[TEPaul]

"Its my understanding that to create good interior views at PV would require serious financial commitment on the part of the club.  So perhaps at PV it isn't really feasible regardless of the benefits of mega tree removal.  Though I do find it curious that a club would let bunkers be crowded out by trees.  PV may be a glaring example of this, but it is by no means limited to PV."

Sean Arble:

Good interior views? What does that mean exactly, or, what does that mean to you? Depending on what that means to anyone could be the difference between up to a few thousand trees compared to literally hundreds of thousands of trees. 

More than ever before I believe if threads like this one about trees at Pine Valley are going to be carried on the people doing it should familiarize themselves thoroughly with the architectural history of the club and course. And I believe that also requires a ton of experience on the course and with the course. Frankly, that would be true on the subject of tree removal on most any golf course that has a pretty good amount of trees on it.

[Rich Goodale]

Tom

Sean's argument gets to one of my points in posting this topic, i.e. did Crump envision a golf course infested by tens of thousands of mature trees, with very few "view corridors," or was it that he thought otherwise and it "just growed," like Topsy, after his death?

Rich

[JMorgan]

Pine barrens are pine barrens because white pines and other Pinus species rapidly reseed themselves in sandy soil.  I doubt very much that PV's isolation has much to do with anything carefully planned.

[TEPaul]

"Tom

Sean's argument gets to one of my points in posting this topic, i.e. did Crump envision a golf course infested by tens of thousands of mature trees, with very few "view corridors," or was it that he thought otherwise and it "just growed," like Topsy, after his death?"


Richard the Inquisitive:

Again, that question has been asked many times on this website. The answer and the truth is he did not say as far as I know and as far as I'm aware that anyone knows.

But one thing I do know is-----if Crump did not want trees bordering his holes on the course he made he probably would've taken them down and not planted the ones he did or else just not picked a site like Pine Valley (that had literally hundreds of thousands of existing trees albeit fairly small ones compared to today) as the site to build his course.

Or why not try asking this simple question Richard? Do you think George Crump was so naive that he did not realize a site filled with seemingly hundreds of thousands of fairly small trees would be one that for some odd reason those trees would not grow to full maturity some day? 

It sounds to me some on here might think that. I don't.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

What is the reason they haven't removed all the trees surrounding the bunkers or within their sightlines? I have no real idea. I don't belong to Pine Valley and they don't consult me on what they do. They don't consult Patrick Mucci either or anyone else on this website.

Your attitude is: "that whatever they do it's the correct thing to do architecturally"

Everyone recognizes the flaw in your position.

It's clear that at best, benign neglect has been allowed to continue, unabated, over the years.

Perhaps had they listened to me or anyone else on this website there wouldn't be bunkers abandoned to the wild with trees, shrubs and underbrush growing in and through them, interfering with Crump's architectural and playing intent, which is clearly recorded in earlier photos.

For whatever the reason, perhaps your long ties to Pine Valley, you can't accept valid constructive criticism.

You continue to defend inertia, or the lack of the need for obvious action.

Is that a requirement necessary to join GAP ?

[Sean_A]

"Its my understanding that to create good interior views at PV would require serious financial commitment on the part of the club.  So perhaps at PV it isn't really feasible regardless of the benefits of mega tree removal.  Though I do find it curious that a club would let bunkers be crowded out by trees.  PV may be a glaring example of this, but it is by no means limited to PV."

Sean Arble:

Good interior views? What does that mean exactly, or, what does that mean to you? Depending on what that means to anyone could be the difference between up to a few thousand trees compared to literally hundreds of thousands of trees. 

More than ever before I believe if threads like this one about trees at Pine Valley are going to be carried on the people doing it should familiarize themselves thoroughly with the architectural history of the club and course. And I believe that also requires a ton of experience on the course and with the course. Frankly, that would be true on the subject of tree removal on most any golf course that has a pretty good amount of trees on it.

Tom

Good interior views usually entails seeing other holes on the course from high ground areas rather than merely playing down an avenue of tree lined holes.  The best example I can give is Old Town.  One doesn't often (if ever) get a view outside the course boundary, but this lack of vistas is made up a bit by trees being taken out so players can several holes at once, but there are still interior trees about. 

Ciao

[TEPaul]

Listen Patrick, removing the trees surrounding the bunkers of Pine Valley is my suggestion and not one I heard from them and am endorsing for that reason even if I'm certainly glad to see they started the idea and program (and certainly without consulting me about it). I've only told you that on here about twenty Goddamned times now. How obtuse or obdurate on this subject are you anyway?

