Wayne,
It should be all in what I sent you in my CC History "thesis"
, but Ab Smith's work at the original HVGC was well before 1923.
From the document;
In February of 1909, Tillinghast reported in detail on the work that Ab Smith and his Green Committee at Huntingdon Valley had done to make the course more challenging;
The members of the Green Committee out at Huntingdon Valley have been working like beavers, determined to improve the conditions and gradually develop a championship course. Huntingdon Valley has always required "more playing" than any other; of our Philadelphia courses and the improvements there cannot but help raise the standard of Philadelphia golf. In brief summary, the work has been along the following lines:
The small creek has been dammed (two "m"s) making a wide and deep hazard for the drive at the second hole, where the green has also been guarded by pits on both sides. Deep pits divide the third and fourth fair greens near the third green, and at the sixth the approach to the green from the left is rendered more difficult by reason of yawning sand holes.
All of the bunkers have been deepened (notably at seven and seventeen) and running through is now quite impossible. A new hazard appears before the ninth green, which is also guarded from the left by three pits. The short tenth hole is rendered more difficult, as the rather treacherous green is now bounded by three pits on the left, another guarding the right where in the past a rather indifferent drive might at times find the roll to the green. A water hazard appears before the tee, but this danger is rather more imaginary than real. New pits have been placed on twelve (for a slice) and also between the thirteenth and seventh fair greens. No longer will it be possible to run up your approach on fourteen; and the mashie (which is quite at a premium at Huntingdon Valley) must serve us again in negotiating the fifteenth where the tin is close up to the new water hazard. The long sixteenth has been slightly shortened by moving up the tee close to the creek.
Altogether the changes have been most judicious and the course is better in every respect. As the course now stands the twelfth hole is probably the most exacting, and a very pretty problem it presents. I hope that the committee will eventually modify the fourth—a short, blind hole, which is
hardly worthy of a place among the other seventeen.
In May of 1912, Tillinghast reported again in “American Golfer” of Ab Smith’s design efforts intended to toughen up the Huntingdon Valley golf course in an effort to challenge and develop better players;
“Some time ago, soon after the placing of the numerous new pits at Huntingdon Valley, one of the members approached the chairman of the green committee and timorously said: "You don't intend to put in any more pits, do you?" The reply was prompt and to the point. "Any more pits? Why as yet we have only started to scratch the ground." Now that's the kind of talk which every true golfer loves to hear, and while there may be some "players of skittles" who at first hold up their hands in horror, yet in the end they too must admit that the pits have not only elevated the general standard of golf but also made them play a better individual game.”
“Tell it not in Gath—but only the other day I actually heard one who at first strenuously opposed the new pits, praising and defending them in his efforts to convert a doubting Thomas. It would be difficult to convince a small boy that it is very necessary for him to learn his multiplication tables—and very often the figures have to be forced into his system with the aid of a bed-slat, but when the boy grows up he knows why.”
“In nearly every instance when I ask concerning the condition of this or that course I am told that they are making out new pits. Let the good work continue, gentlemen, and as you develop real golfers, blessings will be the reward of the intelligent digger of pits.”
"Far and Sure" wrote in 1912;
“One thing will be noted by visitors from other cities whether they play over such excellent eighteen hole courses as Huntingdon Valley and the Philadelphia Cricket Clubs as representing the larger organizations or the two dozen or more courses of nine holes and that is the growing tendency to improve in a more scientific manner the courses around Philadelphia. Time was when changes were made in a sort of a hit or miss manner. Today every trap or pit that is constructed means something definite and with it all has come the scientific construction of bunkers and hazards.”
“Time was when the green committee built courses on a broad principle of the greatest good to the greatest number and as the greatest number in every golfing organization is the dub or indifferent player, the really good player suffered. As the chairman of the green committee
of one of the largest courses (Ab Smith?) recently expressed himself: "A few years ago we used to post the changes proposed. This met with so much opposition that we were forced to take a couple of days in the week when we were sure that the bulk of the players would not be on the course and then we started to construct a course that would help the good player and do no great injury to the poor player. Nowadays, fortunately, we are able to make changes without feeling that we would be subjected to the severest sort of criticism."
“At any event, the golfing renaissance in Philadelphia has actually begun and before many years we shall have courses which are a credit to us and not a mark of good natured chaffing of others who know what constitutes a good course.”
A few years later, in April 1916, just before Cobb’s Creek opened for play, Tillinghast looked back somewhat reflectively, as well as a bit more critically at the work done by Ab Smith at Huntingdon Valley. It should be remembered that a lot was learned by all of these men about golf course architecture between 1909 (when Smith began) and the time he wrote this;
PROBABLY no course in the Philadelphia district has received more attention than Huntingdon Valley. The course represents Philadelphia's first intelligent effort to build links which would offer a genuine test. As compared with modern construction, the old Huntingdon Valley fell far short, but for a number of years it was admittedly the best in these parts. From time to time many changes have been made, and although much that is crude still remains, the course of today shows that the hard-working green committee has made a brave effort to keep abreast of the times.
Unfortunately the soil at "The Valley" is not good, but in spite of this, intelligent treatment has been rewarded by a greatly improved turf in the past two years. Several of the holes are distinctly bad, notably the first and the fifth, but a finer one-shotter than the twelfth would be hard to find. The chief objection to the short fifth hole is its freakishness, and the sunken green is quite blind from the teeing-ground.
Curiously enough, Mr. A. H. Smith, who always has sturdily defended this hole, was repaid for his allegiance a few weeks ago when he holed out in one in the snow.