Stonewall (15 photos)

[wsmorrison]

Although I walked the course during construction as with the new course, I never before today played Stonewall even though the retiring president is a very good friend of mine and was a founding member.  I played with another friend, one of only 3 female members.  We had a great time on a swealtering day.  My friend's brother and I played from the back tees, par 70 6717 yards, 73.5/133.  I think there's a tournament tomorrow because nearly all of the tees were at the very tips.  It was hot with a one-club breeze most of the day.

On days like today I feel very lucky to live in Philadelphia and have the ability to play such wonderful classic courses, both old and new.  Stonewall greens were playing firm and fast considering it rained pretty hard last night though there was less roll in the fairways according to crusty veterans of the course.  The rough was short but thick and the greens running pretty fast; if I had to guess I'd say around 10-10.5

1st tee


2nd approach


4th tee with its old school look


4th green


6th tee--Glad there was a cart to take us up the hill to the last tee box.  I hit driver down the right side and just missed clearing the farthest arc of the little stream.  Next time I'm hitting 3 wood short.


7th tee


9th tee


12th green


13th tee with skyline fairway


13th approach--How's that for farmland off in the distance?


16th tee with another skyline fairway


17th


18th tee into a one-club wind


landing area--190 yards to go


cozied it up nice and close

[James Edwards]

Wayne,

Great Job !  Reminds me of our Parkland courses here around London - thanks for sharing.

I particularly like the Par 3 9th with the water... tranquil springs to mind

[Tom_Doak]

Wayne:

Stonewall is going to host the Women's Trans-National Amateur championship for seven days starting this weekend.  I helped make the arrangements when the original host club was forced to pull out because of course construction work -- Stonewall was one of the few clubs I could think of which has a course to spare for such an emergency!

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

As I recall that is one of the oldest and a really big national amateur tournament for women, right?  Those ladies better drink a lot of water...its going to be in the high 90s for temperature and humidity.  Once the ladies play the course, they'll want to come back for certain...I know I do!

What a fabulous golf course, Tom.  Congratulations to you and your team for such excellent work.  The flow of holes was very nice and the round just flew by as my interest was peaked the entire time.  I loved the greens, generally on the small side with nice interplays of slopes and not much internal contouring.  As I recall from looking at the new course greens during construction, there's quite a bit more internal contouring.  Did you do the new course greens in a different style as a contrast or does it reflect an altered preference?

I'm kicking myself for taking so long to finally make the 1 1/4hr trip.  Oh well, Dick Flannery has owed me a round there for so long, at last I got another invite.  Dick and I are having lunch next week, I'll have to insist he invite me back soon.

James,

Thanks, it takes time to put a photo essay like this together.  I thought this course merits a long look by the gang.

[Craig_Rokke]

Wayne-Thanks for sharing the pics. I haven't played Stonewall in a while, but it remains one of my favorites
in our area.

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

When did the course open?  Have you made any changes to the course over the years or is this the initial iteration?  Whatever, it is EXCELLENT!  I'm glad those founding members gave you the opportunity recognizing your talent so early on.  

[Craig_Rokke]

Tom Doak-

Was your mandate to work with Fazio's routing as it was, or
were you able to alter it as you saw fit?

[Jim Sweeney]

Tom-

I don't know exactly how to put it but kudos to you and the people at Stonewall for helping the Women's Trans-National. It is hard enough to get courses for tournaments, let alone important ones, even if one is planning years in advance.

It is this seeing this kind of "stepping up" for the good of the game that keeps me positive about its future.

[Craig Sweet]

Very nice...it looks to have a nice mix of wide fairways with lots of angles of attack, and some tight driving holes.

[Tom_Doak]

Wayne:  The old course opened in July of 1993, the North course exactly ten years later.  The North course was deliberately designed to be different in style ... I guess most people now would be more likely to peg the North course as my style than the Old course, but I've always been fond of the Old, too, it's just a style that fewer clients wanted.

Really nothing has been changed on the Old course over the ten years.  They are about to embark on a massive change to the practice facilities though ... since we couldn't find room on the new course for a big range, either.  My input was always that two quiet courses trumped a big range, but that's not how their membership sees it now.

