Can you help identify this golf hole?

[wsmorrison]

The photo below was published in "Turf for Golf Courses" by Piper and Oakley in 1917.  I'm not certain what golf course is pictured, though I have a radical idea.  In any case, right ID or not, it has led some of us to reconsider a famous hole and how much of the fairway is a natural formation vs. man-made.  Please let me know if this hole looks familiar to any of you.

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

I won't give away yet what we first thought and the reasons why I, for one, thought it couldn't be what we first thought. The house (clubhouse?) in the distance, although a long way off looks remarkably similar to the rear of Piping Rock's clubhouse but this hole doesn't match that golf course nor apparenly does the land to the left of the clubhouse (from this angle). If that is a clubhouse in the distance it sure is a substantial one which should limit the choices of what course this is for such an early time.

[mike_malone]

 It is hole#3 at "The Golf Course at Tom Paul's House"

[TEPaul]

Whatever that hole is my early bet is it was somewhere around the north shore of Long Island. Even that little shelter looks like some of the ones I remember at Piping Rock. The architectural features look Macdonald/Raynoresque to me too.

[T_MacWood]

Wayne
I wondered the same thing when I first saw that picture. It looks like Columbia to me.

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

Ignoring the ground movement and the house or possible clubhouse for a moment, don't you think the bunkers disqualify any thought that this might be a Macdonald or Raynor golf course?

It sure looks like there is some alpinization going on in the relative foreground directly below the big white house.  

I'm going to go to the historical society to see if I can identify if there was an estate house that matches the big house in the photo and where I first thought this course might be.

Mike Malone,

If that's Tom Paul's house in the distance, that's my house with the pyramid roof on the right.

[wsmorrison]

Tom Paul,

I think that shelter looks like the shelters seen around the course I postulated.  Granted the ground in the distance doesn't correspond.  The historian of the course I thought it was said that shelter looks exactly like the shelters on the course during the era this photo was taken, so they were probably a common look.

Tom MacWood,
Columbia in Chevy Chase?  I showed the photo to Craig Disher and it did not look like anything he's seen.  He agreed very strongly with Tom Paul that this was not the course I thought it was.  

After some discussion, I'll say what I thought and what my thoughts are on the fairway design.

[T_MacWood]

I think the big house in the background is the clubhouse at Columbia. If I'm not mistaken Piper And Oakley were based in the DC area and performed some experiments at Columbia. The hazards look very much like those I've seen in historical photos of Columbia (designed by the underrated HH Barker, later remodeled by his friend Travis).

[wsmorrison]

Interesting, Tom.  I hope Craig takes a look at this and weighs in.  You're right, Columbia was the site of much turf experimentation by Piper, Oakley, and Harban (I thought he did the original design at Columbia).  Wilson and Flynn visited the site many times to inspect the work being done there.  Flynn came in during the mid-1920s and redid the 1st and 2nd holes.

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

I just don't know Columbia C.C. at all so I sure couldn't possibly identify that hole or that clubhouse (if it is the clubhouse). But if Tom MacWood knows that course I have a feeling he's identified this one.

Here's why I suspect that. Walter Harban apparently designed an early Columbia C.C. or helped Herbert Barker with it down there and as we can see by some of the mast-heads on our "agronomy letters" of the early Wilson/Piper Oakley et al turf grass experiments and literature that eventually morphed into the USGA Green section (and was proceeded by the book that photo is in), Walter Harbin from the Columbia C.C. in DC/Maryland was a central character and contributor to all those US Dept. of Agriculture turfgrass efforts from the very beginning!! It seems to have been Harban with Piper/Oakley/Wilsons et al who first encouraged formal turfgrass consulting in America. And seeing as that's Piper/Oakley's book the photo is in it stands to reason Harban gave them that photo---probably of his own course---Columbia C.C.

[mike_malone]

redanman,

  I think you may mean #4 at Merion. I'm surprised that Tom and Wayne did not slay you for thinking this looks like#5.

 Initially I thought it looked like one of the few long par fours on Merion West.

[Bill Gayne]

Based on the picture and the roll of the land I would guess Columbia in the absence of anything better.

