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Robert Mercer Deruntz

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Old Oaks (pictures)
« on: December 17, 2008, 04:29:50 PM »
This is a great Tilly design that has held up very well to modern technology.  In recent years the greens were expanded back to original sizes and where possible new tees were built to lengthen holes.  As someone stated earler, Ken Dye did a fine job of rebuilding the bunkers.  Though it may look treed, there have been hundreds of trees removed--obviously, more removal would be wonderful.  One professional used to call this course "Old Oaks and a million pines",  now there are only about half a million. The pictures do not show the extent of slope on the greens--extremely severe on some holes.
Got to love the protection pines for the opening drive


This is a backward view of the tee shot on #2 which drops a good 75-100 feet.


A wonderful view from the 3rd tee of the best halfway house in metroNY and of the drop shot par 3.


The 4th is a 380ish uphill with a fiendishly severe green.  There are 3 or 4 pin positions in the front that are about 2degrees of slope amidst about a 4 degree slope.  Putting off the green from above is very common.


The 5th is a brute of a hole.  After the blind drive to a right to left sloping fairway, the apporach is uphill to another very severe green.  Above the hole usually results in a long comeback putt.  Being in the bunker on the longside is not a bad position even though it looks difficult from the fairway.  Both sides of the green slope to the middle.


The 6th is downhill and then back uphill.  The pond ends at about 235 from the tee. 


The 7th is another tough par 3 accentuated by oak trouble in addition to a well guarded severe green.

The 8th is straight uphill (at least 75 feet) to another severe two tiered green.  In the '93 Open Q, I saw a player in front lipout from short distance and roll down the tier and off the green 20yards.

The 9th is back down the hill from the 8th, but is a tough driving hole to a well protected green.  The fairway bunker tends to see a lot of play from bailouts away from the small stream.



No hole needs more tree clearance than the 10th.  The play off the tee is a literal slice of 20-30 yards into a fairway that slopes from right to left.  This is another very severe green with quite a few flat areas.


The 11th is drivable for the really long hitters, but a miss to the right is impossible to keep on the green.  The green slopes severely away from the bunker and back to front.  This is another hole that could use some tree clearance!


The 12th is one of the most difficult par 3's in Westchester.  It is 220 uphill about 30 feet to another severe right to left back to front with some shelves green. 

The 13th is downhill with a small stream crossing the fairway at 295 yards.  This green was a beyond severe postage stamp in the 1990's, but was expanded to include some great pins on the left.


The 14th is a very tight drive.  The green is not too severe, but is gentally compartmentalized.

The 15th is another blind drive needing a slight draw.  The fairway angles accross the sslope to the left.  This is a must hit the fairway in order to hold the green hole.  A miss short is managable--long will require very deft touch.


The 16th had the front portion of the green restored a few years ago.  Anything above the front is a putt off the green.  Anything to the right of the left pins will be an extremely difficult putt to get within 3feet of the hole.


The 17th is about as tough as a par 4 can play.  This green has a 30 foot false front.  The hole plays at least 75 feet uphill at 450 from the back tee.  A couple of years ago they put the pin just past the false front and people putted down the hill 40 yards.  As you can see, it has always been protected by OB very close to the green. The pine trees are on the edge of the property and the picture was shot from the right edge of the fairway.


The course ends with an uphill 550 yard hole.  The green was rebuilt because there were only a couple places where the slope was less than 4 degrees.


Phil Benedict

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #1 on: December 17, 2008, 04:42:00 PM »
Apropos the vaunted halfway house, a friend told me Old Oaks has the best food he's ever had at a golf club.

corey miller

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2008, 05:10:39 PM »


Clearly Ken Dye does not expend much "architect capital" on getting the tree work done on his renovations.  Why do that when formal stone work business can be had? 

Does every inch of sand in the bunkers need to be visible?

Is the 18th a classic hole with a tree between the two left greenside bunkers?

Are the fairway bunkers on #11 in an original spot ?  Once again giant berms to allow for the visibility of sand. 

