Pure if I...Can't you help me?

[DMoriarty]

I am curious just how much of a danger the "'so-called' purists" present to successful golf course restoration work.  A few questions . . .

In your opinions, which courses have been ruined by a restoration which was to true to the original?  

In your opinions, which restorations could have benefited if those in charge had sought the advice of someone who was very knowledgeable about the original design?

Strip the past of mine
My sweet turpentine
I can find the dirt on anything
I can find the dirt on anything

I ain't dancing with your skeletons
I ain't dancing with what might have been

-- from Purify, by Metallica

[Patrick_Mucci]

Dave,

I can't think of one course that attempted to restore itself to its original design/configuration, even allowing for the element of elasticity.

[Dave_Miller]

Dave,

I can't think of one course that attempted to restore itself to its original design/configuration, even allowing for the element of elasticity.

Patrick:
This is what Aronimink did.  Due to the many changes over the years and the fact that there was not a lot of documentation in certain aspects that McGovern may have changed in the field during construction the course was restored to the original design and came out extremely well.
The Club worked with Ron Pritchard on this.
Fairways and Greens,
Dave

[Patrick_Mucci]

Dave Miller,

Didn't Aronomink restore the golf course to the Donald Ross drawings and not the course as it existed on opening day ?

Does Ross's alleged statement about outdoing himself feed the argument that the course should have been restored to its opening day configuration rather then to the Ross's drawings ?

[DMoriarty]

Dave Miller,

Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you are saying that the restorers focused on the original plans because that was their best source of information . . .

In your opinion, could the result have been improved if they had focused more on contemporary concerns as opposed to following the aged plan?  


Patrick?  

How could the course have been improved if they had focused on the original course as opposed to the plan?   Did adequate information regarding the original course?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Dave Moriarty,

On Ross's visit on opening day, he is alleged to have said words to the effect that he planned to build a great championship golf course, and that today upon visiting the site, he saw that he outdid himself in that pursuit.

If he uttered words to that effect, that would seem to indicate that the golf course in its original form surpassed the golf course in its drawing board form.  That the golf course in the ground was better then the one on graph paper.

So, if Ross himself said that the original golf course turned out better then he had planned, why would you restore the golf course to the one he planned, rather then the one he built ?

I don't know if Ross uttered those words.
I had heard and read that he had, and as such, I posed my question in an above thread.

If you want to get into a discussion on what constitutes "original" I suppose you could argue that, but, to me, "original" means physically in the ground, and not some iteration on paper.

Irrespective of the above, Aronomink is a terrific golf course, a championship golf course and a little too difficult for me these days.

[ed_getka]

Dave Miller,
  Did they have better documentation with the original plans vs. documentation of what was on the ground on opening day?

[DMoriarty]

Patrick,  

I am not really trying initiate a discussion on what constitutes original.  I think I would generally agree with you though, at least when the designers are intimately involved in the construction process.

Really I was just curious whether information existed which would have allowed the restorers to put it back to opening day rather than the plans.  

As an aside, assuming that Ross said what he might have said, isn't it possible that the opening day course closely followed the plans, and that Ross was just pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out?  

[George Pazin]

Dave M - (whoops, guess I gotta specify the evil Moriarty )

I'm not really sure if you're being coy or honestly don't remember, but there has been extensive discussion about the restoration of Aronimink. While most of it has been very informative and enlightening, some of the area in which you are treading got a bit less than pretty, shall we say.

[Dave_Miller]

Dave Miller,

Didn't Aronomink restore the golf course to the Donald Ross drawings and not the course as it existed on opening day ?

Does Ross's alleged statement about outdoing himself feed the argument that the course should have been restored to its opening day configuration rather then to the Ross's drawings ?

Patrick:
There was no consensus or true documentation or photos on what the course actually looked like on opening day.  There were a couple of photos that showed a few bunkers somewhat different from the original design but apparently they were not conclusive.
Thus in working with Ron Pritchard the decision was made to use the original design plans and drawings which existed and what field drawings were available.  
Tommy Paul actually has much more information on this than I do.
Fairways and Greens,
Dave

[Dave_Miller]

Dave Miller,
  Did they have better documentation with the original plans vs. documentation of what was on the ground on opening day?

