WEBVTT - The Evolution of the Old Course 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.800 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:04.920 I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:05.880 And when I find my. 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:08.960 Ball in a fried egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:11.920 Frida Egggggrid Egg, Bride Egg. 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.080 Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump course. 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.120 Hello and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.320 is Garrett Morrison, and today we're talking about the evolution 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.280 of the Old Course at Saint Andrews. With the Open 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:47.080 Championship at the Old Course for the thirtieth time this week, 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:49.199 we thought it would be fun to dig into some 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.640 of the deep history of this place and it might 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.280 surprise you to find out how different the course was 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.400 in its early days and why it eventually took on 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.720 the form that it has today. My guest is Bob Crosby, 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.080 who has been on the podcast a couple of times before. 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.399 Bob is a golf historian. He's working on a book 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.559 project about John Lowe, a major figure in the golf 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.640 world of the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.480 and my and Bob's discussion touches on some of the 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.720 very important contributions low made to the design of the 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.120 old course at a critical juncture in its history. But 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:26.160 our discussion also just sort of ranges through time and 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.440 gives a general picture of the way the old course 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.440 has changed over time. All right, let's get to it. 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.880 Here is me and Bob Crosby on the evolution of 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:43.280 the old forms. We have just kind of gotten through 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.520 the first round of this year's Open Championship. In fact, 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.960 it's still going on as we record this. Bob, did 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:51.480 you catch any of the action this morning? 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:56.480 Very briefly, I do note that the course is playing 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.760 awfully dry and awfully firm, which is absolutely wonderful. 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:02.360 Yeah, delight to see the ball running along the ground 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:03.480 like it like it does. 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:06.200 I think a lot of people took a lesson from 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.640 Tiger Woods at Hoyle Lake, which has hit two irons 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:09.160 off tees. 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.239 We're seeing a good amount of like load trajectory shots 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:15.359 today from the players who can pull those off, which 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.080 is nice. So we were going to dive a little 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:22.760 bit into the past of Saint Andrews. You know, most 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.600 of our discussion is going to revolve around the Saint 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.440 Andrews of the eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, but 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:31.680 I want to make clear upfront that a lot of 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:35.840 what we're going to discuss is significant for today's discussion 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.920 and understanding of the course as it's probably going to 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.600 play out over this Open Championship. I think we'll hear 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:45.320 a lot of similar debates about the course and whether 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.040 it's obsolete or not, what kinds of changes should be 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.840 made to it or not. So just to put that 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.799 out there up front, this discussion of Saint Andrews as 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.080 it was in its you know, kind of not early days, 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.880 but it's middle days, is I think directly relevant to 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:07.359 what's going on right now. So let's rewind a couple 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.760 of hundred years and just talk about what Saint Andrew's 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:16.360 looked like before, say eighteen fifty, Like in the first 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.480 half of the eighteen hundreds, I think people will be 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:24.080 surprised to hear what the course was like before it 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:26.320 was widened. So tell me about that. 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:31.240 The course until about eighteen, I want to say, eighteen 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:36.760 fifty six or something like that was a single corridor 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:43.480 hole out and back. You played the same same holes 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:47.600 on the outward side and then back towards the clubhouse. 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:53.920 The outward nine that we play now was added gradually 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:58.800 over about fifteen years starting about eighteen fifty, and work 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.880 on it will continue to until about eighteen seventy. That 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.440 outward that what we now play is the outward nine, 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.080 was called the time the field course because it was 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:15.680 basically carved out of winds and gorses gorse on that 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:19.159 side of the fairway. It was very, very wild. For example, 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:26.000 what's now the second green was a thick batch of 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.039 winds and gorse that was burned off about eighteen sixty 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.680 five or eighteen seventy to create that green, which gives 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.360 you a sense of the kind of work they had 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.359 to do to build at the same time they built 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.000 the current first hole, but also it gives you a 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:43.440 sense of the kind of work they had to do 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:47.159 to clear the way for the second, third, fourth, and sixth, fifth, 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:53.280 and sixth holes. They really were all new holes. The 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.320 current back nine is essentially the same are essentially the 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.640 same whole corridors and frankly the same bunkering as the 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.200 original pre eighteen fifty course. 