[wsmorrison]

My primary goal was to create a course that would have flow, a reasonable par distribution and overall challenge with a collection of aerial and ground approach options.  There are shot demands (a theme in Flynn's designs) but few, if any, forced carries.  In some cases I didn't choose my favorite Flynn hole in terms of routing progression.  For instance, my favorite Flynn 17th is found at The Country Club in Pepper Pike.  I could not fit that in given the surrounding holes.  I tried to stick to one hole from each of 18 clubs, but failed in that I used two holes from Shinnecock Hills.  I could have used several from Huntingdon Valley, Kittansett, Indian Creek, Rolling Green and others so this isn't a list of my favorite Flynn holes by routing progression but rather an eclectic course.

I guess so many of the members of this site, especially on the west coast, have not seen much of Flynn.  I'll post some drawings and photos if the discussion has some traction.  Off the top of my head (with an assist from scorecards):

Hole 1:  Merion GC East Course  par 4/362 yards
One of the great starting holes in golf.  Pure Flynn circa 1929

Hole 2:  Pocantico Hills 4/304
Tom Paul could use this as an example of extreme width and a mental test to determine where to hit.  The hole plays downhill and is reachable.  There is way too much difficulty around the green which falls away from you.  The best play is well to the left of the green in order to have an uphill approach.  Temptation to go at the green and all the width in the world in addition to the Hudson palisades in the distance.  One of the most beautiful spots in golf.

Hole 3:  Kittansett  3/165
Beautifully situated on Buzzards Bay.  Depending on the tide, the carry is over sand or water.

Hole 4:  B-4 The Country Club of Brookline  4/493  Flynn's very difficult yet wonderful uphill par 4 (championship play).

Hole 5:  Opa Locka  3/229
A fairly long par three with a diagonal of three bunkers fronting the green from short right to long left.  A precise shot demand  was a low running draw over the right buner that would feed onto the green.

Hole 6:  Indian Creek  4/445
Brilliant use of perceptual deception with a bunker scheme that seemingly hides the landing area when there is over a 150-yard long landing area.  The bold shot over the middle of a bunker field has a turbo boost which comes in handy on the approach to the elevated and difficult green complex.  Safe shots to the right are propelled to the right decreasing distance and dictates the approach over a large deep bunker fronting the right side of the green.

Hole 7:  Huntingdon Valley 5/556
Terrific use of the natural right to left slope of the fairway.  A strategic tree on the right is no longer there but the hole is fantastic none-the-less.  (could have used holes 2,3,11 and 18 as well!)

Hole 8:  Mill Road Farm  4/460
Interesting use of numerous bunkers with raised toplines that hide landing areas and foreshorten distances.

Hole 9:  Boca Raton North  5/570
Boca Raton South has a better par 5 in this spot, but I needed a par 5 at the end of the round and chose BRS number 17, a concept recreation of Pine Valley's seventh.

Front Nine: par 36, 3584 yards

Hole 10:  Lehigh CC  4
Center bunker past the landing area is a great feature that is not in view from the tee as the tee shot is somewhat blind.  Standing on the tee requires some careful thought as to the line of play.  It helps to have a caddy or Mark Fine/Bill V with you  

Hole 11:  Shinneock Hills  3/158
Simply the best short par three in golf.  Honorable mention to Huntingdon Valley.

Hole 12:  Pepper Pike Club  4/457
Downhill par 4 with a cape-like tee shot with the bold play over a large bunker on the left.  An interrupted fairway with the approach to an elevated green with beautiful bunkers into the hillside above the green.

Hole 13:  Cascades  4/438
The hole is being restored with a diagonal of cross-bunkers with raised toplines hiding the landing area beyond and before the green.  One of Flynn's great greens, it has been somewhat tempered due to flooding from the Swift Run stream (aptly named).  The green and integrated bunkers will be restored at some point if the master plan is followed in time.