Your ideas and those on here??? If it involves using that 1925 aerial as a complete blueprint for tree removal that is completely ridiculous! I know that and so do they but unfortunately you don't seem to. Maybe someday you will too if you take about ten years to do some serious research on the history of the architecture of that golf course, but it doesn't seem like that will ever happen.

And need I remind you what a joke so many golf clubs I'm aware of think some of the people on here and their suggestions for those courses they barely know are?



"You continue to defend inertia, or the lack of the need for obvious action."

Do you call the suggestion to remove all the trees surrounding the bunkers and their sightlines inertia?   

[Rich Goodale]

"Tom

Sean's argument gets to one of my points in posting this topic, i.e. did Crump envision a golf course infested by tens of thousands of mature trees, with very few "view corridors," or was it that he thought otherwise and it "just growed," like Topsy, after his death?"


Richard the Inquisitive:

Again, that question has been asked many times on this website. The answer and the truth is he did not say as far as I know and as far as I'm aware that anyone knows.

But one thing I do know is-----if Crump did not want trees bordering his holes on the course he made he probably would've taken them down and not planted the ones he did or else just not picked a site like Pine Valley (that had literally hundreds of thousands of existing trees albeit fairly small ones compared to today) as the site to build his course.

Or why not try asking this simple question Richard? Do you think George Crump was so naive that he did not realize a site filled with seemingly hundreds of thousands of fairly small trees would be one that for some odd reason those trees would not grow to full maturity some day? 

It sounds to me some on here might think that. I don't.

Thomas Torquemada Paul aka "The Inquistor"

I actually do think that Crump probably didn't have a clue as to what the trees would do once left relatively unchecked.  Very few people have the ability to think 30-40 years in advance about these sort of things, and Crump died very young.

Or, in other words, how long do you think it would take for Featherfield Farm to become a thicket of hardwood if your John Deere went to that scrap yard in the sky?

Ricardo the Unjustly Persecuted aka "No, not the comfy pillow!!!!"

[TEPaul]

"Tom
Good interior views usually entails seeing other holes on the course from high ground areas rather than merely playing down an avenue of tree lined holes."


SeanA:

I see. Thanks for clearing that up. Now let me ask you another question about Pine Valley. Have you ever been there?

If not, I'd be glad to tell you where on that course golfers on one hole get a glimpse of golfers on other holes, and why that probably shouldn't change much now or in the future. 

[TEPaul]

"I actually do think that Crump probably didn't have a clue as to what the trees would do once left relatively unchecked.  Very few people have the ability to think 30-40 years in advance about these sort of things, and Crump died very young."


Thanks for making that clear Ricardo. That is a thought I would recommend that Pine Valley definitely not use as anything to do with any tree program they might put into effect. 



"Or, in other words, how long do you think it would take for Featherfield Farm to become a thicket of hardwood if your John Deere went to that scrap yard in the sky?"

Is there some similarity between the farm fields I mow and the trees Crump both left and planted at Pine Valley I'm not aware of? Maybe George had a love affair with his John Deere (if he had one) that I do with mine but after ten years of research on Pine Valley I'm still unaware of it unfortunately.



However, that does indirectly raise a most interesting question about the history of the site of Pine Valley which I have never seen what might pass as a truly accurate answer to. That is----why were the trees on that site albeit it massive in quantitiy as small as they were when Crump found the place?

I guess if one knows anything much about the realities of forestry the answer is probably pretty obvious! 

[Rich Goodale]

I'll bite, Tomasso

The pines were small because they were young, either through the fact that they had naturally taken over a previously farmed field (e.g. the Featherfield Conjecture), or had been fairly recently planted as some sort of soil control measure.

Do I get an "A"!!!

Reeeshhharrr(d) de Parodi

[George Pazin]

Thanks for the additional info, Tom.

[TEPaul]

"Do I get an "A"!!!"


Not even close Richard. Go to the back of the room and sign up for extra tutoring if you wouldn't mind.

I believe Pine Valley is at a corner of what is broadly known as the New Jersey "Pine Barrens." Perhaps you've never heard of it but it was not an area that farming was ever done. When I explain it to you perhaps you may figure out why but I'm not counting on that yet.