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.840 So well, first of all, winds, you've mentioned those a 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:10.880 couple of times. What are those? What are winds? 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:18.159 Winds is thick wispy grass that if dense enough is 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.200 literally impossible to hit out of and or impossible to 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:26.440 find your ball in. I've lost many balls and winds. 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.280 Gorse is a very nasty animal, which is lots of thorns. 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:33.919 I don't recommend even if you see your ball in 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.200 a gorse bush, don't reach him to grab it. 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:36.640 Will rip. 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:39.640 This happened to me a couple of times. You'll rip 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:41.799 your glove off and gash your hand. 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:44.479 Yeah, yeah, I forget about playing it. You shouldn't even 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:45.320 try to retrieve it. 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.760 You shouldn't even try to retrieve it is. It was 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:54.440 just basically unmaintained natural vegetation in the area that they 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:58.360 had to that they had to I think apparently from 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:00.200 what I understand, they burned a lot of it all off, 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:05.159 but probably they took crude farm implements also and cut 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:05.599 it back. 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:10.760 And I want to make sure that people picture this specifically. Basically, 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:15.479 the old course was half of today's corridor of the 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:19.000 old course. You know that the back nine half of 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:24.800 it with this impenetrable vegetation essentially on either side where 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.599 you'd lose a ball, And so the essence of the 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:31.560 old course as a kind of wide playground that you know, 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.280 that's how we met imagine it today, was just completely 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.279 the opposite in this era. That changed in the middle 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:41.960 of the eighteen hundreds. And can you tell me a 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.200 little bit about why it changed. Why did they do this? 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.120 Well, they did it because of the volume of play, 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:50.360 at least that's what the reports say, is that the 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.320 volume of play was so high, and it was golf 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:56.599 was growing so quickly in the last half of the 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.799 nineteenth century that they needed some way to leave the traffic. 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.839 And so the idea of building a different set of 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:08.440 whole corridors to relieve that traffic, I think was a 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.960 natural solution. Part of that though obviously, and this is 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:15.640 unique to the old course, they didn't build new greens 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.400 for those holes, the new holes, well, with a couple 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.200 of exceptions, they did. They essentially expanded the old greens, 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:26.040 right words, to accommodate the new holes. And so now 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:29.960 most of the greens that august at excuse me, at 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:33.840 the old course are massive, absolutely massive, but they have 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:37.040 retained these wild contours that still come into play in 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:38.800 terms of how you approach the greens. 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:43.760 And this was done essentially to make play go two directions, 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:47.360 you know, to to enable people to play the course 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.560 on the outward nine and the back nine at the 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.480 same time, instead of having to you know, run into 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.000 each other on the way back as or on the 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.760 way out as they would in a previous era. 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.200 Yeah, that's right, and you tend to for you know, 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.760 we all tend to laud the Old Course as the 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.240 sort of mother of modern golf architecture. We can get 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.080 to that in a minute, but it's important to remember 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:15.920 that before they expanded the course, it was a very narrow, tight, 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.120 tough course with lots of what would have been carry 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:24.200 bunkers you had going out the wall and the rail 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:26.920 line on the left side. On the right you had 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:33.200 basically unattended rough area, and it was it would have 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:34.600 been a very very tough course. 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.120 Yeah, and pretty long for the area, which we can 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:40.200 talk about as well, which is funny to think about 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.520 now with all of these pros driving half of the 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.960 par fours on the course. But in any case, the 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:52.240 Old Course became wide in the middle of the nineteenth 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:57.160 century essentially, And did this have something to do with 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.760 the introduction of the guta percha ball and the way 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.319 that that popularized the game and you know, made more 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.079 people want to go out and play or do those 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:06.400 timelines not quite match up? 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.160 Yeah, I don't. That might take is slightly different. I don't. 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.560 In the stuff I've looked at, I don't see many 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.600 references to the nature of the golf ball as having 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:21.440 an effect on what they did. They needed to build 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:25.240 a separate outward set of holes that ran parallel to 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:29.040 the original inward nine. They did that because of play 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:33.959 on the golf course. I don't think, and the authorities 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.280 I read aren't clear on this. I don't think that 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:42.480 outward nine was particularly wide. Initially. It got to be 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.800 wide because of the volume of play and the fact 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.360 that the gorse and the winds on the right side 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:52.360 of those holes was, as Horace Hutchinson said, trampled down, 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:58.680 and that became a problem. It was viewed as, as 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.960 one commentator put it in eighteen ninety one, a paradise 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:03.079 for while driving. 