Hole by hole drawing of Merion: 1930 US Amateur

[Joe Bausch]

Starting on September 3, 1930 the Philadelphia Public Ledger began a series of hole descriptions for the upcoming tournament at Merion where Bobby Jones would be vying for the Grand Slam.  Months ago I posted the last in that series, the 18th hole.  Below you'll find the entire series (that little birdie friend of mine seems to have worked to keep the temperature of the last Merion related thread down; I hope he still has his mojo.)

[SPDB]

"Short 17th"

[Dan Herrmann]

I wonder who did the drawings - I love their style!

It's wonderful how much of the 1930 course remains to this day.  For the most part, the drawings and narrative could apply today.

Incidently, is that a bail-out area on the 11th hole (right and short of the green) that I see?

[Joe Bausch]

I wonder who did the drawings - I love their style!

Dollars to doughnuts it was Flynn.

[Mike_Cirba]

Interesting that the two bunkers blocking the creek on the left side of 5 and the two bunkers between the creek and green short of the 4th green weren't there at time of drawing.  (actually, look how close the 4th green came to the creek...hint hint!!  )

Somehow, probably as Fred Pickering's last drunken revenge, those bunkers got installed in time for the 1930 US Amateur, and removed about 15 minutes later.

Unfortunately, they showed up in an aerial photograph and then subsequently got "restored" a few years back during the bunker project.   To this day, they remain the only out of place features on the entire golf course.

Oh...except for the new mound left of the 14th green.   I'm not sure where that came from.    

[Kyle Harris]

I think these drawings depict it best, but it's amazing how omnipresent the OB is at Merion and also how the angle at which the OB attacks the hole (i.e. 6, 8, 14) varies.

[BCrosby]

Joe -

Wonderful stuff.

The commentary is interesting. Almost every line is about how hard ME is, how errant shots are punished, how this or that requires perfect execution, etc. After a while you might start to think ME is a good working model of a "penal" course. Hmmm.

My other thought is that only someone who had never seen a Redan would think the third was a Redan. Hmmm again.

Bob

[Kirk Gill]

Comparing the aerial view in the drawings and from satellite, the main change looks to be the narrowing of the fairways. Almost all of those fairway bunkers are now islands in the rough. Also, the bit of the creek that runs laterally short of the #2 fairway has a little curlicue in it now.....I wonder if that happened on its own over the years, or if it was just done for visual effect, or.......?

Thanks for posting, Joe. That was a fun read !

[RSLivingston_III]

I would love to know what the scoring average was during the Am for #13 and #17.

[TEPaul]

"The commentary is interesting. Almost every line is about how hard ME is, how errant shots are punished, how this or that requires perfect execution, etc. After a while you might start to think ME is a good working model of a "penal" course. Hmmm."


Bob:

I don't think so. Some might call it an expression of "penal" architecture but I don't think they looked at it that way back then---at least not in relation to what the old conception of penal architecture was.

What we think the Merion East expression represented almost exactly is this idea or the concept of "shot-testing" architecture in that day and everything that meant. PV was the same "shot testing" expression or design conception, except perhaps taken to a slightly higher level back then.

Wayne and I spoke about that very thing, among other things, at the Lynnewood Hall tournament at HVGC tonight. The Lynnewood Hall tournament, by the way, is one of the oldest in America. I think it began in 1901, which I believe makes it the second oldest tournament in America behind the USGA's US Am and Open.

[TEPaul]

I believe those drawings are Flynn's but somehow I don't think the newspaper Xeroxed them or just scanned them in.

[Sean_A]

Bob is right, the description of #3 as a Redan is perplexing.  I also find it very interesting that there are very few bunkers surrounded by fairway.  Most butt up to the fairway, whereas today many are isolated.  However, this doesn't make the fairways that much wider back in the day compared to today.  I saw aerials of another Flynn course in which the bunkering was mainly on the wings.  Was Flynn one of the first to place bunkering in this manner or has a myth around bunkering being encompassed by fairways in the old days been perpetuated?  Or, could it be a case of the meld from fairway to rough was much less abrupt back in the day?