Ed:
From what I was able to learn that is exactly why they went as they did.
Fairways and Greens
Dave

[Dave_Miller]

Dave Miller,

Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you are saying that the restorers focused on the original plans because that was their best source of information . . .

In your opinion, could the result have been improved if they had focused more on contemporary concerns as opposed to following the aged plan?  
 

Dave:
They did use the original plans as it was the best source of information and there was no conclusive evidence one way or the other as to what was actually built.  There were a couple of bunkers that appeared to be somewhat different but even in the restoration using the original plans the character of the course did not change.  Fortunately there had been no changes to the Green complexes over the years.

Not sure what you are referring to as "contemporary concerns".  If it is length Aronimink has always been a very long course and is over 7200 yards from the back tees.
Fairways and Greens,
Dave

[TEPaul]

As near as I can remember from those extensive threads on the Aronimink bunker project and which type of fairway bunker style to go to---it's all in the back pages.

I do know a lot about it and I think most all of it is in those threads in the back pages. Ron Prichard called me at one point way before they did the bunkers asking me what I made of it when they were trying to collect every bit of restoration research information on the bunkers to make the decision. And duing those threads on here I called Ron Prichard back and went over it all with him again.

But why did those threads back in the archives get so long and contentious over this bunker project on the issue of whether it was a "pure" restoration? The only reason I can reember was Tom MacWood. He's the only guy I've ever known and I think Aronimink or any of the players around Philadelphia are aware of who seemed upset about the bunker decision. He was the only guy I think anyone was aware of who questioned it. The entire restoration project including the bunker portion was well received by all as a good decision. If anyone complained about the decision I never heard a single word of it and got pretty involved.

Tom MacWood has never even been to Aronimink. I doubt he's even been to Newtown Square Pa. So what does it matter to them what some guy in Ohio in some ivory tower who has nothing to do with Aronimink thinks of their course or whether their bunker decision was the right one? If he's got that opinion, let him have it---it has nothing to do with Aronimink's concerns.

So who do we want to rerun this whole bunker decision subject for now? David Moriarty?

I say tell David Moriarty or Tom MacWood if they really still care to look up the threads in the back pages and if they have any questions at all, I'll try to answer them. I might even call Ron again if there's something I can't answer. I can call the Green Chairman too who ran the entire Aronimink restoration program. I've known him for years.

[SL_Solow]

Tom; in all fairness, Dave M. did not start this thread on Arominink.  However, I think the first question he asked was somewhat skewed.  He asked for examples of restorations that were harmed by insistence on compliance with original course specifications.  What is missed in this question is the cost in human terms of dealing with arguments based on historical claims which may not be susceptible to authentication.  Put simply, the negotiation process which is inherent in many renovations can be impacted in ways that are not always demonstrable in discussions such as these.  However I think Dave's question pertaining to renovations that might have been improved by better research is quite interesting.  It might be rephrased to ask what renovations could have been significantly better if those in charge had been willing to consider historical data that was available to them.  Prior posts, led by Geoff Childs, on Yale make a good case for including that course.  The Merion bunker posts are less conclusive and remind us to give a renovation some time to grow in and settle before rendering judgment.

[TEPaul]

If anyone cares at this point, not only was Tom MacWood the only one who I'm aware of and I think Aronimink or Ron Prichard is aware of who disagreed with the decision they made on their bunkers, but I also can tell you why he disagreed with it---or at least why he told me he disagreed with it. I think his reason is probably in those back threads.

I can only tell you the reason he gave me, but he should probably tell you himself---maybe he has some other reason now.

He told me he thinks that it lends local character to Ross's courses that the various foremen that Ross used (McGovern around the East and Hatch towards the Midwest) sometimes did their own thing with designing up his courses. That's probably understandable as Ross was a super high production architect and obviously wasn't on site much in most courses during construction. In the case of Aronimink the local foreman during the construction of Aronimink was J.B. McGovern, sometimes known as Ross's Wynnewood office manager.