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.560 So essentially they thought, like the more that you trample 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.280 down the winds and the gorse, the less of an 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.680 emphasis is put on accurate driving of the ball. 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:21.280 Exactly the the the the whole defense on the right 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.120 side of the outward holes was that gorse, and that 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:28.160 and those wins and once they appeared to have disappeared, 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:33.240 that defense was gone by the way. The the other 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.680 the other factor in the trampling down of those winds 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.400 and gorse was the construction of the new course, which 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.000 ran parallel to a number of the outward holes. So 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.920 you would have had players on two courses, trampling down 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.199 the wins and the gorse on the old course, And 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:51.400 that became by the late eighteen nineties, or at least 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.080 it was perceived to be a very very big problem. 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.640 So we're into the eighteen nineties at this point. One 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.880 thing that happens in the teen eighties and nineties is 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.760 that people really start to write about golf and golf 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:08.920 courses at a higher rate than they did in the 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.280 decades before. At least from what I've seen right, there's 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:15.559 not a whole lot of golf literature that even really 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.640 exists before the eighteen eighties. There's a little bit, you know, 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.600 you can find references here and there. But eighteen eighties 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:25.440 eighteen nineties, suddenly there's entire magazines devoted to golf. And 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.440 perhaps this has to do with the rising popularity of 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.959 the game in Britain at the time. It's making its 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.240 way down to England, making its way down to England 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.559 from Scotland, and so perhaps that has something to do 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:42.040 with this kind of print explosion. But when that writing 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.400 about golf really starts to take off, what is your 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.960 understanding of what people thought, what these writers thought of 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.000 the Old Course and why they thought it was good. 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.000 If they thought it was good. 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:56.199 The curious thing about the writing at the time and 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:00.240 by the time, I mean, let's say eighteen ninety, is 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.440 that the Old Course was considered the best course in 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.280 the world, not so much because of the reasons we 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.120 think of today, which is this interesting arrangement of bunkers 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.400 and other architectural features, but for the old Victorian reasons 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:18.319 that the length of the holes were such that they 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:22.200 required full shots, and it was at the time one 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.840 of the longer courses. But the reason people thought it 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:30.440 ought to be the primary rotor course for the amateur 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:32.720 and the open at the time was for that reason 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:38.560 that the holes required full, well executed shots to reach 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:40.400 greens in the regulation number. 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.560 Yeah, and you see this specifically in the writings of 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.120 Horace Hutchinson, who was would you say he was the 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:51.360 best known golf writer of the late eighteen eighties and 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.440 early eighteen nineties. Was he the pre eminent golf writer 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:55.160 of that time? 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.040 Yeah, yeah, Garrett, I guess so. I mean he did 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.160 an awful lot of right, you know, you had though 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:06.160 a lot of other figures that chimed in as well. W. 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:11.000 Laid Law Purvis was a very cantankerous guy, with strong, 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.960 sharp elbows about views. He was a classic Victorian golfer 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:20.880 who believed in very rational, predictable rules. He was the 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.240 first person to formulate what he took to be a 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:28.199 scientifically designed golf course, which is what we would now 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:32.120 consider a classic Victorian golf course with cross bunkers at 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.040 intervals here and there and that sort of thing. 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.360 And he was behind Royal Saint George's. When we talked 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.520 to you and I talked about Royal Saint George's in 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.760 its early days, that was sort of representative of Purvis's principles. 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.920 The first iteration of Royal Saint George's was almost the 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:51.640 definition of a Victorian golf course. But Hutcheson was important too. 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.240 I mean, he had won the Amateur twice I think 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.880 early in the eighteen nineties. He was a prolific writer, 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:01.079 was actually one of the first proponents Ofvictorian architecture. He 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.800 lated changed his mind, but he said laid law purposes 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:11.240 ideas embody the quote Procrustian axioms of golf architecture, which 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:12.760 will live forever? 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.280 The Procrustian axioms. 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:18.080 Right, the Procrustian axiom. 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:20.560 I know what axiom means, but I'm not sure I 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:22.000 know what Procrustian means. 