[T_MacWood]

What is known of Flynn's ACCC?

From what I understand the current course is more or less a completely new design. Was there an opportunity lost to restore the original Flynn course?

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

Much of the routing remains the same.  I only played Flynn's version (hope to correct that this winter) but from the aerial I've seen and from the accounts I've heard, a number of features were changed, including elevating some holes out of the marsh plain.  

[Mike_Sweeney]

Tom,

I only played the old ACCC, and it was a long time ago. Tom Doak has talked about this before but I don't think it was that radical from recollection of his post. I think many of the issues he fixed were drainage as it basically sits on a swamp. Now that it has left the world of high rollers only, I really want to go see it again. I just remember the clubhouse as being very historic, and this was at an age when I did not care about this stuff.

Obviously some of your friends here are better to comment, but I doubt the before or after would be a Top 5 Flynn course. I think it would be close thereafter, it just is a flat site to work with.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

I played ACC about 15 years ago before I was even intersted in course architecture.
I remember it being a"simple"course design, very old school and a delight to play.I remember some very interesting green complexes with forced carries over marshy land that were brilliant.
Most of all I rememebr the design being very simple and very well routed...if this I now learn was a Flynn design, I would not be at all surprised

[Gordon Oneil]

I think that until ACCC was sold by the Fraser family to Hilton (Hyatt?) 7-8 years ago, its legacy was as much about its history, Leo Fraser and his children and what a great place it was to be a member as much as it was about the Flynn design.  I have known Doug for quite some time and saw how difficult a decision it was for him and his siblings to sell the club.  They owned, operated, lived and breathed ACCC all of their lives and never expected that to change.  Only an offer from Hilton, in their attempt to create an Atlantic City version of Shadow Creek, so far in excess of anything the family could have ever expected turned out to be the "offer they couldn't refuse."
I haven't been back since.  As I said, what I remember about the club is more about Leo Fraser, Doug, Jim and their sister, the history and ambiance, the clubhouse that gave Golf House a run for its money, the food, the quirky, unique membership.  Similar to another Flynn design, Indian Creek, ACCC was enjoyed by a membership delighted by its absence from the  top 100 lists. They knew how much of a subtle treat it was to play, especially around the greens, and wanted their secret kept safe.   I remember a routing alternating from parkland to links, both styles placing a premium on the players second shot.  It was a course memorable more in its entirety than as individual holes.  Just one of those places that was fun to play.
Try as they may, they don't make them like they used to.

[TEPaul]

I played the old ACCC and the course after it was redone by Doak. There was a great old aura about the club when the Frasers owned it but I'd have to say the way the course is now is much better than the way it used to be.

As a for instance, they needed a good amount of fill to raise some of those back nine holes (and do a few other things) and they apparently got it by "cutting" and undulating some of the front nine holes that made those holes much more interesting to play and much more interesting to look at. Before that those fairways were basically "gunboat" flat!

The really interesting thing about ACCC's evolution is the way that Flynn "modernized" the features of a really rudimentary/penal Reid nine and even Willie Park Jr nine.

Interestingly, the routing basically remained the same through both Flynn and Doak reworking. Minor hole changes but the routing is basically similar to what it once was.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

Are you saying that Flynn didn't change Willie Park's routing?

I was unaware of that.

[TEPaul]

I just hope ACCC survives. The buyout of Hilton/Caesar's by Harrah's sort of makes me nervous for the long range survival of that golf course. The real estate value of that course's land has apparently been valued by "buyers" in the neighborhood of $35 million. It's pretty hard to run a golf club for long the way Harrah's might on land that valuable.

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
Are you saying that Flynn didn't change Willie Park's routing?"

MikeC:

Not much. Park's was what is now the front nine. The old Reid second nine (not the current back nine which is basically Reid's routing) got sold to houses years ago.

[wsmorrison]

In 1903 the term "birdie" was first used at ACCC on the current 12th hole.

John Reid laid out the first nine holes and later added 18.  The original 9-hole course was about 2150 yards in length.  When he added 9 holes, he added about 150 yards to the original 9 holes.  These holes were typical of their day--geometric and primitive with chocolate drops and other repetitive mounds and flat linear bunkers.

Willie Park, Jr. revised 5 of the original Reid holes and added 9 to make a total of 27 holes.  Flynn submitted plans in December 1923 and was hired to remodel each hole.  To keep costs down and having a regard for the existing routing, Flynn kept the basic routing intact.  Flynn added large areas of undulating sandy waste areas between holes and as hazards along the lines of play, he angled greens away from the line of play while remodeling all the greens.  In effect, he modernized the existing golf course in a seaside style reminiscent of his future work at Boca Raton and Shinnecock.

Flynn's plan had a "Tournament" 18 holes and a nine-hole course.  The nine hole course, the Blue Nine, was sold off for housing by the Fraser family.

