WEBVTT - The Controversial Beginnings of Royal St. George’s 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Hello, and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:06.840 Morrison and today's episode is brought to you by rap Sodo. 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:10.840 So let's talk about the rap Sodo Mobile Launch Monitor. 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:15.000 This thing represents a major evolution in personal launch monitors. 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:18.119 It's very portable. The case is about the size of 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.159 your rangefinder case and you can take it with you 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:24.320 to the driving range, connect it to your smartphone, and 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.840 it provides instant data about your shot distance, clubhead, speed, 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:32.360 launch angle, all that stuff. It even records stats, video 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:35.960 and shot tracer for you. Basically, the mobile launch monitor 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.960 makes it so that you're not just mindlessly hitting balls. 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:42.400 Instead you're actually tracking what you're doing. And on top 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:45.680 of that, it's very accurate. We're talking within two percent 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:49.239 of launch monitors that cost fifty times as much. If 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:51.680 you use our code fried Egg at checkout, it's an 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.040 even better deal. You can save fifty dollars on the 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:58.080 Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor. So go to rapsodo dot com. 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:03.800 That's r ap sd dot com, slash Frida Egg, use 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.880 the code Frida Egg at checkout and get pro level 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:11.600 launch data in the palm of your hand. I think 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:13.600 I need to do a bit more of a fleshed 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:17.399 out intro here than we usually do. So Bob Crosby, 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.720 my guest today, is a golf historian currently working on 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.360 a book about John Lowe. Lowe was one of the 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.319 most influential figures in golf from the eighteen nineties to 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:30.280 the nineteen twenties. He was a writer, a golf course designer, 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.240 a golf course critic, and a major force on the 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.560 RNA rules Committee. He was basically everywhere. And Bob has 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.360 actually been on this podcast before to discuss John Lowe. 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.959 We did an episode towards the end of twenty nineteen, 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:47.480 and then another one that was part of the History 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.840 of the golf Ball series that we did last year, 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:53.880 and so if you've listened to those episodes, you'll know 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.560 that what makes Bob's work about John low so great 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:00.280 is that he gives a sense of not only who 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.120 low was and what he did, but also of the 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.800 overall picture of the debates around golf in that period, 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:11.480 debates about rules, about technology, and about golf courses. And 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.200 we're still essentially having the same debates today. So I 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.280 thought Bob would be a great person to talk to 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.400 about the early history of royal Saint George's Golf Club, which, 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:23.440 as you probably know, is going to host the twenty 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:27.280 twenty one Open Championship next week. Early in its life, 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.560 in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, Royal 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:33.240 Saint George's looked a lot different than it does now, 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.440 and it was pretty controversial. The course became part of 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:41.119 these intense golf world debates that Bob Crosby writes about. Now, 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.120 neither Bob nor I has looked super closely into the 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.800 architectural history of the course. We know the basics, but 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.040 I'm sure you could find a more detailed account of 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:55.240 that elsewhere. Our basic intention here was to each of 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.280 us do a little research on our own, then come 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:00.519 together and discuss it. So this is really kind of 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.600 a collaboration between me and Bob more than an interview. 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.800 We just wanted to team up and tell a story 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:10.120 about Royal Saint George's in its early days, talk about 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.040 where the course started, how it was truly a product 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.560 of its time, and then why it evolved into what 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.880 it is today. All Right, let's get to it. Here's 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.160 Bob Crosby and me on Royal Saint George's. I miss 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:23.480 a green. 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.240 For example, I'm already upset. 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.640 When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:29.680 And when I find my ball in a fried egg 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.760 Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida egg Frida egg, 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.360 Brian egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:36.840 to run off the golf course. 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:04.040 The original architect behind Royal Saint George's was a gentleman 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.760 by the name of doctor Laidlaw Purvis. Bob, could you 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:09.840 tell me what you know about Purvis? 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.840 Purvis was a prominent doctor in London. I want to 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.120 say he was an i ear nose and throat doctor 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:21.599 who made some breakthroughs and treatments of various kinds. Purbos 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.560 grew up in Scotland and learned to play golf in Scotland, 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.120 and he was a fairly accomplished golfer. From his home 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:32.680 base in London, he decided to build his own golf course, 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:37.080 formed the Royal Saint George's Club, and part of what 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:41.440 he wanted to do there was a very distinct idea 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.559 about how hazards on a golf course ought to work, 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:47.839 and that's what he built there. He built one of 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.800 the early and one of the most classic Victorian golf 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.600 courses in the world at the time, although there were 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:59.120 others that were to a lesser degree quote Victorian, but 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.159 Royalt George has always stood out among everyone at the time, 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:07.440 as at least in its early iterations, as a classic 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.640 Victorian golf course for a lot of reasons. One was 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.760 the prevalence of cross hazards. Some of those were water, 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.960 some were most rabunkers, some were just rough areas. But 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.960 it was thought to be at the time one of 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.479 the most challenging golf courses in the world. 