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:26.400 I think it means basically timeless forever, going back to 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:27.320 the Greek era. 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.480 Something perfect. Yeah, I mean this is sort of how 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.480 Hutchinson writes too. But you know something that's striking about 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.920 Hutchinson's writing about golf courses in the early eighteen nineties. 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.840 I'm thinking of his book Famous Golf Links in particular, 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.000 where he has an extended description of the old course. 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.440 And you realize two things as you go through this 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.560 description of the old course. One is that he's describing 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.080 what we would now call the reverse routing. You know, 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:56.720 you sort of get that if you holds in, it's like, 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.200 oh okay, so that you know the out of bounds 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.240 are the the course is on the left as he's 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.120 describing it here, So all the famous holes that you're 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:07.400 thinking he's going to get to he just doesn't get to. 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.200 And then the other thing you realize is that what 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:12.560 he likes about the course and what he doesn't like 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.320 about the course are just sort of the opposite of 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.600 what many people like about the course or don't like 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.200 about the course today. What he liked about the course 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:24.160 was its length, as you said, you know, nice full shots. 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.560 There's you know, all the holes are the right length 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.200 where you you know, you have to have a full 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.480 stroke with this or that club, and it really tests 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:35.000 your ability to hit the full shots and make those carries, 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.560 et cetera. What he doesn't like about the course is 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:41.360 all the random what he calls banks and braves, the undulations. 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:43.360 So he was not a fan of the kind of 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.120 chaos of the old course, which is something that most 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.240 people today sort of embrace about it and think of 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:50.080 as part of its. 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:54.840 Charm al A central tenet of Victorian golf architecture, and 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.520 a tenant still debated today, is the role of luck 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:03.640 and chance in golf architecture, and the Victorians were absolutely adamant, 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.160 adamant that luck and chant should be eliminated in a 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.680 golf course to the extent possible. We still argue about 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.600 that today. I think I might even argue that there's 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.640 nothing new we ever argued about in golf that doesn't 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:21.080 find an echo somewhere back in the eighteen eighties eighteen nineties. 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:25.080 But that's that's coming from a historian's perspective. 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:27.200 For heaving, well, I think you're right, and it's not 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:31.320 surprising given the volume of writing about golf and discussion 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.720 about golf that was produced during this era. They had 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:39.080 seemingly time and room enough to talk about nearly everything, 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.880 and so it's tough to compete with their sheer output. 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.400 And let me just make a quick note, the volume 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:52.360 of writing was prodigious, but it is absolutely fantastic writing. 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:57.120 These guys were well educated. They had classical they studied 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:03.160 Latin and Greek. Their language sentences are eloquent, and they 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:08.840 it really repays reading. There is a prejudice among people 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.440 that are interested in golf that any debates that took 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:16.400 place that far back in time can't possibly still be relevant. 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:22.159 They are profoundly So just pick up the stuff you 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.040 haven't been skipping over and not reading and read it 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:27.560 because it's absolutely fascinating stuff. 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.760 Yeah, agreed, All right, So we were talking about their 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.680 ideas about architecture. Okay, Horace Hutchinson had kind of representative 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.760 ideas of the time about the old course. It was 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.560 a good length. I'm not sure about the undulations, but 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:42.960 you know, you have to take a lot of full swings, 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.800 so it's a good course. A very strange way to 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:49.920 view the old course and something that we don't quite 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:55.120 recognize now. But within about fifteen years the most popular 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.159 way of thinking about the old course definitely shifted. And 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.720 could you just tell me about that shift and why 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:04.639 you think it happened. 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:10.960 Let me begin by saying that about ten or so 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:14.800 years ago I had a series of conversations with Peter Lewis, 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.480 who I want to thank for plining me in the 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.760 direction of a lot of things and for the things 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:22.560 he has written in things he's found. 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.240 I'd highly recommend if I can interrupt Why eighteen Holes? 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.919 His book Why eighteen Holes? Yeah, excellent, you know you can. 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.399 It's pretty easily accessible, I believe, and fantastic account of 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.240 why we have eighteen holes on golf courses now. There's 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:39.520 some really interesting history there. 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.320 Which won the Herbert Warren Wind Award from the USGA 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:44.320 for the best Book of the Year. So I was 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:48.919 a co winner that year is absolutely worth finding and buying. 