Hole 14:  Shinnecock Hills  4/447
What a great tee shot in terms of demand (angles of both fairway lines come into play) and the view of the course from the vantage is extraordinary.  The approach to the green saddled between hillsides (Flynn opened up the approach) is a challenge.  Trees removed on the hillside right was a great restoration move!

Hole 15:  Tie between The Country Club in Pepper Pike 4/457 and Rolling Green 4/379
Both holes use the elevation change to full effect.  The bunkering at both is exceptional.  Rolling Green has a long chute to play through with a draw being well rewarded.  The uphill approach to the two-tiered semi-blind green is a delight.

Hole 16:  Philadelphia CC  4/403
Like the tenth at Lehigh, PCC's sixteenth has a great center bunker though the PCC bunker is much closer to the green.  The tee shot is blind and downhill.  The short approach is difficult due to the topography, bunkering and tiny boomerang shaped green.  What a great approach!

Hole 17:  Boca Raton South  5/582
Flynn's homage to the seventh at Pine Valley.  Flynn's version takes the prevailing wind into account so that it plays much more difficult as it is into the wind.  My favorite seventeenth is the TCC in Pepper Pike along with Phila Country and Kittansett/

Hole 18:  Lancaster CC  4/438
Uphill to a trecherous back to front sloping green.  I'd give the edge to Huntingdon Valley and serious consideration to Indian Creek, Rolling Green and Kittansett (as a par 4s from the correct tee) but Lancaster really deserves a place, especially since I didn't use the fourth hole.

Back Nine:  par 36/3800 yards
Overall:  par 72/7384 yards

[JNC Lyon]

what hole are you talking about at the Country Club???

I definitely played the Country Club this summer, and the fourth hole is a 335 yard par four.  I must say it is my favorite hole on the course, but the one you describe is not it.  Are you referring to the 12th hole of the Championship setup???  I know this is a long par four, uphill, very difficult, but I would not call it a great hole.

[wsmorrison]

JNC,

I am referring to the 8th of the Primrose which plays as the 12th on the composite (I cheated a bit).  In Flynn's original redesign and addition, the hole was the fourth on one of the three individual nines.  Only the original first nine holes were intact from a routing progression, the other 18 were a combination of the new nine holes Flynn designed and the remaining nine that were redesigned to varying degrees.

I do think its a great hole and am not bothered that you don't.  After all, it is a subjective list with constraints.  I tried to put together a complete 18 holes and not the best of every hole number.  There are better fourth holes in Flynn's portfolio.  But I think this is a very fine hole.  The fourth hole that you mentioned at TCC is a very fine hole and is one of the  better ones I could have chosen but I was looking for a longer par 4 here after a fairly short start with my first two holes and wanted to put one from TCC in and I really like the B-4 hole I chose.  It has a nice use of strategic trees on the left before the green and I am fond of the design and challenge.  The green has shrunk a fair amount and the bunkering is slightly altered.  I think the added pin positions would have influenced the tee shot a bit more than today.  

By the way, Hospital, the hole you refer to, is a Flynn redesign.  The green was straight away and played from a different tee.  Flynn turned the hole into a dogleg left and used the hill to hide the green and place a further demand on the tee shot.  

[Dan Moore]

Wayne,

How many Flynn courses are public venues?

I have played Pine Meadow in Chicago many times and was intrigued when you noted Rocky Rocquemore said 12-14 of the greens are Flynn's.  Have you had any further success in tracking done how much Flynn remains at Pine Meadow?  I'd be very interested in the original routing which seems to have started somewhere near what is now 5 and concluded with what is now 15.  

