If Joe Burbeck designed Bethpage...

[Mike_Cirba]

...then why did H.B. Martin write in 1936 in his seminal book, "Fifty Years of American Golf";

"Tilly is rather proud of his work at Bethpage, where there are four courses included in the layout.  The planning and building of the courses was done for the New York State Park Commission and comprises a tract of land of 1800 acres."

?

After spending the past months researching the design history of Cobb's Creek, I've come to understand that Joe Burbeck probably deserves as much credit as Jesse T. Vogdes, who was Park Engineer and Superintendent and who ultimately supervised the construction work.   However, I'm now quite certain that Bethpage was much like Cobb's in that the design work was done by golf architectural "experts" and largely handed over to the "owning" government authority to build.

[Rick Shefchik]

Paging Ron Whitten!

[David Stamm]

Paging Ron Whitten!

....and Philip Young!

[Mike Golden]

let's see, Bethpage Black is one of the great golf courses in the world with at least 2 holes (#4, #5) that rank among the world's best.

A.W. Tillinghast is the architect responsible for many other great courses (Winged Foot, Quaker Ridge, San Francisco GC, etc, etc, etc).  He also consulted for the PGA and made interesting changes on many courses (the one I am most familiar with is San Jose CC) that are similar in design to his original work. 

Joe Burbeck had this many other courses to his credit.....0

Based on the above,  how anyone can claim that Burbeck was responsible for the Black is beyond my comprehension.  You would have to find Burbeck's DNA on the original drawings for the site along with a signed affadavit from Tillie before I would even consider it.

[Matt_Ward]

Mike:

I might have dismissed Burbeck out-of-hand but after playing the course so many times over the past 35+ years I have to wonder what Tillie really did do given the final ho-hum nature of so many of the greens there.

A number of other Tillie courses the putting surfaces are famous for their complexity. I don't see very much of that at the Black -- save for a few holes of note.

I've come to believe that Tillie really didn't spend the amount of time personally on-site and that the plans he created were eventually implemented by someone else. In sum -- I can see your point -- architectural work done by one person -- the actual constuction / building by someone else.

Calling Phil Young, et al ...

[Kyle Harris]

let's see, Bethpage Black is one of the great golf courses in the world with at least 2 holes (#4, #5) that rank among the world's best.

A.W. Tillinghast is the architect responsible for many other great courses (Winged Foot, Quaker Ridge, San Francisco GC, etc, etc, etc).  He also consulted for the PGA and made interesting changes on many courses (the one I am most familiar with is San Jose CC) that are similar in design to his original work. 

Joe Burbeck had this many other courses to his credit.....0

Based on the above,  how anyone can claim that Burbeck was responsible for the Black is beyond my comprehension.  You would have to find Burbeck's DNA on the original drawings for the site along with a signed affadavit from Tillie before I would even consider it.

George Crump.

[David Stamm]

Mike:

I might have dismissed Burbeck out-of-hand but after playing the course so many times over the past 35+ years I have to wonder what Tillie really did do given the final ho-hum nature of so many of the greens there.

 

Matt, just a thought, but could the way the greens turned out be due to the course being a public city owned course?

[Matt_Ward]

David:

Sure it's possible.

But, I'm much more inclined to believe that Tillie was no longer on the scene and the contractors simply constructed vanilla-like putting surfaces for many of the holes there.

Candidly, Tillie was a real expert on the nature of putting surfaces and how they would defend against all comers in regards to their approach play. I don't see that level of complexity at any number of holes at the Black.

[Mike_Cirba]

Ahh, but Kyle...

George Crump was involved in designing more than one well-acclaimed golf course! 

[Jim Nugent]

Matt, I've asked about the Black's greens before.  At least one person said the greens fit the course well -- if they were tougher, BB would be impossibly hard.  What do you think of that?

[Mike_Cirba]

Matt,

I believe Phil Young has made the case that the greens have shrunken over the years, making some of the more interesting "shoulders" and other slopes part of the surrounds, not the greens.

Personally, I feel that the internal shaping of the greens didn't involve Tillinghast directly, but I could be wrong.

[Phil_the_Author]

Sorry guys, due to time constraints, I can't go into details at the moment, but suffice to say that all THREE courses, and the redesign of the 4th course, were done by Tilly.

Secondly, he was on site more than most have known up till now. We have even discovered some here-to-fore unknown photographs of Tilly on site including some that he himself took. Among the eyewitnesses that are still alive is his granddaughter Barbara who he took with him on several of his visits.

Third, a number of new contemporary sources attributing the design to him, including a 1936 article in the New York Times, have been found and passed on to the deaf ears of all the powers-that-be at Golf Digest. We've sent a number of these to them now over the past few years.

