplete. So you know, Gil,
41:07
Speaker 2: I've spent a lot of time with Gil hands on
41:09
Speaker 2: ross restorations. I worked with him at Worcester Country Club
41:13
Speaker 2: up in Massachusetts, for example, And I'll never forget this
41:17
Speaker 2: sentence that he uttered when he was you could believe
41:21
Speaker 2: this interviewing for the job. This is in twenty nineteen,
41:24
Speaker 2: like he needed to interview for a job, and we
41:27
Speaker 2: were making a presentation. I put the PowerPoint together and
41:30
Speaker 2: Gilve is just masterful in terms of explaining Ross's thinking.
41:36
Speaker 2: And the question was are you an expert on Donald
41:38
Speaker 2: are you a restoration expert on Donald Ross? And Gil's
41:42
Speaker 2: response was, I'm an expert on what Ross created here
41:46
Speaker 2: at Worcester Country Club. And it was the perfect answer
41:50
Speaker 2: because what he did at Worcester in nineteen thirteen was
41:53
Speaker 2: completely different than what he created at Aronomy in nineteen
41:57
Speaker 2: twenty eight. It's totally different than what evolved at Pinehurst.
42:02
Speaker 2: It's completely different than the strategy at Seminole on and
42:07
Speaker 2: on and on, so or Salem Country Club, Salem Country Club,
42:11
Speaker 2: which was a much more up in the Boston area,
42:14
Speaker 2: which was a much more strategic, spartan look, very few bunkers, scattered,
42:21
Speaker 2: very modestly but functionally. So you know, that's the beauty
42:29
Speaker 2: of Ross. He was site specific and Aronomy is unique
42:35
Speaker 2: in that regard. And I hope they show those areas
42:40
Speaker 2: because it really is inspiring to see those those areas
42:45
Speaker 2: by the way were taken by a Colonel Victor Dollon,
42:48
Speaker 2: who was an air enthusiastic pilot, a photographer. He was
42:54
Speaker 2: an avid golfer who lived in Philadelphia. He had a
42:56
Speaker 2: big studio, camera studio, and he mounted a camera on
43:02
Speaker 2: the bottom of a biplane and flew over golf courses
43:07
Speaker 2: all over the mid Atlantic. And the collection, now the
43:11
Speaker 2: Dollin Collection at the Hagley Museum in Wilmington, Delaware, is
43:17
Speaker 2: a major source of information for those who were interested
43:21
Speaker 2: in restoring the classic era golf courses.
43:25
Speaker 1: Oh that's neat. So he was specifically interested in golf courses.
43:28
Speaker 1: This wasn't just like a generalized survey. He was going
43:32
Speaker 1: for the golf courses and.
43:33
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, he mounted these at the bottom of
43:36
Speaker 2: an airplane. He flew over hundreds of golf courses. He's
43:39
Speaker 2: got I think the collection is five hundred golf courses
43:42
Speaker 2: or five hundred or so. Of course, he became the
43:47
Speaker 2: Commissioner of Airports for the state of Pennsylvania, but ultimately retired.
43:52
Speaker 2: And guess where he ended up living, Pinehurst, North Carolina.
43:55
Speaker 1: Of course, where else would you go? That's right, that's
43:58
Speaker 1: where we all end up in the and Bradley. I think, yeah,
44:02
Speaker 1: that's where we're that's where we're all going.
44:05
Speaker 2: But that's source of And I'll just give you another example,
44:08
Speaker 2: because I've been writing about this and I was involved.
44:12
Speaker 2: I did some restoration work at Kennett Square Golfing country Club,
44:16
Speaker 2: which is basically south southwest of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, and that
44:23
Speaker 2: was a golf course that rosted in nineteen twenty two.
44:26
Speaker 2: And we have the aerial overflies from Dollin collection which
44:31
Speaker 2: showed essentially coffins, rectangular coffins, and so we restored them
44:36
Speaker 2: to the whole golf course. So that was as detailed
44:39
Speaker 2: and as you know, it was only twenty miles away
44:42
Speaker 2: from aronom Inc. But completely different style.
44:47
Speaker 1: So right, yeah, I mean, this is what you have
44:49
Speaker 1: at the site. This is what you want to see,
44:52
Speaker 1: or at least what I want to see in ross
44:54
Speaker 1: restorations is the specificity to cite and project because everyone
44:58
Speaker 1: was different and there influences from the seconds in command
45:02
Speaker 1: as well that I think deserve to be represented as well.
45:07
Speaker 1: And so that's what we get at ironom Inc. And
45:11
Speaker 1: I think that ironom Inc. You know, in the past
45:14
Speaker 1: couple of tournaments that it hosted on the PGA Tour.
45:17
Speaker 1: It got a bit of bad luck because it was
45:19
Speaker 1: wet at both of those tournaments and the course was
45:22
Speaker 1: playing slow. And who knows what we'll get in May
45:25
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. You know, it could be the same story
45:29
Speaker 1: at this PGA Championship, which would be a shame. But
45:32
Speaker 1: if it's firm, if it's windy, it's going to be
45:35
Speaker 1: a different golf course, and I think that people will
45:37
Speaker 1: find it much more interesting than they found it in those,
45:41
Speaker 1: you know, past couple of PGA Tour tournaments that were
45:45
Speaker 1: hosted there so far.
45:46
Speaker 2: Has been very dry. It's impossible to imagine, or I
45:51
Speaker 2: should say it's astonishing to imagine Keegan Bradley and Justin
45:54
Speaker 2: Rose shooting eighteen under par yeah, as they did in
45:57
Speaker 2: the BMW Championship in twenty eighteen. You know, if there's
46:03
Speaker 2: any wind and it's firm and dry and a par
46:05
Speaker 2: seventy golf course with a one par five that very
46:11
Speaker 2: very few people will be reaching and lots of demanding
46:15
Speaker 2: four pars, you know, you could see a winning score
46:19
Speaker 2: of five six under these. You know, it's impossible to
46:25
Speaker 2: imagine how good these guys really are and what they
46:28
Speaker 2: can do. But to do that for four days is
46:30
Speaker 2: really quite something.
46:40
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf is brought to you by
46:43
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46:48
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Speaker 1: dot org. Check them out. Okay, let's get back to
48:28
Speaker 1: some reader questions here. I'd like to this. Yeah, they're
48:33
Speaker 1: good questions. The folks at Friday Golf Club are very
48:36
Speaker 1: smart about golf architecture, and so when I asked them
48:39
Speaker 1: to ask questions related to Ross, they actually get into
48:45
Speaker 1: some insights here. So these are some The next couple
48:49
Speaker 1: of questions are more about Ross's kind of career I
48:52
Speaker 1: suppose as opposed to his style. So read Pasifero asks
48:58
Speaker 1: how would you compare Ross's earlier courses with his later ones?