Has NYC Metro area seen it's last of the Ken Dye renovation work?

Richard Boult

Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #3 on: December 17, 2008, 05:19:41 PM »

Robert Mercer Deruntz

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #4 on: December 17, 2008, 05:28:16 PM »
As I stated earlier, this course need serious tree clearance.  That is why it was called "Old Oaks and a million pines"  From what I know, eliiminating trees has been a huge pitched battle with the tree huggers prevailing.  As for the sand, these are the same members who belong to Palm BeachCC, Boca Rio, Frenchmans Creek, Desert Mountain, Trump National, and a few other high ticket clubs.  Supposedly, this club runs about 35,000 per season which makes it among the most expensive clubs i the US.  It will be interesting to see how many victims of Madoff will no longer be able to pay dues here in the future.

Jeff Loh

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #5 on: December 17, 2008, 08:34:16 PM »
I thought it was Colt and Alison??

tlavin

Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #6 on: December 18, 2008, 11:31:48 AM »
Apropos the vaunted halfway house, a friend told me Old Oaks has the best food he's ever had at a golf club.

Well, at least it has THAT going for it.  I think I'd rather look at photos of the buffet.

jeffwarne

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #7 on: December 18, 2008, 12:09:02 PM »
Terry,
I think you'd be surprised.
Old Oaks is an excellent golf course.
The pictures don't do it justice, nor does the course present itself in the cookie cutter "modern fave" manner that so many on GCA have come to love/expect/demand.

If you photoshopped the trees out and replaced them with thick fescue you'd gain a lot more raves (and lose a lot more balls)
It's called Old Oaks-not Old weeds ;D

This another course in the MET area that if it was located in another area it'd probably be raved about, but gets lost in the endless shuffle of great courses in the area.
"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

Jeff Loh

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #8 on: December 19, 2008, 11:31:07 AM »
hmmmmm
what that a dumb question?
WHO designed the course?
everybody must be shopping

Dave Bourgeois

Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #9 on: December 19, 2008, 11:35:04 AM »
Jeff,

I thought the C & A was across the street (well I-684) at Century. 

Steve_ Shaffer

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #10 on: December 19, 2008, 11:38:38 AM »
From the club's website:

Old Oaks Country Club was organized in 1925 as an offshoot of the Progress City Club located in Manhattan. Thereafter, it was successively known as Progress Country Club, Purchase Country Club, Pine Ridge Country Club, and again Purchase Country Club. In 1936, Oak Ridge – formerly located in Tuckahoe, NY – merged into Purchase Country Club under its present name of Old Oaks Country Club.

The building that is now the Clubhouse was originally constructed as a residential estate for a silk merchant named Trainor L. Park. Construction on the main house and several outbuildings, including the two stone gatehouses, began about 1890. It took three years to complete the estate, which was known as Hill Crest.

In 1905, after the death of Mr. Park, William A. Read, of the investment banking firm now known as Dillon, Read & Co., purchased the estate. Though Mr. Read passed away in 1916, the Read family lived at Hill Crest until it was sold to the Progress Country Club in 1925.

A.W. Tillinghast was the architect of two golf courses for the Progress Country Club. The 9-hole course, which was built first, no longer exists, its land being required for the construction of  Interstate Highway 684. The 18-hole course remains to this day as one of the finest golf courses in Westchester County.


"Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses ... "  Adlai Stevenson
Hyman Roth to Michael Corleone: "We're bigger than US Steel."
Ben Hogan “The most important shot in golf is the next one”

Jeff Loh

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #11 on: December 19, 2008, 11:50:21 AM »
Thanks Steve
did a little more research...Wexler indicates Tillie design and Alison construction. Wonder what Tillie thought of Century, which is right next door. Actually don't know when Century was constructed say maybe he didn't see it?

Michael J. Moss

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #12 on: December 19, 2008, 07:18:13 PM »
I've spoken to Ken Dye on what occurred at Old Oaks vis a vis Tillinghast and Allison. According to Ken, it's an AWT design that was ultimately built by Allison. AWT had a falling out with the club and his plans were implemented by Charles Allison.

