[Adam Russell]

Wayne, you had me hooked on Opa Locka right up until eighteen. That's just not a good finishing hole- any chance outsiders may have had a hand in it? It just doesn't look like the effort put into the previous holes worked out on eighteen. Everything else looks fascinating, though. Are there any Philly courses that fell by the wayside that would merit consideration?

[Jeff_Mingay]

There was a course in the city of Toronto called St. Andrews, designed by Stanley Thompson, reportedly in collaboration with a "famous Scottish golf course architect".

I don't recall what year this course disappeared, but Lorne Rubenstein recalls playing St. Andrews as a city-owned muni when he was a kid. Lorne tells me he doesn't remember anything about the course. I bet by the time he played it (during the 1960s, I presume), St. Andrews was a mere shadow of its former self... or the designers' original (plans) for the course, anyway.

Also in Toronto was the original York Downs, designed by Charles Alison. The site for York Downs is now a city park. Apparently you can still see golf course features within the park grounds.

[Craig Disher]

The Old Prince George's CC outside DC was a great Ross course.  By all accounts it may have been the best course in town.

Actually the course that survived until the 60s was a Wm Flynn design from 1926. Ross's connection to the course previously on the site is tenuous. An article in the Washington Post said that when the club was formed in 1921 Dev Emmet was hired as the architect. His design (presumably lost) wasn't accepted although a course was subsequently built. The assumption is that the club turned to Ross.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Compiling a NLE Greatest Course list is not that difficult, especially with a copy of Wexler's
books (and Wayne's additional input), but how about a list of courses that have closed for
good in the last 50 years only?  Then it gets harder.

I guess The Links on Long Island would be included in that list.  What else of note has closed
in the last 50 years?  I guess complete (or mostly complete) redesigns would have to be
included, such as the original MPCC (Shore) course, which wasn't Great, per se, but the location was.

[wsmorrison]

I'll get some orientations of these holes so that we can consider how these holes were designed with the prevailing winds (winter) taken into account.

Adam,

I put the 18th into the discussion because it is so unusual and I wanted to be provocative in discussing Flynn.  There are a few other holes with ridges as well.  I don't embrace everything he did, but I do enjoy studying everything.  The finishing hole at Opa Locka is a bit odd to look at on paper.  I don't think those man-made ridges were meant to be very high.  If we had the construction instructions, usually on the right hand side of the drawing under the yardage, we would know exactly what they were meant to be.  This was a very flat site, so the ridges must have been an attempt at some strategic demand.  It is just a guess, but  they were probably only high enough to influence where the ball would end up.  Shaping the flight of the ball was probably key to negotiating those low ridges.  It would seem that Flynn was demanding certain shot tests.  From the back tee, it required a pretty good drive to clear the ridge, but one that was shaped properly to account for the fairway slope towards the canal as indicated by the flow lines.  Perhaps the weaker player would play more into the ridge from the forward tee and have his ball deflected away from the fairway slope and the canal.  I'd never seen flow lines on Flynn's drawings before these drawings.  For the better players, the second and third ridges were more visual intimidation than anything else.  The stronger player would hit over the third ridge, obscuring the landing area, and feed the ball onto the green.   It is weird, no doubt.  There are some other outstanding holes as well.  Such as

Hole 1



Hole 5  The diagonal bunkers would have their top lines raised above surrounding grade so tha the landing area would be obscured.  This technique also foreshortens the perceived distance to the green.



Hole 9  A risk/reward par 5 with a perched green.  Note the diagonal along the right side of the green.  From short left to long right there is a distance differential of 20 yards.  Many times, Flynn would manipulate the topline of the bunker to make it appear to be perpendicular to the line of play so the golfer wouldn't perceive the added distance to carry the right side of the bunker to a back right pin.  An early example of this is the revision of the 15th green at Merion East.

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

As I've mentioned to you before I would just love to see that Opa Locka #6 design on the ground because the drawing of it and the concept of it really does look sort of ass-backwards, at least on paper.

There's no question the hole is a mirror-mimic of Macdonald's famous #4 at Lido (the "Channel" hole) which was something of a conceptual mimic of Littlestone's #16 (except much better in Macdonald's opinion because of a better high-risk alternate fairway inline between tee and green thereby shortening the hole and making it reachable in two).

But Flynn's #6 Opa Locka has the high risk fairway where the safe fairway was on Lido's "Channel" hole and the safe fairway on a direct line between tee and green where Macdonald's high risk fairway was.

For that reasaon it's kind of hard to imagine why the long player would use the left fairway and not the more inline right fairway on Opa Locka's #6.

That's why I would love to see that Opa Locka #6 on the ground because there must've been a whole lot of right to left slope or something else like that down at the green-end making a shot from the left fairway more doable in two than from the right fairway which one can see is guarded by a green bunker right as was the Lido's Channel hole.

The reason I say all this is multi-option holes like that have to at least have their alternate options in some kind of balance or equilibrium to work well in play. In other words, if the long player basically almost always used the right fairway on that Opa Locka #6 that would effectively render the left fairway design sort of non-functional.

