"How many courses did McGovern build for Ross...fifty courses? one-hundered courses? maybe more? I'm certain more than once he took in the field liberties, isn't that a common and expected occurance when you have competent experienced field person and a confident mentor? Totally revamping the design is very rare....did McGovern do it often?"
I don't know what McGovern did often but it appears as a result of this thread which you've had much to do with and my putting Ron Prichard and Ron Forse and Jim Nagel together to discuss this specific subject something might come to be known on that score. And of course that's a very good thing, I'm sure!
"McGovern was his assistant from 1916 to Ross's death (1948)..whatever McGovern did, it doesn't appear there was a problem. If its good enough for Ross (good enough to put his name on the final product) its good enough for me."
Tom:
I know what McGovern was, when he started with Ross and how long he worked for him and a lot of what he did around here, so you don't really need to tell me about J.B. McGovern. It appears McGovern may have taken some real liberties on a green redesign plan from Ross's own hand (I have here in my office) on my own course in 1927! There's also no question at all that McGovern did some really mediocre work on my course in 1947, that we've thankfully been able to remove with our recent restoration with Gil Hanse. McGovern's solo design has always had less then decent respect--just ask most anyone on here who knows it.
"Your theory that McGovern redesigned, remodeled or atlered Ross's plan (with or without his approval) is pure speculation. Restoration should not be based upon speculation."
Tom, that's not my theory, it's Ron Prichard's and he feels he can prove it. Furthermore both your apparent ignorance and arrogance has frankly gone beyond maddening and has arrived at the comical on this Aronimink matter.
Do you even know Ron Prichard? Do you know Ron Forse, or Gil Hanse? I think it's pretty safe to say from all those who attended the Baltusrol GCA get-together last winter that Ron Prichard just may be the most passionate there is about the actual "purity" of classic archtiecture and golf, and also the most knowledgeable about and dedicated to true research on the projects he does. Just ask anyone who heard him speak at that get-together and they'll all tell you the same thing including Ron Forse and Gil Hanse.
Ron reads GOLFCLUBATLAS.com, he loves the site because he loves to see so many people take an interest in the thing he loves so much. When you started knocking the decisions he and Aronimink made about this bunker situation I called him. Ron's also an extremely nice man---Ive never seen him get pissed at someone who questions architecture or the restorations he's done. But he did say to me---"Tommy, that fellow from Ohio should just come out in the field and watch me or some of us and he might learn something very valuable about the way all this works and sometimes has to work." He said he's been doing this stuff practically everyday for the last 30 years and what is it that you know sitting there looking at pictures and old newspaper articles that he doesn't know? He also said yesterday, that as much as he loves Golfclubatlas, he's always noticed a sort of one dimensional way of thinking amongst many of its contributors that unfortunately seems to make them think in "awareness blinding absolutes" regarding the way things really were and really are now.
He wasn't in the slightest upset when he said it---he was simply stating the most obvious fact imaginable. He does not base his restoration on speculation, he bases it on tremendous research, the realities of what sometimes has to be done in the field (that hopefully some day you might get off your ass in Ohio and go find out about first hand!). RonP even used to have a bit of a reputation with sometimes really going to town on his restoration clients if they needlessly questioned what he knew to be restorative purity. Today he's less that way, I think, mellowed maybe, and much better at educating them in interesting ways.
So don't you tell me or anyone else on here that Prichard needlessly bases his restorations on speculation. If he doesn't have historical information or material on a course no matter how hard he tries to get it he goes with his decades old incredibly deep experience on this entire subject!
So don't accuse Ron Prichard, particularly, of basing restorations on speculation and don't remind him that's not what restorations should be based on. When a person like you, with so much less experience in this business than he has says something like that to him it only exposes both your ignorance and your arrogance, and that's what you're doing now.
Ron Prichard would probably be happy to teach you some of this. He probably would be glad to have you come visit him on a restoration project. Maybe he'd even talk to you on the phone. I'll give you his number---why don't you call him and do it? I guarantee you it'll be an education for you and a vast one.
Take this post as a personal attack if you want, as you seem to constantly do, or take it in the real spirit it's intended---as a suggestion of real education. I'm completely certain you'll be very grateful for the education you'll get because I do know without question how interested you are in all this and how passionate you are about it all.