P.S.  You will be pleased to know that after I went up and interviewed for the job years ago, and knew I really wanted it, I called the two people I knew best in Philadelphia, Jim Finegan and Bill Kittleman, for a reference on Mr. May and the other founders.  Both thought highly of Mr. May and I know that Finegan put in a good word for me -- Dick Flannery told me years later that Finegan could have made or killed my chances depending on exactly what he said , but he said exactly what they were hoping to hear.  

[Tom_Doak]

Craig:  When we signed up to do the Old course, the soil erosion control permits had already been obtained based on the Fazio routing, so I was encouraged to limit changes to the routing to anything we could do without changing the erosion control needs.  Otherwise they would have had to go back to the drawing board and probably faced a year's delay.

On Fazio's routing, the front nine was mostly the same, except that the third hole played up the hill to the right as a longer par five, and there was a short par 3 from there down to the white tee on #4, and the fourth tee [his fifth] was more to the left against the property line.  Taking out that par three was the reason the course now returns to the clubhouse at #8 instead of #9.

The ninth is the hole we added.  Fazio's tenth hole played back up the eighteenth fairway, and his eighteenth hole started near the tenth green, drove down toward the ninth green, and then doglegged left with the pond on the outside of the hole.  I didn't think that was going to work, because you could cut the dogleg of the 18th by playing down his tenth fairway; they would have needed internal o.b. or some weird earthwork or a lot of big trees planted in the cornfield to make it work.  So I turned the area into a counter-clockwise rotation and two holes into three.

[But, I always say that Tom Fazio might have made the same change if the project had actually gone to construction under his management ... sometimes it's hard to take them seriously in the planning stages.]

The irony is that when we first proposed the switch, the only hole that anybody was worried about being a good exchange was the current 18th ... we only figured out where to put the green up against the clubhouse after staring at it for about two months of construction.  I've found that true of a number of my courses, that sometimes the best hole is the one that was hardest to sort out and therefore we spent the most time thinking about.

[Dan Herrmann]

Wayne,  You came all the way out our way and played that Stonewall course?  The other course in Elverson?  

It's a helluva course, and I'm glad you got out there.  We've got a really nice relationship with them and we even piggyback on their lightning detection system.  Very, very nice people and we're actually very lucky to be just across the street (I'm talking about Gil's French Creek, of course).

Great photos.  And thanks for the reminder on the tournament this week.  Laura and I will definitely be stopping over after our early morning match tomorrow.

By the way, did you have caddies, or did you carry yourself?   (in case folks didn't know, Stonewall is a walking only course.  The North course allows carts)

[David_Tepper]

James Edwards took the words out of my mouth. These pictures (aside from #9, the lake hole) are very reminiscent of the many photos Paul Turner has posted of the heathland & parkland courses in the UK, especially courses such as Wentworth and The Addington.  

[wsmorrison]

Dan,

I had some glimpses of French Creek during my round and also the new course.  It is nice to know that there is such a good relationship between the clubs out in Bugtussle, PA  

It was too hot and humid to walk and carry yesterday so we had caddies, one a recent college grad and the other a high school student.  We went out kind of early so they were well stocked with caddies.  Ours were not experienced caddies, kind of green, but put out an effort to learn the craft of good caddying.  I wish mine told me there was a pond right (and just short) of the 1st green.  I don't think the caddie thought I could reach it with a 7 wood second shot.  I tried to draw my shot into the green but ended up wet.  I had no idea there was trouble or I would have laid up and hit my third with a wedge.  Which isn't a bad idea anyway because that is a small green to go for in two.

[Craig Disher]

Great photos, Wayne. There is truly an embarrassment of riches around Philadelphia.

One suggestion - clean the smudge off the lens of your camera  

[wsmorrison]

Craig,

You sure are right about the golf riches around Philadelphia---hard to beat anywhere.  Huckaby and Naccarato may have the weather but we've got an awesome collection of places to play!  And the big shower heads to cool off after golf in high heat and humidity.  Nice to see that Stonewall has these as well.

I noticed the smudge after I loaded the photos onto my computer.   No doubt about it, I am a lousy photographer.  I was tempted to give you a call to join us, Craig.  Next time you should make the trip up---its probably not much farther for you than for me, right?  By the way, when are you coming for a visit?  There's 2 courses in particular that you need to play.

[D_Malley]

i have played both courses several times and really love the job Tom did out there.  The new course is excellent with some really challenging par 3's. After playing the new course for the second time i have a hard time deciding which course i like better.

some of the holes you photoed look like there is some need for tree clearing.

