75 more characteristics on the Upper, I think, that are more responsive to the quality of the land because it’s a better site for golf,” says Hanse. “Tillinghast was willing to utilise slopes a little bit more predominantly for setting up strategies for holes – there’s so much cross slope on the first five holes that you’ve got to think about the placement of your ball more than almost anything on the Lower. “Also, by benching those greens in, I don’t know if he realised this but probably he did, the difficulty of putting on the Upper is significantly higher than on the Lower, because your eye is picking up all these strong slopes and the greens might be doing something a little bit different.” One notable achievement of Tillinghast’s design of those opening holes is how differently they play and unique their individual identities are, despite all traversing the same hillside. The first, a par five for members, rises gently and is a relatively warm introduction to the round. A strong par-four second is followed by a par three where the sensible choice may be to play short and allow the ball to roll onto the green. A huge dip between landing area and green is the defining characteristic of the fourth, while each of these opening holes have unique green contours that present their own puzzles that offer some fun and unexpected solutions. There are two green complexes on the Upper course that Hanse says required a little more work than most. The first was at the short par-four ninth, where the tee shot plays over a lake and the green had previously been raised high above the original grade. “We were really struggling to find old photographs and historic documentation,” says Hanse. “We just knew it was lower, thankfully. As we dug out the green trying to figure out what elevation it should be, we hit a layer of the original green and it was like, eureka!” On the fourteenth the challenge was more unusual. Tillinghast’s original green experienced drainage issues so another was built on slightly higher ground to the left, and the original was abandoned. “We were pretty much convinced that we were going to the build the original green site, to the right,” says Hanse. “When we shaped it, the relationship between it and the upper green on the left was really out of sync. So we thought, let’s just abandon the one that was built in the 30s. And then we came upon another set of old aerial photographs that showed the dual green existed a lot longer than we thought. We had thought that the original green was pretty much abandoned right away, but it lasted into the 50s. With the original fourteenth green suffering from drainage issues, a second green was introduced in the 1930s. Hanse’s team discovered that they coexisted for longer than previously thought, so restored them both Photo: Evan Schiller
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQ1NTk=