49:03
Speaker 1: And we can kind of pair this up with a
49:05
Speaker 1: question from my colleague Will Knights, and he asks, do
49:09
Speaker 1: you see themes or periods in Ross's career like you
49:13
Speaker 1: might for Picasso or something. So those two questions take
49:18
Speaker 1: on how you want to take them differences between early
49:21
Speaker 1: Ross and late Ross, and do you see any periods
49:26
Speaker 1: kind of in his career that you could identify.
49:30
Speaker 2: So the short answer is yes, distinctively. And I would
49:35
Speaker 2: say there are three periods which I've written about. First
49:41
Speaker 2: of all, he starts off coming off the boat from
49:45
Speaker 2: Scotland in eighteen ninety nine at Oakley and for up
49:49
Speaker 2: in Boston, and for the first fifteen sixteen years he's
49:53
Speaker 2: on his own. So his early work Worcester Country Club,
50:00
Speaker 2: for example, Rhode Island to come immediately to mind Essex
50:08
Speaker 2: County Club up in Boston. They have a kind of
50:12
Speaker 2: very distinctive random use of bunkering, lots of mounds, lots
50:20
Speaker 2: of buried debris. When he took down trees, he'd throw
50:25
Speaker 2: the trees into a pile and put dirt on top,
50:27
Speaker 2: and then they would break down over the years and
50:31
Speaker 2: create a regular mounting scattershot bunkering. Didn't think anything of
50:36
Speaker 2: pot bunkers, big long linear ones, much more random scattering
50:42
Speaker 2: of bunker shots in a more penal mode at Rhode
50:48
Speaker 2: Island Country Club, for example, where he actually used a
50:51
Speaker 2: lot of small bunkers. He's also got inverted bunkers. He's
50:55
Speaker 2: got always get confused con vex bunkering vers bunkering. Sand
51:02
Speaker 2: piled up.
51:03
Speaker 1: Like dunes, Yeah, right, like you see a garden city
51:06
Speaker 1: in Jacob.
51:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, so very random, very scattershot, very different green styles
51:15
Speaker 2: with sometimes very you know, twenty five hundred square foot
51:18
Speaker 2: greens and others seven thousand, much more scattershot. Nineteen sixteen,
51:23
Speaker 2: nineteen seventeen, he hires Walter Hatch and JB. Mcgovernors and associates.
51:27
Speaker 2: He starts developing much more sophisticated planning documentation whole by
51:33
Speaker 2: whole drawings. In twenty October nineteen twenty, he has a
51:44
Speaker 2: civil engineer in house who then converts those drawings onto
51:49
Speaker 2: blueprint grid ten yard paper, and now you've got a
51:55
Speaker 2: much more formal process. He's now becoming, after World War On,
52:00
Speaker 2: kind of the Henry Ford of mass production. He's doing
52:03
Speaker 2: fifteen twenty courses a year. He's not able to oversee
52:07
Speaker 2: everything as carefully. He's deputizing the Hatch and McGovern And
52:17
Speaker 2: you see a more strategic use of bunkering, where instead
52:23
Speaker 2: of short one hundred and fifteen one hundred and twenty
52:26
Speaker 2: on hopscotch stuff, it's a little more strategic in the corners.
52:31
Speaker 2: The bunkers get deepened and a little bit more rounded
52:36
Speaker 2: in terms of flashed up, whereas before he's using a
52:40
Speaker 2: flatter style, and that's kind of the strength of his
52:46
Speaker 2: design period where he's a little bit more spartan and
52:53
Speaker 2: a little bit more I would almost say predictable. In
52:56
Speaker 2: terms of the green size, they tend to average about
53:00
Speaker 2: fifty five hundred to sixty five hundred square feet, not
53:04
Speaker 2: as much front linear, a little more rounded. And then
53:13
Speaker 2: in his in the mid thirties, Hatch and McGovern go
53:19
Speaker 2: off on their own. There's almost no work. Ross is
53:24
Speaker 2: confined more so to the Pinehurst area. He's rationalizing the bunkering.
53:33
Speaker 2: It's much more simplified, very very few spartan bunkering Hartford
53:38
Speaker 2: Golf Club, for example, the third nine on Hartford, which
53:40
Speaker 2: Who's done in the late forties. Raleigh Country Club as
53:43
Speaker 2: well has that look as well. So what I would
53:48
Speaker 2: say is that there is a rationalization and a kind
53:54
Speaker 2: of simplification of this design over the years. I don't
53:59
Speaker 2: know if I want to break it as much into phases,
54:02
Speaker 2: because you do have these anomalous examples, aronomy being one,
54:07
Speaker 2: and then one of my favorites right down the road
54:09
Speaker 2: where I was very involved both as a member and
54:12
Speaker 2: then is on the restoration wamping on Country Club in
54:15
Speaker 2: West Hartford. Eight of the first nine holes have cross
54:18
Speaker 2: bunkers one hundred and twenty yards off the tee, and
54:22
Speaker 2: every hole on the back nine has either a cross
54:24
Speaker 2: bunker or a major water hazard for a t shot.
54:27
Speaker 2: So yeah, comes out of nowhere. So he's obviously able
54:32
Speaker 2: to break the mold at times. But generally there's a
54:36
Speaker 2: simplification and I find as early as work generally more
54:41
Speaker 2: interesting and more varied to me, Essex County Club up
54:45
Speaker 2: in the north side of Boston is one of the
54:48
Speaker 2: great examples of that.
54:49
Speaker 1: Absolutely, there's a kind of freedom in the design at
54:52
Speaker 1: Essex County Club that you maybe don't see in later
54:55
Speaker 1: ross courses. It's sort of unexpectedness of feature.
54:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then he's got these, you know, the more
55:01
Speaker 2: strategic stuff. Franklin Hills comes to mind, for example, or
55:07
Speaker 2: as a really good example, which was mid late I
55:10
Speaker 2: think nineteen twenty six. That's a great example of a
55:14
Speaker 2: very spartan use of dramatic slopes and bunkering, but not
55:19
Speaker 2: a massive proliferation of features.
55:22
Speaker 1: So right, Yeah, So in general simplification over time, I
55:27
Speaker 1: like this term rationalization, you know, almost as though he
55:32
Speaker 1: is becoming kind of more professional or restrained or elegant
55:38
Speaker 1: over time. But do you see this as I mean,
55:41
Speaker 1: is there a bit of a loss of verve in
55:45
Speaker 1: his design over time?