Everyone questions the greens, but this is based on how they look today (or even in the last 30 years) rather than how they were actually built. We can now prove that they were both larger and had much greater undulations in areas that were lost to poor maintenance practices. In addition, what is also forgotten is that Tilly designed these for the challenge of shots hit into them in the '30's and not for today's players and equipment.

Also, a good understanding of Burbeck's responsibilities during this time makes it quite clear that it was impossible for him to have designed and even perform the oversight of the actual construction to the extent that many assume he did.

Finally, how many here are aware that there are articles that attribute the design and construction oversight to the project to Long Island State Parks Commission, as well as two other individuals by name?

Please give me a few days and I will put together as concise a document that addresses all of these points and more for all...

[Matt_Ward]

Jim N:

I've played a fair share of Tillie courses in my lifetime and I have never seen such a disparity between tee game requirements and what eventually you find with the putting surfaces at the Black Course at Bethpage.

They are, with few exceptions, quite pedestrian and if one were to compare what Tillie did at WF / West as just one example the situation becomes even more clearer to me.

Jim, I'm not advocating tougher per se, but there's little at Bethpage Black that leads me to believe that a man who prided himself on such utter detail would not provide anything remotely close to past efforts at such a grand site as the Black. I have no definitive proof save for the fact of my own personal experiences in playing such a rich and diverse array of his courses over the years.

Mike C:

I'm not disputing the fact some of the greens have shrunk over time -- but it still does not explain fully or accurately how a man who prided himself on green complexities would permit pedestrian forms to be such a dominant ingredient there.

Phil:

How do you explain the fact that Tillie designed greens at WF / West which are infinitely more complex and demanding than those at BB? Given the fact that WF came into existence a number of years prior to BB. Candidly, I have to say the chief weakness of BB - besides the inane devotion to steroid-induced muscular golf centered around a slavish desire for more length - is that the putting surfaces are really simply - with a few exceptions -- nothing more than 101 level design.

[Mike_Cirba]

Matt,

Isn't Winged Foot on a relatively blah piece of land where the chief defense of the course had to be at the greens?

No one would call the Bethpage property anything but challenging...grueling even.

I do question whether Winged Foot's greens on Bethpage's holes might have been considered extreme, particularly with 1930's technology and a public course.   

I sense you'd find skeletons along the way from folks who never finished their round! 

[Kyle Harris]

Matt,

Define pedestrian.

Tillinghast designed some fairly good to great green complexes on the Red and Blue courses, which are on much less severe portions of the property. Tillinghast also was very varied and different from design to design, therefor how does his past have any bearing on what was decided for the Black Course?

[Rick Shefchik]

Phil:

How do you explain the fact that Tillie designed greens at WF / West which [are infinitely more complex and demanding than those at BB? Given the fact that WF came into existence a number of years prior to BB. Candidly, I have to say the chief weakness of BB - besides the inane devotion to steroid-induced muscular golf centered around a slavish desire for more length - is that the putting surfaces are really simply - with a few exceptions -- nothing more than 101 level design.

Everyone questions the greens, but this is based on how they look today (or even in the last 30 years) rather than how they were actually built. We can now prove that they were both larger and had much greater undulations in areas that were lost to poor maintenance practices. In addition, what is also forgotten is that Tilly designed these for the challenge of shots hit into them in the '30's and not for today's players and equipment.

Just saving Phil a little time...

[Matt_Ward]

Mike:

The rolling nature of BB is clearly quite different than what you find at WF. But the utter vanilla nature of so many of the greens at BB makes me wonder how such an artistic and gifted golf architect would have such boring greens -- save for a few holes of note (e.g., see the 15th, as just one of those rare examples).

Mike, even Baltusrol Lower, which has fairly tame greens, is a bit more creative in how the greens are situated and protect particular pin locations.

Keep this in mind -- since the Bethpage is a multiple layout facility the idea that the course could not have severe or much more demanding greens is not necessarily true or warranted given the fact that other courses are available to the public to play.


Kyle:

Pedestrian greens are those that have little, if any, relationship to the play of the hole. They are merely circular or predictable in their composition and often times are completely indistinguishable from one another.

I've played the Black enough to know what was done there and if you throw into the mix any number of Tillie's other outstanding designs such as SF and a host of others.

In terms of severity of the site -- keep in mind that with a multi-course layout the Black's greens could have been designed with a bit more thought and creativity given the fact that the public could play other courses at the complex. If the Black were a stand-alone layout then your argument would have more validity in my mind.

