Jim:
Considering all the interconnectedness of all the restoration projects and areas going on there at once (hotel, golf course, and stream configurations) that was all a bit more yesterday than I could take in at one time.
I didn't really have an opportunity to think about it on the drive home because just to the east of the Bedford exit I hooked on to a big Mercedes from New York that was going between a max of 120 and a minimum of 100 and I just slipstreamed him all the way to Philly, so that took most of my concentration for a few hours.
However, when I got home the extent and complexity of that course restoration project really hit me.
What I mean to say, even though I sure haven't been able to think through those three eras on the course that well I think it would be a wonderful thing if you guys could restore most any feature that remains or is documentable from either the 1895 course, the Tillie course and the Ross course even if some of them might not make complete architectural or strategic sense.
What I'm saying is you guys may have a project considering all that's going on there in all phases that is somewhat similar to the way Rome's Forum is being treated and perhaps will always have to be treated. In other words they are trying to expose everything that happened there throughout its entire evolution that spanned literally a few thousand years and that ain't easy considering one era was built right on top of the previous one.
In other words, you may be able to restore a course or even some of the features or even holes of the previous ones that can play to today's values while at the same time clearly showing the architectural arrangement of very different values of days gone by.
I realize there are tons of obstacles to doing that on that limited space but I think you catch my drift.
It could be something like Gary Van Sickle's take on Beford Springs itself that it's like passing from one era to the next to the next as you pass through it.
I certainly realize the only truly logical thing to do is to restore it back to Ross's last iteration as much as possible but I sure hope you can retain all those features that preceded him even if just for the look of them and the historic value of them.
I hope the owners will consider presenting this restoration for what it could be----eg a nice day of golf while at the same time passing through 111 years of diverse golf architectural history.
Ask the owner if some of us in conjunction with you guys could have the opportunity to write up a description of what this could be for those who play golf there in the future. That they are playing across a complete evolution of the eras of golf architecture in America would make playing the course that much more interesting and understandable to golfers.
Lastly, there just has to be some way of iterating that amazing hill/mound back into a green that it must have once been. If that unbelievable landform was only used as a tee in the future it would be a crying waste of a great landform.
Tell the owner that landform is so neat as the green site it once was that if 10-20 people need to die in the future playing it that it's definitely worth their sacrifice.
Wait til you guys see Ross's Volcano hole restored.