Before they got going and before making the decison on what to do on those bunkers Ron called me and told me he had a really beautiful set of Ross's own field bunker drawings but his aerials showed sets of two and three bunkers where Ross called for a single. He said his aerial was a couple of years after the course opening and he asked me if I thought it was reasonable to assume the course redesigned their bunkers just a few years after opening.

I remember telling him that didn't seem reasonable to me, since it was also in the depression years. So Ron did some more investigation and found that sure enough in most of the courses where McGovern was the foreman those two and three sets showed up. J. B. McGovern, did a course after Ross died and to be honest he is not a particularly well respected architect around here.

I was out there at Aronimink with Ron and the Green chairman (one of them) and this subject was being discussed by all of us. The club did not want McGovern bunkers--they wanted Ross bunkers and they felt that since Ron had those drawings that was at least a sure thing since those were Ross bunker drawings for Aronimink.

So why did MacWood say he disagrees with the decision they made and why thinks the decision should've been to recreate the bunkers even if it was McGovern who did them? Tom MacWood said he thought that because of his fixation with the "Arts and Crafts Movement" and that always showed a good deal of regional crafsmanship. In that sense the A&C Movement apparently always doesw show a lot of uniqueness depending on region. That's part of the theme of the A&C Movement.

Well, as far as I can remember the subject of the Arts and Crafts Movement never came up out there at Aronimink when they were trying to decide on that bunker decision.

The club had probably never heard of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Maybe Ross never heard of it either. Aronimink wanted Ross bunkers not bunkers which may've been something Ross's regional foreman JB McGovern liked to do.

And Aronimink got Ross bunkers---drawn in his very own hand. And fortunately everyone I've ever heard of is happy with what they got---except Tom MacWood, of course!

[DMoriarty]

Dave Miller,

Thanks for the reply.  I used a vague term like"contemporary concerns" because I really dont know with what the members there were concerned.  Length was the type of concern of which I was thinking, but I really didnt have any specifics in mind.  

It seems having an unusually long course to begin with (or room built in for elasticity) might be a big advantage from a restoration perspective.  
_____________________________________

So who do we want to rerun this whole bunker decision subject for now? David Moriarty?

TomP, I didn't bring up the bunkers at Aronomink.  In fact, I didn't even bring up Aronomink, Dave Miller did.   He was also kind enough to answer the questions addressed to him.  

A rhetorical question for you:  Was any purpose served by the first four paragraphs of your post No. 12, other than trying to slam TomM yet again?  
_________________________________________________

The initial question addressed the failure of pure restoration attempts . . . I take it that almost all who have seen it consider the Aronimink restoration a great success, so it does not qualify.   Any courses out there that do qualify . . .

In your opinions, which courses have been ruined by a restoration which was to true to the original?  

In your opinions, which restorations could have benefited if those in charge had sought the advice of someone who was very knowledgeable about the original design?

I know of no courses which fit the first category.   As for the second there are plenty out here . . . Ojai (Morrish), Riviera (Fazio), and LACC (Harbottle) just to name a few.  

[TEPaul]

SL;

Looking at David Moriarty's posts it looks to me like he was asking about Aronimink and  restoring to original. The only question I ever saw on it and the only disagreement on here with what they did was because of those two and three set bunkers rather than Ross singles on his drawing. I thought that's what David Moriarty wanted to know about.

But if he thinks I'm hijacking his thread, depite his asking about Aronimink, and he only wants me to answer those two hypothetical questions in his initial post I'd be glad to.

[DMoriarty]

Shelly,  

My first question is lacking in that it does not completely or adequately explore the difficult process of guiding a restoration.   These more difficult issues are certainly worth exploring, but I had hoped to start with something which seems more fundamental--  Are there any examples out there where a course was worse for being brought back to its original form?  

[TEPaul]

"A rhetorical question for you:  Was any purpose served by the first four paragraphs of your post No. 12, other than trying to slam TomM yet again?"

David Moriarty:

There most certainly is a purpose for me mentioning Tom MacWood again. And I'll tell you what that purpose is again. Does it matter to Aronimink, their members and those that know and play the course what Tom MacWood who's never been there thinks of their bunker restoration?

