"This is a very dangerous trend."

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Ed Sherman looks at Oakmont's tree removal and the efforts of courses in the Chicago era to undo years of green committee meddling.

Meanwhile Matthew Futterman in the New Jersey Star-Ledger also takes on the issue with a New Jersey focus and gets some epic quotes out of Rees Jones.

From Winged Foot to Wykagyl, Oak Hill to Oakmont, the trees are coming down, and the results are courses with open parkland-style views, where it is far easier to grow thick, healthy rough, and the tracks more closely resemble the original designs that made them classic more than a century ago.

At Winged Foot in Westchester, site of last year's U.S. Open, nearly 2,000 trees are gone. Oak Hill near Rochester, N.Y., site of the 1995 Ryder Cup, took out more than 1,000, including one planted in honor of former Ryder Cup player Miller Barber. The Jack Nicklaus tree survived.

Wykagyl, the New Rochelle, N.Y., club hosting this year's HSBC Women's World Match Play, took out 1,200. Pauley doesn't have an exact number for Plainfield, but he has taken out 250 during his two-year tenure there, and hundreds more came out before he arrived.

The tree-cutting debate enters the spotlight this week as the U.S. Open returns for the eighth time to Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh -- a course where thousands of trees have been removed in the past two decades.

Advocates say the classic courses are once again becoming the places they are meant to be.

"There are no trees on the golf courses in Ireland and Scotland," said noted golf course architect Stephen Kay, who designed courses at Blue Heron Pines near Atlantic City and Architects Golf Club in Lopatcong and is an advocate of the tree-clearing movement. "They could plant them. Why don't they?"

Not everyone is a fan of the tree-chopping movement, though. Montclair's Rees Jones, the so-called "Open Doctor" for his work renovating Bethpage Black and other top courses, called it a "huge mistake" except in the case of a few select courses.
Would those be at the courses undoing your dad's work?
"Trees are a part of golf, as we saw last year on the final hole of the Open, where Phil Mickelson lost because he hit his last drive into the trees," Jones said. "This is a very dangerous trend."

Dangerous? No, dangerous is a member of the Jones family meddling with a classic course!

David Fay, executive director of the United States Golf Association, said he favors cutting back certain trees on certain courses, but not everywhere.

"It depends on the course," Fay said. "In the cases of both Plainfield and Oakmont, I am a big fan of what the two clubs have done. Ditto Winged Foot."

And this is beautiful...

Jones said Donald Ross, who designed Plainfield in 1921, intended for his courses to have trees. He worries that all the tree-cutting will render the wide-open courses too easy for the world's top golfers, who can now bomb drives 350 yards without worrying about hitting the so-called bunkers in the sky.

"At Augusta they are planting trees, just for this reason," Jones pointed out. 

"We want them to feel it is fair and that they can score well on it."

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Lawrence Donegan reports on Open Championship media day and you can almost envision Peter Dawson rehearsing this Sandy Tatum-lite mantra in front of the mirror all morning.

"We are not seeking carnage," said the R&A's chief executive, Peter Dawson. "We are seeking an arena where the players can display their skills to the best effect."
And...

The biggest changes, however, will be in the rough, which will not be as thick as it was in 1999, and in the width of the fairways, at least one of which was only 12 yards wide back then.

12 yards! Can't imagine why things went awry.

The course's head greenskeeper, John Philp, was accused by some players of being determined to make them suffer and of toughening up the course by adding fertiliser to the rough - claims which he dismissed yesterday as "utter baloney".

"That was just players whinging because they didn't play so well," he said. "What was never mentioned in all the criticism was how well the course was presented in the fairways and on the greens, where they were supposed to hit the ball."

That's right, and those Titanic passengers never dared to mention how good the food was either!

"If the players want to think Carnoustie is a monster just because they haven't done so well, then so be it," he said. "But we don't want them to feel like the course is a monster and that it has been tricked up. We want them to feel it is fair and that they can score well on it."

So the players were just whining because they didn't play so well, yet they are going to make sure it's not tricked up just in case?

Why do they let this man do interviews? No one learned the last time around?