[Scott_Burroughs]

If Columbia's current clubhouse is the same orientation as it
was in the past (if this is CCC's clubhouse) and the course
routing hasn't changed significantly, then based on this
aerial, the only hole it could possibly be is the one at the top
right (#7?), with the bunkering changed:

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

If C&W is correct it seems like there were two Columbia C.C.s in Chevy Chase or two courses at Columbia C.C.. The listing under Walter Harban is an NLE. But that photo is from 1917 so it most likely wasn't NLE then. Also from C&W the Barker Columbia C.C. was built in 1910. Were there two Columbia C.Cs down there or just 36 holes, one by Barker and perhaps one by Harban? The exact history of Columbia C.C. has to be for the DC expert Craig Disher. The 1917 photo with that clubhouse in the distance and the clubhouse in the photo above have to be the same clubhouse.

[david h. carroll]

there's not that kind of roll to the land at # 7 Columbia, but I do think the clubhouse looks like it

[wsmorrison]

Mike Malone,

In 1916, the current 4th hole was the 5th hole.  The routing progression on the front nine was different than it is today.  The 1st, 2nd, 8th, and 9th are the same.  The current 6th was the 3rd, the current 7th was the 4th, the current 4th was the 5th, the current 5th was the 6th, the current 3rd was the 7th.

I think BillV was referring to the foreground being the current 5th green and the fairway on the right, that of the current 4th.

Speaking of fairway on the right, notice the horse-drawn mower.

[TEPaul]

david H. carrol said:

"there's not that kind of roll to the land at # 7 Columbia, but I do think the clubhouse looks like it."

David:

That's probably because the golf course at Columbia C.C. that was apparently built by Walter S. Harban is apparently an NLE. That photo though is from 1917.

[TEPaul]

Mayday and redanman:

A couple of weeks ago we thought it may be the 4th at Merion East (with the 5th on the left) but the rest of the land in the photo doesn't match, and neither does the area where Merion's clubhouse was and is.

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

It has to be the old NLE Harban Columbia C.C. but if someone can actually figure out which hole it was, I'd say that'd be quite a research feat!

[wsmorrison]

looking at the modern photo that Bill posted, it appears that there were additions and changes made to the clubhouse over time.  While it looks like the Columbia clubhouse, I'm not convinced that it is.  How far from spot the photograph I posted do you think that large white house is?  I think it is pretty far.  I talked to Craig by phone and he is preparing some materials for this.  He thinks it may be a mile or so away.  In that case, there is no way it is the 7th at the current Columbia.  I thought I had Columbia CC history book, I can't find it as of now.  Maybe there were 2 courses, Tom.  That would be interesting.  Clearly the Flynn revisions are for the course that is there today.

[Bill Gayne]

Wayne,

I was wondering the same question as to distance. Based on the scale of the building from about 150 or so in the modern photo and the scale in the old photo I would guess a ratio of about 8 to 1 which would put it approximately 1200 yards or 2/3 of a mile. Also trying to guess at the angle that the picture would have to be taken from the lower left white space of Scott's posting. Was the NLE course located in that space?

[Craig Disher]

Tom,
I think you're on it. I was skeptical at first because the clubhouse just didn't look right. It still doesn't but based on this aerial, I think the photo is Columbia. The camera would have been positioned near a crossing road, about where the maintenance area is now. The fairway in the foreground is the 10th. The golfers are playing up the 11th. In this 1937 aerial, the shelter is in the same position as the photo relative to the bunkers.

I may be making too much of leap here, but the fact that the picture would have been taken near the maintenance area ties in with Piper's authorship of the book.

[Bill Gayne]

Craig,

Your lower right angle is consitent with my guess of the left on Scott's (the two are inverted with one at the clubhouse on bottom and the other with clubhouse on top). Looking at the trees it would allow a fairly unobstructed view to the clubhouse.

[wsmorrison]

Great going, guys!  This forum is the only way could we have come to a conclusive finding in so short a time.  Thanks for the serious efforts of the participants and and thanks to Ran for making GCA.com possible!

[Scott_Burroughs]

Leave it to Craig to bring out the great aerials from the past!

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