[wsmorrison]

God questions, Dan.  When Flynn built the courses, Boca Raton North and South were private courses which would become resort courses.  Cascades was always a resort course but they do have a private membership as well today.  Cleveland Heights and Normandy Shores were private and are now public.  Marble Hall (now Green Valley) was the Philadelphia area's first suburban public course.  William Gordon, who managed the course for Flynn, was the first director of public golf in the region.  9-hole Monroe CC (not the Ross) was private and is now public.  Rock Creek Park GC and East Potomac GC in DC always were public.  The connection between Flynn and RCPGC is strong, less so for EPGC.  Seaview Pines was private and later became a resort course. Yorktown CC was private and became public for a time.  The Florida courses like Indian Creek, Normandy Shores, Miami Beach Polo Club, Floranada and Opa Locka were community golf courses for homeowners.  All the other courses designed by Flynn were private.  All of Flynn's redesign work (20 courses) were on private courses.

I am waiting for the archivist of the seminary to put together information for me on Pine Meadow.  Thanks to GCAers, this course came to light as a Flynn and will be included in the book.  Rocky Roquemore said he could see Flynn's style before he ever had confirmation that it was Flynn.  He built the course at the same time he was working on Albert Lasker's private estate course.

As far as Flynn's estate courses go, these ultra-privates include:
Pocantico Hills, the Rockefeller 18-hole course with 11 greens including one double gree; Lasker's formidable Mill Road Farm; Robert Cassatt (pres of the Pennsylvania RR) 9-hole reversible course with 5 greens and a 9-hole course for Dr. G. Woodward, one of the first suburban community developers in the nation.  The Woodward course may not have been built.  There are no family records that mention the course.  Flynn also built a miniature course for JF Manne along the south Jersey shore.

Dan,

If you have any photos or would like to take some of Pine Meadow, please send along.  email or IM me for contact information.  We'd appreciate it!

[Tom_Doak]

Wayne:  The current fourth hole at Brookline would best be credited to Rees Jones, not Flynn.  Geoff Cornish redesigned Flynn's hole and Rees blew that up and built his own.  As they say on TV, any similarities between it and the Flynn version are purely coincidental.

Otherwise, thanks for your contribution.  There seem to be a lot of center bunkers!  And if you're going to cheat and use two holes from Shinnecock, you might as well use 16, too.

[Craig_Rokke]

Wayne-

I Did not know that Flynn did an estate course for Cassatt.
Where was it? The U. M. Line YMCA in Berwyn is housed in the former "Cassatt mansion", but I'm guessing that no course ever existed there.

===I did look into it. That particular Cassatt estate was built by investment banker J Gardner Cassatt, brother of Andrew Cassatt (pres. of PA railroad) and Mary Cassatt (well known impressionist painter). So Flynn's 9 holer must have been built elsewhere.

[Mark_Fine]

Wayne,
Interesting list.  I'd have some different holes on my list but also some of the same.  It all comes down to what we have seen and our own biases which is fine.  There are a few good holes out in Denver that you need to get out to see at some point.

Like Tom Doak said, I also thought that hole at TCC was a Rees Jones hole.  I’m surprised you give Flynn credit for that one?  I’ve played Pine Meadow but I’m not sure I have any photos to share.  I'll look.  Also, I’d be curious what Rocky Roquemore thought was “Flynn's style” as you aluded to in your one post?  I can’t remember seeing too much of Flynn out there but it was quite sometime ago that I played the course.  
Mark

[wsmorrison]

Tom Doak,

The fairway contours have changed, the green has shrunk and the bunkering varies from Flynn's design yet these are design details and not the hole concept.  That remains Flynn.  Flynn's tee is used as is his greensite which was moved significantly from the original spot prior to 1927 straight away towards the hospital.  What criteria do you and Mark use for attributing the architecture?  Did Rees Jones modify the internal green contours and slopes?  Did he reroute the hole?  By your apparent definition, any reworking of a hole changes the architectural attribute completely.  I disagree if this is the case.  Mark, I don't know why you'd be surprised at such an attribution, to leave Flynn off and attribute soley to Jones is more of a surprise, at least to me by a long shot.  Again, this isn't necessarily a list of my favorites by hole numbers but I tried to create a compelling COURSE through my selections and not a disharmonious collection of allstars if you know what I mean.  I hope to see those Denver holes when the Flynn Invitational is out there next year.