The New Jersey Pine Barrens is a large area of basically pines and massive amounts of extremely sandy soil that apparently due to that happens to sit on an enormous stock of some of the world's purest water. They say that New York and those north have had, in the past, a very covetous eye on that massive store of pure water probably somewhat as Southern California covetously eyed and eventually used Northern California's water.  

For this reason that site was clearly never farmed unless they had some transplanted Americans from Scotland who were under the impression one could farm on straight sand.

The ultra sandy soil makeup of Pine Valley was apparently also why C.B. Macdonald famously mentioned to Crump and Pine Valley that the course might be one of the greatest in the world if they could figure out how to grow grass on it! Macdonald should've know of what he was saying considering the mighty struggles he had growing grass at NGLA before realizing he had to truck thousands of cart-loads of topsoil onto it and cover the whole place.

When Crump came to find out what he was up against in that vein he was known to famously say when one asked what he would like for Christmas-----"As many truckloads of topsoil as you can spare me." (Part of his agronomic problems apparently was he was using liberal amounts of low area "muck" in its place.

Pine Valley also sits on what is known as the "Cohansey Strata"----eg also a massive store of pure water.

No sir, Ricardo, I'm afraid you get an "F" for "Failure" on this one!

Let me help you out with some informed speculation. I would say the trees on the site of Pine Valley when Crump found it probably were that small due to a massive forest fire probably not much more than a couple of decades previous. The only other logical alternative theory  I can think of is it may've been massively logged in the previous decades as much of Long Island was in the 18th and 19th centuries.

[JESII]

Rich,

I think Tom speculates that a fire of some sort cleared the area some time prior to Crump finding it.



Pat,

You continue to rail on about desparate needs of tree removal yet when I asked for specificholes that need more than trees removed to the outer edges of the bunkers you came up empty. Which holes need removal beyond the outer edges of the bunkers?

[Rich Goodale]

Tom

I spent two months in the Pine Barrens while at Fort Dix.  I know the Pine Barrens.  The Pine Barrens were my friend.

You can go back now to searching "Pine Barrens" in Wikipedia, if you so wish.......

Cheers

Rich

[TEPaul]

Sully:

Patrick can't answer questions like that because he has no idea how to. He can tell us he's played that course for 45 years but what does that prove as to the answers to questions like yours? So have many others who don't know much about the architectural history of that course and the reasons behind that architectural history.

I've been trying to explain to him that one really shouldn't just waltz into a club, look at an aerial photograph from the 1920s and say: "AHA, that's the blueprint for a tree removal program." Unfortunately one needs to be aware of a whole lot more about the history and evolution of that site and course.

Will he ever understand or admit this? Apparently not.

[TEPaul]

So Ricardo, you spent some time in the Pine Barrens in the military and you think the Pine Barrens was farm land in the past? That's interesting to know. That's why I joined the US Marine Corps. It did have a few idiots in it but not like the Army did! 

[TEPaul]

"You can go back now to searching "Pine Barrens" in Wikipedia, if you so wish......."

No thanks, Richard. I do know that at one point one of the families in my tree---the Biddles, owned a massive amount of the Pine Barrens. God only know why. They're ultra eccentrics now and I suppose they were then too.


PS:
Years and years ago at a very formal party in Philadelphia the King of England was told he had to meet a Philadelphia Biddle. He famously said: "What is a Philadelphia Biddle?" When told it was one of Philadelphia's prominent families he responded: "Oh, I thought it might be a local rodent."

[Rich Goodale]

Tom

I was stupid enough to get drafted, but not as stupid as you and Mucci to actually voluntarily join the Marines.

Semper Phi

Rich

[Sean Leary]

Sean:

The way Pine Valley works and has always worked is that there aren't a lot of "powers-that-be". The club forever has been run almost entirely by its president of which there have only been five in the club's 95 year history.

What is the reason they haven't removed all the trees surrounding the bunkers or within their sightlines? I have no real idea. I don't belong to Pine Valley and they don't consult me on what they do. They don't consult Patrick Mucci either or anyone else on this website.

I don't even know if they plan to remove all the trees from existing bunkers and their sight-lines; that has only been my own suggestion, for what it's worth which to them may or may not be much. I have no idea what they think of it, but I do know they have removed some trees surrounding some bunkers on some holes in the last five years or so, and to me and I believe to them it has been considered a real success for a number of reasons. For those reasons it would seem that is their intention but how far they go with that suggestion or idea I have no idea.

I did hear a few years ago from what I consider to be a reliable source that the plan was to remove app. 700 trees for ten years. That is 7,000 trees but it may not be just those surrounding existing bunkers and their sightlines. It may include other trees on that enormous property.