55:47
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, but his greens get really interesting. You know,
55:51
Speaker 2: It's like he concentrated his impact on the greens. You
55:54
Speaker 2: think about what Seminole used to be and what it's
55:56
Speaker 2: getting back to now, for example, a lot more variety.
56:00
Speaker 2: So he was absolutely a master at shaping interesting greens,
56:06
Speaker 2: and that got stronger as he went on. You know,
56:11
Speaker 2: the older work was actually simpler greens, but much more
56:15
Speaker 2: complicated bunkering to get there. It's almost as if the emphasis.
56:19
Speaker 2: You know, the equipment has changing completely by the late twenties,
56:23
Speaker 2: You've got the advent of well, early thirties steel shafts,
56:27
Speaker 2: sandwiches for example, much more reliable golf ball irrigation, consistency
56:35
Speaker 2: in the agronomy, and the maintenance. You're mowing fairways more
56:40
Speaker 2: than once a week. So that the shift in emphasis,
56:45
Speaker 2: I think it's fair to say, and I've never thought
56:47
Speaker 2: about it till just now, which is interesting. But that's
56:50
Speaker 2: that's how great this question is. I think the emphasis
56:53
Speaker 2: went from essentially t shot to approach to green in
56:58
Speaker 2: terms of where he emphas sized his impact.
57:02
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. I think that's absolutely true. Right if you
57:05
Speaker 1: if you take Essex County Club as an example and
57:08
Speaker 1: compare it to say, uh, well, maybe ironom ink isn't
57:12
Speaker 1: the best example because of how complex ironom innks bunkering
57:15
Speaker 1: schemes are. But but if you look at the green
57:18
Speaker 1: the approach to green design, the greens at Essex County
57:21
Speaker 1: Club are very interesting, and it's great that they haven't
57:25
Speaker 1: blown them up. They've just kind of kept them over time,
57:27
Speaker 1: and and so they have all these little wrinkles, little
57:29
Speaker 1: tiny wrinkles in them. They're they're very interesting, but they're
57:32
Speaker 1: not they're they're they're nothing like the style of green
57:36
Speaker 1: that that Ross built at say Franklin Hills or or
57:41
Speaker 1: or around them ink uh. They they are much simpler
57:44
Speaker 1: and and so yeah, it does seem like his his
57:48
Speaker 1: interests kind of shifted to the greens as opposed to
57:52
Speaker 1: the you know, overall layout of the holes and arrangement
57:55
Speaker 1: of hazards, et cetera. Maybe he discovered that, Okay, I
57:58
Speaker 1: can do a few things at the green that have
58:00
Speaker 1: a really big impact, and I don't need to build
58:04
Speaker 1: all this other stuff in a sense.
58:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you know, I've been writing
58:10
Speaker 2: about this for forty years, and the first time I've
58:12
Speaker 2: thought about it along these particular lines. It may also
58:17
Speaker 2: have something to do with the simplification of construction, where
58:23
Speaker 2: the process of taming the landforms and building in the
58:27
Speaker 2: bunkers became easier, so that that sort of took care
58:31
Speaker 2: of itself, whereas the process was more concentrated on the shaping,
58:36
Speaker 2: mold and crafting of those of those putting surfaces.
58:40
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, Yeah, And you could use bigger equipment too
58:44
Speaker 1: in shaping those fairway features. You weren't you were necessarily
58:49
Speaker 1: just sending men out to dig every bunker. You could
58:54
Speaker 1: use some bigger equipment for those bigger tasks and then
58:57
Speaker 1: concentrate the manual work more on more on the greens,
59:01
Speaker 1: I suppose. But a lot of interesting possibilities there for
59:05
Speaker 1: why his style evolved the way it did. Now, that's
59:09
Speaker 1: a question. The one we just we're grappling with is
59:13
Speaker 1: a question about Ross's career over time. This next question
59:17
Speaker 1: is about Ross's career over geography. Ben Dennison asks, how
59:23
Speaker 1: would you assess or rank the Ross catalog of courses
59:27
Speaker 1: by geography Northeast, Southeast and Midwest? Is there? Do you
59:34
Speaker 1: do you like to split Ross's catalog into those different geographies.
59:39
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite region of Ross? Do you
59:42
Speaker 1: think he shifted his style from region to region?
59:46
Speaker 2: Again a great question. I've mapped this out. And first
59:51
Speaker 2: of all, nobody ever talks about his workout west because
59:55
Speaker 2: right across the only cross the Mississippi River. I think
59:59
Speaker 2: twice in his life he went out.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: Is there only one Ross course in California?
1:00:02
Speaker 2: Is that the golfing country Club in San Mateo, which
1:00:07
Speaker 2: he was very interesting by the way he went out there.
1:00:11
Speaker 2: His wife Janet died in February of twenty two. Ross
1:00:15
Speaker 2: went into a funk, was kind of depressed all year,
1:00:18
Speaker 2: took a three week hiatus, got a ridiculous fee from
1:00:24
Speaker 2: negotiated a ridiculously crazy high fee from this new club
1:00:28
Speaker 2: in San Mateo called Beresford. He went out there for
1:00:31
Speaker 2: basically a month, went to San Francisco, after touring some
1:00:37
Speaker 2: courses in La laid out a golf course, went back
1:00:41
Speaker 2: and never saw the golf course and it was opened
1:00:43
Speaker 2: a year and a half later. And then he's got
1:00:46
Speaker 2: a couple of courses in Denver, one in Topeka. He's
1:00:53
Speaker 2: got Cedar Rapids nineteen fifteen, and in that's not you know,
1:01:01
Speaker 2: a couple in Texas, but very little. Anyway, The short
1:01:05
Speaker 2: answer is my favorite ross courses are built along the
1:01:09
Speaker 2: Great Lakes, along the moraine territory of Rochester, Buffalo into
1:01:20
Speaker 2: one of my absolute favorites up in Duluth, Northland. Sure,
1:01:25
Speaker 2: he was a master of using the glacial moraine and
1:01:31
Speaker 2: the terrain that had been created by the glaciers. And
1:01:37
Speaker 2: that's that's okill, that's Monroe, which is astonishing, a country
1:01:44
Speaker 2: club Buffalo with massive slopes and big washouts, all created
1:01:51
Speaker 2: by the washouts from them, the glaciers. Detroit.
1:01:58
Speaker 1: I was just gonna ask you you include Detroit in this.
1:02:00
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's Great Lakes, but but it's yeah,
1:02:03
Speaker 1: kind of part of the same geological formation that you're
1:02:06
Speaker 1: talking about.