Last comment on your last sentence -- Tillie was a master in making sure approach shots would be defended against medicore shotmaking -- his great comment that the skill needed with a long club to overcome the demands of well-protected green is well known and often cited. The test at the Black is not about the greens -- a complete opposite tack generally favored by Tillie from the other numerous layouts of his I have played. Architects generally favor a common approach in many of their designs. For Tillie to completely abandon that at BB makes me wonder if others had more of a hand in constructing the greens than many might acknowledge.

Simple as that ...  

[Howard Riefs]

Bump for this week's Barclay's at BPB.  

Good discussion/debate in this thread and the one below on Tillie and Burbeck's role in designing Bethpage. Was also raised this morning on Golf Channel's "Morning Drive."  

GCA (2002)
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,3845.0.html

Other related articles...

Golf Digest
http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine/2009-06/bethpageblack_joeburbeckwhitten2002

Tillinghast Association
http://www.tillinghast.net/Tillinghast/Burbeck.html


Any other new perspectives/opinions?

[Nigel Islam]

I played Black last month and a guy I wound up paired with was a long time Long Islander who said that the 17th tee used to play from the left of the fifteenth fairway across the front of 16 green. Is that in fact true? I realize cross routing was more common back in the day, but that seemed a little far fetched.

[George Pazin]

Howard, Tom MacWood wrote an excellent piece in the In My Opinion section, critiquing the various elements of Ron Whitten's initial bombshell article.

I didn't catch the part with the "Morning Drive" historian Martin Davis (I think that was his name), I was putting my son on the school bus, but the little banter between the hosts just prior to the 8 o'clock hour was pretty pathetic. Anyone who relies primarily on the testimony of the son of one of the individuals in question needs to have his head examined.

On a side note, man it is depressing to see all those guests in black above...

[Bill Shotzbarger]

I played the Black in July with a friend who belongs to a Tillinghast design. After I missed a putt on the 2nd hole very much on the high side, the 16 year old we were paired with said "The greens are pretty flat." And most of them were. After our round my friend and I both realized that the greens were NOTHING like his course or any other Tillinghast course that we've played. We found it pretty strange.

[Rick Shefchik]

I'm no Tillie Expert, but the two Minnesota courses I have played that he designed do not have over-the-top undulating or tilted greens. Golden Valley Golf & Country Club has a handful of greens with pronounced back-to-front slopes, but nothing out of the ordinary for a Classic-era golf course. Same with Rochester Golf & Country Club; if anything, those greens -- which Tillie revisited numerous times -- are flatter than the landscape upon which they are built. Based on my experience, I would not attempt to ascribe authorship of a golf course to Tillinghast simply by the slope of the greens.

[Rick Wolffe]

With the exception of Martin Davis's piece on the Golf Channel yesterday, I have seen no other mention of the Burbeck Debate.   in the media coverage of this week's Barclays.

As was mentioned earlier on this post back in 2008, much research was done to debunk Golf Digest's "revisionist assertion" that Burbeck was true architect for the Black and Tillinghast had to share credit with Joe Burbeck in some type of collaborative role, which the magazine to this day still cannot substantiate.

Much of the debunking research was published in Tillinghast Illustrated in the spring of 2009 in advance of the US Open of that year at Bethpage.  For anyone interested the issue is available as a pdf on the Tillinghast web site at

http://www.tillinghast.net/Tillinghast/Tillinghast_Illustrated.html

In addition to this debunking, there is another first hand personal attribution in a very touching eulogy on the passing of A.W. Tillinghast in May of 1942, which was written by George Jacobus, President of the PGA.  In this Eulogy, Jacobus credits Tillinghast with supervising the construction of the all the courses at Bethpage, which would infer that Burbeck as Superintendent took direction from Tillinghast....Not the opposite.   This eulogy has been republished in the Tillinghast photo biography which is also posted to the Tillinghast web site at

http://my.brainshark.com/Tilly-Pres-Final-4-627131474

Lastly, the Tillinghast Association is in the middle of an initiative to republish many of the newspaper articles covering Tillinghast's golf architecture work for the PGA of America and we have found that in many of these articles written by local reporters and national reporters working for the NY Times and the Associated Press, they all credit Tillinghast for the design of Bethpage.    To date, we have Not found one article crediting Burbeck with the design of any of the Bethpage courses.  

Joe Burbeck was a GREAT superintendent and his legacy overseeing the golf courses at Bethpage should not be forgotten, but he was NOT the design architect.



 

[Bill Shotzbarger]

Have we come to the conclusion that A. Tillinghast : Joe Burbeck :: Hugh Wilson : Joe Valentine ? (See what I did there)