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:28.719 And a lot of people will be surprised to hear that, 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.440 given the current form of the course doesn't look much 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.719 like how it's described early in its life. It was 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.919 built in eighteen eighty seven, eighteen eighty eight, and it 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:43.080 evolved tremendously over the next forty years or so, and 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.560 then indeed after that. But before we get into some 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.839 of the specifics of Royal Saint George's architectural history, which 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:55.400 is very interesting when you say Victorian golf architecture, when 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.320 you talk about the Victorian kind of philosophy of golf 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.920 course design, what generally do you mean. 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:07.280 The theory of Victorian golf architecture was a well articulated, 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:11.159 sophisticated theory of how a golf course ought to be designed. 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:15.440 I think the clearest expression of that was made by 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.160 Horace Hutchinson. It was in eighteen ninety in one of 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:24.360 the Golfing annuals. The key concept in Victorian golf architecture 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:29.279 is whole distance. The notion is that holes should be 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.479 built at such a distance that it requires two well 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:34.560 executed shots. In the case of what we would call 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.720 to day par fours, it would take two well executed 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.520 shots to get to the green. If you didn't execute 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.640 either one of those shots well, you would not be 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.800 able to reach the green. Hence the importance of distance. 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.840 The problem they had to deal with, though, was before 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.360 fairways were irrigated, people could hit top shots that would 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:57.920 roll out as far as a good shot and they 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.080 could reach the green even though one of their shy 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.640 was terrible. So the solution that they came up with 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.640 was cross hazards to catch top shots. And that was 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:12.040 really the genesis of the proliferation. And I'm using proliferation 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.560 understates how often cross hazards were used in Victorian golf courses. 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.680 But that's where they came from. On the flip side 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.680 of that is that any well hit ball, more or 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:29.400 less straight would engage no hazards whatsoever. Fairways were very wide. 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.240 There were very few wing bunkers around greens, on the 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.120 theory that all good shots should be warded and all 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:40.720 bad shots should be punished. Bunkers around greens were set 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.920 away from the greens, sometimes twenty thirty yards, on the 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.880 theory that a good shot should have at least come 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.240 close to the green and should be left alone. A 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.040 bad shot that misses the green by some wide margin 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.360 ought to be stuck in a bunker. It's the theory 0:07:55.400 --> 0:08:00.360 of golf architecture that's bathed in concerns about equity. Every 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.840 shot deserves a certain sort of outcome depending on the 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.240 quality of the shot. That was the theory that Hutchinson 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:11.520 laid out. It's one that was followed by with remarkable 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:16.840 amount of unanimity by everybody at the time. Literally thousands 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.560 of golf courses were built, mostly in England but also 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.520 in America during the eighteen nineties and into the first 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:27.720 decade of the twentieth century following those precepts, and that 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.240 it was so convincing to so many people for so 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:34.599 long is a testament to the influence of a Victorian 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:39.840 moralistic worldview. In other words, every aspect of your life 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:44.400 in Victorian England had a moral component, and golf was 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:48.320 no exception. All shots in golf, good or bad, should 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:53.120 deserve their outcomes. It's a theory of golf architecture that 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.360 actually still has many adherents. It hasn't entirely gone away. 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.320 Oakmont was built as a Victorian golf course and it 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:04.320 still is. I mean, the whole notion that any bad shot, 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:09.880 phones would say deserves eternal punishment is a very Victorian idea. 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:12.439 I would note in passing that Oakmond is one of 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.520 the few great courses in America that has had no progeny. 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:19.520 For that reason, I suspect, But yes, it was the 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.360 theory of golf architecture that was very much of its age, 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:23.400 of its time. 