From Ross to Dye and a TPC Design
Pete Dye renovates Wethersfield Country Club, a Donald Ross design, into a TPC Course
The Tour Backspin journey through the past is dialed into 1984 and the unveiling of a new course on the PGA TOUR schedule. The TPC of Connecticut was a renovation of the Wethersfield Country Club, a Donald Ross design, by Pete Dye. Scroll down to learn more about the project and see how the 1984 Sammy Davis, Jr.-Greater Hartford Open played out on the new course. We’re flipping the stories again this week with the Bonus Story above the paywall and the day-to-day details of the tournament below the paywall.
What a U.S. Open, especially the final round. Oakmont put on quite the show. Scroll down for my take on the week in the PGA TOUR Wrap-Up. We found some of the best posts on social media about the week and you can check them out in the Clips I Loved.
PAST TOUR BACKSPIN ARTICLES ON THE GREATER HARTFORD OPEN
Seattle pro wins his first title at the 1975 Sammy Davis, Jr.-Greater Hartford Open.
Billy Casper defeats Johnny Pott in a playoff at the 1965 Insurance City Open.
Good stuff, LB (Tour Backspin June 12th, “Holy Mackerel!”)
—Michael M.
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Enjoy the golf from the Travelers Championship week!
What did you think of the setup at Oakmont for the U.S. Open? Fun to watch, or to difficult and unfair? Let us know in this week’s The Tour Backspin Poll. This week’s Vintage Ad from 1984 (below the paywall) features Taylor Made and their attempt to follow up their revolutionary metal woods with a new iron design. Scroll down to view.
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The Tour Backspin Poll
Last week, we asked if you had the over, or the under, of 276 for the winning score in the U.S. Open. There were 54% who took the over, while 46% took the under. J.J. Spaun won with a score of 279.
What did you think of the setup at Oakmont for the U.S. Open? Fun to watch or unfair and too difficult? Let us know in this week’s Tour Backspin Poll.
We’re playing Greater Hartford Open Trivia in this week’s Tour Backspin Quiz. Scroll down to take the challenge. Give us your best guess in this week’s WHAT HOLE IS IT? and if you get it correct you may win a prize from the Tour Backspin Golf Shop.
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Okay, we're on the tee, let's get going.
Enjoy!
Larry Baush
Pete Dye Renovates a Donald Ross Course For New TPC
There has been a movement in golf in the last decade or so to rediscover the golf course architects of golf’s golden age and update those designs to bring them into the 21st century. Architects such as Ben Crenshaw, and his design partner Bill Coore, Gil Hanse, Mike DeVries, and Tom Fazio have been actively involved in restorations and renovations of courses originally designed in golf’s golden age of the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. These renovations, and restorations, are fodder for golf course architecture writers and buffs.
Imagine then, if you brought up the idea today of redesigning a Donald Ross-designed golf course. Surely, the idea would be met with a great deal of skepticism, especially if you were planning on designing a Tournament Players Club with the PGA TOUR and Pete Dye. You really can’t get a more disparate approach in design philosophy than those of Ross and Dye.
But that is exactly what the PGA TOUR and the organizers of the Sammy Davis Jr.-Greater Hartford Open planned to do in 1983.
The Wethersfield Country Club, home to the Greater Hartford Open for its first three decades, had become a pushover to the players on the PGA TOUR. From 1970 to 1983 the scores continually climbed from the mid-teens under-par to 25-under-par. The players enjoyed playing Wethersfield, but the PGA TOUR, and the organizers of GHO, wanted to present a more challenging track to host the tournament.
The Greater Hartford Jaycees, the organization behind the GHO, commissioned a five-year study to come up with a plan to upgrade the tournament. What they came up with was a plan to have Pete Dye renovate the Edgewood Country Club in Cromwell, about 20 miles south of Hartford. Dye chose Edgewood after surveying several possible tournament sites in the Hartford area.
The PGA TOUR and the Greater Hartford Jaycees raised $650,000 for the renovation project and work began in early 1983 with plans to host the 1984 Sammy Davis, Jr.-Greater Hartford Open in July of 1984.