Was this kind of mirror-mimic concept another one of Flynn's deceptive mis-direction attempts like some of his "reverse dogleg" designs?

[Rich Goodale]

The only one I cn think of that I've played was Chimney Rock in the Napa Valley.  It was just OK, and now lives on as a vineyard, which leads to an interesting question:

"If you owned a couple of hundred acres that could be made into either a world-class vineyard or a world-class golf course, which would you choose?"

PS--"Both" is not an aceptable answer....

[TEPaul]

"PS--"Both" is not an aceptable answer...."

Why not, Richard the Quadruple Dunce?

Are you capable of only handling one basic concept at a time? 


As for me, I'm working on bringing back the combined golf course and polo/hunt Club concept from the old days but I'm going to figure out some way of doing it on the very same ground. So far my experiment of fitting the polo ponies and hunters with a form of Indian moccisin for their hoofs instead of metal shoes has not worked out that well, so it's on to plan B. If Plan B or C doesn't work out either, I'm taking the idea directly to Ralph Lauren & Co. With their financial and imagination clout they should figure out a way! And if they can't figure it out I'm confident NIKE can design a turf non-impact shoe for polo ponies and hunters! Who the hell knows---since Tiger's second-love sport is scuba diving (to the total consternation of his good friend Charles Barkley who has totally failed at convincing Tiger that the BROTHERS just do not scuba-dive) perhaps we can make polo or hunting Tiger's third-love sport. I'm encouraged that can happen because I'm now aware that Tiger is one of the world's only BROTHERS who has really gotten into yachting!

[Rich Goodale]

Tom

The obvious solution is to have the players carry the ponies.

ForkaB

[michael j fay]

There are a number of Ross courses that probably qualify for this list:

1, The Ponce deLeon Golf Club in St. Augustine.
2. Tate Springs in Tennessee, now part of the TVA and under 600 feet of water.
3. The DuPont CC course replaced by a testing laboratory in the late 1940's
4. The Original Longboat Key course.

My favorite is the course at Ft. George Island, three islands south of Amelia Island in Jacksonville. This is a most wonderful site on a perfectly placid little island. The course had a strong following for a while but the private club gave way to a public course and it was too far out to attract daily fee play so it was packed in in the 1950's. You can still see the outline of the course if you are willing to trudge through the overgrown misquito farm that it has become.

In the past five years the clubhouse has been beautifully refurbished and is used for a conference and convention setting. The Parks Department of the State of Florida owns the property and has given little thought to reinstating the course.

It was a neat little layout mostly flat with built up tees and greens. The setting is truly magnificent, a good mile from the nearest road and the only contact wiyth anything but nature is the part of the course that plays out toward the river.

 

[Chris_Clouser]

There were only two courses of Maxwell's that were either heavily changed or completely redone that I would have been curious to see.  The first was Melrose pre-Tookany Parkway.  Having walked the course and observed firsthand some of those holes, it would have been extremely interesting to see the holes as they were originally laid out.  Seeing the original 13th and 18th would have been grand.   

The other would have been the original layout at Lake Hefner.  Maxwell stated that it was perhaps one of his best efforts in a late interview. It was also the last course he saw completion of before cancer took him down.  The par layout was 6 par 3s, 4s and 5s.  You can get an idea of what the course may have been like as Randy Heckenkamper's redesign follows several of the same hole corridors, but in reverse.  But Heckenkamper's course seemed to be laid out backwards as carries off the tee were very blah, whereas if they were carries into the green from the opposite direction, they would have been quite interesting.  This was also Maxwell's only course that he was able to lay out that had a large body of water involved in the design.

Of the two, I would say Melrose was probably the best based on reviews from that era. 

The only other one I had an inkling of interest in was the Pennsylvania Country Club in Llarnech that is completely NLE, but from the aerial it just looks like a nice routing on a small piece of property. 

[Brad Tufts]

Hi Michael,

Are there Ross plans in existence for Ft. George?  Interesting that they have given no thought, even though they could have almost a captive audience of conventioneers to play it...which would be potentially more profitable than breeding mosquitos and snapping turtles.

[Ian Andrew]

There was a course in the city of Toronto called St. Andrews, designed by Stanley Thompson, reportedly in collaboration with a "famous Scottish golf course architect".

I don't recall what year this course disappeared, but Lorne Rubenstein recalls playing St. Andrews as a city-owned muni when he was a kid. Lorne tells me he doesn't remember anything about the course. I bet by the time he played it (during the 1960s, I presume), St. Andrews was a mere shadow of its former self... or the designers' original (plans) for the course, anyway.

Also in Toronto was the original York Downs, designed by Charles Alison. The site for York Downs is now a city park. Apparently you can still see golf course features within the park grounds.

Jeff,

This is York Downs during construction


Here is a link to an article written about each of the lost courses Jeff Mingay mentions.

We were able to talk to Bill McWilliam - the last owner - about St. Andrew's and the holes. I have four or five pictures of the course from Canadian Golfer.