Tom
How involved was Gil Hanse in the original course?

[wsmorrison]

Hey, Tom.  With your regard for N. Berwick well documented, why not put an alternate 18th green behind the wall?      

What is the area in the inner courtyard behind the wall used for anyway?  Parties?

[D_Malley]

tom

on the new course at stonewall, there is one hole (not sure what #) I remember that it has a center line bunker.  But it looks like there is a tee for this hole on the other side of the previous hole's green, which would make the drive play across the previous hole.  i have never seen this before, although i know some old courses in europe have hole which cross.  can you provide any info on this?

[Tom_Doak]

George:

Gil Hanse was very involved in the original course at Stonewall ... he was the primary shaper and made numerous suggestions on contouring greens, bunker placement, etc.  He received co-design credit for the course, though he did essentially the same things that my other associates do on our current projects.  Stonewall was the last project Gil worked on with me before moving to Philadelphia to try his own thing.

The hole on the new course you referred to is the 15th, which runs along the boundary with the third hole of the Old course.  There are three tees for #15.  One tee is ten feet off the right side of #14 green, which they use a lot, but is not so good for busy days and the tee is quite small.  Another tee is down across the stream, which makes the hole very difficult [you have to hit a draw to get to the left side of the fairway], but they weren't allowed to build a bridge to it when we were working on the course, so we needed an alternative to spread out the wear and tear.  

That prompted us to build the tee you noticed, up to the left of #14 green above the approach bunker.  15 is a great looking hole from that angle, and as long as there is not another group right on your behind, you can go up there and tee off before the group behind starts walking across your line to 14 green.  That is the sort of feature I saw a lot of in the UK and Ireland when I lived there, and which I will pull out of the bag of tricks sometimes when we are building a private club with limited traffic such as Stonewall.  I don't know whether they ever put tee markers on that tee or not, but I've played from it a couple of times and thought it was terrific.  I've still never played the tee across the stream.

[D_Malley]

tom
thanks for the info, it is very interesting.  now that you mentioned it, i did notice that tee across the stream also and there was not a bridge to get there.  This was about 8 months ago.

[Tom_Doak]

George:

That little stream is designated one of the "Waters of the U.S." and you need a federal permit to build a bridge across it ... even a suspension bridge that doesn't touch the stream banks or stream bed, since the Navy might need to use it in case of foreign attack.  That program is administered county-by-county, and Chester County in PA has a moratorium on bridge permits, so we can't get one.  If you want to play the tee you've got to hop across the stream!

Welcome to our world!

P.S.  If the farmers hadn't previously installed some crossings in other places so they could get around the property, we might not have been able to build the golf course at all, because we wouldn't have been able to get across the stream at 9 and 10 and 18 with maintenance equipment or even footbridges for the golfers.

[Mike_Cirba]

Wayne,

Thanks for sharing the pictures of Stonewall.

One of my favorite things about the Old Course (the newer North Course is a real, underrated treat, as well, and you need to get back and play that one too, Wayne) is that when it gets playing really fast and runny, your target on approach shots is sometimes aiming not at the pin, but not even at the green itself.  Some serious sideslopes around a number of greens dicate the intelligent play is sometimes to bounce the ball in from the high side, and it's a blast to watch what happens once the shot lands.

In seeing the pics, though, I'm thinking that some holes seem to be getting a bit narrow with trees, and although holes like the 4th have a architected component that relies on their wooded setting, the risk is that they become too one-dimensional if not kept pruned and cut back enough so that they don't become bowling alleys.  Perhaps it's just your camera, though?  

[Scott Witter]

Wayne:

Could you explain briefly what you mean by the old school look at the 4th tee?  Am I missing something? What is old school about that except for the fact that there appears to be to many trees VERY close to the fairway?  Additionally, the 4th green also appears to be in quite a tough environment with heavy trees surrounding it and tucked low in a bit of a hollow.

Tom D.:

You stated that you added the 9th hole, was the pond there when you added this hole, or did you create it?  This doesn't seem like your 'normal' approach to use water in such a cliche sort of manner?

Also, did the ownership request the rectangular tees or was this also your choice?  Not having seen the old course, perhaps your simply repeated the same tees?

[D_Malley]

can you add things like this in the early planning stages of a project while the property is still designated as a Farm?