"Has anyone ever posted Mr. Crump's actual words/thoughts (written or otherwise) on the notion of isolation?"
George:
As far as I can tell Crump never kept a diary or a chronicle himself of what he wanted or wanted to do at Pine Valley but that certainly doesn’t mean he never talked about it with others because he obviously did and some of that was recorded in various ways over time. Particularly W.B. Smith, apparently one of his best friends down there and also Father Simon Carr, a Catholic priest and another very close friend of Crump's keep some records, including an article in Jan 1915 by Carr. Both were very good players and regular partners of Crump's. They were also members and committee members there throughout Crump's time there and afterwards.
After Crump died suddenly in Jan, 1918 they both produced a hole by hole report of what they remembered Crump thought and said about various things to do with the course and what he planned to do with it and with certain holes. Some of Smith's were dated as to when he wrote them and they were during the years Crump was alive and working seemingly daily on the place. Carr's may've been written after Crump died. Apparently the club asked them to produce these remarks that I call "The Remembrances." The reason is pretty clear---eg after about a year hiatus the club wanted to finish off the course in the manner they felt Crump wanted to do it or would have done it.
Hugh Alison was hired in 1921 to come up with a report to finish off the course and his report reflects the point that the club and committee wanted to finish it off in the manner Crump wanted it as best they could understand (again that was the point of Carr and Smith's "Remembrances"). This does not mean that Alison did not make some of his own recommendations on various things because he did and many of them were followed but not all. There is actually another report by that committee which I call "The 1921 Committee" that itemizes point by point what they accepted, what they put on hold and what they did not accept of Alison's comprehensive hole by hole report. Because of this event (the 1921 Advisory committee) and Alison’s recommendations and what was accepted and done via and at that time, I believe Hugh Alison takes on a bit more importance with the architectural history of Pine Valley than most today realize. Alison, however, could not or did not remain on hand for the work done and so it was executed by others and perhaps not always exactly to Alison's recommendations. Most think that included Jim Govan and Flynn and the Wilsons of Merion and may’ve included even Captain George Thomas to some extent. Later Perry Maxwell finished off some of the recommendations from that committee.
Later, likely around the late 1920s another large project was carried out on and with the course that the records call “stabilizing the course” or alternatively “holding the course together.”
Most have never even heard of that and it involved trying to stabilize some of the massive sloping sand areas around the course from shifting, collapsing etc. That involved the terracing and planting (trees and other vegetation) of large areas of the course, including formalizing into smaller and more distinct bunkering some of the massive bunker upsweeps on some holes and particularly around some greens such as #2, #10 and #18. People who just look at some of those early aerials of the course before that was done apparently have no idea what it all meant and the importance of it or even that it was ever done. That certainly is another factor that is important to know if one is entertaining some idea of returning the course to the look of some aerial, say 1925, as Pat Mucci apparently is.
But no, I’m not aware that Crump said anything specifically about what is being called on here the “splendid isolation” of the holes of Pine Valley via trees. I think it is possible that Crump may've written some letters about some of the things he was doing and thinking there but I'm not sure of that and unfortunately with that kind of thing (letter writing) it becomes a matter of the fact that those letters went to various people and were never brought back into the archives of Pine Valley. What I do know is that Crump did not seem to correspond with Piper and Oakley of the US Dept of Agriculture about his course and the agronomy even though those two men did consult with Pine Valley on that. Both Alan and Hugh Wilson did that for Crump because both were members there and involved with that course very closely from time to time.
One can probably assume, however, that Crump was not such an idiot that it never occurred to him that those unusually low and small trees (obviously because most ALL the literally hundreds of thousands of trees on the site were fairly young) would grow and probably five times taller or more than they were then.
Crump found a site that obviously had hundreds of thousands of trees on it and he removed about 40-50,000 of them mostly to open up hole corridors so he could see them and test them (he and his foreman Govan were constant shot testers). Some of those he never used for holes so over time they were closed back up with tree planting. And Crump did plant various trees in various places, particularly around tees with a number of tree types that are listed and named in the club records.
So, in my opinion, if Crump did not want hundreds of thousands of trees on that site and between holes he probably would have taken them all out or since that would’ve clearly been a costly and Herculean effort he probably would’ve found a site that did not have as many trees or any trees on it as Pine Valley most certainly did before he found it and bought it.