Should Seminole be restored?

[Mark_Fine]

Everyone who is fortunate to play Seminole loves the golf course.  It's ranked up there as one of the best in the world.  But I'm sure most people on this site realize the routing at Seminole might be Ross, but the greensites,...are Dick Wilson.  He rebuilt and redesigned them all.  The green on the ninth hole at The Architects Golf Club in New Jersey is copied after one of the orginal Ross greens at Seminole that Dick Wilson tore up.  It's pretty cool and not what you might expect from Donald.  

So should Seminole be "restored" as Ross designed it?  That seems to be the growing trend around the country!  How do you know if what is there now is better then what was there before???  Maybe it doesn't matter?

[T_MacWood]

I have read differing reports on the exact  extent of what Wilson did or didn't do at Seminole. From what I understand he assisted the club in restoring the course following WWII after a few years of neglect. I do not believe that he had designed a golf course to the point in his career and had a golf course construction business. I find it difficult to comprehend why Seminole would allow a complete neophyte to redesign their highly acclaimed Ross masterpiece. Are there records of exactly what Wilson did?

Its diffcult to answer your question without more information.

[BillV]

Given the well designed greens \Ross did, I would say a qualified yes if the original plans are available and the greens add something to hte mix.

To do it just to do it is another thing.  Wilson gets dissed here a lot, but he did some fine work.  He had a bit of input at Shinnecock to the degree that some ascribe much of the design to him.

As for Seminole, to analyze the approaches to the contours of hte greens from the appropriate places in the fairway may yield the answer.

If the equipment continues unabated, it may however, be moot.

[Daniel_Wexler]

A couple of relevant points.

First, the original detailed Ross plans do exist (both routing map and sketch cards)-- something I'm 100% sure off because I've got copies of them.

Second, while this post seems concerned mostly with Wilson's rebuilding of the greens (which included moving the 18th closer to the beach), it probably should be noted that a fair number of through-the-green changes (read: bunkers added) took place prior to WWII.  My understanding is that this work was likely done by a gentleman named T. Claiborne Watson, the club's first Greenkeeper and a man involved in its construction from the beginning.  Point being: If the goal would be to get back to Ross's "original" design, it would take more than simply undoing Dick Wilson.

On a side note, I am hardly an expert on Wilson (said with pride) but given his singlehanded ruination of Bel-Air in 1961 (killing the original over-the-wash 9th, the double-fairway 11th and the Mae West 12th, among others), I certainly feel confident in saying that his concept of design excellence would differ GREATLY from most of ours.

[TEPaul]

Mark:

Whoa, whoa! "Most people on this site realize that Seminole's routing might be Ross's but all the greensites are Dick Wilson."

I, for one, am not really aware of that! It very well might be so but I don't believe that is known with any certainty by a lot of people.

It wasn't more than two months ago that I mentioned that to Barry Van Gerbig (the czar of Seminole) and I really don't recall him saying that. I do recall him mentioning #18 but not necessarily all the green-sites! If Barry Van Gerbig is not aware of that I really don't know who would be and I would proceed very cautiously with making blanket assumptions of that kind.

I agree with Tom MacWood; why would the club do something like that in such a wholesale fashion to such a respected course? I also like what Dan Wexler said and would bring him in immediately and analyze any info of material he might have! I'm not saying it didn't happen but to even begin to consider restoration like that the facts should be undeniable and extremely detailed!

I think it is wrong too to lay some kind of blanket good or bad label on Dick Wilson. The guy definitely had real talent and some of his work shows it in spades. He did have a bit of a problematic life and that probably shows in some of his architecture and his career inventory. Wilson's work should always be looked at very carefully and in much detail.

There has been plenty of misinfo going around over the years about Seminole and who did what anyway. Some of the bunkering was attributed to Wilson that was clearly Ross. Shackelford got to the bottom of that mistake by clearly dating a photo that had been misdated.

[Joel_Stewart]

They (Seminole) have already approched this whole issue when they hired Brian Silva a few years.  Brian thought that none of the members recall the Ross greens or bunkers and restored them to the specs of Dick Wilson.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I had understood that Wilson completely redesigned the 18th hole, and all of the other greens and greensite bunkering.

I don't believe that Seminole rebuilt or restored any greens with Brian Silva, although # 12 may have been modified.  
I think Brian was more involved with bunker related issues and regrassing, but the greens are virtually the same as they have been for a while.