Lawrie Slimming Down To Prepare For Slew of "Whatever Happened To Paul Lawrie" Stories and Photo Shoots

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Douglas Lowe shares far more than you ever wanted to know about the diet of the last European to win a major.

"I like my chocolate but haven't had any for six or seven weeks and nor have I had ice cream," he said proudly in Edinburgh having signed an extended agreement with sponsors Aberdeen Asset Management.

"My snacks are now fruit mid-morning and afternoon. It's been difficult but I think you have to make sacrifices if you are to get to the top of your game."
So that's why he fell of the face of the planet after winning at Carnoustie! 
A good diet has played its part, but the weight loss is also down to regular gym sessions under the instruction of Murray Carnie, a family friend who is PE teacher at Mintlaw Academy.

Ah going right to the top! What, the PE teacher at Hogwarts was too busy?

"I'm feeling fantastic and raring to go," said Lawrie, who returns to action next week in Thailand at the Johnnie Walker Classic in a bid to improve his standing in the world rankings at No.195, a far cry from his halcyon says of seven years ago when he was flying high as Colin Montgomerie's Ryder Cup partner.

He's 195th? Wow.

No More Cell Phones At The Open

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This was overdue...

NO MOBILE PHONES AT THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

Spectators who intend attending The Open Championship, to be played at Carnoustie from Sunday 15 to Sunday 22 July 2007, are being advised that they will not be permitted to have mobile phones in their possession within The Open site. 

This policy is in line with other major golf championships, including this year’s Ryder Cup at the K Club, and follows comments from players concerning the excessive numbers in evidence this year at Hoylake.

David Hill, Director of Championships for The R&A, said, “We have so far resisted the call to ban mobile phones on the grounds that it may be an inconvenience to the public. However, after receiving complaints referring to the numbers that were in use as play in The Open was proceeding, we feel there is no other reasonable option other than a complete ban.

“As at the Ryder Cup, we believe that spectators will understand that this measure is being put in place to make The Open a more enjoyable experience for all spectators and players. I would stress that we will install additional public telephones for use by members of the general public.” 

In order to implement the ‘No Mobile Phone Policy’, security checks of every spectator will be in operation at the paygates.

Dawson To Carnoustie: Get Brown

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Mike Aitken writing in The Scotsman:
Carnoustie has been instructed by the Royal and Ancient to turn off the sprinklers and prepare a links for next summer's 136th Open championship which echoes the brown of Royal Liverpool rather than the lush greenery of Augusta.

Well aware the last Open held at the Angus course in 1999 was the most controversial of recent times - the test was so difficult the players dubbed the links "Carnasty" and Paul Lawrie's winning score of 290 was six over par - the R&A has also pledged to monitor the conditioning of the course over the next 12 months and ensure there is no repeat of the penal high rough which lined narrow fairways at the 128th Open.

At Hoylake yesterday morning, Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the Royal and Ancient, was asked if he shared the concerns of those who regard the presentation of the Angus links as the polar opposite of the fast, running course which hosted the most recent championship. Although it looked beautiful, Carnoustie was perhaps too verdant earlier in the season. It almost seemed as if the links had become a venue better suited to hosting the US Open, the pinnacle of narrow fairways and high rough, rather than the seaside game played on the ground at the Open.

Dawson replied: "Interestingly, we have had conversations with Carnoustie on exactly this point. They've turned the sprinklers off for us over the past few weeks and we're going there next week to see how brown it is.
 
"We think Carnoustie is a terrific venue, a great golf course which will put on another fantastic Open. But I must be honest and say we have a view that it could be a bit drier. Not that it's soft. It's just not as hard and fast as one would traditionally like to see."
And what's our favorite in-house architect for a governing body doing at Carnoustie?
Dawson also confirmed the changes at Carnoustie to the third, sixth and 17th holes. "We've worked on three holes. The third has been re-configured quite substantially. On the 17th, the right hand side of the driving zone has been mounded. At the last Open there that was a flat area covered by rough. Since the rough has been taken away and re-turfed, it didn't grow back very well. So we put in mounding. And the bunkering on Hogan's Alley has been adjusted."