Joe - thanks for posting the drawings!

Ciao 

[Willie_Dow]

Joe

I wonder what that stream is on the left of the 2nd hole ?  Does this show up on any ariels ?

There is some low ground in there, which may have been filled in over time.

[TEPaul]

"However, this doesn't make the fairways that much wider back in the day compared to today."


Sean Arble:

That's not the case. The fairways were considerable wider back then. Take Flynn's Shinnecock, for instance, built right around the time those Merion holes were drawn. Shinnecock's total fairway acreage back then was just over fifty; today it's in the thirties.  For the 2004 US Open it was in the high twenties.

[Thomas MacWood]

I've always admired the artistic style of the fellow who produced these drawings and most of Flynn's plans.

[Patrick_Mucci]

I've always admired the artistic style of the fellow who produced these drawings and most of Flynn's plans.

Tom,

That's cute 

Sean Arble,

Why do you find it perplexing, everyone, contemporaneously, called it a Redan.

The word, "redan" is a military term used to describe a defensive fortification, usually constructed of earthen works, angled toward the direction of the expected attack.

When placed within the context of a golf hole, the putting surface is usually elevated, constructed of earthen works and angled to meet the attack of the golfer.

The slope or cant of the putting surface is a nuance that relates to the physical design/properties of the redan wherein defenders could hide behind the fronting wall/berm and not be detected by those assaulting the green.

So, you have to ask yourself, does the 3rd hole at Merion contain any or most of these salient features ?

Evidently, the most notable architects of the time thought so.

[TEPaul]

"I've always admired the artistic style of the fellow who produced these drawings and most of Flynn's plans."

We think Flynn really admired him too. So does Merion.  

Do you think C.B. Macdonald and H.J. Whigam were given the appropriate credit they deserve for training that fellow to draw like that, Tom MacWalnut? Maybe Professor Moriarty should get into that fascinating subject in Part Two of his "Missing Faces of Merion."   

[BCrosby]

TEP -

The commentary is interesting because it was written in 1930. After almost all of the great literature of the GA had been published. Yet barely a mention of strategy, playing choices, etc. It's all about how tough (or to use the Ward vernacular "relentless") ME is.

Setting aside the accuracy of the commentary, it's an interesting peek into the mindset of the everyday golf enthusiast at the high point of the GA. The author here clearly thought ME was special primarily because it was so difficult course. All the books and articles by MacK, Hunter, Thomas etc. don't seemed to have had much impact with someone who was presumably a golf journalist familiar with the game and basic design issues.

Pat -

The term "Redan" was derived from a military term, but in this context it is a purely architectural term with a reasonably specific architectural meaning.

The 3rd at Merion is not now nor has it ever been a Redan under any definition I am familiar with.  And if commentators at the time said otherwise, they were wrong. That happens. Even to the best.

Note in Joe's clippings the line "the shot must be all carry and played to the stick." I thought the opposite was the case in the operative definition of a "Redan." No?  And that's just one of a couple of reasons why it fails to qualify as a Redan.

To paraphrase the old joke, who are you going to believe, your own eyes or those old commentators?

Bob        

[TEPaul]

"TEP -

The commentary is interesting because it was written in 1930. After almost all of the great literature of the GA had been published. Yet barely a mention of strategy, playing choices, etc. It's all about how tough (or to use the Ward vernacular "relentless") ME is.

Setting aside the accuracy of the commentary, it's an interesting peek into the mindset of the everyday golf enthusiast at the high point of the GA. The author here clearly thought ME was special primarily because it was so difficult course. All the books and articles by MacK, Hunter, Thomas etc. don't seemed to have had much impact with someone who was presumably a golf journalist familiar with the game and basic design issues."