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:51.760 But Peter and I began a series of discussions, and 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:54.680 the discussions were triggered because he called me at some 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.879 point out of the blue by what I think is 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:00.359 one of the most interesting questions in the hit history 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.960 of golf, which is, how did the old course get 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.679 so good? Spoiler alert. I don't have a great answer 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.920 for that. But if you think it got so good 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:14.679 because a bunch of sheep dug out burrows to protect 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:17.200 themselves from the wind in the rain, I've got a 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:19.879 bridge for you in Brooklyn that you might be interested 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:20.359 in buying. 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.879 That's sort of the romantic idea, right. People are just like, oh, 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.000 it's a completely natural you know, just the bunkers are where, 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.400 you know, they dug it out, and yeah, it's there 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:32.520 was a little more human intervention than that, wasn't there? 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:35.720 There was a lot of human intervention. No one knows 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.879 that history better than Peter Lewis, and Peter doesn't know. 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.000 So I don't pretend to know. How did the road 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.440 hole get so good? I don't know, and nobody does. 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:49.119 How did the edenhole get so good? We don't know, 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.720 but it is there are remarkable holes. I mean, I 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:55.560 have a theory that maybe some of it was put 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:58.960 together by Scottish gentleman there on the scene who thought 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.879 wagering was really important, so they wanted holes with potentially 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:08.160 catastrophic outcomes that would settle bets. That's but that's pure speculation. 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.679 Somebody designed those holes and they are lost to history. 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.560 Having said that about some of the better holes and all, 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:18.680 you know, a lot of those tend to be on 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:23.840 the inward nine. The outward holes. The newer holes were 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:27.399 ones that we know a little bit more about. Peter 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:30.639 was able to uncover and he gets I want to 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.639 give him full credit for this, the story of I 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:39.119 think it was seventeen bunkers that were added to the 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:44.080 outward holes in nineteen hundred. I can go into as 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.280 much detail about that as you want. He wrote a 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:50.080 wonderful article about that in Through the Green a decade ago. 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.639 But the idea at the time was that because of 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.800 the because of the absence of gorse and winds on 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.359 the right side of those holes, as we talked about earlier, 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:04.080 they've been trying by multitudes of golfers that they needed 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:08.680 to do something to protect erratic play on that side 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.159 of the golf course. So the decision was made to 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:18.240 build about sorry about seventeen bunkers on that side of 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:23.119 the course. That is not well known and there was 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.320 a very little commentary about it at the time, but 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:30.600 it is notable that a special committee was formed at 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:34.480 the time to look into the possibility of building those bunkers. 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.480 A twenty nine year old John Lowe was on that committee, 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:42.200 that special committee. His good friend Freddie Tate, who would 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:45.800 die about a year later, was on that committee, and they, 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:48.640 along with the rest of the committee, helped set out 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.200 those bunkers on the right side of the outward holes 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.920 that's risked really just to the second hole through the 0:21:55.880 --> 0:22:00.160 sixth hole. Their plan also included the addition of three 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:04.760 or four bunkers on eight and nine. Nito was called 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:06.880 the end hole. They wanted bunkers in the end hole. 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:11.160 What's interesting to me, and this sort of follows through 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:17.760 the other large bunker building epoch five years later, was 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.560 that what they were trying to do in nineteen hundred, 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:23.959 and they were doing more of it again in nineteen 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:30.240 oh five, was to make the hole those holes quote harder, 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.720 but and this is the interesting twist here they wanted 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:38.800 to make it harder because players were complaining that the 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:42.320 best approach into the greens was from that old trample 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.440 down gorse. In other words, a ball hit down the 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.360 middle of the second fairway, it was not where ideally 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.760 you wanted to be. You wanted to be over in 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.439 what used to be the gorse. So while they're talking 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:59.200 about making the course harder, I want to argue that 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:03.720 it was John Low's brilliance to figure out what was 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:07.840 really going on here and to use that's those sorts 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:10.600 of concepts as the basis for a whole new way 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:14.640 of thinking about golf architecture. That is to say, if 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:18.040 you were trying to put bunkers in the places where 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:20.560 you would ideally want to hit a drive to make 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:24.040 the next shot easier, maybe that ought to be a 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:28.880 principle around which you use that you use to place bunkers, 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:33.360 Maybe that's exactly where they ought to be. Those bunkers 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:36.280