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.640 So to give a more specific idea of what this 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:31.479 might have looked like when someone thought through the principles 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:36.520 of Victorian golf architecture point by point, we actually have 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.840 a portion of an article from Laidlaw Purvis, the designer 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:45.040 of Royal Saint George's from I believe eighteen ninety and 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:50.280 he gives fourteen design principles. I won't read all of them, 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:53.520 but I'll go to a couple of them just to 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.160 give an idea of how kind of far he pushed 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:02.000 this philosophy. So Umber five is that holes should be 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.920 one or more drives in length. This means there are 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.679 no short par threes, as we call them now. In 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.280 other words, the shortest holes should be as long as 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.920 a good driver drives the ball. 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.760 A critical piece of the theory, the groundwork on which the 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.040 rest of the theory is built, that you need to 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.319 hit full shots well. 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.240 And furthermore, I get the sense and correct me if 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:28.439 I'm wrong that there are a few holes at the 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:31.680 original Royal St. George's that were one drive in length, 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:33.840 and at that time that would have been what you know, 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:35.719 one hundred and seventy one hundred and eighty yards or 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.640 something like that. But Purvis seems to have gone to 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.920 an effort to make sure that there weren't many holes 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.040 where a good player would drive the ball well and 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.400 then have a short approach. He was trying to find 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.880 holes where you would drive the ball well and then 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:56.400 your approach would be another drive. Basically, another long shot, 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.360 And so he was trying to find lengths of holes 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:03.079 where if it wasn't one drive, then it was two drives, 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:05.600 and if it wasn't two drives, then it was three drives. 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.839 He wasn't looking for those in between distances. 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:13.400 A critical component of Victorian golf architecture was exactly that, 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.520 multiples of full shots on various holes. And let me 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.800 just add it occurred to me when I was doing 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.199 some work on this, well, well, if that was true, 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.600 why did they like Saint Andrews so much? And it 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:28.400 turns out the reason they liked Saint Andrews so much 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.960 is they thought it was among the links courses, the 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:34.200 one that had the most holes of the correct distance. 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:34.880 Right. 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:39.240 It wasn't the funky bunkers on the road hole, it 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.800 wasn't Strathbunker, it wasn't all the things we now love 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.439 about Saint Andrews. It was that the whole links, with 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.760 some exceptions, were the right length. That's why it was 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:49.760 a great golf course. 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.320 And it was long for the day, it was the longest. 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:55.440 It was longest of all the links courses in the 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.000 open road of at the time. Yeah. 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.000 Yeah, if you see Horace Hutchinson right out Saint Andrews 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.800 in the early eighteen nineties in his book called Famous 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.120 British Links. It goes by a few different titles and 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:09.360 went through a few different editions, but it's a book 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.280 that's available on Google Books. Anybody can read it. That 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:14.440 is the way, That is exactly the way that he 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:17.120 talks about Saint Andrews. This is a nice long course. 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.200 You know, you have to hit two full drives to 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.880 get to most of the holes, and you know, more 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:23.960 full drives to get to some of the other holes. 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:28.000 And he's just noticing things about the old course that 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.640 we no longer notice or think are important. Of course, 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:34.360 things have changed because of technology. But his objection to 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:36.719 the old course in that book, in fact, is all 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.200 what he calls the banks and brays, in other words, 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:41.680 the undulations of the course, which is one of those 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:45.040 things now that we love about it. And so it is. 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:48.480 The Links courses were their models, but for totally different reasons. 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.920 Exactly, yeah, exactly. I mean you read those pages and 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.240 you start yelling at Horace. You say, Horace, you're missing 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.640 the best part of this golf course. What do you think. 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:02.000 Yes, we mentioned Horace Hutchinson a few times. Maybe we 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:05.040 should maybe we should explain briefly who he is. 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:09.600 Horace Horace Hutchinson was one of the major figures in 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:12.160 golf in the last couple decades of the nineteenth century 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.960 and into the twentieth century. He was a prominent golfer, 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:19.559 but he wrote prolifically and was one of the spokesman 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:24.280 for Victorian type golf architecture. But he wrote on all 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:28.080 sorts of topics, and he appeared frequently in magazines and 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:32.760 wrote several books. Interesting speaking of Victorian architecture, he wrote 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.840 a book called The Golfer's Progress, which was based on 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.920 The Pilgrim's Progress, which was the most popular book in 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:44.120 the nineteenth century other than the Bible. And it's the 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:48.640 story of a fellow who goes through various tribulations to 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:53.400 reach golf Mecca. Not unlike the Pilgrim's Progress, where I 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:56.440 think his name is Silas goes through various tests to 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:00.839 reach a higher level of virtue in Christianity. I mean, 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:05.840 it's just imbued with religious concepts, and Victorian golf architecture 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:07.959 is also is similarly imbued. 