7,000 trees removed is a lot of trees and a lot more than Oakmont, for instance, which recently removed just about all the trees on the course itself and certainly in play. But Oakmont may've had about 4,000-5,000 trees on that course generally and sort of in play but Pine Valley has and always has had probably hundreds of thousands of trees on the course.

Thanks. So the decsion to do the tree clearing that has been done was made essentially only by the president? Did the consulting architect have any say?  It just seems like it has been such a success (especially number 2), that the trees that are coming out of bunkers would be a no brainer for everybody? Any idea how many that would be? It seemed most obvious on 12, but I wasn't really looking the times I have been there.

The one area that no longer feels isolated is the area between 10 green and 18 tee. In pics, you can see at one point the trees kept those areas separate. I like the way it is now..

[TEPaul]

"Tom

I was stupid enough to get drafted, but not as stupid as you and Mucci to actually voluntarily join the Marines."


Richard the Grunt:

I'm sure you realize a whole lot of measly Army boys got their dog-faces bloodied by Marines for remarks like that one. Why do you think they put the USMC basic training camp (Paris Island) way down in South Carolina and states and states away from Army basic training camps like Fort Dix?

It was so the Marines wouldn't beat the shit out of measly Army dogfaces for sport before they had a chance to get sent abroad as basic cannon fodder.

[TEPaul]

Richard:

Did you realize that back around 1962-63 for some really inexplicable and insane reason the USMC was forced to accept something like a company of draftees?

Yep, it's true. I think within weeks it was realized they were so pathetic and untrainable that the crack Marine DIs in Paris Island just might end up killing them all and so they just did the right thing and shipped them all over to the US Army where people like that belonged.

If I was the Secretary of Defense I'd just send all the trainees at Fort Dix over to Pine Valley to pick poa annua out of the greens. That's about all they're good for, if that.

[JMEvensky]

I have never played PV.The only time I've "seen" it is the SWWOG with Byron Nelson and Gene Littler.

Friends who've played it almost always comment on the feeling of seclusion they get-as though their's was the only group on the golf course.Most consider this a good thing.This frequently leads to a discussion about whether we could accomplish same by more tree planting(or less tree removal).Most of these guys will understand the differences and why "isolation" may work at PV but wouldn't have the same affect at home.

So,at least in my small sampling,the PV Syndrome is a fact.

A question to TEPaul and/or Pat Mucci.Is it possible that PV's membership hasn't cleared the trees because they prefer the golf course that way as opposed to early photos?Couldn't it be more a case of proactive acceptance rather than benign neglect?

[TEPaul]

"This frequently leads to a discussion about whether we could accomplish same by more tree planting(or less tree removal).Most of these guys will understand the differences and why "isolation" may work at PV but wouldn't have the same affect at home."

Jeff:

This is an excellent, excellent point.

I guess one would really have to analyze all the things perhaps peculiar to Pine Valley that creates that unique quietude or sereneness while on most every hole that one pretty much never experiences on another golf course. It definitely has more to do with things than just the fact you can rarely SEE anyone well on another hole because of trees.


"A question to TEPaul and/or Pat Mucci.Is it possible that PV's membership hasn't cleared the trees because they prefer the golf course that way as opposed to early photos?Couldn't it be more a case of proactive acceptance rather than benign neglect?"


Of course they do particularly when one experiences and understands the uniqueness of that sereneness while on any hole just spoken of. That basically doesn't have much or anything to do, however, with trees surrounding some of the old bunkers and their sightlines, and that is probably the precise reason they began a few years ago to remove some of those trees surrounding some of the bunkering and their sightlines. There are some areas of the course as well where trees were removed around some greens and such to create more light and airflow.

[JMEvensky]

Of course they do particularly when one experiences and understands the uniqueness of that sereneness while on any hole just spoken of. That basically doesn't have much or anything to do, however, with trees surrounding some of the old bunkers and their sightlines, and that is probably the precise reason they began a few years ago to remove some of those trees surrounding some of the bunkering and their sightlines. There are some areas of the course as well where trees were removed around some greens and such to create more light and airflow.

I guess what I was trying to get at is the reason for not clearing trees.If PV has a benevolent dictator system(accent "dictator"),then he must have a pretty compelling reason to leave the trees/golf course as they are.I was just guessing that member satisfaction with the status quo was that compelling reason.

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