1:02:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's my favorite. That's to me is the
1:02:10
Speaker 2: strongest consistent quality of work that he did. Skulkie has
1:02:16
Speaker 2: that quality. Beverly certainly they come immediately to mind.
1:02:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is it's I haven't thought of these courses
1:02:26
Speaker 1: as all as a group before, but he built so
1:02:32
Speaker 1: many courses in Rochester. He built so many courses in
1:02:36
Speaker 1: the Detroit suburbs and in these kind of upper Midwestern cities.
1:02:41
Speaker 1: He really kind of made a second home in this area,
1:02:45
Speaker 1: and he built some of his most kind of spectacular
1:02:49
Speaker 1: and fully realized courses on these pieces of land. They obviously,
1:02:53
Speaker 1: you know, this kind of land inspired him in some
1:02:57
Speaker 1: way or another. You know, the kind of land you
1:02:59
Speaker 1: see at at Oakland Hills and in Rochester and these
1:03:04
Speaker 1: different places. And that's it's that's really interesting. Yeah, I
1:03:08
Speaker 1: don't know if it's happenstance or or if he when
1:03:10
Speaker 1: he got a job in one of these areas, he
1:03:12
Speaker 1: just thought to himself, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna really
1:03:15
Speaker 1: throw it all at this one.
1:03:17
Speaker 2: Well, a couple of things. First of all, it's the railroads,
1:03:19
Speaker 2: so he was writing. I've documented his travels. He was
1:03:23
Speaker 2: back and forth all the time on the railroads, and
1:03:26
Speaker 2: it was an easy trip from Boston through Buffalo Cleveland.
1:03:34
Speaker 2: I have one of his itineraries. He's in Detroit on
1:03:37
Speaker 2: a Saturday morning and he wires folks up it sends
1:03:40
Speaker 2: a letter actually, or writes them up in Northland. He
1:03:45
Speaker 2: says he'll be there twenty three hours later. It takes
1:03:47
Speaker 2: some twenty three hours to go by train from Detroit
1:03:50
Speaker 2: to Duluth via Chicago and Minneapolis. But that's what he did.
1:03:57
Speaker 2: He rode the trains and he went where those who
1:04:00
Speaker 2: were and it shows and you know that if you
1:04:04
Speaker 2: think about the glacial moraine, you're creating thirty forty foot falls,
1:04:09
Speaker 2: which is what you want. By the way, one of
1:04:12
Speaker 2: the greatest of his courses that nobody ever talks about
1:04:15
Speaker 2: is Glen's Falls up in upstate New York.
1:04:18
Speaker 1: I've heard wonderful things about this course. I have not
1:04:21
Speaker 1: been yet, but it's very high on the list.
1:04:23
Speaker 2: It's where the Wisconsin Glacier ripped through and just transformed
1:04:27
Speaker 2: the landforms and created these incredible, incredible terrain, even down
1:04:35
Speaker 2: in the Bronx, New york'si WINOI very impressive in terms
1:04:40
Speaker 2: of how he routed all of his holes. The short
1:04:44
Speaker 2: holes go use the most severe terrain, the long holes
1:04:50
Speaker 2: right on top, very clear use of really beautiful rolling terrain.
1:04:57
Speaker 2: The oddity, I have to say, the oddity of raw
1:05:00
Speaker 2: is he only did one little nine hole golf course
1:05:02
Speaker 2: on Long Island. Everybody else was making hay there and
1:05:06
Speaker 2: he did North Fork Country Club. It did the front
1:05:12
Speaker 2: the original nine holes, which was then capped off by
1:05:15
Speaker 2: nine holes by Devereux Emmett in the twenties, but he
1:05:19
Speaker 2: was there in nineteen twelve nineteen thirteen fairly early on.
1:05:22
Speaker 2: Never did another one. So the short answer is the
1:05:25
Speaker 2: Great Lakes district is really strong to me. Obviously, he
1:05:30
Speaker 2: did a lot of work in the Carolinas, in the
1:05:33
Speaker 2: mountains as well, all through on very different terrain, the
1:05:36
Speaker 2: sand hills of Pinehurst. Those courses obviously very strong, but
1:05:42
Speaker 2: didn't have as much of the interesting terrain as you
1:05:45
Speaker 2: had with the glacier.
1:05:47
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I think I agree. Now that you
1:05:51
Speaker 1: have grouped those Rochester and Buffalo courses together with the
1:05:55
Speaker 1: Michigan ones and the Chicago ones, that does kind of
1:06:00
Speaker 1: and you know, highlight this this corpus of golf courses
1:06:03
Speaker 1: on similar terrain where where ross really seemed to seem
1:06:08
Speaker 1: to thrive. So the next question here is is kind
1:06:11
Speaker 1: of a fun hypothetical. I'm not I'm not sure where
1:06:14
Speaker 1: you're gonna go with this. I'm not sure where I
1:06:17
Speaker 1: would go with this, But justin McCarthy refers to, you know,
1:06:22
Speaker 1: the story that has been told from time to time
1:06:24
Speaker 1: of the handshake deal between Bobby Jones and Donald Ross
1:06:27
Speaker 1: to to build Jones's ideal course after Jones's retirement. In
1:06:33
Speaker 1: other words, Ross, you know, perhaps was Jones's first idea
1:06:38
Speaker 1: for an architect for Augusta National, and Justin goes on
1:06:43
Speaker 1: to say this all changed after after Jones lost early
1:06:47
Speaker 1: in the US Amateur at Pebble and decided to go
1:06:50
Speaker 1: see Cyprus while he was out there, which ultimately convinced
1:06:53
Speaker 1: him that doctor Mackenzie was the guy. Justin asks what
1:06:58
Speaker 1: would a Donald Ross version of a Gusta National have
1:07:01
Speaker 1: looked like? Would it too closely resemble Ross's work on
1:07:04
Speaker 1: the other side of Rays Creek at Augusta Country Club
1:07:08
Speaker 1: or do you think Ross would have created something equally special.
1:07:13
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any truth to this story, so
1:07:17
Speaker 2: I'm not seeing a piece of evidence, a reference. I
1:07:21
Speaker 2: don't believe a word of it. Ross was already at
1:07:26
Speaker 2: Augusta Country Club. He had done the eighteen holes, he
1:07:30
Speaker 2: was director of Golf, he had occasional job there where
1:07:34
Speaker 2: he was the resident pro. He was spending time there.
1:07:40
Speaker 2: I can't imagine that Augusta at Clifford Roberts would have
1:07:46
Speaker 2: hired the guy next door to build a golf course.
