[Patrick_Mucci]

at St George's Golf Club in Stony Brook, NY, a 1917 Devereaux Emmett golf course.

It has very interesting greens, wide fairways, neat bunkers and mounding.

And, they've embarked upon a tree removal program.

Has anyone played it ?

I'll elaborate this weekend

[Thomas MacWood]

I played it a few years back and really enjoyed it. There is a good old picture of the 17th green in George Thomas's book. One of the main reasons I went there was because Emmet's home was just outside Stoney Brook, and evidently devoted a lot of time to the course.

After playing the course I got directions from locals to his home - I think it was on Emmet Lane. I took some pictures of the home, which his brother-in-law Stanford White had redesigned. He had a private nine-hole course on his estate but I couldn't find it. As I later found it there was a good reason. That wasn't his house. His house was on the opposite side of the harbor. I'm an idiot.

[David Mulle]

I used to caddy there.  I have not played there in about 15 years but I am looking forward to playing it again later this year.

It is on a great piece of property and makes great use of the elevation changes.

Speaking of Dev's courses that need tree removal, I played Greenacres last week.  It seemed like an interesting course but it was tough to tell with all the branches blocking my view.  It is not an exaggeration to say that they need to remove about 80% of the trees.

[John Moore II]

We had a thread about this geometric architecture thing a while back, I still don't get it. What exactly is geometric architecture, because when I studied geometry in high school we talked about planes, lines, circles, triangles and other like things. I have yet to see any of those things on a golf course. So please someone explain to me what geometric architecture is.

[Mike Sweeney]

We had a thread about this geometric architecture thing a while back, I still don't get it. What exactly is geometric architecture, because when I studied geometry in high school we talked about planes, lines, circles, triangles and other like things. I have yet to see any of those things on a golf course. So please someone explain to me what geometric architecture is.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/mountainlake2.html

If you don't see it here, perhaps I can bring back Dutchy Doyle my high school geometry teacher from the grave for a refresher.

Patrick,

St George's is a very good course in a land of giants. It gets a little squeezed in that one spot where the four holes come up to the road and they may not have any "all world" holes, but that would be a great place to play everyday on The Island.

[Sean_A]

We had a thread about this geometric architecture thing a while back, I still don't get it. What exactly is geometric architecture, because when I studied geometry in high school we talked about planes, lines, circles, triangles and other like things. I have yet to see any of those things on a golf course. So please someone explain to me what geometric architecture is.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/mountainlake2.html

If you don't see it here, perhaps I can bring back Dutchy Doyle my high school geometry teacher from the grave for a refresher.

Patrick,

St George's is a very good course in a land of giants. It gets a little squeezed in that one spot where the four holes come up to the road and they may not have any "all world" holes, but that would be a great place to play everyday on The Island.

Thanks Mike.  Now I get it.  Geometric design is just a poor label (one of many on GCA.com) for ugly square/rectangular bunkers and perhaps the odd green. 

Ciao

[Mike Sweeney]

Thanks Mike.  Now I get it.  Geometric design is just a poor label (one of many on GCA.com) for ugly square/rectangular bunkers and perhaps the odd green. 

Ciao

Dutchy Doyle would be proud, but I doubt his crewcut would sell in Italy!

[wsmorrison]

Fortunately, not in Philadelphia.

[Mike Sweeney]

Fortunately, not in Philadelphia.

Dutchy is from Philadelphia, buried in Philly and his tombstone reflects his teachings!!



If Philly did not have Merion and Pine Valley it would be viewed in the same way as Scottsdale! One dimensional desert/parkland golf!

[TEPaul]

"As I later found it there was a good reason. That wasn't his house. His house was on the opposite side of the harbor. I'm an idiot."


Join The Club.

[TEPaul]

In my opinion, the entire approximately 30-40 year long era of "geometric" golf architecture---somewhat synonymous with "Dark Age" or "Victorian" or "Steeplechase" golf architecture on both sides of the Atlantic should be far more studied than I believe it ever has been.

Personally, I sure don't look at it as something that needs any kind of renaissance in any way, but I do believe it is a truly fascinating evolution when golf architecture began to first emigrate out of the Scottish linksland or probably more accurately away from coastal golf and into the inlands.

