14th Green at Pebble Beach Being Rebuilt

[Chilli Dipper]

From Golf Digest:

Quote

The difficult (unfair?) 14th green at Pebble Beach Golf Links is undergoing an overdue renovation, and the brotherhood of those who would rejoice at the news would not be small.

 

...The renovated green will allow for more hole locations, including placing them in the back right part of the green and will be expanded from 3,200 square feet to approximately 4,000 square feet, RJ Harper, executive vice president golf and retail for the Pebble Beach Company said.

Watching players trying to land their approaches at 14 during the U.S. Open bordered on farce, and I'd guess it's the most dreaded shot on the course for daily golfers. Hopefully, we'll see a much improved green when the tour arrives again next year.

[iacas]

Good.

Hitting to that green reminded me of trying to land the ball on the 16th at North Berwick.

[Coronagolfman]

Last time I played at Pebble (I think it was 2001), the pin was on the lower right portion of the green.  Our caddie said that unless we wanted to ruin the day with a sense of outright frustration once we got our ball below the hole on the fairway or the green take two shots and go to 15. 

Of course we all tried to hole out but between the 4 of us who were decent players the low number for getting up and down from below the hole was 4 strokes - and the person who had the low number actually had the ball go in the hole on the way back down the ridiculously sloped green instead of on the way up.

I'm sure back in 1929 or whenever Neville and Grant were laying out the course greens with a stimpmeter speed of 10 would have been unheard of so with modern technology allowing for such speeds on the greens some older courses have slopes on their greens that simply are not playable and thus a redesign is probably warranted. Let's hope that whomever is doing the re-design work can at least retain some of the flavor of the original design but still allow for players to have a chance to hole out conventionally on that portion of the green.

[Chilli Dipper]

On May 8, 2016 at 5:41 PM, Coronagolfman said:

Last time I played at Pebble (I think it was 2001), the pin was on the lower right portion of the green.  Our caddie said that unless we wanted to ruin the day with a sense of outright frustration once we got our ball below the hole on the fairway or the green take two shots and go to 15. 

Of course we all tried to hole out but between the 4 of us who were decent players the low number for getting up and down from below the hole was 4 strokes - and the person who had the low number actually had the ball go in the hole on the way back down the ridiculously sloped green instead of on the way up.

I'm sure back in 1929 or whenever Neville and Grant were laying out the course greens with a stimpmeter speed of 10 would have been unheard of so with modern technology allowing for such speeds on the greens some older courses have slopes on their greens that simply are not playable and thus a redesign is probably warranted. Let's hope that whomever is doing the re-design work can at least retain some of the flavor of the original design but still allow for players to have a chance to hole out conventionally on that portion of the green.

Over the span of many years, material builds up on the surface of greens from top-dressing and the accumulation of sand and dirt. This buildup effectively reduces the green's overall surface area, as well as exaggerating its original contours. Any time a historic course is renovated these days, "reclaiming" the putting surface lost by this process is always at the top of the agenda. There are many greens at Pebble Beach that need this treatment; the 14th, which has been reduced to having a playable surface the size of a three-car garage, is only the most severe example.

[WUTiger]

Playing off of @Coronagolfman...

A few years back I found an article on redoing the greens for one of the early 1900s courses in the Pinehurst area. The modern turf grass allowed the ball to run so hot that any long downhill putts from the back to the front of the green ran off and down the fairway. And, certain upslopes turned into false fronts with the finer-bladed turf.

Choices for a re-redo: lessen the slope of the greens, or replace the modern fine-blade with coarser traditional turf. Sorry, but I never did learn what they decided to do.

[Coronagolfman]

On 5/21/2016 at 8:55 PM, WUTiger said:

Playing off of @Coronagolfman...

A few years back I found an article on redoing the greens for one of the early 1900s courses in the Pinehurst area. The modern turf grass allowed the ball to run so hot that any long downhill putts from the back to the front of the green ran off and down the fairway. And, certain upslopes turned into false fronts with the finer-bladed turf.

Choices for a re-redo: lessen the slope of the greens, or replace the modern fine-blade with coarser traditional turf. Sorry, but I never did learn what they decided to do.

A few years back I found an article on redoing the greens for one of the early 1900s courses in the Pinehurst area. The modern turf grass allowed the ball to run so hot that any long downhill putts from the back to the front of the green ran off and down the fairway. And, certain upslopes turned into false fronts with the finer-bladed turf.

[RayG]

<shrug> No expert, but I've played it twice- once before the great turf disease episode, and once after. I didn't find 14 any MORE difficult than the other holes. Pin was in the middle back (1st attempt) and back left (2nd). So I haven't had the experience of it being on the "slope of death". Yes, the green, as it is, is really only HALF the number of square feet as advertised because of that slope, so it just made for a smaller target on approach. But that's the idea of the game, isn't it? Some places have GIANT greens that leave 100 foot putts on a regular basis. that just pads your GIR but putt averages shoot up towards the 3's or 4's so no real advantage is gained for a GIR on those. If they are trying to de-construct it to match original design, that's fine. But I thought they did that years ago during that diseased turf era. Also making a bit larger and evening out the surface will also help protect the greens themselves by moving the pins around a bit.