- Bredemus & Maxwell’s Alley:  Ft. Worth’s Colonial Country Club, site of this week’s Crowne Plaza Invitational, has long rated among the PGA Tour’s most respected stops, and though I personally view it as slightly overrated relative to the Rivieras, Pebble Beaches and Harbour Towns, there can be no denying its standing as a first class professional venue.  The club has hosted the Colonial (sorry Crowne Plaza) since Ben Hogan’s victories in the first two editions in 1946 and ’47, but somewhat forgotten amidst that event’s rich history was the visit of the 1941 U.S. Open, the national championships first playing in Texas, the American Southwest or, for that matter, a genuine warm weather climate.  The popular Craig Wood won that, the final pre-World War II U.S. Open, with a 284 aggregate, defeating Denny Shute by three, but the event is also memorable for a substantial – and lasting – change made to the front nine’s outer reaches.  Known as the “Horrible Horseshoe,” Colonial’s third through fifth holes lie at the property’s northeastern tip and are not original, having been added by the great Oklahoma designer Perry Maxwell in preparation for the Open.  At the third, Maxwell only created a new green complex in the vicinity of the old fourth tee, lengthening the hole from 434 to 468 yards.  However, the old fourth (a 148-yard over-water par 3) and fifth (a relatively mundane 367-yarder) were replaced entirely with a pair of the club’s best-known tests, the 246-yard fourth and 459-yard fifth.  Curiously, Maxwell’s initial versions of these holes were both bunker-free, leaving them as little more than dull, colossally long challenges largely devoid of character (even if Dan Jenkins selected the fifth as one of Sports Illustrated’s best 18 holes in 1966).  With a total of five bunkers (and 60 years of tree growth) between them, they are today still among Colonial’s toughest holes – but also, I suspect, its dullest.  Also missing from the original layout – which, by the way, was designed by a former Princeton athletic hero named John Bredemus – is the 198-yard 8th, a dangerous one-shotter angled across a corner of the Trinity River that local native Byron Nelson once called “the toughest par three I ever saw.”  There wasn’t much the club could do to avoid its loss, however; it was completely rebuilt in 1968 when the Army Corps of Engineers mandated changes to resolve flood-control issues along the river. 

- Donald Trent Jones:  The site of this week’s Senior PGA Championship, vaunted Oak Hill Country Club, is frequently cited as a classic work of the celebrated Golden Age designer Donald Ross – but at this stage, the Ross credit is at best attenuated.  At best.  Ross laid out all 36 of the club’s holes in 1926, resulting in a regionally strong facility, but certainly not one in the class of such Ross standards as Seminole, Pinehurst No.2 or Oakland Hills.  But beginning with the 1949 U.S. Amateur, Oak Hill began hosting national championships, resulting in the favored East undergoing nearly a half-century of changes – both natural and distinctly man-made – that have made it virtually an entirely different golf course.  In preparation for the 1956 U.S. Open, Robert Trent Jones lengthened nine holes, removed more than 40 of Ross’s original bunkers, dramatically expanded many others, and added roughly 40 new ones of his own.  Jones also made minor alterations in preparation for the 1968 U.S. Open, though these would scarcely be noticed relative to those soon to follow.  Having slipped from the USGA’s championship radar a bit by the 1970s, Oak Hill hired ex-Tour player George Fazio and his nephew Tom to toughen things further.  Their 1976 work resulted in brand new green complexes at the 15th (where the putting surface was angled left-to-right behind a modern pond) and 18th, and entirely new holes at the fifth and sixth.  The biggest bone of contention was the loss of the old sixth, a grand, creek-menaced 440-yarder described by Lee Trevino as “one of the best holes I ever played.”  The Fazio replacement (presently hole number five) is some 35 yards shorter but features a green squeezed against another new pond, making the hole far more penal than strategic.  In sum, there are few who would suggest that it can hold a candle to its late lamented predecessor.  Less obviously, the East course has also seen the slow reshaping of nearly all of its putting surfaces (frequently to accommodate renovated or new bunkers) as well as several generations worth of tree growth; indeed, many of the strategic options inherent to Ross’s original wide fairways have been minimized by trees planted – literally by the thousands – well after the course’s opening.  In sum, when one combines these less obvious changes with the new holes, added hazards and near-complete alteration of Ross’s exquisitely crafted green complexes, it can be argued that less than five shots per round are in any way consistent with Ross’s originals.  Is Oak Hill better prepared to host new millennium Major championships as a result?  Without question.  But if you were a member of the club, would a less enjoyable, more overbearing layout be worth it just to entertain the pros for four rounds once every decade?   Hmm…