Although there are direct similarities with "Dark Age", "Victorian", "Steeplechase" and "Geometric" architecture it seems to me that the true "Geometric" expression in golf architecture was perhaps the most fundamentally shocking as it actually seemed to dedicatedly take those early rudimentary highly artifical looking shapes and attempt to refine them somehow.

I think all those styles evolved at a time when GCA made no direct connection to naturalism and the natural forms of coastal golf generally known then as "links" golf.

I also think there's a very fundamental dynamic involved in this geometric evolution in GCA which eventually evolved into attempts at more natural looking formations. I think that dynamic is whether or not a golf architect should attempt to "hide his hand" and his imagination by making what he creates look like Nature made it or whether he should make it look man-made so as to essentially glorify Man's imagination and skill, and perhaps even to glorify Man's own eventual domination of Nature itself.

I believe this is a fundamental stylistic dynamic that goes on to this day---it is interwoven into the entire philosophy of what golf architecture should be. It will probably always be the fundamental DYNAMIC of golf course architecture. 

[John Foley]

Stanford White was Dev Emmett's brother-in-Law??

The things you learn on GCA!

[John Moore II]

We had a thread about this geometric architecture thing a while back, I still don't get it. What exactly is geometric architecture, because when I studied geometry in high school we talked about planes, lines, circles, triangles and other like things. I have yet to see any of those things on a golf course. So please someone explain to me what geometric architecture is.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/mountainlake2.html

If you don't see it here, perhaps I can bring back Dutchy Doyle my high school geometry teacher from the grave for a refresher.

Patrick,

St George's is a very good course in a land of giants. It gets a little squeezed in that one spot where the four holes come up to the road and they may not have any "all world" holes, but that would be a great place to play everyday on The Island.

Thanks Mike.  Now I get it.  Geometric design is just a poor label (one of many on GCA.com) for ugly square/rectangular bunkers and perhaps the odd green. 

Ciao

Sean--I tend to agree with that. So am I to think that geometric architecture is simply using Right angles on greens and bunkers? Seems simple to me.

Pat--since you started this thread and the other one as I recall, perhaps you could define geometric architecture for me, so that I can be enlightened.

[Bill_McBride]

We had a thread about this geometric architecture thing a while back, I still don't get it. What exactly is geometric architecture, because when I studied geometry in high school we talked about planes, lines, circles, triangles and other like things. I have yet to see any of those things on a golf course. So please someone explain to me what geometric architecture is.

If you don't see it here, perhaps I can bring back Dutchy Doyle my high school geometry teacher from the grave for a refresher.

Patrick,

St George's is a very good course in a land of giants. It gets a little squeezed in that one spot where the four holes come up to the road and they may not have any "all world" holes, but that would be a great place to play everyday on The Island.

Thanks Mike.  Now I get it.  Geometric design is just a poor label (one of many on GCA.com) for ugly square/rectangular bunkers and perhaps the odd green. 

Ciao

Sean--I tend to agree with that. So am I to think that geometric architecture is simply using Right angles on greens and bunkers? Seems simple to me.

Pat--since you started this thread and the other one as I recall, perhaps you could define geometric architecture for me, so that I can be enlightened.

If you look at photos of the oldest American courses - I don't have any but I know somebody may be able to help or supply a link - you'll see symmetrical chocolate drop mounds, pyramid mounds, lots of straight line bunkers, straight green edges, rectangular bunkers and greens.  I think square cut tee boxes stem from that early tradition.

If you open the link below for Mike Sweeney's article on Mountain Lake, designed by Seth Raynor and built by Charles "Steam Shovel" Banks in the late teens or early 1920's, I think you'll see it's a bridge between the geometric school and more modern Classic Age golf course design.    As you go through the photos of the holes, you'll see lots of rectangular bunkers, straight green edges, etc, lots of straight (geometric?) lines. 

Mercifully the pyramid mounds and other early stuff never existed at Mountain Lake  (I guess), but the design is very formal in many places.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/mountainlake2.html

Here are a couple of examples:

First hole fairway bunker:



Greenside bunker on the Biarritz:

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I'd hardly call 1917 the "Dark Ages" of golf in America.

Tom MacWood,

St George's became Dev's home course.