Didn't Dick Wilson work for Flynn ?
Would that make him a complete neophyte ?
How did Seminole turn out after his efforts ?
Who amongst you have played Seminole ?
How was his work at Pine Tree, a golf course Ben Hogan labeled as the best flat course in America ?

Mark,

You pose an interesting question ?

It would be interesting to see the side by side comparison of each green.

I think Wilson's placement of # 18 is far, far Superior to Ross's original.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
I said nothing negative about Dick Wilson did I?  All I said was Seminole has Dick Wilson greens and the course is considered one of the best in the world with them.  

My question was, should Seminole be restored to the original Ross design?  

The real point I'm getting at is - when should a golf course be "restored" and to what extent?  How do we know if the Wilson greens made the course "better" than the Ross greens?  Sure the members of a private club make that call but how much do they really know about architecture?  

Belair is maybe a good example - the members love their Fazio changes but most of us question why they would extensively alter the Thomas design.  

I chose Seminole as an example to make this point because I figured many "would not have known" that the greens were no longer Ross and wondered how they would comment.  I think many place Seminole up there with other hallowed ground venues and untouchable.  

[Mark_Fine]

Patrick,
I didn't see your post till after I made the one to Tom.  I'll be anxious to see what other have to say before I comment too much further.  And I have played Seminole and I'm not a huge fan of Pine Tree though it is a very good test of golf.  
Mark

[Craig_Rokke]

If the course is considered one of the best in the world with the Dick Wilson greens, why change them? I've played one Wilson course, and I felt the greens were quite good. I say judge the greens on their own merit, not by who made them.

I'd be very interested to hear why the Seminole people felt compelled to do away with the Ross greens to begin with. That
could be important background information to help make such a decision.

[GeoffreyC]

Mark

Seminole is a wonderful course in 2001.  The 18th hole is great. The bunkers work as I think they must have been intended to, the greens challenge and routing is as perfect as I've been lucky enough to see.

Therefore, the evolution of Seminole seems to be OK.  I would need to see a lot of very detailed research showing why going back to the course exactly as Ross designed it would be better.  Even with research indicating a "potentially better" design strictly from Ross I might only go for a single hole change as a test. Conservative Medicine.

I don't think that anyone contributing here is the complete purist insisting on total restoration of every worthy classical course. Evolution of golf courses like evolution of the species (I knew I could get in some of my biology training here eventually)can result in "good mutations" and "harmful mutations". Some evolve into better beings and others result in disease. The trick for golf courses is to distinguish between them. Restore the diseased ones and leave the better products alone.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Golf restoration is too site specific for generalized questions.

Really, this business of "restoring" aged golf courses should be called QUASI-RESTORATION; because in very few cases does a PURE restoration take place.  

The process of QUASI-RESTORATION involves sifting through information to figure out what original features/holes/etc., since lost, should be restored, and also which changes to the original design have in fact made th course better, and thus should remain.

I mean, it would be silly to arrive at a course originally designed by Donald Ross, for example, and immediately, without intensely studying the layout, its history and evolution, chastise every single change made to the original design over the years. Because there is a chance, albeit slight, that one or two changes may have improved on Ross' original layout. Let's be honest, no human is without occasion fault, including the master architects of the Golden Age.

The best architects will restore features that make sense to restore while also keeping "good" alterations to the original design intact, all the while melding everything together to function harmoniously.

[TEPaul]

Mark:

Sorry about the remark about not liking Wilson. I see I did address my post to you but I often tend to go on and answer other posts in the thread regardless of who I addressed it to. No, you did not say anything negative about Wilson.

I am definitely questioning whether all the greens at Seminole were redesigned from Ross's originals by Wilson though. I'm aware that #18 was definitely redesigned by Wilson-probably even repositioned. But all the greens? I've heard that before but I don't know that it is really accurate--it might even be far from accurate. As I said, I don't really know but would like to find out. As I said above, it seemed to me that Barry Van Gerbig didn't exactly say that when I talked to him about it and I can almost garauntee that Barrry knows a lot more about Seminole than we do. He has been the President (czar really) at Seminole for a lot of years now and was certainly forefront in taking the course through the Silva restoration. Barry knows his stuff and is damn good with it!

I played a lot of golf at Seminole in the old days and my father was there for many years and my understanding is that he got off the Board with the understanding that Barry Van Gerbig replace him. I'm real sorry my Dad isn't around anymore to ask him some of what went on in the old days too. All I really recall from him is that Dick Wilson was very popular in Florida back in those days. Dad was also a founder of Pine Tree and I do remember they all thought a lot of Dick Wilson. Some of the same guys even moved Meadowbrook in Long Island and they brought Wilson in for that one too!