And if it doesn't why did we have to go through all that stuff before anyway? Do you know what Donald Ross was trying to do throughout his career? Do you know what one of his fundamental principles in architecture was? I'll tell you what it was, or you can read it in his book. He wanted to produce maximum interest and enjoyment for the club which is made of of its members.

And that's what Prichard and the club did this time. There was plenty to agonize over out there in decision making. That's the real world of restoration architecture. Do you think they should've agonized then or now over what some guy in Ohio or California who's never even been there thinks?

The real world is what they're trying to do that's right for them and they wanted a Ross restoration. What's your world? What's your reslity in this?

[George Pazin]

To me the most difficult and ambiguous question re: restorations is what do you restore to (and this is where the trust element that I brought up on one of the other threads comes into play).

Surely no one would suggest that Merion be restored to its original course.

Would anyone suggest GCGC be returned to its pre-Travis, Emmet design (or the other way, if I screwed up who came first)?

In a different vein, but similar question with a twist, would folks recommend Oakland Hills be returned to its pre-Monster status?

Certainly an NGLA or an Oakmont - courses that I think have been relatively well preserved - shouldn't return to their opening yardages.

So how does one determine what to restore to? Do you pick a highpoint date? Do you try to pick common elements?

That's largely where trust comes into play. If you trust Ron Prichard, then you believe that he (and/or the other folks at Aronimink) chose the approach taken because he felt it would yield the best result.

That is not to say that it isn't in everyone's best interests not to question people like RP or to question green committee decisions. I am a firm believer in peer review, and if people get too sensative about asking or answering pointed questions, then I think everyone suffers. And just because you ask pointed questions doesn't mean you don't respect the other individual or his motives.

If peer review cannot be implemented, then we wouldn't have this wonderful forum because the Huck's and Goodale's of the world would have shouted down the true progress leaders with cries of "why means more than how!"

I do think that if one holds evidence of something that is contrary to accepted beliefs and criticises someone based on this evidence, it is also in everyone's best interests to reveal said evidence so that that person can be held up to the same standard of peer review.

 

[DMoriarty]

TEPaul:  

The reason I identified the question as rhetorical was that I had hoped you would refrain from answering.  

I have absolutely no interest in further discussing Aronomink or Tom MacWood with you.   I dont know anything about either, nor do I have any opinions about them.  

[TEPaul]

"I have absolutely no interest in further discussing Aronomink or Tom MacWood with you.  I dont know anything about either, nor do I have any opinions about them.  

DavidM:

I realize you don't know anything about either. Would you mind if I offer my opinions if others mention it, though, or do you think you should control everything that's said by others on a thread you start? Perhaps you think you have some copyright or editorial control over what others say on your threads. It certainly seems that way with me as everything I say to you or about purists or whatever you criticize for some reason.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Dave Moriarty,

I still can't think of a single golf course that attempted to restore itself to it's opening day configuration, taking into account the elasticity factor.

It remains an interesting question, or puzzle.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

I can't either. I doubt there is a course anywhere on earth that's been restored COMPLETELY to original in every respect. There sure seem to be enough good researchers on this website to find that out. But seeing as restorations really never even happened, or very rarely, until probably less than twenty years ago that would be understandable.

And so I'd ask that perrhaps DavidM could accept that assumption and perhaps rephrase that first question of his.

So, do you consider that 'intelligent discussion' on my part of something you asked, David, or are you going to take my answer as just another personal affront?

[T_MacWood]

It is an interesting question...I can't think of any examples off hand, although I think it would be posssible. That is why I believe thorough investigation and research is important before deciding what should be restored...the architectural high point. For example if someone attempted to restore Pebble Beach to its pre-1920 formation or even GCGC prior to Travis.

I also believe certain controversial features which are restored could meet a certain amount of criticism. Although I'd love to see it restored, I'd imagine not everyone would be thrilled with the 12th GCGC. (on related note I recently discovered that the original Whitemarsh Valley had a hole inspired by the 12th...I'm not sure what became of it)

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