Pennhills (Walter Travis)

[Ian Andrew]

There were rumours that the Walter Travis course called Pennhills in Bradford Pa. was closing this year. The course has been under financial strain for years with a local family underwriting the losses for a long time. They had warned the club that they would no longer do that and the course is now closed.

The original course was 9 holes by Travis and then a nine hole addition by Dick Wilson. The reality was there were 7 pretty darned good Travis holes, two by the club and 9 Wilson holes where he mailed it in.

The most interesting fact about Pennhills is they had the original linens for all 18 Travis holes. The reason I know that was I was there when we found them in a locker. They were inside another roll of drawings and nobody knew they had them. I do not have copies and I implored them to send them to the USGA - I hope they did - since nobody should ever have the originals.\

The great joy at Pennhills was the 7th hole. The hole was dull but the green was one of the greatest I have ever seen. It featured four corner compartments that were all pinnable - but the real joy was the "throne." The throne was a central bowl between the compartments that was an amazing pin - but one that was really hard to putt to if you didn't hit it stiff. Actually all the compartments were hard to putt to since each was separated by spines.

I'm glad I went to see the course years ago and photographed some of it.

[Matt Bosela]

That is a real shame Ian...

For the past four years, I've joined a few fellow members from St. Catharines to make the 2+ hour drive to play in the annual two-ball tournament at Pine Acres CC, a course just five minutes up the hill from Pennhills in Bradford.

I had the pleasure of playing with a couple of Bradford residents this year and they both spoke highly of Pennhills, saying our group should definitely make plans to play there the next year as part of a 36 hole Pine Acres/Pennhills double bill.  This conversation took place in mid-June and while there was no talk of the financial difficulties at the course itself, I was fully aware of the problems going on in that community from an economical perspective.

What a sad day.

[Tom_Doak]

Ian:

That seventh green sounds vaguely like the controversial 12th green at Garden City ... was the throne made by mounds or was it a dip in the green?

[Steve_ Shaffer]

One of the great clubhouses in the world of  golf:




The clubhouse was
designed by Clifford C. Wendehack.  He was a notable
American architect most active during the 1920's.  He drew
plans for the Pennhills' clubhouse in October of 1937.  After
the clubhouse was completed two holes were added to
allow play to begin and end at the clubhouse.  Wendehack is
also credited with the design of the clubhouses at
Winged Foot, Bethpage, Norwood, Ridgewood and the
Park Country Club in neighboring Buffalo, NY.

www.pennhillsclub.com

[Ian Andrew]

I would give more comments but I visited the course in 1998 and I can't find my book of pictures.

The second hole was a nice mid-length par three


This was a detail showing the distance between bunker and green - same hole.


I took this photo of the green side mounds at a later hole.


Tom,

I'm still looking for the green photo - can't find my photo book - post move.
I'll draw the contours soon if I can't find the picture.

Ian

[Ian Andrew]

Tom D,

This is from a 10 year old memory - but this is how I remember the contours.

The spines split the green into four and then it has a central bowl cut in between at mid height. From the back bowls you had to go up and over a mild rise to get into the throne. The ball tended to run out unless the putt was hit perfectly.

[Tom_Doak]

Yowsa, that's a severe green!  Nothing like the one at Garden City, though.

I can't believe a club with a clubhouse like that is going to shutter its doors.

[Doug Wright]

Ian,

Are you sure? An August 16 article in the online version of the local paper (The Bradford Era) about the Bradford High girls golf team (excerpted below) makes it sound like the course will be around at least through the end of the year. Maybe the club hasn't told the paper or the golf team...

I have fond memories of Pennhills from my junior golf days (I grew up just across the NY-Penn state line). It was a great club back then.

"“I can see the golfers are coming out because of Kirk Stauffer’s program. Stauffer has gotten kids excited about golf, you can see that through Ryleigh and Danielle,” commented Abbey. “The program that just started at Pennhills hasn’t affected my team yet but I hope it will as well.”

One difference in the schedule this year is home course advantage for districts. The Pennhills Club will host the girls districts this season.

“The kids will have the opportunity to play at home this year, which is great,” said Abbey. "


 

[Ronald Montesano]

That part of the great frontier is fairly financially depressed these days.  If you recall a few years back the great search for Ralph "Bucky" Phillips, the escaped convict who first garnered public support for escaping two or three days before his time was up (Run, Bucky, Run) and then became a complete desperado after killing a State Trooper in cold blood, well, that's the region in which he hid out for a month or so before finally being captured.

There are a number of courses that are making it, like Blueberry Hill, Jackson Valley, and others.  They are public and play it close to the vest.