Bob:

Of course you and I have talked about this kind of thing so much and for so long now and in the course of all those conversations we certainly have said that the mindset of "penalty" and how it should be expressed in golf and architecture as outlined by Joshua Crane (and some others) around that time just may have won the future. And to consider that with all that Behr and Mackenzie, Jones and others on the other side of the subject tried to warn and argue to the contrary!

Is this the "game mind of man" that Behr warned about? Is this the expression of how the concept of penalty should be perceive in golf, that he and the others opposed so?

I, for one, think it most certainly is, despite the dismissals of some on here that all it was about with Crane on the one side and the others mentioned on the other side was the rating of TOC and such. In my opinion, that is definitely missing the forest for a tree---and by a number of country miles.

And this is why, Bob, you really have to do one helluva job rerunning and rewriting that subject as outlined in that so-called debate back then that may have outlined a very significant and fundamental crossroads in the evolution of golf. 

[Sean_A]

I've always admired the artistic style of the fellow who produced these drawings and most of Flynn's plans.

Tom,

That's cute 

Sean Arble,

Why do you find it perplexing, everyone, contemporaneously, called it a Redan.

The word, "redan" is a military term used to describe a defensive fortification, usually constructed of earthen works, angled toward the direction of the expected attack.

When placed within the context of a golf hole, the putting surface is usually elevated, constructed of earthen works and angled to meet the attack of the golfer.

The slope or cant of the putting surface is a nuance that relates to the physical design/properties of the redan wherein defenders could hide behind the fronting wall/berm and not be detected by those assaulting the green.

So, you have to ask yourself, does the 3rd hole at Merion contain any or most of these salient features ?

Evidently, the most notable architects of the time thought so.

Pat

Its quite obvious that the term "Redan" was adopted for gca purposes and that the original and namesake existed at North Berwick.  Otherwise, one can only assume that either there was a fort built at Merion or some liberties with the term "Redan" were taken.  I prefer to believe (though I can't be certain) that liberties were taken.  It is plainly obvious that Merion's 3rd fails to meet certain criteria which evidently the "most notable architects of the time" failed to perceive or chose to ignore. 

Ciao

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Sean

The Redan at The Country Club meets none of the criteria for a Redan. It is a short hole from an elevated tee to a small green. Whatever notable architect designed it or renovated it or preserved it, took some serious liberties.

Anthony

[Jim Nugent]

Sean

The Redan at The Country Club meets none of the criteria for a Redan. It is a short hole from an elevated tee to a small green. Whatever notable architect designed it or renovated it or preserved it, took some serious liberties.

Anthony

Here is what Ran says about the "Redan" at The Country Club:

"Inappropriately named, the third and final hole not used for the Open is a drop shot par three to another tiny green. The hole is within reach of everyone and there is nothing terribly fancy about it but the green often proves elusive."

[BCrosby]

Anthony -

As Jim notes, there are many misnamed Redans. Some still call the 6th at ANGC a Redan. It might have been a funky version of a Redan in its early days, but it's not one now.

To state the obvious, calling a hole a Redan doesn't make it one.

Bob

[Phil_the_Author]

Bob,

Their is one aspect of the question of calling it a Redan which I haven't seen addressed and it really is highly significant. Why wasit referred to as a Redan at the time when Ben Sayers and his son were there? After all, where were they from?

If anyone knew what a Redan was they did, and yet, especially as young masters Sayers actually worked at Merion for a good bit, why would he allow this terminology about 'his' golf course to continue if it was so blatantly mistaken?

Why wouldn't his father have mentioned that these terms being bandied about for these holes like Redan, Alps, etc... at Merion were incorrect? Can't you picture Sr. sitting with Jr. at night and asking, "Laddie, how stupid are these Americans if they actually think that's a Redan?"

I find that there must be an interesting story behind that part of Merion...

[Chris Cupit]

"Only the 3rd at Merion East, a Redan hole, is immediately reminiscent of a British model..."

Tom Doak, The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses (page 36).