[BCrosby]

In 1936 Bobby Jones named the first hole at the Country Club of Cleveland as one of his favorite par 4's.

I had never heard of the The CC of Cleveland. It is not listed in Whitten's book. Nor is it listed as NLE. Was it renamed Pepper Pike along the way?

Does anyone know anything about the first hole there as it would have appeared in the mid '30's?

Bob

[wsmorrison]

Bob,

The Country Club is in Pepper Pike, Ohio.  Flynn built this a few years after he built the the next door Pepper Pike Club.  The third Flynn course is Elyria on the western side of the city.

TCC in Pepper Pike is a really fine golf course with a routing that takes full advantage of the topography.  The first hole is an excellent hole.  There are a number of great par 4s.  In my mind, there are some that are better than the first including the fifteenth and the all-world seventeenth.  

The first hole:



The tee shot plays slightly downhill.  The green is raised about 10 feet or so above the creek with a nice slope of fairway up to the green.

The fifteenth hole:



The tee shot plays slightly downhill.  The three cross bunkers are set beautifully in a ridge.  Classic looking Flynn bunkers.  The fairway beyond the ridge rises steadily to the green that is offset from the line of play.



It is hard to describe this hole.  To me, it is one of the great holes in the world.  The diagonal off the tee demands good club selection and precise line and distance.  The fairway falls dramatically from the landing area to the bunkers which are set into a steep bank up to the green with an acute right to left slope.  Wonderful hole!  Best of a great bunch.

Anyone travelling to Ohio should make every effort to see this outstanding course.

[T_MacWood]

Bob
As Wayne said the tee shot falls gently down hill...a nice way to start a round. What makes this hole IMO is the green site...a raised diagonal ridge above the stream.

Wayne
It is interesting that Flynn's drawings don't show any elevation changes. I didn't know the creek was piped under the 15th fairway.

[BCrosby]

Amazing, Wayne. Just amazing.

(How was a William Flynn course in a large metro area that has held several national championships missed by Whitten? Just asking.)

At the time Jones was interviewed for his favorite holes, he was attending the '35 US Am. at CC of Cleveland (won by Lawson Little), so he may have had the course on his mind.

Based on the Flynn drawing, the 1st has (had?) some similarities with the 1st at TOC. What is the contouring like on the hole?

Bob  

[BCrosby]

Thanks Tom. Sounds like it doesn't have much in common with the 1st at TOC afterall.

How much Flynn is still there?

Bob

[Bill_McBride]

GCA is a wonderful resource!  Bob asks about a course not listed in one of the standard manuals, and Wayne produces original drawings of the hole(s) by the architect!  

[wsmorrison]

Bob,

I cut the size of the photos down a bit to make them easier to see on the screen.  These drawings were recently found at the club and kindly sent to me by D. Scott Meneely.

I didn't realize that the course is not listed in Cornish and Whitten, interesting.  Flynn made the most subtle changes to the design as his iterations progressed.  It is a fascinating study regarding the detail of the changes and the precision of his work.

The relationship between the 1st at TOC and the first at Pepper Pike isn't all that apparent to me.  The stream crosses the 1st green at TCC, PP but not next to the green but rather below the green down a gentle slope.  What similarities do you notice, Bob?

Tom MacWood,

Off topic, but I've recently determined that Flynn was at Inverness Club for several weeks in 1921.  Do you know if Flynn was helping Marshall deal with agronomic or architectural matters?  It was only two years after Ross's redesign.  I've left messages with the head pro, superintendent and GM.  Nobody wants to return my pleas for assistance.  Anything you could do to fill in the gap would be welcome.

[T_MacWood]

Bob
I think the course is well preserved for the most part, although I haven't played it in a few years and I understand they've done some work there recently. Wayne would know better.

[wsmorrison]

Bob,

There was a recent restoration of the golf course.  While there are discrepencies from the original drawings and photographs, the work was very well done.  It was done by the IMG staff, many of whom, as you'd imagine, are members at TCC, PP.  We need to go there sometime and I know you will be thrilled!

[T_MacWood]

If I'm not mistaken Mark McCormack (IMG) was a long time member of Country Club.

Wayne
That's the first I've heard of Flynn at Inverness. WJ Rockefeller was the long time greenkeeper at Inverness. He was there when the first nine was built, and there to assist Ross in creating the new/revised 18. He was nationally well-known and a mentor to other famous greenkeepers (Joe Mayo for one). I believe he was active with the USGA green section as well, which might explain why Flynn visited.

[wsmorrison]

You're not mistaken, Tom.  That's a powerful group of members at The Country Club.  You need to go back and see the work.  I don't know firsthand what it was like beforehand, but I'd welcome your take on the differences.

Tom, did you see my earlier post asking for assistance regarding Inverness Club and the mystery relationship with Flynn?  Please get back to me if you're able to help out.

[BCrosby]

Other than TOC, Jones rarely praised or condemned any particular hole or course. That he singled out the 1st at CC of Cleveland is remarkable. I would love to see it one day.

Flynn must have been a pretty good architect.

Bob

P.S. BTW, if you Google CC of Cleveland, the club's web site lists the course designer as "n/a". I am often surprised at how little interest clubs have in their architectural pedigrees, but CC of Cleveland may take the cake.    