Flynn Tournament 18      Was          

1                                Reid/Park 1
2                                    Reid/Park 2
3                                    Reid/Park 3
4                                    Reid/Park 4
5                                    Reid/Park 5
6                                    Reid 6
7                                    Reid 7
8                                    New
9                                    New   
10                              Park 1
11                                   Park 2   
12                                     Park 3
13                                   Park 4
14                                   Park 5
15                              Park 6
16                                   Park 7
17                                   Park 8
18                                   Park 9

Flynn 9-hole Blue Course   Was

1                                    New   
2                                    New
3                                    Reid 13
4                                    Reid 11
5                                    New, used Reid’s 8th green
6                                    Reid 15
7                                    Reid 16
8                                    Reid 17
9                                    Reid 18

I agree with Tom Paul.  Doak's alterations were great improvements to playability with the contouring preceeding the greens and the agronomics of the back nine which constantly flooded and were raised by Doak.  Doak changed some greens and made use of the marsh in interesting ways near the finish.  It is an outstanding course that is now available and should be appreciated by anyone near the region.  By the way, in speaking with Tom Doak, he acknowledges the limitations Flynn had to engineer some of the solutions he did and thought very highly of Flynn's work and the sandy waste areas.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

Bally's/Hilton were never going to restore the golf course.

The Chairman wanted to emulate Shadow Creek despite admonitions from the director of golf, myself, probably Tom Doak and others.

He was determined to make changes to add "glitz and glamour" rather than restore the golf course.

The golf course was, and remains fun to play.
It's right on the bay and the wind remains a marvelous attribute.

TEPaul,

In a discussion with a knowledgeable party yesterday, I was informed that the real estate is valued in the 8 million category, hence a sale would yield a huge loss.

New environmental regulations regarding offsets and use make the property less desireable for home sites, not to mention the bugs.

It's my understanding that the new owner intends to make the golf course profitable while continuing to use it for their prefered customers.

I believe current rounds are priced at $ 175.

It's difficult to tell what will happen to a golf course when it's owned by a large conglomerate.

Hopefully, the new owners will continue to operate the golf course, profitably, with no additional changes in the name of attracting new golfers.

Time will tell.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Public play on Monday to Thursday is $150

[Jonathan Cummings]

I played here with Doak and clan a few years back in the Ren Cup.  It was a delight of a course.  

I was struck, probably because of how few rounds were played, of how few employees seemed to work there.  Not sure what their maintenance budget is but it doesn't seem like a costly operation.

JC

[T_MacWood]

Willie Park advertised he added thirteen new holes to ACCC.

The nine lost to housing, was it considered the third nine or were all nines of equal strength?

What changes occured to the eighteen that survived between Flynn (1923) and the late 90's?

[wsmorrison]

The eighteen holes were referred to as the Tournament Course and the Blue course was regarded as a secondary set of holes.  They were not short with 4 par 4s over 400 yards in 1923.  But they were not used for championship play.  Equal strength?  Maybe not--but not by a large magnitude.

As to the changes that occured and the extent of work that still exist today by Flynn--it will be in the book

Can you post the advertisement by Park?  That would be interesting.  It seems rather he remodeled 5 holes and added 9 as I have already mentioned.  Can you tell me what the other 4 holes added were?  Did he mention remodeling in the advertisement.  It would seem he altered 5 and added 9 so that makes 14 "new" holes depending upon the definition of new.  

[wsmorrison]

3 tee:  353 yards, par 4



4 tee:  144 yards, par 3

[Tom_Doak]

Tom Mac:

The only thing I would add to this is that the Frasers had changed a few holes on Flynn's course before I saw it, including putting a couple of roads across it to access some interior housing lots (which may or may not have changed the routing in the process, I'm not sure).  Anyway, the client had no intention of leaving it alone or restoring it:  they wanted to block out the housing adjacent to the first couple of holes, to raise the holes along the marsh, and to eliminate playing across those roads, for starters.

I agreed to do that work because in my judgment, the course was not worth restoring anyway.  Several of the holes on the front nine (1, 2, 6, 7) were just flat as a pancake; same for the old 14, 15 and 16 but they sometimes went underwater in the spring, too.  It's a great location and it's always a bit windy, but mostly I believe that the Frasers ran a place that everyone loved, and the members and visitors overlooked some of the weaknesses of the course because they liked the ambience.

Jonathan:  Their maintenance budget as of three years ago was "only" a million a year.  They just did the work early in the mornings and late in the evenings so the customers didn't see the staff.

[TEPaul]

In the "Flynn box" that contained most of his original course drawings came a plan (routing map, course design, whatever one calls it) that seems clearly to have been done before Flynn worked on ACCC. Was it a plan done by Reid or Park or somebody else for either of their projects on the course? I don't know. Wayne has the drawing and maybe he could tell us. I don't remember when looking at it that it had anyone's name on it.

It did strike me when I last looked at it (maybe a year ago) how similar the routing was to the way the course was after Flynn's project (maybe 20 years ago) and before Doak's project. The fascinating thing about that plan to me, though, was how old fashioned and basically penal many of those early pre-Flynn ACC features were on that plan---eg lots of cross hazard features that're sort of the definition of the early style of "penal" architecture.