Unfortunately I haven't played Seminole for a few years now and not since Silva's restoration. If I did I could certainly recognize whether the greens are now the same as they were up to thirty years ago. And as for Wilson changing all the Ross greens at Seminole--I have to see a lot more proof of that than I've seen on here so far!

As I said before there has been a lot of misinformation going around about who did what at Seminole. Everybody thought the bunkering on #5 was Wilson too until Shackelford proved them wrong by accurately dating a significant photo. Hell, maybe they still refuse to believe it but frankly who really cares who did what? If it's good and it's working well leave it alone and don't even bother to bring up the subject about restoration back to something else!!

[Chip MacDonald]

Does anyone have an in for me at Seminole? It would be much appreciated. I think I could do the course wonders.

[T_MacWood]

I don't know what Wilson did or didn't do at Seminole, but I'm with Tom Paul in not seeing whole lot of proof to support the theory he rebuilt all the greens and bunkers.

Wilson did work for Flynn as a construnction foreman, eventually moving to Florida to build Indian Creek for Toomey & Flynn right before golf course work dried up due to the Depression. He was 26. After a stint as a pro-greenskeeper and WWII, he got back into golf course construction at age 42.

Ironically Wilson's later bunker work resembles Seminole more than his early efforts like West Palm Beach and NCR. That combined with the early photograph and one has to wonder who did what.

T.Claiborn Watson built the course with Ross in 1929 and then stayed on as superitendent. He was there in 1947 when Wilson supposedly redesigned the greens and bunkers.

I'm at loss as to why Seminole would hire an untested golf architect to redesign the greens and bunkers of their admired Donald Ross masterpiece? Especially when the man who built the course was involved and Ross was still alive?

From what I have read Watson, along with Chris Dunphy, made many improvements to the course over the years. I have even seen mixed reports on who deserves credit for #18, both Dunphy and Wilson. Dunphy being the singular power at the club for over 40 years, not unlike J.A. Brown or Cliff Roberts, and Watson the original constructor and long time superitendent, not unlike Valentine -- a very good combination that might explain why the course evolved so beautifully.

[Mike_Cirba]

Mark,

Great question, and you make a wonderful point!

The answer is NO, of course.  Although I haven't played Seminole, I respect the extremely favorable opinions of friends who have.  

Even if Seminole has Wilson greens, who cares?  How do we know that even if he did extensive work there, it wasn't to restore them to Ross specs in the first place?

Even if he changed them beyond Rossian recognition, everyone seems to agree that Seminole is one of the very finest courses in the world.  

Deciding to "restore" Seminole to some pre-Wilson year makes about as much sense as....well...I'll resist the obvious comparison and say....makes about as much sense as restoring Garden City to the original Devereux Emmett 1897 design, prior to the extensive Walter Travis work in 1906.  

[T_MacWood]

Mike
While agree with the spirit of your post, I think it is open to debate if Seminole is a canidate for restoration or not. The latest work has transformed the traditional flash bunkers of Seminole into grass rimmed bunkers normally associated with Ross. Silva admitted that because he had no photographic evidence he reverted to the Ross style he was most familar with.

[TEPaul]

Well then, it seems possible that a real research faux pas may have been made at Seminole concerning what was thought to be Wilson bunkers through the misunderstanding of something like the photo of the bunkers on #5.

I remember everyone thought that photo had to be Wilson because of the flash faces. But when the photo was finally accurately dated it was obvious that Ross had done the flash faces because the real photo date was long before Wilson ever got to Seminole.

Whoops, so I guess Brian Silva figured the photo had to be Wilson and that Ross was known for the rolled faces so let's just do it that way. He should have just read Ross's book more carefully and he probably would have realized Ross did all kinds of bunker  shapes and styles. He did all kinds of greens too, although everyone still thinks all Ross's greens had to be crowned or something!

The only thing I can see that Ross really did consistently throughout his career is find ever single high green location any site had to offer!

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom MacWood;

I wasn't aware of the changes Brian Silva made.  

See, I was in south Florida in mid June and I just KNEW that there was a reason I should have tried harder to see Seminole from ground-level (it's still impressive as hell from the airplane window!).  

If anything, it seems to me that Ross tried to make his bunkering site-specific, and reflective of the particular environment.  It's not surprising to me at all that he's the guy who created the wave-like, overpowering bunkering effect that one sees at Seminole.  