If you think the Penn Hills clubhouse is special, visit the Park Club one mentioned above and you'll see an immense tudor rising out of the mist.  The view of the clubhouse coming down 18 (Colt/Allison course) is awe inspiring (or at least it was for a 13-year old kid trying out for the high school team in 1978.)

[Steve_ Shaffer]

The aforementioned Wendehack clubhouse of Park Club:

[John Foley]

It wopuld be intersting to know if Pennhills tried to make it as a semi-private. Keep the members involved, but open it up for any interested public golfer. Others in the Western NY area have gone that way.

You wonder what a will become of the Wendehack club house? That has to be a pretty valuable asset unless it's not been kept up.

Ian - any idea's why Travis only did 9 holes and not the full 18 when it was origiannly built?

[Ronald Montesano]

I just received word from Ed Homsey of the Walter Travis Society that PennHills competed in the annual Travis Cup (placing third, behind Stafford and Orchard Park.)  It is a safe bet, therefore, that the club remains open.  I do not believe that they are a private club, however, to answer the "did PennHills ever try to make it as a semi-private" question.  You wanna play, you can play.

[JohnV]

Sorry to hear that Pennhills might be closing.   I'm checking with the folks at West Penn GA to see if they've heard anything.

Here are a couple of pictures of #7 from a couple of years ago when I was there for a course rating:

[Doug Wright]

I emailed someone in the area who would know and he said:

"Pennhills has been on the cusp of closing for the last 5 years and someone always bails them out, those certain people are getting up in age so I do not know how longer they will be doing that."

[Doug Wright]

I emailed someone in the area who would know and he said:

"Pennhills has been on the cusp of closing for the last 5 years and someone always bails them out, those certain people are getting up in age so I do not know how longer they will be doing that."

I then asked the same contact if they could make Pennhills public and this was his reply:

"The Arnold Palmer group came in a couple of years ago and tried to do that – it didn’t work – they gave it back to the members... I don’t think Bradford can support 2 golf courses with the other being Pine Acres – it’s everywhere in the northeast..."

Sounds pretty dire.

 

 

[wsmorrison]

Any chance that a hybrid model might work?  Keep the Travis holes and convert the Dick Wilson mail-in to some kind of real estate development tied into the 9-holes.  That's a heck of nice looking clubhouse, on the outside at least.  I don't know that area at all but maybe the demographics can sustain golf/real estate. 

[MargaretC]

Any chance that a hybrid model might work?  Keep the Travis holes and convert the Dick Wilson mail-in to some kind of real estate development tied into the 9-holes.  That's a heck of nice looking clubhouse, on the outside at least.  I don't know that area at all but maybe the demographics can sustain golf/real estate. 

Hi, Wayne!

The demographics appear to be grim...   

Bradford is a small city located in rural McKean County, Pennsylvania, in the United States 78 miles (126 km) south of Buffalo, New York. Settled in 1823, Bradford was chartered as a city in 1879 and emerged as a wild oil boomtown in the late 1800s. The area's Pennsylvania Grade crude oil has superior qualities and is free of asphaltic constituents, contains only trace amounts of sulfur and nitrogen, and has excellent characteristics for refining into lubricants. World-famous Kendall racing oils were produced in Bradford.

The population peaked at 17,691 in 1940, but as of the 2000 census had dropped to 9,175 and was still declining at mid-decade according to census bureau estimates...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford,_Pennsylvania

I can't remember why, but my husband and I drove through that area 5+ years ago and there isn't much around there.  Beautiful country as I remember and I think there's a national forest not too far away.

Meg

Edit  I just read the entire entry on Wiki.  There's been small amount of job growth and the oil industry anticipates a bit more.  Possibly an oil exec could see this as an investment.  That clubhouse is exquisite.  Even if it does require interior work, it sure looks as if it has "good bones." 

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Bradford is the home of the Zippo Company, manufacturer of those classic cigarette lighters. A law school classmate of mine grew up there and referred to the area as "the icebox of Pennsylvania." Apparently, it's colder there in the winter than nearby areas. Must be a nice place in the summer and fall.

[Doug Wright]

Any chance that a hybrid model might work?  Keep the Travis holes and convert the Dick Wilson mail-in to some kind of real estate development tied into the 9-holes.  That's a heck of nice looking clubhouse, on the outside at least.  I don't know that area at all but maybe the demographics can sustain golf/real estate. 

Wayne,

Good idea but it'll never happen. There's nobody around to buy the houses. I grew up in this very beautiful area and it's quite sad to see what has happened to it economically.  My high school in Olean NY across the border will graduate 123 in 2009; in the early 1970s there were 300+ in a graduating class. Probably the only thing that might save Pennhills is the native americans (Seneca Nation) buying it and putting a casino in the clubhouse.