Tom, there are a few center bunkers and carry bunkers on tee shots, but I don't see that as a detraction.  I notice the usage center bunkers on courses I admire such as yours and others.

Craig,

There were a lot of rich Cassatts back then.  Robert Cassatt's estate is off Bryn Mawr Avenue and Ithan.  The big estate is now an upscale housing development and private school (Hill School, I believe).  Bill Dow and I drove through trying to look for evidence.  We found the features illustrated but not remains of the course.

[mark chalfant]

Wayne did you consider anything from Springdale in Princeton?
Im not sure if Flynn, or original arch. did them, but #16 and #17 are both  very good. thanks

[wsmorrison]

Mark,

I hope you are well, Mark.  Interesting that you ask that as I was thinking of the 17th but needed something to break the string of par 4s so I went with a par 5.  Flynn left the routing pretty much intact at Springdale although he brought the backdrop of Graduate Tower into view on a few holes that is appealing.  Springdale is a nice course on a tight piece of property.  The remodeling of the fairway bunkers was particularly poorly done.  So many of them look like ess curves, standard I guess for the design team.

Well, this thread didn't spark too much interest.  Why do you think that is, Mark?  There was a lot more interest in Tiger Woods's real estate investments, sadly to say.

[Craig_Rokke]

Wayne-

It's not that Flynn's work doesn't generate interest or that a discussion as above doesn't interest. I think it's more that
you really have to have a command of a given architect's work
to propose or relate to an eclectic 18. For example, I remember some very good holes at Huntingdon Valley and The Cascades, but even at this point, I don't recall the holes #'s, or many specific details.  Enjoyed the thread just the same, though.

[Tom_Doak]

Wayne:

When I was writing for GOLF Magazine back in the mid-1980's, Rees Jones nominated the fourth at Brookline as a great short par-4 and submitted his plans for the redesign for possible use as graphics in our article.  If he was trying to restore it to Flynn he failed to mention it.

It's rare for people to attribute individual holes instead of courses to begin with, so I don't have set rules for that, but in general I'm unlikely to give the second architect much credit unless the hole is very different.  However, I played the Geoff Cornish hole back in 1979, and I can tell you that he had changed Flynn's hole pretty thoroughly before Rees did his version.  The green has not just shrunk, it's been totally redone twice.

As for the length of this thread, I suspect it's hard for most people to relate because many of the holes you chose are fairly obscure, apart from Shinnecock Hills and Brookline none of them have been on TV.  I have only seen 10 of the 18 myself.

[wsmorrison]

As" for the length of this thread, I suspect it's hard for most people to relate because many of the holes you chose are fairly obscure, apart from Shinnecock Hills and Brookline none of them have been on TV.  I have only seen 10 of the 18 myself."

I chose some holes that are NLE or NLE to Flynn's design (4 or 5) and I realize those are not going to do anyone any good considering the drawings for these have been unseen for 70 years and the aerial photographs unseen until Craig Disher brought them out of the storage bins.  Though Dan Wexler did a nice job bringing Mill Road Farm and the Boca Raton courses into the public eye (albeit a small cross-section).  I'll substitute existing holes later on.

I guess it is a very telling statement, Tom that you haven't seen all the holes that still exist.  I'm sure few have seen one-tenth the number you have.  That relegates Flynn to an unknown architect.  Yet how many have seen MacKenzie's courses yet recognize the genius on his work?  MacKenzie deserves all the praise he gets but it still seems odd that Flynn flies so low on everyone's radar--even many on this site.  

I believe some of this has to do with a misunderstanding of what is his full body of work entails and the fact that the media and those "in the know" don't seem to talk about him and thus the followers don't get in line.  I don't recall his name mentioned once during the 2004 Open, maybe because they were too involved in talking about how over the top the conditions had gotten, but none the less, the next year there was plenty of talk on Ross at Pinehurst.  

[T_MacWood]

My favorite hole at the Cascades is the 12th. I agree the 17th at TCC near Cleveland is a great hole.