1:07:49
Speaker 2: So I don't see any evidence for it.
1:07:53
Speaker 1: Do you think there was ever a backup plan to
1:07:54
Speaker 1: Alistair mackenzie at all? See, because I'm not sure that
1:07:58
Speaker 1: Jones even had it in his mind that he, you know,
1:08:03
Speaker 1: what this course would be until he was aware of
1:08:05
Speaker 1: Alistair McKenzie.
1:08:06
Speaker 2: Well, someone want to ask Jim Nantz if he could
1:08:10
Speaker 2: ask Fred Ridley why they never paid Alistair McKenzie. You know,
1:08:15
Speaker 2: they stiffed him on his feet. I think McKenzie was
1:08:18
Speaker 2: supposed to get ten thousand dollars. They only paid him
1:08:20
Speaker 2: two thousand. He got pissed off.
1:08:21
Speaker 1: Fine. He was begging for it, McKenzie. He was sending
1:08:25
Speaker 1: letters saying, please pay me.
1:08:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he sends what's her name, the great female golfer.
1:08:33
Speaker 1: Marion Hollands.
1:08:34
Speaker 2: He sends Marion Hollins to finish the golf course and Ross,
1:08:38
Speaker 2: I mean McKenzie never saw the finish or a finished
1:08:42
Speaker 2: You never saw the golf course after mid nineteen thirty two.
1:08:46
Speaker 1: So, in other words, Ross dodged a bullet here.
1:08:49
Speaker 2: But I still think that's my first take on it.
1:08:53
Speaker 2: I think there's very little air to that story.
1:08:56
Speaker 1: But yeah, I haven't I haven't seen any good I
1:08:59
Speaker 1: think Lee Pays written about it before. I'm not sure
1:09:01
Speaker 1: what his conclusions were, but this is certainly more of
1:09:05
Speaker 1: an urban legend than it is an established historical fact.
1:09:09
Speaker 1: But the thought experiment is still perhaps perhaps interesting, perhaps not.
1:09:15
Speaker 1: Do you think Ross's approach to routing Augusta National would
1:09:19
Speaker 1: have been different from Mackenzie's. Do you think his stylistic
1:09:22
Speaker 1: approach would have been different than Mackenzie's? And how well?
1:09:27
Speaker 2: It's a great question. And now that I think about it,
1:09:30
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of a golf course that Ross
1:09:34
Speaker 2: did where the routing overwhelmed everything. That's the beauty of
1:09:39
Speaker 2: Augusta National. It's high point to high point, it's across.
1:09:42
Speaker 2: You're playing across these big drop offs. You're sweeping down
1:09:47
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty feet on the tenth hole used
1:09:52
Speaker 2: to be the first hole.
1:09:53
Speaker 1: It's such a different, difficult property to rout too, you know,
1:09:57
Speaker 1: I mean, I you know, Ross's built courses on all
1:10:00
Speaker 1: sorts of different sites, but one that is as severe
1:10:03
Speaker 1: and difficult and it poses the kind of challenges but
1:10:07
Speaker 1: at the same time opportunities as Augusta National. It's hard
1:10:10
Speaker 1: to think of one that Ross worked on that was
1:10:12
Speaker 1: like it.
1:10:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, and it's interesting when you think about
1:10:16
Speaker 2: the original design. I think Mackenzie understood that because the
1:10:20
Speaker 2: land was so dramatic, he only needed twenty four bunkers
1:10:25
Speaker 2: to make it work, and so Ross himself. Northland is
1:10:35
Speaker 2: the only golf course I know of, and I'm sure
1:10:39
Speaker 2: the readers are smarter than this will figure one out.
1:10:43
Speaker 2: But Northland is one of those up unto the loof
1:10:45
Speaker 2: overlooking Lake Superior. It's one of those few golf courses
1:10:49
Speaker 2: where the routing. When I say overwhelmed, that's the wrong word.
1:10:53
Speaker 2: I don't mean swamps it. It is the story. The
1:10:57
Speaker 2: whole story of Northland is that incredible routing where it
1:11:00
Speaker 2: just climbs up and then descends and gives you this
1:11:04
Speaker 2: long view along the way. So that's more along the
1:11:09
Speaker 2: lines of what augusta national pain. So I don't know
1:11:15
Speaker 2: what he would have created had he had that opportunity.
1:11:21
Speaker 2: You know, if you look at the land next door
1:11:23
Speaker 2: where he augusta country club which has a very beautiful,
1:11:28
Speaker 2: elegant flow to it. It's a non returning golf course,
1:11:32
Speaker 2: essentially a link style. It's all basically paired off double
1:11:37
Speaker 2: fairways it was going to be a real estate on
1:11:40
Speaker 2: that There was real estate on the other course that
1:11:42
Speaker 2: Rainer had designed, But that's sort of marching up around
1:11:47
Speaker 2: back up along a creek bed to eight and then
1:11:51
Speaker 2: circling back. But it didn't have the scale and the
1:11:57
Speaker 2: width and the horizontal drum that Augusta had. So right,
1:12:05
Speaker 2: you know, I guess one of these days this might
1:12:09
Speaker 2: be a good article for I can think of another
1:12:14
Speaker 2: publication that to debunk the myth of ross Augusta Country.
1:12:23
Speaker 1: Hey, National, Look before every single masters, I ask myself,
1:12:27
Speaker 1: is there anything else that I can say about this
1:12:30
Speaker 1: golf course and its history? And perhaps this is an
1:12:33
Speaker 1: angle that that that needs to be taken one of
1:12:37
Speaker 1: these years. All right, moving on to the capstone question.
1:12:41
Speaker 1: The last question that I have for you, Brad, from
1:12:44
Speaker 1: from our readers. This is from Dan Grigg.
1:12:48
Speaker 2: Let me just say this, by the way, I think
1:12:50
Speaker 2: fried Egg has become the leader in architectural judgment and criticism,
1:12:56
Speaker 2: and the fact that you have these quality, this quality
1:13:00
Speaker 2: of questions is testament to that I reluctantly concede that
1:13:07
Speaker 2: a new form of social media might have overtaken classical
1:13:11
Speaker 2: long form print. In this regard.
1:13:13
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would call us, And we
1:13:15
Speaker 1: don't feel super new anymore. We feel like kind of
1:13:18
Speaker 1: old guys at this point. But that's very very nice
1:13:20
Speaker 1: of you to say, Brad, of course, And yeah, it's
1:13:24
Speaker 1: the it's our readers are the ones who kind of
1:13:28
Speaker 1: inspire the stuff that we do and enable us to
1:13:31
Speaker 1: do what we do. And uh, yeah, they're they're they're
1:13:34
Speaker 1: extremely an extremely smart and savvy bunch, and so we're
1:13:38
Speaker 1: just trying to keep up with them.