[wsmorrison]

Bob,

To come to the club's defence, they've been enthusiastic supporters of the National Flynn Invitational.  If they were once remiss in acknowledging that pretty good little Irish architect named Flynn, they sure are shouting his praises these days.

I highly regard the first hole, but if Jones were alive today I'd say,

"Yeah, Bob, the first is a nice hole but are you nuts?  What about the fifteenth and the seventeenth?  Come on, Bob, get with the program!"  Or something to that effect

Tom,

Yes, I know they had an outstanding and well-published greenkeeper in Rockefeller and a strong green chairman in Marshall who was active in the Green Section.  This might explain why Flynn visited but it is far short of explaining why he was there for several weeks.  That sounds like he was doing something substanitive rather than visiting.  Do you know if there is a club historian?  I finally heard back from my friend who is a member.  Typically he didn't know anything about architecture nor does he care much.  He said he'd try and find out for me though.  I was wondering if you had any connections.

[ForkaB]

Bob

My copy of Whitten's book has the club listed.  It's under Flynn (Ohio).

[wsmorrison]

Rich,

It is under Flynn but it is not in the back of the book in the Appendix listing all the courses referenced.  Bob didn't know the architect was Flynn so he would've had a difficult time finding out anything about it.

Lawson Little won the "Little Slam," both the British and American Amateur tournaments in consecutive years, 1934 and 1935.  The previous US Amateur was won at the more well-known Country Club, the one in Brookline, MA.  Little won the 1935, as Bob said, at The Country Club in Cleveland, or more precisely Pepper Pike, Ohio.  Where did Little win the 1934 and 1935 British Amateurs?  I tried to find it online but could not.

[ForkaB]

Wayne (and Bob)

Look in the alpha listings under "(The) Country Club."  It's there, and even gives Toomey his due........

[T_MacWood]

Wayne
I do not believe anything substansive was done architecturally in 1922. They had the US Open there is 1920 and by all acounts it was great success. There were some minor changes made prior to the 1930 US Open. Here is a link to information on some of the parties. Its difficult to say who may have been helping who in 1922. Rockefeller dabled in architecture in the 1920's, perhaps Flynn was advising when he visited.

http://turf.lib.msu.edu/1950s/1957/570608.pdf

[BCrosby]

Thanks Rich. I swung and missed.

Bob

[BCrosby]

Wayne -

By all accounts Jones had a wonderful sense of humor. He could be very funny and self-deprecating. But I would like to have been around when you told him "...come on, get with the program."  

Bob

[TEPaul]

Bob:

C&W didn't miss it, it's just all in the name (or name changes or references).

I went out there a few years ago to study it and got pretty confused about the names myself. Some refer to it as "C.C. of Cleveland" (but those who do that don't seem to come from Cleveland ). It's original name may've been (The) Country Club, and those out there who know it and belong to it generally refer to it as merely "Country". The fact that it's in Pepper Pike Ohio obviously confuses some with the fact that another Flynn course Pepper Pike is just about next to it, perhaps even contiguous. At one point I think before construction the two courses were slated to be one club but it did not work out that way.

I do know that some of the old tournament players considered "C.C. of Cleveland" to be one of the more challenging and demanding courses they played.

It's a good one and it also happens to be one that shows more than most any other he did how Flynn intentionally preserved and used trees both for aesthetics and strategically in play. Flynn, per usual, also did a fair number of plan and drawing "iterations". It seems that some of the most interesting hole "iterations" were not done in final construction. Of course no one knows why----was it money---was it that they didn't like them?

The question became in the last restoration project, should some of those final "hole iterations" be used and constructed now?

[wsmorrison]

Tom MacWood,

It doesn't make a lot of difference, but it was in 1921 that Flynn spent several weeks at Inverness.  It was, as you say, after Ross's redesign work in 1919 before the Amateur.  Thank you for the link, we know from the correspondence between the Wilsons and Piper/Oakley that Marshall was instrumental in the Green Section development.  It would appear that the agronomics were put in order for the 1920 Amateur.  So it begs the question of what Flynn was doing out there for so many days.  Do you know an interested member of the club that could help determine what Flynn was doing at Inverness?

[T_MacWood]

Wayne
I don't know anyone at Inverness. I'd start with the green superintendent, he might know what became of Rockefeller's records.

[wsmorrison]

Thanks, Tom.  I did try and contact the superintendent on several ocassions leaving messages each time but to no avail.  I'll try again.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Wayne
How much longer before we all get to see the book...please dont make us wait forever...

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

In a 1922 USGA Green Section "Bulletin" you'll find an article about William J. Rockefeller under the title "Notable Greenskeepers".

I don't know who wrote that article for the Bulletin (could it have been Marshall?) but in that article it practically gives Rockefeller credit for designing and constructing Inverness. Obviously if you check Brad Klein's book you will find Ross's plans for Inverness.

Perhaps this is just another example of the feeling back then that the man who "constructed" the course to "plans" was also the designer. You know, something like the situation we ran into at Kittansett a few years ago.  

Anyway, that Ross was not mentioned in that 1922 "Bulletin" article on Rockefeller and Inverness seems pretty odd. One would have to think that if Marshall helped create the USGA Green Section and the "Bulletin" he wouldn't have let misinformation slip into a "Bulletin" issue within the first year of its existence, and certainly not on his own golf club.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()