Westwood Charles Alison ?

[mark chalfant]

Has anyone played or heard about this course, which is west  of Cleveland, Ohio?  I believe the club was established  circa 1920.


 Did Charles Alison route/lay out Westwood, or spend time on site ?

Thanks  !

[Anthony Gholz]

Mark:


I'm only a decade late in answering, but I too can't find much on Westwood in the Colt & Alison world.  Here's all I have:


1. C & Whitten list it as a 1924 Alison design.
2. Paul Turner and Frank Pont list the design date as 1923
3. The Coshocton Tribune 6/1/1926 say it was in play in 1924.  That would go with the above dates.
4. Mike Hurdzan revised three greens, all the bunkers, and some tees from 1980 - 84.  He confirms the Alison pedigree.


Ship manifests have Alison in the country from March 7, 1923 through September 20th+/-.  I can't find anything that gets a date for him coming back to the USA in 1924, but he must have been here.. I have records of him in NYC, Lakeville, Davenport and Knollwood between March 12 and November, arriving back in Southampton on December 3, 1924.  So he could have been at Westwood either 1923 and/or 1924.


I'd be delighted to hear anything else confirming Alison being on site.
Anthony

[Joe Zucker]

I spent the first decade of my golfing life working at this course, so I know they claim to be an Alison design.  Unfortunately, I can't add much on the historical detail beyond that.  Unrelated to the design credit, the pro shop used to have a nice picture of Bobby Jones supposedly from an exhibition match played there in the 20s.


I also heard they recently hired an architect to do some bunker work, but I can't remember who it was.  From google Earth, the only new ones from 2007 I can see are on the 8th.  I would love to know if this change is restoring old features or adding new ones.

[Bret Lawrence]

Anthony,


Here is a March 1924 advertisement from Golf Illustrated listing Westwood in Cleveland as a Colt & Alison design:




Bret

[Ryan Farrow]

Here is an image for sale on ebay dated 1926.


 


This reminded me of the bridge at Sleepy Hollow (Stanley Thompson, Cleveland). The green reminds me of par 3 at Sleepy Hollow, also across a ravine.

[Anthony Gholz]

Joe/Bret/Ryan:


Thanks to all.  That eBay postcard looks good.  I'll take a closer look.  Bret:  Yes I have that ad and forgot to include it.


I'll keep my eyes open for anything else.  The latest post of Ohio Top 40 doesn't mention Westwood and, at least from what I can see on aerials, it's still a good track and certainly top 40 worthy.  Kirtland of course gets the main love as it should.


I'll throw out another Ohio Alison:  The public Lost Nation in Willoughby with a great view of the airport.  In poor condition and has been brutalized with public utilities running thru it, but a big scale course.  Not much to be found on it either.


Anthony

[Joe Zucker]

I think I ranked Westwood as a 5 in that exercise.  The drawback with the course is that the entire west side of the property is dead flat.  Holes 1-2, 8-13 are pretty average.  The best holes on the course are 4 (as the postcard shows), 5, 7, and 16-18.  All of which are very good and play though the sloping land where the water is, but there are too many flat holes with flat greens due to the land.   


I will also say that the modern 4th looks a little different today.  The green is perched up above the fairway fronting it and any ball that does not make it a few yards onto the surface rolls 10 yards back leaving a chip to an elevated green.  The consistent level of the fairway and green in Ryan's picture is more appealing in my eyes. 


Lost Nation on the other hand.... that is rough.  I can't even imagine it as I'm sure it was meant to be. 

[Tim_Weiman]

I think I ranked Westwood as a 5 in that exercise.  The drawback with the course is that the entire west side of the property is dead flat.  Holes 1-2, 8-13 are pretty average.  The best holes on the course are 4 (as the postcard shows), 5, 7, and 16-18.  All of which are very good and play though the sloping land where the water is, but there are too many flat holes with flat greens due to the land.   


I will also say that the modern 4th looks a little different today.  The green is perched up above the fairway fronting it and any ball that does not make it a few yards onto the surface rolls 10 yards back leaving a chip to an elevated green.  The consistent level of the fairway and green in Ryan's picture is more appealing in my eyes. 


Lost Nation on the other hand.... that is rough.  I can't even imagine it as I'm sure it was meant to be.

Joe,


I agree with your observation about the property. There are some good parts where the architect had something to work with, but a fair amount of the property doesn’t offer much.


That said, one hole on the flat property that is worth mentioning is #3, a short Par 4 that has an interesting green that makes even short pitches tough to get close to several of the common pin placements. You could take a small bag of balls from 80-100 yards and have a lot of fun with that shot.


Several years back Westwood did make a mistake with #7 (if I remember the hole numbers correctly). Someone talked them into adding a bunch of rocks that are totally out of character with the course. It was architecture malpractice IMO.

[Anthony Gholz]

Thanks Joe for that analysis. 


One of the things I'm looking at for all the Alison courses in NA is whether the routings themselves have been changed.  In addition are the green sites the same?  We all understand that often new tees have been added that increase length and  in some cases change angles.  However, the big questions are: is the routing predominately intact and are the majority, or most, of the green sites still in use.  To find a green that hasn't been rebuilt in some way over 100 years is very rare, but the selection of the green site in the first place is the main decision an architect can make.


Your eye roll    regarding LN is typical, but I still would ask the same questions regarding routing and green sites.  I have not yet put effort into finding any historical aerials, but hope to do that, or to find someone in the gca world that has done the heavy lifting already.


Thanks again.
Anthony

[Joe Zucker]

Tim,


I completely agree about the rocky waterfall they added on 7.  I think that was in 2007 or 2008 and it certainly does not fit the course.  But they were building a massive new clubhouse at the time, so I guess there was money to spend.


I also agree that #3 is good hole.  The green is fantastic with the high point right in front, then sloping away.  They seem to put the pin in the middle of the green a lot and it is very tricky to get it close because anything short catches the false front and anything landing pin high often kicks to the back edge.  It is a great wedge shot. 


My one complaint with the hole is that there isn't really enough room to be aggressive and hit driver off the tee.  Anything right of the green is a lost ball and there isn't much room left before you get to the 4th tee and you're out of bounds.  If there were a little bit more room to miss with the driver, it would be very strategic for the player to decide if they challenge the hole off the tee or with a longer wedge shot.  As it stands now, it's nearly always a layup to 100 yards.  This is still a good hole, but a little bit more width would yield a lot more thinking for the player.