1:13:40
Speaker 2: As one of the last long form dinosaurs of old pros.
1:13:45
Speaker 2: I have to concede, you guys are doing a great job.
1:13:49
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. All right.
1:13:52
Speaker 1: Question from Dan Griffith, what aspect of the industry has
1:13:55
Speaker 1: been most heavily influenced by Ross? So the modern industry
1:14:01
Speaker 1: has been influenced by Ross, and he says in parentheses,
1:14:04
Speaker 1: more so than by his contemporaries. So, in other words,
1:14:08
Speaker 1: when you think of Ross's influence on the industry, is
1:14:12
Speaker 1: there a particular aspect of today's industry that you think
1:14:17
Speaker 1: Ross has had a particularly important role in shaping.
1:14:24
Speaker 2: So the first thing I would tell you is that
1:14:27
Speaker 2: I think the aspect of The industry that's been most
1:14:30
Speaker 2: neglected is routing. So it's a reverse answer or an
1:14:36
Speaker 2: inverse answer. I think that modern architecture should pay more attention,
1:14:43
Speaker 2: and Ross was blessed with the ability to take a
1:14:48
Speaker 2: unified piece of land and use it. It's much more
1:14:50
Speaker 2: difficult now. I understand that because of wetlands, regulations, housing,
1:14:55
Speaker 2: the economy, and the temptation to utilize large equipment to
1:15:00
Speaker 2: solve topographical issues. In Ross's day, they weren't moving fairways,
1:15:07
Speaker 2: they weren't leveling sight lines. You had to and if
1:15:13
Speaker 2: you didn't like the way the piece of land worked,
1:15:16
Speaker 2: you had to go next door to another farm and
1:15:18
Speaker 2: find another one hundred and sixty acres. You don't have
1:15:20
Speaker 2: that latitude now, so I think that the art of
1:15:24
Speaker 2: routing has been lost in a lot of modern design.
1:15:30
Speaker 2: That's one thing. So that's a different answer. The area
1:15:35
Speaker 2: that's been most influenced is probably the importance of turf
1:15:38
Speaker 2: grass and turf grass selection and mowing heights and adaptable grasses.
1:15:44
Speaker 2: Because he was an inveterate researcher. The front of the
1:15:50
Speaker 2: pine needles not pine needles, what's the pine crest? The
1:15:55
Speaker 2: holly in He used the land between the holly in
1:16:00
Speaker 2: what is now that Givens Memorial Library, that was a
1:16:04
Speaker 2: test lab for turf grass for putting greens. Because you know,
1:16:09
Speaker 2: people don't realize Pinehurst did not get grass greens until
1:16:14
Speaker 2: the nineteen thirty six PGA Championship. Right all through the twenties.
1:16:20
Speaker 2: This is astonishing. All through the nineteen twenties and into
1:16:24
Speaker 2: the early thirties, golfers at Pinehurst were playing on sand greens.
1:16:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is why I like to say sometimes, you know,
1:16:32
Speaker 1: sort of provocatively, maybe not entirely accurately, but there's some
1:16:36
Speaker 1: truth to it that Pinehurst number two is the nineteen
1:16:39
Speaker 1: thirties golf course, you know, the greens where the greens
1:16:43
Speaker 1: represent the state of the Donald Ross art by the
1:16:47
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties. They don't represent nineteen oh seven.
1:16:50
Speaker 2: No, that's exactly right. So and he wrote about this
1:16:53
Speaker 2: in the program. I have a copy of the original
1:16:56
Speaker 2: program for the thirty six PGA, and he talked about
1:16:58
Speaker 2: the importance of long irons and quality of putting grasses
1:17:05
Speaker 2: and the importance of turf to presenting a challenge. And
1:17:10
Speaker 2: he spent a lot of time trying to get Bermuda
1:17:16
Speaker 2: grass to sustain itself through the winter, and to get
1:17:21
Speaker 2: Italian rye and other overseated grasses to make them work
1:17:25
Speaker 2: on that golf course. So he was a real experimenter
1:17:29
Speaker 2: in turf grass quality, and he worked hand in hand
1:17:33
Speaker 2: with his superintendent Frank Maples, who was also his construction foreman,
1:17:39
Speaker 2: who became himself very important all through the construction and
1:17:45
Speaker 2: maintenance of the courses throughout the Carolinas in making sure
1:17:49
Speaker 2: that those grant because the hard part of the South
1:17:53
Speaker 2: was the weather extremes. You know, East Lake for years,
1:17:56
Speaker 2: for example, had two sets of greens. It had winter
1:17:58
Speaker 2: greens and summer greens, with completely different grasses. And when
1:18:03
Speaker 2: you have winter greens and summer greens in a small space,
1:18:06
Speaker 2: the quality of the putting surfaces are compromised. So it
1:18:09
Speaker 2: wasn't un till those were unified in the forties and fifties,
1:18:13
Speaker 2: probably in the fifties, that you've got what we think
1:18:17
Speaker 2: of as the modern version of East Lake, for example.
1:18:20
Speaker 2: So what I would say is that Ross himself he
1:18:23
Speaker 2: was you know, after all, his mentor was Old Tom Morris,
1:18:29
Speaker 2: and he was superintendent at Dornich, and he came over
1:18:32
Speaker 2: and the primitive conditions pre irrigation of turf quality and
1:18:36
Speaker 2: grounds in the United States did not allow for much
1:18:40
Speaker 2: of what we now celebrate as the ground game. So
1:18:45
Speaker 2: to get those proper conditions, he was really a master
1:18:49
Speaker 2: maintained of the importance of getting firm, draining, well growing
1:18:56
Speaker 2: soils and grow well growing grasses. And I think that's
1:19:01
Speaker 2: probably his biggest quiet legacy, if you will, that yeah,
1:19:06
Speaker 2: has transformed the industry.
1:19:07
Speaker 1: There's a whole strain. Yeah, there's a whole strain in
1:19:11
Speaker 1: Golden Age architecture in general where where these architects were
1:19:15
Speaker 1: contributing more to the science of turf grass than than
1:19:19
Speaker 1: anybody remembers, partly because it's so boring to read about.
1:19:23
Speaker 1: You know, you read the you read the you read
1:19:25
Speaker 1: the books by these guys, and you just want to
1:19:28
Speaker 1: skip the chapters chapters about grass.