We were also able to talk to quite a few people who played York Downs - which is still there - I visited it again two years ago to look at the famous 12th hole. Funny enough as recent as the course was - photos are harder to come by - although you can see it by visiting Earl Blaes Park since its all still there

Here is the link to the full article:
http://thecaddyshack.blogspot.com/2008/02/article-on-lost-courses-june-2005-golf.html

[Mike_Cirba]

There were only two courses of Maxwell's that were either heavily changed or completely redone that I would have been curious to see.  The first was Melrose pre-Tookany Parkway.  Having walked the course and observed firsthand some of those holes, it would have been extremely interesting to see the holes as they were originally laid out.  Seeing the original 13th and 18th would have been grand.   

. 

Chris,

Do you know when the expressway went though and affected Maxwell's work?

[Tommy Williamsen]

The Old Prince George's CC outside DC was a great Ross course.  By all accounts it may have been the best course in town.

Actually the course that survived until the 60s was a Wm Flynn design from 1926. Ross's connection to the course previously on the site is tenuous. An article in the Washington Post said that when the club was formed in 1921 Dev Emmet was hired as the architect. His design (presumably lost) wasn't accepted although a course was subsequently built. The assumption is that the club turned to Ross.

Craig, I belong to the "successor" to PG.  I had not heard that before.  Interesting.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Ian,

Let's talk a bit about St. Andrews (Toronto) when we see each other in Calgary next week. I'm looking forward to hearing some details! It seems like a fascinating piece of Canadian golf history.

[Adam Russell]

Any more great NLE's from across the pond??? What a great thread

[James Bennett]

Tom

The obvious solution is to have the players carry the ponies.

ForkaB

Richard

are you involved with Scotland's Olympic Water Polo Team?  If so, I think TEPaul has some marketing opportunities for Nike sporting outfits for the horses, perhaps with soft-spikes on the shoes in lieu of horseshoes (those horseshoes do a lot of damage to the swimming pools.)

James B

PS  will the water polo area be a lateral water hazard, a water hazard or just in play (a ka Cypress Poitn #16) in TEPaul's golf course? 

[Chris_Clouser]

Mike,

I will have to check the dates, but I believe it was in the late 30s.  Then they expanded the course to the east and put in some bland holes to take the place of the ones eliminated by the highway.  Then in the 60s they sold that off for development and tried to use what remained of the original site and squeezed together a course. 

[JMorgan]

"PS--"Both" is not an aceptable answer...."

Why not, Richard the Quadruple Dunce?

Are you capable of only handling one basic concept at a time? 


As for me, I'm working on bringing back the combined golf course and polo/hunt Club concept from the old days but I'm going to figure out some way of doing it on the very same ground. So far my experiment of fitting the polo ponies and hunters with a form of Indian moccisin for their hoofs instead of metal shoes has not worked out that well, so it's on to plan B. If Plan B or C doesn't work out either, I'm taking the idea directly to Ralph Lauren & Co. With their financial and imagination clout they should figure out a way! And if they can't figure it out I'm confident NIKE can design a turf non-impact shoe for polo ponies and hunters! Who the hell knows---since Tiger's second-love sport is scuba diving (to the total consternation of his good friend Charles Barkley who has totally failed at convincing Tiger that the BROTHERS just do not scuba-dive) perhaps we can make polo or hunting Tiger's third-love sport. I'm encouraged that can happen because I'm now aware that Tiger is one of the world's only BROTHERS who has really gotten into yachting!

Three archive photos from the Meadowbrook Hunt Club, one of Dev Emmet's many NLE courses:

[TEPaul]

"Tom
The obvious solution is to have the players carry the ponies."

Richard The Magnificent:

Amazing. How many times has this happened? I call you things like "Richard the Quadruple Dunce" and then you totally surprise me once again by coming up with a brilliant solution to an apparently insoluble problem. I doubt I ever would've come up with a solution that brilliant. Do the players just carry the ponies or do the ponies actually ride the players?

By the way, I assume the team that wins the polo match is the team that has the last man standing, right?

[TEPaul]

JMorgan:

Are you aware of the interesting saga when C.B. Macdonald tried to take on the Long Island polo interests at Piping Rock Club?

[JMorgan]

JMorgan:

Are you aware of the interesting saga when C.B. Macdonald tried to take on the Long Island polo interests at Piping Rock Club?

Yes, I think the word "apoplectic" was used to describe Macdonald's response when he found out that the club would only allow him to route the golf course around the polo field and race track.  I believe Raynor played the "cool cucumber" and essentially took over after the course plan was finalized. 

[Mike_Cirba]

Thanks, Chris.  That's what I figured.

I was looking at some old aerials last night but the ones of Melrose that are clear are from 1939 and already show the Parkway and changes.

[Rich Goodale]

TEP and James B

...or one could consider a variant of the game invented by the Scots.

http://www.elephantpolo.com

Just think of the savings that would be made on fertilizer!

ForkaB

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