[MargaretC]

 
Wayne,

Good idea but it'll never happen. There's nobody around to buy the houses. I grew up in this very beautiful area and it's quite sad to see what has happened to it economically.  Probably the only thing that might save Pennhills is the native americans (Seneca Nation) buying it and putting a casino in the clubhouse.

Doug:

Please don't say that.    No disrespect to the Seneca Nation, but I'd hate to see a tacky casino go into that club house and that property turned into a giant black-topped parking lot.  That, IMO, would be a sin.

What about execs from the oil refinery?  A casino would be horrible... 

Meg

[Doug Wright]

[/quote]

What about execs from the oil refinery? 
[/quote]

No execs left--they're all gone.

[MargaretC]

What about execs from the oil refinery? 

No execs left--they're all gone.

Doug:

Did the wells dry-up? 

Meg

[Doug Wright]

What about execs from the oil refinery? 

No execs left--they're all gone.

Doug:

Did the wells dry-up? 

Meg

Pretty much. The area around Bradford/Oil City had some of the earliest oil fields discovered in the US. There was a lot of oil $$ in the region at one time but the refineries and the $$ have left town.  There was an oil well on the 9 hole course I grew up playing. I never saw it pumping, however.

I was only half joking about the Seneca Nation buying the club. They have the only real thriving "industry" in the area; interesting fact--the Nation actually owns the city of Salamanca NY across the border from Bradford. This from Wikipedia:

"In the 1990's, the past land leases for houses built on Indian land expired. The previous amount paid had been very modest, and, when the new leases required substantial increases, the result was bitterness, lawsuits, and appeals to government officials. In the end, the new leases were put into effect, and a few people had to be evicted from their homes for refusing to pay."

[Ian Andrew]

I really screwed up on this one and want to appologize to the club for continuing on a rumour that is not true.

I received an email from the General manager today that I thought I would share.

My name is Kevin Mosher and I am the GM at the Pennhills Club in Bradford pa.
        I have received several calls from members, as well as guest to the club in
       the last few day about a discussion group posting about the club being CLOSED.
       I assure you this is not true. It is true the club has as have many others had
      some financial problems and it is also true we were lucky to have a family
      that helped the club through those times. But we now stand on our own and have
      made many great improvements to the golf coarse and still keep with the Walter
      Travis design.

      I hope I have helped to stop the rumor mill of the closing of our club.

This was my fault and I wanted to clear this up.

[Chris_Blakely]

There were rumours that the Walter Travis course called Pennhills in Bradford Pa. was closing this year. The course has been under financial strain for years with a local family underwriting the losses for a long time. They had warned the club that they would no longer do that and the course is now closed.

The original course was 9 holes by Travis and then a nine hole addition by Dick Wilson. The reality was there were 7 pretty darned good Travis holes, two by the club and 9 Wilson holes where he mailed it in.

The most interesting fact about Pennhills is they had the original linens for all 18 Travis holes. The reason I know that was I was there when we found them in a locker. They were inside another roll of drawings and nobody knew they had them. I do not have copies and I implored them to send them to the USGA - I hope they did - since nobody should ever have the originals.\

The great joy at Pennhills was the 7th hole. The hole was dull but the green was one of the greatest I have ever seen. It featured four corner compartments that were all pinnable - but the real joy was the "throne." The throne was a central bowl between the compartments that was an amazing pin - but one that was really hard to putt to if you didn't hit it stiff. Actually all the compartments were hard to putt to since each was separated by spines.

I'm glad I went to see the course years ago and photographed some of it.

Ian,

I was wondering if the course was actually closing after I played there recently and talked to the gentleman in the proshop.  He looked at me like I was nuts when I asked if it was true the course was going to close.  That being said it is a very good course and fun to play.  As for hole attribution, are you sure there are only 7 travis holes there (which ones are are they - 3 to 9?)?  The first green had a Travis feel to it - second I am not so sure, but 3 through 9 looked to be all Travis.  I have photos of the course and will try to post pics of the 7th green for sure - with the morning sunlight / shadows, I think it turned out well.  The course's website says that Travis designed 9 holes, 2 were added so that the course could start and end at the clubhouse and Wilson added 7.

As for Wilson mailing it in, that may be the case; however, there are still some good holes there.  Specifically the par 4 14th which IMO is one of the best on the course.  I am also not sure it is all Wilson as the course's website says that Wilson used Travis' routing.  The hole is a slight dogleg right with a stream that crosses the fairway twice - leaving you with the option of the tee to attempt to fade the ball and carry the second part of the stream or land the ball short on the peninsula fairway and be left with a longer second shot.

Chris