1:19:31
Speaker 2: I've got all of those old turf grass books from
1:19:36
Speaker 2: Oakley and Piper and Horace Hutchinson.
1:19:38
Speaker 1: For example, incredibly tedious material. It's much more interesting to
1:19:43
Speaker 1: read about, you know, strategic golf and and those kinds
1:19:47
Speaker 1: of things. But to them, the most important stuff that
1:19:51
Speaker 1: they were writing was about turf grass because that they
1:19:54
Speaker 1: were really trying to figure this out and it was
1:19:57
Speaker 1: that they were there at the kind of begin of
1:20:01
Speaker 1: agronomic science for golf, and so certainly a legacy of
1:20:06
Speaker 1: Ross's that shouldn't be forgotten. Let me give you let
1:20:10
Speaker 1: me give you a take here about Ross as a
1:20:13
Speaker 1: golf architect and his legacy, and see if you agree
1:20:16
Speaker 1: with it. I'm not sure if I fly buy into
1:20:18
Speaker 1: this entirely myself, but I think Ross was really important
1:20:23
Speaker 1: in presenting a figure of a professional golf architect that
1:20:30
Speaker 1: other people then imitated. A lot of architects of Donald
1:20:35
Speaker 1: Ross's era kind of styled themselves as gentlemen, amateurs, right.
1:20:41
Speaker 1: This was just something that they did in their free time,
1:20:44
Speaker 1: and they took it seriously. But it wasn't a profession.
1:20:49
Speaker 1: It explicitly wasn't a profession. For somebody like George Thomas.
1:20:53
Speaker 1: Donald Ross very much styled himself as a professional, and
1:20:59
Speaker 1: he built so many courses. He optimized the number of
1:21:04
Speaker 1: courses that he was able to build by taking the
1:21:08
Speaker 1: train and by designing his business in a way that
1:21:11
Speaker 1: a golf architecture business hadn't really been designed before and
1:21:17
Speaker 1: after him, people like Robert Trent Jones picked up on
1:21:22
Speaker 1: that model. They looked at Donald Ross. I think the
1:21:26
Speaker 1: mid century American golf architects looked at Donald Ross. And
1:21:30
Speaker 1: while they didn't necessarily imitate his design style or even
1:21:34
Speaker 1: all of his working methods or his business practices, I
1:21:38
Speaker 1: think when they imagine themselves as a professional golf architect,
1:21:42
Speaker 1: they imagined somebody like Donald Ross, and that is a
1:21:47
Speaker 1: big aspect of Ross's influence. Does that resonate with you
1:21:51
Speaker 1: at all?
1:21:52
Speaker 2: No, it's you know, it's amazing. I have to say
1:21:55
Speaker 2: our conversation is making me think about stuff. I've been
1:21:58
Speaker 2: writing about it for forty years and thinking about it
1:22:00
Speaker 2: completely differently now for the first time. You're absolutely right
1:22:05
Speaker 2: if you think about the difference McDonald, CB McDonald and
1:22:12
Speaker 2: George Thomas weren't getting.
1:22:14
Speaker 1: Paid, right, They in a way they didn't want to
1:22:17
Speaker 1: be paid in the way that Bobby Jones didn't want
1:22:20
Speaker 1: to be paid because there was something there is something
1:22:23
Speaker 1: about that that would have been ungentlemanly.
1:22:26
Speaker 2: Right, And they were wealthy enough, and they also wanted
1:22:28
Speaker 2: to preserve amateur status. That has a little bit to
1:22:31
Speaker 2: do with USGA rules amateur status. But you're absolutely right.
1:22:37
Speaker 2: Ross professionalized the trade with his use of his design
1:22:41
Speaker 2: associates with Walter Irving Johnson, his draftsman, with Eric Nelson,
1:22:45
Speaker 2: the secretary, with the contract, with the procedures, the plans,
1:22:51
Speaker 2: the charging, the sequencing of visits. They turned it into
1:22:55
Speaker 2: a business where they were stamping out golf courses. And
1:22:59
Speaker 2: it's not a mistake that the American Society of Golf
1:23:03
Speaker 2: Course Architects is formed at Pinehurst in nineteen forty seven.
1:23:06
Speaker 2: Its first honorary president is Donald Ross. Robert Trent Jones
1:23:10
Speaker 2: was one of thirteen members in attendance, and he certainly
1:23:13
Speaker 2: styled himself became more of an aggressive business person. But
1:23:19
Speaker 2: you know, those were tough days and the architect there
1:23:22
Speaker 2: were very few architects who actually survived the depression and
1:23:26
Speaker 2: came out on the other side.
1:23:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jones. Jones was the one. You know, he'd fought
1:23:32
Speaker 1: and scrapped and figured out how to how to make
1:23:34
Speaker 1: a business out of it, and he.
1:23:36
Speaker 2: Starved during the thirties. Oh yeah, it's clear from that
1:23:41
Speaker 2: wonderful book.
1:23:43
Speaker 1: That Jim Hanson, by the difficult part, Yeah, recommended to
1:23:47
Speaker 1: everybody who's interested in golf architecture. It's a really, really fine,
1:23:51
Speaker 1: fine home.
1:23:53
Speaker 2: So the people who you know, very few people managed
1:23:56
Speaker 2: Bith William Flynn didn't really get very far afterwards. Stanley
1:24:01
Speaker 2: Thompson was died in the early fifties. Dick Wilson was
1:24:05
Speaker 2: one of the few who survived and made it, But
1:24:08
Speaker 2: was Jones who modeled himself. You're right after that practice,
1:24:13
Speaker 2: and that's that was the forming of the American Society
1:24:18
Speaker 2: of Golf Course Architects. But it was also the way
1:24:20
Speaker 2: in which they went about training because as you said,
1:24:25
Speaker 2: I don't know if I call them gentlemen, both of leisure,
1:24:29
Speaker 2: because their their their life choices were a little bit
1:24:35
Speaker 2: questionable in terms of their indulgences. But guys like McDonald
1:24:39
Speaker 2: and telling has for who squandered a fortune, died broke, penniless, depressed, miserable.
1:24:50
Speaker 2: They they didn't know how to manage their own business.
1:24:53
Speaker 2: They never had to, whereas Ross came up from working
1:24:56
Speaker 2: class background, so did Trent Johns. Of course, yeah, because
1:25:01
Speaker 2: they had to create something from scratch. They weren't born
1:25:04
Speaker 2: with anything to start with. So they understood the value
1:25:09
Speaker 2: of hard work and saving and money and efficiency and
1:25:13
Speaker 2: in their construction methods as well, you know. So I
1:25:18
Speaker 2: think it's a very interesting point that the professionalization starts
1:25:22
Speaker 2: with the model that Ross created with his use of associates.