J Kenneth Moore,

Potter Stewart would be better qualified to assist you on this matter.

Mike Sweeney,

Pine Valley is in New Jersey

As to St George's

They have two holes that share a common fairway, # 13 and # 14 and I understand that that feature will be repeated on other holes.

The one hole or green complex that really stands out, and there are many, is the 4th hole.  It's a relatively short hole with a blind drive up to a plateau.

Near the green are a series of mounds flanking the fairway and framing a neat bunker fronting the green.  But, the really spectacular feature is that the bunker fronting the green hides a deep trench bunker that's right up against the green.

The green is essentially elevated, surrounded by bunkers at the base of a steep bank.

Go to Google Earth and view the golf course.
The hole and feature I mentioned are on the high left side of the aerial.
You can't miss the double bunker in front of the green.

It's on the Northern part of Long Island, between Stony Brook and Setauket.

One of the architectural themes that runs throughout the golf course is an elevated collar or rim that surrounds many greens.

It presents a modified, hybrid punchbowl effect, with the rim elevated to different heights on different holes.

My theory is that it was an architectural buffer, a corrective devise for the running ball that would assist in preventing a marginally hit shot from running over the green to a deep, dire fate.

It's the kind of golf course you could play every day and enjoy it.

It's my belief that it will get better and better as more of the architecture is recaptured and more of the imprudently planted trees are removed.

[TEPaul]

"Geometric architecture is alive and well at St George's Golf Club in Stony Brook, NY, a 1917 Devereaux Emmett golf course."

Pat:

That is one cool little golf course but I would not call it an example of geometric architecture. It's more like an Emmet example of the "National" School style. One of our favorite guys, Adam Jessie, is the super there. He was at Shinnecock previously. Gil Hanse did some restoration there.

[Patrick_Mucci]

"Geometric architecture is alive and well at St George's Golf Club in Stony Brook, NY, a 1917 Devereaux Emmett golf course."

Pat:

That is one cool little golf course but I would not call it an example of geometric architecture.

I would vehemently disagree with you.

You have to see the golf course to appreciate the geometric features.

It's more like an Emmet example of the "National" School style.

Again, I would vehemently disagree with you.

You forget that Emmett was designing golf courses long before CBM began designing National.

St George's has a distinctive flavor.

In fact, you may recall the dual, shared nature of the 6th and 7th fairways
at GCGC, which were done long before CBM started NGLA, well, they're there at St George's as well.

One of our favorite guys, Adam Jessie, is the super there. He was at Shinnecock previously.

Yes, this is his second year and he's done a great job.

I have no doubt that he will continue to improve the golf course.

Gil Hanse did some restoration there.

Yes, it has worked very well and the club continues along the restoration path.

So many clubs became choked by trees and stupid trees.
The vistas that have been opened up, which in turn improved the look and feel of the golf course.

There's a wonderful aerial in the hallway from the men's locker room.

That photo could and should serve as a road map to restoration.

It's really a neat golf course, one that you would enjoy playing every day.

[TEPaul]

"I would vehemently disagree with you."

So what? You disagree with most everyone most all the time and you're almost always wrong.

"You have to see the golf course to appreciate the geometric features."

I have seen the course and it's not an example of geometric architecture. Furthermore, under the new "Tautology" architecture research method Hugh Wilson did the routing and design of that golf course (although no one knows that yet) and Hugh Wilson didn't do geometric architecture.

[Patrick_Mucci]

"I would vehemently disagree with you."

So what? You disagree with most everyone most all the time and you're almost always wrong.

"You have to see the golf course to appreciate the geometric features."

I have seen the course and it's not an example of geometric architecture. Furthermore, under the new "Tautology" architecture research method Hugh Wilson did the routing and design of that golf course (although no one knows that yet) and Hugh Wilson didn't do geometric architecture.

That's OK because it's rumored that he didn't do Merion either.

As to St George's not being an example of Geometric architecture I take it that you failed both Euclidian and Non-Euclidian Geometry in the 11 years you spent in high school.

[TEPaul]

"As to St George's not being an example of Geometric architecture I take it that you failed both Euclidian and Non-Euclidian Geometry in the 11 years you spent in high school."

Patrick:

By any chance, do you know if Euclid and Noneuclid were Gay?

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