So as to include the last bits of information (that I was heretofore not aware of) on the Aronimink Ross single bunkers vs the cluster bunkers that were originally built and how the recent bunker project played out I should report I spoke to Ron Prichard the other day and he did have that 1931 Pa Amateur Championship tournament program from the Delaware Valley Times well before the bunker project was begun.
To reiterate, that 1931 (3-5 years after the bunkers were built) program shows on some really beautiful hole by hole drawings by artist William Sickels the Ross single bunker plan almost exactly. (there is no cluster bunkering at all on Sickels hole by hole drawings).
However, back then (when the decison was being considered of what to create in the recent bunker restoration project) there were no aerials available showing the course in the late 1920s (1939 was the only aerial available). Those late 1920s aerials were found at the Hagley within the last month.
And so, Prichard and the club assumed that the bunkering was built as per Ross's drawings and the bunkering was later changed to clusters. (the fact that the cluster bunkers are all in the same places as the Ross plan's single bunkers lead Ron to conclude at some point in the 1930s Ross's single bunkers were simply divided into 2s and 3s).
Did it occur to Ron and the club before the bunker project that those very detailed artistic drawings of the course and its bunkering in 1931 are not as conclusive as an aerial photograph of 1931 or before? Perhaps not. Did it occur to them then that Sickels may've copied Ross's late 1920s drawings in 1931 instead of going out and drawing the bunkers on the golf course hole by hole? No it did not. It may not have occured to anyone that that happened until it occured to me in the last month.
It gets a bit stranger too. While the Sickels bunker drawings in 1931 almost exactly match Ross's bunker drawings (assuming Sickels did actually copy Ross's drawings) nevertheless there are a few minor variations (additions and subtractions) between the Ross drawings and the Sickels drawings (perhaps a good half dozen variations)? Why would that have been if Sickels copied Ross's drawings? Perhaps Ross submitted a few minor single bunker variation drawings following the Ross single bunker drawings we do have. If Ross did that they have not been found.
Is there a distinct similarity between the cluster bunkers that were built at Aronimink and the cluster bunkers that were built previously at nearby Jeffersonville G.C. (a course that it's been pretty much concluded by all that McGovern did under the Ross company but with little or no input from Donald Ross)? There most certainly is a distinct similarity. Not only is there a distinct similarity with those cluster bunkers of Jeffersonville and Aronimink but there is also a very interesting mention in that same 1931 PA Amateur Championship tournamement program in an advertisement for Jeffersonville G.C. that mentions the courses's 'unusual traps'.
Did the club, Ross, McGovern or anyone else make a big deal over the fact that Aronimink was built with cluster bunkers but the Sickels drawings in 1931 showed Ross's single bunkers? Apparently not. At least not anywhere near the extent that Tom MacWood has made of the difference---eg calling the recent bunker project of Ross's single bunker drawings a mistake that departed from what Tom MacW called a remarkable course (apparently only meaning the fact of the cluster bunkers!).
Is there any evidence that Ross himself changed those Aronimink bunkers to clusters from his previously drawn singles? No there is not. Could Ross have changed them himself? Of course. Could it be possible that he did not change them himself? Of course. Could it be that he simply gave his foreman J.B. McGovern some artistic license in this way? Of course! Did Ross's apparent surprise that seems evident in his famous statement years later that the course was built better than he knew have anything to do with that bunker change? Perhaps, but which of those scenarios really was the case we may never know.
If anyone back in 1931 made a big deal of the difference one would certainly wonder why Ross Aronimink foreman and Aronimink member J.B. McGovern and club member Walter Maxwell never mentioned anything about the difference when they did their hole by hole textual commentary in that 1931 PA Amateur Championship tournament program in the Delaware County Times.
Probably the logical answer to all that which I was discussing the other day with Ron Prichard is that we on here about 75 years after the fact make very large mountains out of very small molehills compared to the way those involved back then looked at the same things we look at today!