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:12.760 Yeah, makes it makes golf in a game a moralistic. 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:14.040 Enterprise, deeply moralistic. 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:20.760 Yess So a few other excerpts from Laylaw Purvis's design principles. 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.160 He goes on to say that safe lies should be 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:26.280 obtainable by all classes of drivers, but all should have 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:30.640 hazards to negotiate to obtain these lies. And when he 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.440 says all, he means every time you get a good lie, 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.240 you should have to negotiate a hazard. You're getting the 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.320 sense I think here of how repetitious these courses could be. 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.840 You know, there are certain standard lengths, and every shot 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:47.800 should be subject to many of the same hazards and challenges. 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:50.920 There should be a hazard. This is number eight. There 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.600 should be a hazard from every tee, the carrying of 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.920 which gives an advantage cross bunkers. 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:03.160 Cross bunkers. Every shot needs to be an airborne, presumably 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:07.720 well hit shot to carry the cross bunkers. Part though, 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.240 of the theory of Victorian architecture is that if you 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:12.920 do that, you're in pretty good shape. You've got a 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:18.320 wide open fairway, fairly flat terrain, and you should have 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.600 you know, obviously you're in a good position to hit 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:24.880 your next quote full shot. John Lowe had a great 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:30.720 description of those golf courses. He called them gardens of inaccuracy. 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:34.880 In other words, if you could carry the bunkers, you 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.880 could hit it pretty much anywhere. The fairways on those 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:41.560 courses were typically extremely wide. I'm talking sixty to ninety 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:45.720 yards wide in a lot of cases. But the key 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.200 test for everybody was whole length number one and number 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:51.920 to carry the bunkers and if you or the hazards 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.280 sometimes it was water. If you could do those two things, 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.160 you really shouldn't engage the golf course that much. It 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:00.920 was just a matter of executing shots. 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.040 Yeah. And one of the things that I think we're 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:08.160 starting to get close to right here in this philosophy 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:12.120 is how easy these courses suddenly become for good players. 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.240 Right if you're a player who's able to get the 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:20.120 ball lofted, then you know these courses might become somewhat boring. 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:25.000 They commit what we today consider the high send of 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:29.640 golf architecture, which is their easiest for the good player, 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:32.640 and they're the hardest for the bad player. Part of 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:37.120 the revolution of strategic golf architecture, maybe fifteen or so 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:42.120 years later, is they reverse that that good architecture should 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.760 be the most challenging for the better players, and should 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.760 be easier for weaker players if they so elect to 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.080 play the golf course, you know, in a conservative way. 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.720 So, just to give a couple of more samples from 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:58.960 these design principles, Number ten is when any hazard is 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.400 carried again, lies should be obtained again. You see this 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.800 kind of mechanistic. If you carry the hazard, you should 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.000 get a good lie. There's a perfect sort of rigid 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:14.000 fairness to every shot. Number twelve is there should be 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:19.159 a bunker in front of every green which cannot be 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:23.520 avoided without the loss of distance and risk in front 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:24.439 of every green. 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:28.879 It yes, I mean we chuckled, and I think he 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.840 lived up to the motto. But I would let me 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:35.280 just note that the that the original maidenhole the sixth 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.720 in its original iteration. It's all gone now, But in 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.439 the original iteration you had to carry a thirty or 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:46.439 forty foot dune. This is a part three thirty to 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:51.359 forty foot dune. Beyond that was a slit bunker. So 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.240 he lived up to his motto. This is this is 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.280 a green that although you had to carry a sixty 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.520 ft forty foot dune, you still had to carry a 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:03.160 bunker in front of the green. It was a terrifying hole. 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:05.359 You can still get a sense of it by going 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:08.560 at to real Saint George's and the angle of the 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:10.720 shot now is different, but you can sort of get 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:12.640 a feel for what the way it used to have been. 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.240 Basically, you can stand in the middle of the fifth 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.280 fair way right exactly and looked toward where the sixth 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.960 green currently is. Right you go straight over the tallest 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.560 dune in that area of the course and that's what 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:26.159 the Maiden Hole used to be. And it was a 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:30.600 world famous hole, but it only lasted for twenty years about. 