How did the Devil's As*hole evolve?

[Brian_Gracely]

For those of that have seen "Meet the Fokkers", the bunkers takes on new meaning

But seriously...

Looking at the picture of #10 on page 3 of this article, there is an early photo of the bunkering surrounding the green.  So how did that front area eventually evolve into the deep pot bunker that exists today?

http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/GolfIllustrated/1915/gi4j.pdf#xml=http://www.aafla.org:8080/verity_templates/jsp/search/xmlread.jsp?k2dockey=/mnt/docs/SportsLibrary/GolfIllustrated/1915/gi4j.pdf@aafla_pdf&serverSpec=localhost:9920&querytext=%28%28%22pine+valley+golf%22%29%29


btw - does anyone know how to pull a picture out of a .pdf file?

[Sean Leary]

Great pictures.  How about the fact that it says that there are only 3 par threes, and has 14 listed as a drive and pitch.

[Paul_Turner]

3,2,1 ... Tom Paul explodes

[Scott_Burroughs]

Good point, there's no DA in that picture.  No place for Tommy to intentionally deposit his suppository.  

That pic of #5 shows how intimidating it really is.

Also, not nearly as much waste area between the tee and green on #3 as there is now.

Certainly very few trees.


I don't think it's possible to extract a pic from a PDF file, unless you have Adobe Writer, perhaps (I don't know).

[Andy Levett]

btw - does anyone know how to pull a picture out of a .pdf file?

Use the snapshot tool in Acrobat Reader 6 (about half-way along the toolbar at the top) to put it on your pasteboard. Then paste into a new file in Photoshop or similar and proceed as normal.

[Brian_Gracely]

Thanks Andy!!

[Scott_Burroughs]

Thanks, Andy is right!

Here's #10 in 1925, with DA in place:


#3:




#5:

1923:

today:

[TEPaul]

Conventional wisdom emanating from PVGC is that the DA virtually began to evolve on its own and that the club just went with it. I guess if that were true perhaps there was the making of some mild sink-hole in that spot at some point or some other drainage situation in that spot that served to make it happen on its own to some extent..

However, this hole is usually given to Harry Colt as to design. The only possible lie that could be given to that attribution, in my opinion, is that it seems at least possible to say with some accuracy that Tillinghast may've pointed out, perhaps both before Colt arrived and again years later that that hole was there in basically it's present form before Colt arrived.

It will be very interesting to look at the hole drawing of #10 in Colt's hole by hole drawing booklet as to whether he actually designed a bunker that looks like the DA (that Colt drawing would be 1913) and for some reason Crump just never did it when he was alive.

[Brian_Gracely]

TomP,

Is it possible that the bunker "evolved" because of where balls would land and players hacking it out of the sand?  

[SPDB]

Another pic, and at a better (more similar) angle to
the original. Also a nice rough historical midpoint between
the two photos.
 

[TEPaul]

Check out the intersting "Mid-Surrey mounding" (Alpinization) to the right of #3 green that was later removed!

[TEPaul]

"TomP,
Is it possible that the bunker "evolved" because of where balls would land and players hacking it out of the sand?"

Brian:

I guess anything is possible but that sounds a little illogical to be perhaps a real stretch, don't you think? Plus, where the DA is today, I think, as you can see, once was grass. Common golf etiquette such as replacing your divot has likely always been part of the rather sophisticated membership of PVGC, I'm sure!  

But one interesting change on that hole is that after the DA did come into being the very severe slope that's above and around it was kept close cropped so that even a putt from on the green could very easily run too far and skittle directly into the unusually collecting DA. That area now has been put into rough surround to hold the ball more than originally and from filtering backwards into the DA.

[Mike_Cirba]

How much better does Sean's (SPDB) pic of the 10th bunkering look than the current state of affairs??    

[GeoffreyC]

Great photos

TEP- Was that mid-surrey mounding removed or is it still there amid all those trees?   There is at least one pine growing within the mounds even in that old photo.

[Mike_Cirba]

Check out the intersting "Mid-Surrey mounding" (Alpinization) to the right of #3 green that was later removed!

Tom;

I didn't know Rees Jones was alive way back then.  

[TEPaul]

Geoffrey:

Most all the "Mid-Surrey Mounding" or early alpinization experiment was removed from PVGC as it was from Merion East early on.

[Brian Phillips]

TEPaul,

My guess is it is where most climbed up onto the green after chipping back onto the green from below where the bunker is nowadays.  Footprint, after footprint created a hole which became a bunker.

The members probably preferred a 'saving' bunker (they thought at the time) instead of rolling back into the rough and and decided to build the bunker.  They now hate going in it and some member decided to call it DAH.

Just a guess...

Brian

[Paul_Turner]

The 10th in that photo (from 1915) appears to be as Colt drew on the routing plan.  I have a very good copy and I can see his blue lines underneath the red...  And I'm pretty certain the drawings in his book are identical to those shown on the plan...just more detail in the book.

I don't believe Colt drew in a DA,  I can't see it on the blue line plans.  

Interestingy the original bunkers were much more "splashed up" as HSC would have put it, and would have liked.

[TEPaul]

SPDB;

The photo you posted of #10 on post #9 that you called a 'nice historic mid-point' certainly is that. The truth of those cool looking "splashed up" bunkers around that green, particularly front left and on around the left side some really were great looking as the sand reached right up to almost a flattish green surface. I remember Bill Coore saying how cool that look was.

Unfortunately, I'm almost positive, those bunkers that were like that on that hole basically had the same problem as the fronting original bunkers on holes #2 and #18 that had massive amounts of sand "splashed up" to the green surface. Basically those things just couldn't hold they didn't. Obviously when that happens it endangers the stability of portions of the green surface itself as happened on #2 early on.

So they began to grass them down, or in the case of #2 and #18 to establish individual bunkers within a massive grassed down face (as they are still today on #2 and #18).

We can see in that photo SPDB calls a 'nice historic midpoint' that they were just using a very "rough" rough grass look back at that midpoint when today they use pretty much  straight blue grass for the grassed down faces of those bunkers that gives the holes a cleaner, greener look.

A cool looking original "splashed up" sand look all the way up but that look just didn't hold, so what're you going to do but eventually go to the grassed down look.

[Patrick_Mucci]

SPDB, TEPaul, et. al.,

Can there be any doubt, in looking at the first pictures of
# 10, that # 17 WAS A SKYLINE GREEN ?

The DA underwent an additional change at about the time of the Walker Cup.

Previoulsy the green fed balls into the DA.
I suspect surface water was also funneled into the DA causing maintainance problems, especially with the wooden steps that were once in the bunker.

A lip or diverting mini-berm was inserted on the greenside rim.
This diverted water around the bunker and performed the same function for retreating golf balls.  They no longer found their way to the bottom of the ice cream cone shaped bunker.

This change represented a softening of the hole/hazard as ball that hit the green with a good degree of spin no longer rolled back off the green and into the DA.  Instead they were deflected or stopped by the intervening rough that had been allowed to grow at the top rim and green area of the bunker.

I'd be curious to know who's idea this was, and if it was solely due to runoff water/maintainance, or making it less penal, or both.

In looking at the pictures and without the benefit of being able to play the old holes, which version do you prefer ?

The open more bunkered holes or the more confined tree laden holes ?

[Steve Curry]

When I was there the DA would wash out with a decent storm and it would need to be shoveled up.  If it was real bad you could see the sod stack and rail ties that are burried under the face of it.  If memory serves it was said that the ties are under the whole front of the green.  Maybe the DA was the result of a wash out and was left.

Steve