[wsmorrison]

Tom MacWood,

I like the 12th at the Cascades quite a lot as well.  At the outset, the hole was 396 yards before Flynn moved the green about 80 yards.  Originally the green was just beyond the cross bunkers.  We're restoring the bunkers according to Flynn's final plan for the hole.  Tom, if you saw what Flynn's green used to look like on 13, you'd be really thrilled to know it is going to be restored over the next few years.  The cross-bunkers are going to have their rear toplines raised as they were when Flynn designed them.

As you know, I really admire the design of the 17th at TCC, Pepper Pike.  Do you like the 15th hole that I chose?

[T_MacWood]

I like 15 too, its probably my second favorite hole on the course. I also like 1, 9, 10 and 11.

[wsmorrison]

Yep, its a great course, Tom.  Now, when are you going to get your butt to Philadelphia?  Is 2006 the year?

[T_MacWood]

Wayne
TCC is very good. I'm wondering if Pepper Pike may not have been just as good in its hayday. I'm hoping this is the year.

[Mark_Fine]

Wayne,
Regarding the TTC hole, I think Flynn should be given some "credit" but since much was changed, it is hard to leave out someone like Rees Jones.  As another example, for now, I wouldn't call #3 at Cherry Hills a Flynn hole even though the hole corridor is Flynn's.  It's been changed too much.  It's all a matter of opinion.

Not many people can really comment on a thread like this because as Tom and Craig implied, not many people have seen a lot of his work or even heard about Flynn.  He unfortunately still doesn't get much respect.  I talk about him as much as you do when I'm out and about the country.  Tom Ferrell and I even tried to get him included in that article in this month's Links Magazine titled "Common Vision, Uncommon Grounds" but he was nixed because he is not well know like the others we included.  We did manage to get Flynn mentioned in the next issue of Links when we talk about one of his public access courses that people can play.  Hopefully that will help a little.  We also plan to include a short write up on Flynn when we talk about green and approach contours in an upcoming article in Golf Tips.  

But overall, unfortunately Flynn has a very small following out there.  Even members of his courses don't give him respect.  Do you remember the historian at Lancaster that wrote their club history book that you and I met with?  He called Flynn a grass cutter or some condescending term and was surprised at how we were speaking so highly of him.  

I take every chance I get to talk Flynn up (to the point people think I have a bias)   but I've seen and studied a ton of his work and in my opinion he was one of the best.
Mark

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

Pepper Pike was and remains an excellent golf course.  The only Flynn's that abut each other are TCC-PP and Pepper Pike Club.

Mark,

We are kindred spirits in this regard, especially if you now agree that Flynn's bunker style was not so compartmentalized  

[Mark_Fine]

Wayne,
I never thought it was "compartmentalized" at least no more so than any other architect  
Mark

[mark chalfant]

Wayne, here are some i enjoy

1 CC  Cleveland    4
2 Mannies            4
3 Philadelphia       5
4 Lancaster          4
5 Shinnecock        5
6 Kitansett           4
7 Spring Mill          3
8 Mannies             3
9 Rolling Green       5

[wsmorrison]

Excellent list.  Your first hole selection is a good choice.   Flynn had a number of outstanding opening holes: Merion, Phila Country, Shinnecock, etc.  I like the second at Manufacturers very much, in fact just a wee bit less than the second at Rolling Green and on par with the second at Cascades. I really like your choice of the 3rd at Phila Country; it is a great hole and magnificently bunkered!  

What Spring Mill are you talking about on the seventh hole, Phila Country as well?  That is a very difficult hole from the back tee.  It can't be too hard from the foreward tee, my mother-in-law aced it twice  

[ChasLawler]

Wayne,
Call me a homer, but I think numbers 10 or 13 at CCV - James River should maybe have a place in your eclectic 18.

But then I haven't even laid eyes on 90% of the Flynn courses you have...but you haven't seen CCV.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()