1:25:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that that perspective on golf architecture as a
1:25:32
Speaker 1: profession almost required somebody like Ross who was fighting to
1:25:37
Speaker 1: make a living. You know, he didn't have hereditary wealth.
1:25:41
Speaker 1: He was an immigrant. He arrived in this country and
1:25:47
Speaker 1: immediately started to work his way into relate the relationships
1:25:52
Speaker 1: that would allow him to turn this into a sustainable profession.
1:25:57
Speaker 1: And his innovation in creating a living for himself very interestingly,
1:26:04
Speaker 1: I think ended up ended up essentially creating golf architecture
1:26:08
Speaker 1: as a professional practice.
1:26:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. And he was lucky enough that his clients just
1:26:12
Speaker 2: lined up outside his office there in Pinehurst. You know,
1:26:15
Speaker 2: he had an office above what's now the pro Shop
1:26:18
Speaker 2: overlooking the putting green that was his main office, and
1:26:23
Speaker 2: his clients all came there, they visited him, they stayed,
1:26:27
Speaker 2: and he had an incredible portfolio that he developed through
1:26:33
Speaker 2: that presence.
1:26:36
Speaker 1: Well, it's an amazing life. Yeah. Ross's life is remarkable.
1:26:42
Speaker 1: I'd recommend that anybody and everybody read about him, and
1:26:47
Speaker 1: in reading about him, they will encounter your work, Brad.
1:26:50
Speaker 1: The book Discovering Don Ross has been a very influential
1:26:53
Speaker 1: one in my understanding of the history of golf architecture,
1:26:58
Speaker 1: and you've written many other things about him as well.
1:27:00
Speaker 1: Anything that we should keep an eye on from you
1:27:04
Speaker 1: in the coming months here.
1:27:07
Speaker 2: So in the spirit of self promotion, I think Mike
1:27:12
Speaker 2: Hannigan of the USGA once said, if you don't have
1:27:14
Speaker 2: a conflict of interest, nobody takes you seriously in the industry.
1:27:18
Speaker 2: You know. Obviously I've written the biography Discovering Donald Ross.
1:27:22
Speaker 2: It's hard to imagine, but it came out in two
1:27:24
Speaker 2: thousand and one, right and I've sold out the book completely.
1:27:30
Speaker 2: I can't the printing is exhausted. It's now available on
1:27:35
Speaker 2: eBay for ridiculous amounts of money. Oh, I've gotten my copy,
1:27:39
Speaker 2: so I'm glad you do. But I'm proud to announce,
1:27:43
Speaker 2: through an arrangement with back nine Press, that going I'm
1:27:49
Speaker 2: doing now in a twenty fifth anniversary edition. We are
1:27:53
Speaker 2: calling it Rediscovering Donald Ross, and it's going to be
1:27:57
Speaker 2: that book plus a considerable amount of new material over
1:28:01
Speaker 2: the last twenty five years of restoration and the evolution
1:28:05
Speaker 2: of design and what's happened with Ross courses. So I'm
1:28:08
Speaker 2: putting that together now. We hope to have that book
1:28:10
Speaker 2: available for pre order through a back nine Press by
1:28:14
Speaker 2: the end of the year.
1:28:15
Speaker 1: Excellent. Back nine Press is doing a lot of great stuff,
1:28:19
Speaker 1: publishing a lot of excellent authors, and so people should
1:28:22
Speaker 1: just check out their offering in general. But I will
1:28:26
Speaker 1: definitely keep an eye eye out for rediscovering Donald Ross.
1:28:29
Speaker 1: This is the first I've heard of it, so that's exciting.
1:28:32
Speaker 2: It's the first and then I've ever announced it, so
1:28:35
Speaker 2: I'm using your platform.
1:28:36
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm glad to serve that purpose for you. Brad.
1:28:40
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and
1:28:42
Speaker 1: answering these questions and we'll have to talk to you
1:28:44
Speaker 1: against him.
1:28:45
Speaker 2: And thanks to your readers for their intelligence and their
1:28:49
Speaker 2: goggedness at this. It'll make for it just makes some
1:28:54
Speaker 2: more interesting golf. And the one I will say this,
1:28:57
Speaker 2: I do think that architecture is not just some esoteric
1:29:01
Speaker 2: pursuit of the courses on the list on the top hundred.
1:29:04
Speaker 2: It's also about enjoying your game and learning and mastering
1:29:09
Speaker 2: the shots and having more fun and playing better. So
1:29:12
Speaker 2: there's an instructional element to design that I've spent a
1:29:18
Speaker 2: lot of time trying to explain.
1:29:21
Speaker 1: Well to me. Learning things about somebody like Donald Ross,
1:29:27
Speaker 1: like the fact that there was that line outside of
1:29:29
Speaker 1: his office in Pinehurst actually makes playing his courses more
1:29:33
Speaker 1: fun and more rich and that's h Yeah, that's absolutely
1:29:37
Speaker 1: the point of what we're doing. So thanks for contributing
1:29:40
Speaker 1: to that.
1:29:41
Speaker 2: Well, it's been an honor, and you know, I'm glad
1:29:44
Speaker 2: you guys are doing what you're doing and we're just
1:29:47
Speaker 2: trying to have some fun hacking around at golf.
1:29:52
Speaker 1: Thanks Gret. This episode of Designing Golf was produced by
1:30:02
Speaker 1: Will Balsom. Thank you. Will. Something to check out at
1:30:06
Speaker 1: the Frida Egg Golf Pro Shop is our Donald Ross
1:30:11
Speaker 1: in North Carolina poster. It's a really cool poster made
1:30:15
Speaker 1: by our own Cameron Hurtis that shows Donald Ross's golf
1:30:21
Speaker 1: courses in North Carolina. And he obviously did a ton
1:30:24
Speaker 1: of amazing work in North Carolina and this poster is
1:30:28
Speaker 1: sort of a tribute to that. It looks really cool
1:30:30
Speaker 1: and it gives you the location of Ross's courses in
1:30:35
Speaker 1: that state. So make sure to check that out at
1:30:37
Speaker 1: the Frida Egg Golf Pro Shop. That's pro shop dot
1:30:40
Speaker 1: thefridagg dot com. It's a great way to support our company.
1:30:44
Speaker 1: If you've been enjoying our content. Going to the pro
1:30:47
Speaker 1: shop and picking something up is very very much appreciated.
1:30:52
Speaker 1: All right, thank you for listening, and we'll be back
1:30:54
Speaker 1: again soon with another episode Happen