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A little over forty years ago, when my father was designing Hazeltine, he was acutely aware that players such as Jack Nicklaus, then in his prime, were already capable of overpowering a golf course.
The clients' expectation at Hazeltine was from the beginning that their new course should challenge the world's best players in tournament conditions. Concern that improved skills and equipment were rendering courses obsolete was even then not a new one. The gutta percha ball, and then the Haskell ball, had already performed the dual service of: a) reducing the costs of balls, and b) letting even players of modest skills enjoy the pleasure of a towering tee shot. (People may enjoy holing a long putt, and great players know that putting separates the winner from the aspirant, but the weekend player, who may hope for nothing grander than an occasional round in the 80s, still takes the greatest pleasure in the well struck drive.)
My father attempted to confront the challenge of the long driver by experimenting at Hazeltine with a design approach emphasizing sharply angled doglegs, thereby imposing a limit on length off the tee. The line of play was still important, but distance off the tee would ultimately be bracketed by a stand of trees, water or bunkers on the far edge and near edge of the dogleg, and the longest hitters were thus deprived of their automatic advantage. Simply hitting it longer wouldn't yield significant benefits.
This was not a popular solution, and Nicklaus commented, when I saw him at the championship dinner in 1970, that the golf course was blind. I told him that he wouldn't probably play well here because he could not embrace a course he didn't like. He obviously didn't agree but that's essentially what happened and subsequently, he didn't earn the championship. Hazeltine did resist low scores, especially during the second round of the first major championship held there, the 1970 US Open, when Nicklaus shot 81, Gary Player 80, and Dave Hill, who shot 75, made his famous crack about Hazeltine lacking only "80 acres of corn and a few cows." During that second round, the wind was much stronger than anyone expected at that time of the year in Minnesota.
There were many treeless, wind-striped prairie holes to balance the wooded and lake holes. Hazeltine was then only 8 years old, an infant by championship golf course standards. So the tough driving strategy built into the design, combined with difficult weather, showed scorecards recording Muirfield-like numbers. The course was suitable for Tony Jacklin, the first British player to win the U.S. Open from after World War II onward to begin his illustrious career.
The change in reporting for medal play ensured with the TV era that was highlighted at Augusta National with The Masters and its scoreboards to help patrons. The TV people enjoyed the graphic shorthand of the scoreboard which allowed it viewers to quickly grasp the situation course wide and its' announcers to move on. Augusta pioneered the above black and below red number concept which is now in vogue.
The players this year will encounter a mature course, modified by the Club in the '70s and early '80s with my dad and later, in the late '80s and thereafter with my brother, Rees.
But I have a deeper question about the design challenges we face-why do we care so much about defending par, or even what par is? After all, it's an arbitrary concept, based on ideal forms. Two putts always in the calculation, and one, two or three shots to reach the green, all things being equal. But things are not equal, as the squall at Muirfield showed.
One of golf's joys is its capricious, variously yielding and resistant nature, its yin and yang. Which is better, or more defining of golf's true nature, an 81 in inclement weather or a 61 when all the stars align? Does one reveal the inner truth of golf at the highest competitive level, when personal character is called upon as well as great shot making? My sense is that we should ignore the red and black numbers on the leader boards, the positive and negative numbers-and isn't it odd that in our game negative numbers is good? Going low, getting under par-does it have any value of itself?
It was reported in the old days that Bobby Locke shot 65 to lead the British Open three off the next competitor and never mentioned par. For example, when Nicklaus and Watson play, the report was 65-66 at Turnberry. It did not mention the relationship to par - Watson 65 and Nicklaus 66 in the reporting so let's go back to give back to the game of golf.
I'm sure it feels good to the great players who can make birdies and better, but does it demean the course, diminish the design, insult the architect or humiliate the members when the scores go red? I think we should abandon our preoccupation with par as a judgment of the quality of a course or the success or failure of players. Positive numbers are good enough.
The result would be preservation of classic courses and good holes as found rather than stretched and strained architecture. Today we architects are being commissioned to respond to artificial standards such as a total par 72 or even a parless par 72. Whereas the great course of this year, Muirfield, is a parless golf course played by its members. No par appears on its scorecard, just the day, the match or the medal. Isn't that wonderful to contemplate?
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