Again, did that plan show the design of Reid or Park? It's hard to say. However, it seems like Flynn basically just sort of "modernized" the feature placement and so forth on basically the same old routing. Sure, he did change a few holes in some ways but it didn't seem like that much.

The thing I do not know but maybe Wayne does is if the club had 27 holes for quite some time or if it sold that "other" early "Reid" nine and got Park to basically replace it with a new "nine"----eg sort of below and to the south (I think) of the old original Reid golf course.

How did that early plan get in Flynn's box? Obviously the club gave it to him when they hired him to redo the course. ACCC definitely was always dedicated to collecting anything and everything to do with the history of their course obviously because there's so much really old history and tradition surrounding that golf club and course from the real early days. But I don't think anyone had seen that early design plan that was in "Flynn's box" in a barn for many decades. Both the club (Hilton) and Doug Fraser were dying to get their hands on that plan because I don't believe either was ever aware of it's existence.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Owch!!!!!
I dint remember the bunkers looking that "modern" when I played there...I dont think I like that as much..the old bunkers appeared to fit the terrain and look of the course better...any comments?

[mike_malone]

 Maybe we should have a GCA get together here in the late fall. I will bring Flynn along.

[wsmorrison]

It is definitely a time of year thing.  These pictures were taken in late March or early April and the fescues and other grasses that surround the bunkers are not as they look during most of the year.  The shapes of the bunkers are really fine--the waste areas are not like Flynn had them, but they are representative in a number of areas including the area between 3 and 5.

Tom,

The only name on the 1921 survey map is of the surveyor/engineer.  It was clearly prepared so that Flynn could use it for his redesign.

I think the styles of the holes pre-Flynn are so different as to clearly show which are Reid and which are Park just from appearances.  Tom is absolutely right, the Reid stuff was geometric and repetitive with chocolate drops and the like surrounded by sand.  There were linear bunkers with linear mounds where the fill was placed and the like.

Park's work enhanced the look a bit but Flynn took it to a very interesting natural look.  The sandy wastes were Pine Valley-like and typical of his later efforts at Boca Raton North and South, Denver CC, Shinnecock Hills and Indian Creek among others.

Park's additions created 27-holes, something Flynn kept although he differentiated the 18-hole tournament course and the 9-hole Blue course.  The Blue course was sold by the Fraser's for housing.  As Tom Doak noted, there were other changes as well initiated by the Fraser family before Doak did his work.

[TEPaul]

M-W-P;

The "look" of the bunkers at ACCC since the Doak project had been something of an issue amongst some around here. The contractor on those bunkers was Macdonald & Co. There is a good friend of mine by the name of Kye Goalby who was basically leant to the contractors, Macdonald & Co, by Doak's company. Kye worked real hard on many of the "lines" of those ACCC bunkers during that project only to have some of Macdonald's machine operators basically just wipe them out when they got into construction. This led Kye Goalby to eventually just quit the project in frustration.

Macdonald & Co is a huge Maryland contractor and one probably most in favor with the USGA etc. But it seems like they just like to do bunkers basically with machines and not as much of the type of hand-work guys like Goalby, and Doak and Hanse and Forse and some others get into.

Basically my feeling is Macdonald & Co are much better at Ross bunkers than they are with Flynn bunkers.

But having said that Flynn's actual style of bunker modus operandi as far as a "look" was concerned is pretty darn interesting and could seem quite varied depending on where he was.

Basically Flynn's policy on bunkering was to start it out pretty bland and generic looking and then plan on letting the grassing lines basically just evolve on their own. There was obviously a good reason Flynn may've gotten into that architectural style and bunker look. He was considered to be one of the very best greenskeepers in America before he concentrated full time on golf course architecture. Flynn was massively knowledgeable on various grasses and how to use them. Matter of fact he and Toomey owned their own farm in Montgomery County pretty much dedicated to that.

They did let members of their crew live on that farm too and Connie Lagerman, Flynn's daugther also said that farm sort of doubled as a place Howard Toomey's wife, a former New York show-girl could get away from the city and basically dry out. She apparently knew how to hit the sauce pretty hard as most of the others of that day did too!  

[Gerry B]

redanman:

show the pics already - you put so much effort in capturing the place on that fine july day a few weeks ago

[T_MacWood]

Wayne
The Park advertisement simply said:

"Country Club of Atlantic City (13 new holes)"

The Park biography claims he was involved there in 1919, only a few years before Flynn was engaged. I'm not sure if that is accurate or not.

I've seen some pictures of Reid's old Northfield course and it featured numerous cop bunkers and ditches.

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

Right, the photos in The American Golfer (~1916 I think) are clearly visible on the routing map made in 1921.  Ugh  

I'm not certain when Park did his work, but 1919 does seem a bit late.  I would have thought it was 1916 or so; soon after he returned to the US.

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