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:32.480 Can I give you a quick story about the origins 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:37.160 of the name. Absolutely, the name was was got from 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:41.439 a medieval torture device called the iron maiden, and it 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.000 was a device that they put on people's heads, I think, 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.080 and they would basically ratchet it down until it got 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.159 tighter and tighter and tighter, and you told whatever you 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:54.679 are confessed, whatever religious sin you needed to confess. But 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:56.440 it was it was a medieval torture. 0:18:56.160 --> 0:19:00.320 Device, and so that was the that was the tended 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:01.359 effect of the golf. 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:01.960 Hole, and it was good. 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.920 The golf course was meant to be a torture TSK yes, right, 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:08.160 and there were a number in the original Royal Saint 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.080 George's there were a number of other one shot holes, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.800 these one drive holes right around one hundred and eighty 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:18.560 to two hundred yards that carried these big hazards dunes 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:22.240 or big waste areas and were blind from the tee, 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.399 and all of those have been changed or eliminated in 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:27.919 the current version of the course. 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.280 There was a Sahara bunker that's gone. There's a big bunker. 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:33.280 Then the third or fourth hole you still have to carry. 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:35.800 The fourth hole, there's a big bunker you have to 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:37.720 carry off the tee. The third hole was used to 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:39.520 be the Sahara hole. That's no longer. 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:41.560 That's no longer there. And then you still have to 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:43.399 carry there's a par five in the back what is it, 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.080 fifteen fourteen the Suez you have to carry, which is 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.680 basically a muddy creek in front of the green. 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:50.240 Right. 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.359 But most of most eighty five percent of them were gone. 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.359 So there's some vestiges of those old carry hazards, but 0:19:57.119 --> 0:19:59.479 they're not really a big part of the course anymore. 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:01.359 And they were certainly a huge part of the course 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:05.560 early on, and a reason why it was respected and 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.880 feared early on. So the final design principal number fourteen 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.440 from Purvis kind of sums up a lot of it. 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.760 He says, a typical hole is one having a hazard 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.280 from the tee requiring a fair shot to carry it, 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.280 a hazard for the shot through the green, the carrying 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:24.479 of which hazard makes the player, and a drive into 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:27.280 the putting green carrying the hazard in front of it. 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:30.560 Where each of these shots is properly played, a good 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:34.440 lie should be obtained. That's pretty much it. A carry 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.920 hazard off the tee, a carry hazard on the approach. 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.080 If you make the carry, you should have a good outcome. 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:44.920 Whether the original Royal Saint George's really lived up to this, 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.560 I don't know. We can talk about that. I think 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.320 the wildness of the terrain sort of got in the 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:54.200 way of these principles being perfectly embodied by the course. 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.679 But certainly there was an attempt to put these hazards 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:01.440 in the way of players on a consistent I have. 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:04.000 Seen some drawings of what must have been close to 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.159 the original golf course, and it did live up to 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:11.480 those ideas. It was just replete with crossbunkers that just 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.679 lacerated the golf course. All over the place. Now, all 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.200 those they tended to be tamed down. It must have 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:21.840 been a miserable golf course for a bogie golfer to play, 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:27.120 who literally or almost literally every hole would have feared 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.359 and trembled about being able to carry whatever the drive 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.040 cross hazard was, and whatever the cross hazard was in 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:36.399 front of the green. It couldn't have been fun to 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:38.200 play for a weaker golfer. 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.240 So, now that we've gotten an idea of the Victorian 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:48.600 philosophy of golf architecture, how does this philosophy contrast with 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:52.040 that of John Lowe and the strategic school? Could you 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:54.119 get just give me a kind of a primer for 0:21:54.640 --> 0:22:00.200 what the strategic school is in opposition to the Victorian mindset. 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:02.399 Let me come at that with a story about the 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:06.800 old course in circa nineteen well eighteen ninety nine, and 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:09.760 then they added some bunkers, and then they added more 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.320 bunkers in nineteen oh four over the winner of four 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:15.560 to five. John Lowe was involved in both of those. 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:17.720 He was on the rules committee at the time and 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:21.440 also for part of that time on the Green committee. 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:25.439 There were proposals at the time because a lot of 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.439 the gorse to the right side of the outward nine 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:33.040 had been trampled down and died, and which made the 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:38.200 right side of the outgoing holes very, very wide. So 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:40.280 there was a feeling at the time that we need 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:45.240 they needed to narrow those holes. One of the proposals 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:49.640 was classically Victorian, let's just build a lot of cross bunkers, 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:53.000 and there were a lot of people that thought, well, 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:56.520 of course, that's what we do. I like to think, 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:58.920 although the record is spotty, I like to think that 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:01.280 my man low was the one that stood in front 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.320