“It was like two golf courses. The front nine was very flat and then the back nine were much more challenging.”
The course would be the fourth course in the Tournament Players Club, a chain of public and private courses operated by the PGA TOUR. It joined the original TPC course built in 1981, the TPC at Sawgrass. Other courses included TPC at Eagle Trace in Coral Springs, FL, which was opened in 1983, and TPC at Plum Creek in Castle Rock, CO, opened in 1984.
Dye’s renovation represented a tale of two nines as he made modifications on the front nine and redesigned the back nine.
“It was like two golf courses,” Vernon A. Kelly, president of the PGA Tour Golf Course Company told The New York Times reporter Bill Slocum in the July 13th, 1997, edition of the paper. “The front nine was very flat and then the back nine were much more challenging.”
Dye employed his trademarks of grass bunkers, mounds that accommodate spectators, and railroad ties on a four-acre lake that came into play on the 16th and 17th holes.
“That just goes to show all par-3 holes don’t have to be 210-yards to be good.”
In August of 1983, touring pro Bob Murphy christened five of the new holes designed by Dye. The 16th hole, a 170-yard, par-3 was protected by the pond on the left and pot bunkers around the green. Murphy managed a par when he played the hole.
“That just goes to show all par-3 holes don’t have to be 210-yards to be good,” Murphy told Bruce Berlet, the staff writer for the Hartford Courant.
It also goes to show that the debate about long par-3 holes did not just sprout up recently.
“Now that’s a great finishing hole, especially with the wind in your face and you need to make birdie to tie Jack Nicklaus.”
“A lot of people will get their giggles watching us make six, seven, or eight on this hole,” Murphy said about the 17th hole, a 395-yard, par 4 that required a drive of at least 240-yards to clear the water.
The 18th hole featured a natural amphitheater that could accommodate up to 30,000 spectators.
“Now that’s a great finishing hole, especially with the wind in your face and you need to make birdie to tie Jack Nicklaus,” Murphy said. “I can envision walking into a wall of people on the hill and getting a few goose bumps. The guys enjoy playing in front of large crowds, and the 18th is certainly a great setting for golf.”
Murphy was certainly correct about that as many of the players spoke of the adrenaline rush and goose bumps they felt coming up to the 18th green and the large crowds assembled.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many people around a green in my life,” Mark O’Meara, the runner-up in the 1984 Sammy Davis, Jr.-Greater Hartford Open said after making a birdie on the 18th in the final round. “It was more than at the 18th at the TPC in Florida, and more than at St. Andrews in the British Open.”
The course was again renovated just a few short years later by Bobby Weed and PGA TOUR Design Services, Inc. with players Howard Twiddy and Roger Maltbie serving as consultants. It was renamed TPC at River Highlands at this time and the course currently hosts the Travelers Championship on the PGA TOUR.
Coming Next Week: Hale Irwin wins in a playoff at the 1981 Buick Open
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WHAT HOLE IS IT?
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Tour Backspin Quiz | Greater Hartford Open Trivia
Who won the most titles in Hartford under the various names the tournament has been known? Who did he beat in his last victory there?
Scroll down for answer
Clips I Loved
Ace alert!
Nice use of the tracer.
More Rory frustration.
Rory was not the only one frustrated.
Even Scottie was frustrated.
More Clips I Loved below the paywall.
Tour Backspin Quiz Answer:
Billy Casper won the most titles in Hartford winning the 1963 Insurance City Open, the 1965 Insurance City Open, the 1968 Greater Hartford Open Invitational, and the 1973 Sammy Davis, Jr.-Greater Hartford Open where he defeated Bruce Devlin by one stroke.
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What’s behind the paywall:
PGA TOUR Wrap-Up
The day-to-day tick tock of the 1984 Sammy Davis, Jr.-Greater Hartford Open (Upgrade HERE.)
More Clips I Loved
Blind Shot
My Open Tabs
Vintage Ad
Final Thoughts
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