FROM NYT'S ARTICLE

The New York Times trots out the Burbeck v. Tillinghast debate in anticipation of the U.S. Open at Bethpage. There is also a video with Rees Jones, “the Open Doctor.” So if you can’t wait for your Rees hype, feel free to watch. Ironically considering the arteicle in wich the video is embedded, the host of the video calls Bethpage the Open Doctor’s “masterpiece.” So much for Burbeck or Tillinghast.

THE FIRST TEE AT THE GOLD COURSE

A couple of weeks ago, I joined a friend for an afternoon at Congressional’s less heralded Gold course. While the Blue course gets all of the attention (hosting Tiger’s tournament and the 2011 U.S. Open), the Gold hums along at a very nice clip. To me, the best holes on the property, with the exception of the Blue’s superb 18th, are all on the Gold course. The holes that I am enamored with are all located on the large parcel of land that also is the site of the Blue. Art Hills came in a number of years ago and spruced up the Gold and he did an admirable job. The most compelling holes on the Gold are the first four and fifteenth through seventeenth holes. The middle of the course is across a road on a rather tight piece of property, and with one exception (the 12th, an awkward dogleg left with water on both sides of the approach) all are fine if unremarkable and slightly narrow, parkland golf holes.

THE TEE MARKERS AT CONGO

The opening hole is my favorite on both Congressional courses. The tee shot plays downhill to an offset fairway that is canted on a right to left slope. The hole doglegs left and the green sits just on the far side of the bottom of a fairly severe hill. The end result is a hole that feels like it was routed over the natural topography. Art Hills could have bulldozed some of the slopes and made them less severe. Instead, he left them alone and the end result is a hole that feels more natural and unique than anything on the Blue course, which is series of strong, but rather mundane holes.

The next few holes are similarly good. The second doglegs around a series of bunkers which need to be flown for the ideal line into the green. The redan like third on the Gold is inherently more interesting than any par three on the more lauded course (infinitely better than the new tenth on the Blue, a very modern looking downhill par three over water to an overly narrow green).

THE NEW 10th ON THE BLUE

The three holes on the back that I admire (15-17) all flow well with the land. I particularly like the seventeenth. The fairway is straight away, but the further down one goes the more likely the ball is to pitch into the left rough. The player must make a decision on the tee between laying back for a good fairway lie, or bombing it as far as possible with the likely result of a shot from the rough to a perched green.

On the Gold course, Hills occasionally asks the golfer to hit his tee shot over the corner of a bunker or over a blind rise rather than simply slotting the tee shot between rough lines and bunkers right and left. I was not fortunate enogh to play the old Blue course before RTJ and then his son Rees came in to make it more “fair.” I wish I had. The land on the Blue is similar to that of the holes on the Gold that I like, but it has been cut and shaped to be devoid of character. The bunker work on the Blue is some of the most bland in golf. While Congo will always be well respected in the world of golf, I truly believe that the Blue could rise in people’s opinion if they tried to restore some of the character and uniqueness that must have been there before the Joneses sterilized it. After all, they need only to look at the adjacent holes on the Gold for inspiration.

Rees’s redo of Torrey certainly was a great stage for a historic and dramatic U.S. Open last June, but its hard to not see this as a missed opportunity. There was no effort to tie the course into its landscape by using some of the native vegetation that is so beautiful along the cliffs and in the barrancas. While Rees moved and shifted some holes to improve views he made little effort to incorporate the coast and ravines into the routing to create more strategic golf holes. Without the backdrop of the Pacific Ocean this could be Anywhere, U.S.A.

In the second video, Rees runs through the front nine.

The third video runs through holes 10-13 and includes a good Jay Hass/Tiger Woods anecdote.

Rees runs through the rest of the back nine in the fourth video and tells how they widened the landing area on eighteen to encourage players to hit driver and then set up a decision on the second shot.

In this video, Rees compares himself to Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. He also discusses the profession of golf course architecture and how it has changed. He says that there are a lot of up and coming architects that need a site like Torrey Pines to make names for themselves. I can’t help wondering if a much better golf course would now exist if a different architect had been given the opportunity.