2023 U.S. Open Preview of Los Angeles Country Club with Gil Hanse & Gary Williams

Golf course designer Gil Hanse joined Gary Williams on set to talk about the upcoming U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club (LACC North). Hanse and team restored the course designed by George Thomas and the two talk about its history, the property itself, the barranca, the bunkers, a breakdown of all the Par 3's, where on the course the players may look to score and much more.
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[@tomwatson4437]

What a fantastic interview and insight into quite possibly one of the best re-designs of the modern era. Great interview from Gary Williams with some very intelligent questions. Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner and Geoff Shackleford have done an amazing job withe LACC and looking forward to seeing what challenges face the US Open competitors

[@skellvarnsen23]

legends

[@MoMoMyPup10]

Going to be a spectacular US Open on a stunning piece of property. If that USGA doesn't screw it up again. No more Shinnecocks please.

[@littleo353]

All we need now is a windmill and a clown head. I think this course is a joke - a freak with no meaning - after playing the game for over 60 years.

[@leeolson539]

This guy destroys masterpiece golf courses

[@dorothygale1104]

@@leeolson539 Your comment indicates that you have no clue about what Gil Hanse’s work on masterpiece courses is all about. He takes masterpieces that have long been disfigured and restores them as exactly as possible to what the original architect designed and originally built. The historic courses have troves of photographs of the courses that document what the original design looked like, so Hanse’s work on Winged Foot, for example, isn’t what he thinks or believes Tillinghast designed, but rather, his work is a restoration of what Tillinghast actually designed. Hanse’s work on historic courses isn’t renovation, but rather restoration of what originally existed. Most of the historic courses have been disfigured for such a long time that what currently exists is believed by some to be what originally existed. In the case of LACC, while it had been changed into a manicured parkland course, it was a total bastardization of what George Thomas designed and what originally existed from his design. If one doesn’t like Hanse’s restoration of LACC, then one doesn’t like the design work of George Thomas. You make a very significant claim against Gil Hanse. Exactly which masterpieces do you believe Hanse has destroyed? Lastly, if Hanse destroys masterpieces, then why do the most prestigious and historic clubs hire him to restore their masterpiece courses. Those who own masterpieces don’t hire anybody to destroy their gems.

[@leeolson539]

@@dorothygale1104 I grew up on a Tillinghast course,I think the layout of these courses built during golf’s golden age of architecture should not be messed with.Why put a smile on the Mona Lisa? I’ve been on lots of courses as a caddy on the tour and working television for the golf networks.I worked the LACC open and the rough was so high around the bunkers it was ridiculous.I just think the guy is a hack.Just a matter of opinion.Those masters knew the game inside and out.They built these courses for the common man.Easy to get bogey,hard to get par.They didn’t build them for green seeking robots looking for the fat part of the green.

[@dorothygale1104]

@@leeolson539 Your presumption that lipstick had not already been put on the Mona Lisa prior to restoration is completely the opposite of reality. The LACC that you saw was what George Thomas designed and was the result of the restoration taking off lipstick that had been smeared on it over the years. LACC as it existed prior to the restoration was a complete bastardization of what Thomas designed. So if you don’t like LACC post restoration, then you don’t like George Thomas golden-age architecture. The same goes for Riviera, as that course as it exists now is nothing like what Thomas designed. It isn’t like there isn’t photographic evidence of what, say, Winged Foot looked like back in its early years after Tillinghast completed it to see that it had been changed significantly over the years. You presume that the Tillinghast course you grew up playing on was the same course that Tillinghast actually designed and the course had never been changed. Pinehurst is a textbook example of a restoration that took the lipstick off the Mona Lisa, yet there are many who only knew Pinehurst with the lipstick smeared on it. To those who only knew a lipstick-smeared Pinehurst Coore & Crenshaw’s restoration was putting lipstick on a Mona Lisa when the absolute reverse was the reality of that restoration. Just because a course bears the name of a golden-age architect as the designer of that course does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that what existed prior to restoration was, in fact, what that golden-age architect actually designed.