Ken did a terrific job. The 15th and 18th greens now Ken Dye greens - they were totally redisigned - and I think they conform well with the other 16 by Allison.

corey miller

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #13 on: December 19, 2008, 07:57:41 PM »


What was the reason for rebuilding the two greens?  Were they too severe?

Probably easier to get a membership to rebuild a green than too remove a tree.  I do object to what appears a DYE goal of making every  grain of sand in every bunker visible to the golfer as they play the hole.  It leads to very unnatural berming especially in the fairways as evidenced in the pictures on holes (4,6,8,9,11,13,17) and perhaps the most offensive mounding behind the 16th green.

This bunkering scheme looks very similiar to his work at Westchester, Ardsley, Bedford, Rock Spring and his plan for work at Sleepy Hollow.

What did the original bunker surrounds look like? Did he introduce any new bunkers or just rebuild them in place?

It is getting a little tiresome when every renovation on this site is touted as outstanding because the sand is new and the bunkers are more playable. 

Did the plan honor the work of Tillie or Allison, does the course now look more classic ? Did the work restore playing angles, restore green pads and fairway mowing lines?




Phil_the_Author

Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #14 on: December 19, 2008, 10:12:49 PM »
      The evolution of the golf course cat Old Oaks may have far more Tilly to it than has presented so far.
      On July 8th, 1936, Tilly stopped in at the club during his PGA Course Consultation Tour. His comments in the report he sent to George Jacobus at PGA headquarters gives insight into the events that occurred regarding this “falling out” and some other surprises that may impact on the course as it stands today. He wrote:

      “Originally I planned this course for the Progress Country Club but after the work was started I was dismayed when the committee insisted that the starting and finishing holes should not be close to the clubhouse - a most remarkable choice. Consequently I had never approved of the course as a whole. Now recently the original club consolidated with Oak Ridge, where Macfarlane had been professional for years. He came over to the new course after the consolidation. Immediately he announced that the start and finish were wrong, a conclusion that recent committees had realized well. They wanted me to suggest an arrangement, which would bring the course back to something close to my original plan…
      “I accomplished this by reversing the play of the long eighteenth; and also that of the present first, breaking this up into two holes and thus starting play exactly where it always should have been done. This made necessary a rearrangement farther out on the course and this was done by a combination of parts of ten and eleven and the extending of twelve to a par 4 length…”

      If the club did this work, and I don’t know that they did, the course would have been rerouted and greatly redesigned away from what C&A built. This needs looking into…
      As far as Tilly’s thoughts on Century next door, he visited there on that day as well. He wrote:

      “I also visited the adjoining club, Century, where I had a fine chat with Dan Mackie, and at his request looked over the thirteenth (a new hole which has been severely criticized and believe not without reason) and studying the extension of the second hole to make it into a real par 5…”

      Those are the only specific comments he wrote about Century that I can find…

Steve_ Shaffer

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #15 on: December 21, 2008, 11:58:50 AM »
Phil,

Where would you rate Old Oaks among Tillinghast's work?
"Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses ... "  Adlai Stevenson
Hyman Roth to Michael Corleone: "We're bigger than US Steel."
Ben Hogan “The most important shot in golf is the next one”

Phil_the_Author

Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #16 on: December 21, 2008, 08:54:55 PM »
Steve,

I decided a while ago that I would never do a rating list of Tilly's courses. However, a while ago I posted a list of the 10 Tilly courses I considered as his most important courses. It was in response to a thread or question by Tom Doak. In fact he as greatly surprised, stunned in fact, when I listed Braackenridge Park as one of them.

Steve_ Shaffer

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Re: Old Oaks (pictures)
« Reply #17 on: December 21, 2008, 09:45:30 PM »
Phil

Could you repost or re-create that list?

"Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses ... "  Adlai Stevenson
Hyman Roth to Michael Corleone: "We're bigger than US Steel."
Ben Hogan “The most important shot in golf is the next one”