Like Flynn and Tillinghast, Ross was site-adaptive.

Hopefully, whatever misunderstood changes have occurred to the great course at Seminole can be corrected.  

[Ben C. Dewar]

I have played Seminole, and enjoyed it throughly.

I cannot understand the need to restore it, it is a such a super place, and much of what has been created has stood the test of time.

If the renovations are fifty years old and go back as many remember, why not leave the existing course as is?  

Just my opinion.

[Mark_Fine]

Let's just assume all the greens are Dick Wilson greens and not Ross (which they are by the way), the question remains - should such a great course be restored to what the original architect intended?  

When do you decide something that has been "significantly" changed is better than the original?  Does "better" even matter when it comes to restorations?  

[Mike_Young]

I like Dick Wilson's work.  I like Ross's work.  As several have said "if it don't need fix'in don't fix it.  
My wife's father was supt. at Indian Creek for many years and then went to Gulfstream and later To the Everglades Club , all in S. Fla. I have playedthem all and I must say I like the Wilson courses of Fla. as much as the Ross's.  Especially Pinetree.  
So, my question or dilemma is :  Are we pushing to have courses restored for the sake of saying this is what the original architect wanted or are we wanting them restored due to problems we see with changes since the orignal architect was there?  Again, we come to the evolution of a course and in most cases if a good super was there it was probably a good evolution.
By the way; has anybody played a Wilson in Bluefield W.V. called Fincastle.  Try it.
Mike

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

My guess is that Chis Dunphy listened, questioned, suggested and then decided.

I would guess that the finished product was the result of a collaborative effort between he and Wilson, not unlike Ransome-Fazio.

Dunphy, or whoever selected Wilson, might have done so on the chemistry created when they met, not an uncommon event, and Dunphy might have selected this talented young man
based on the fact that nothing was going to change without his stamp of approval.  He may have recognized Wilson's abilities, liked him, and decided to give him a chance knowing that Dunphy wasn't going to let anything bad happen to Seminole.

But, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong

[T_MacWood]

Mark
Before answering your questions, wouldn't you need detailed information thru meticulous research? Especially when talking about a world class course of Seminole's stature? Can you, or anyone, please answer these questions?

How do the current greens compare to Ross's original plans? What was the chronology of the changes, if there were any changes?

What changes did Watson make over the years and when? What was there effect?

What changes did Wilson make (if any), and when?

What changes did Silva make (if any)?

What changes occured naturally?

Were there bunkers added or removed? Was there changes to the shape and size of the bunkers? Have there been stylisticly changes to the bunkers over the years?

Are there weaknesses to the present course that need to be addressed?

[TEPaul]

"Let's just assume that all the greens are Dick Wilson (which they are, by the way), the question remains--Should a great course be restored to what the original architect intended?"

"When do you decide that something that has been significantly changed is better than the original? Does better even matter when it comes to restorations?"

Before any of those questions get asked or answered why don't we just ASSUME NOTHING and FIND OUT, if possible, what the evolution of Seminole's greens really was? Otherwise, your question about restoring Seminole's greens has got to be the all time theoretical one!

How can anyone on here even attempt to answer that question when they have no idea what Ross's original greens looked like much less whether what is there now (other than #18) may in fact be Ross's original greens!

I wouldn't even attempt to consider such a thing unless and until I knew a ton more about what Ross's original greens were in minute detail. It wouldn't be a bad idea either to find out if Wilson did change them all, why that was done in the first place.

"Does better even matter when it comes to restoration?"

I sure wouldn't want to belong to a club who decided to restore something to the original even if what was there now was BETTER! I love really good restorations and all but that makes no sense to me at all. You're sort of suggesting a club should restore back to something original from something better just for a name (Ross). If I belonged to a club like that I guess I could go around town and brag: "Well, we restored back to original Ross--it isn't really as good as what we had last year but it sure is back to the original!"

The first order of business is to find out what happened in detail and then try to analyze what Ross did there and if, where and how it was changed. If you can find all that out then MAYBE you can start to determine what is better--but not until! Otherwise you'd be making a massive ASSUMPTION--which can be extremely dangerous!

I just put in a call to Barry Van Gerbig to try to find out what he knows about what Wilson did there. Barry is in his late fifties to maybe sixty and he spent most of his time there when he was a little kid so he would know better than us what Wilson did and didn't do. He's at the Walker Cup and should be reachable in a week or so. In the meantime, I would love to know what the info you have is that makes you so certain what Wilson did at Seminole.