The Bunkering at The National

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood:

On a number of those issues you just cited, I had the facts long before you ever did and the ones you mentioned where you think you supplied some "facts" (and probably did) I don't agree with your analysis of what they mean anyway----never have as you well know. You can just continue to say on here that you are right and I am wrong but just listening to and watching you say that on here constantly in no manner or means makes what you say about the analysis of those issues right, in my opinion. In the final analysis, it seems the presentation of what this issues mean historically is the most important thing of all as most people tend towards the logical when they review these analyses and presentations. In that vein you might want to start considering how some of these clubs look at these things themselves after becoming aware or and considering some of the things that are written on here. Unfortunately for you to be able to do that you really will need to establish working relationships with these clubs if for no other reason than just to find out.

TEP
You're right. On occasion you thought you had some of the facts but unfortunately your information is limited to a few club histories (club histories are often not very reliable) and C&W (an excellent outline of golf architecture history but not a detailed look). To my knowledge you have conducted no independent research, as a result you don't have the facts at your disposal and your analysis is usually off the mark. You are heavily dependent on speculation.

As far as dealing directly with these club's, the memberhip, and familarizing myself with their ethos etc, etc, I do try to contact the historian at these clubs whenever possible. Any information they are able to lend it greatly appreciated. Becoming engaged with entire membership and getting wrapped up in the club's ethos I think can be counter-productive. You are good example of the negative consequences, where you have become so emotionally attached to these legends that you are unable to accept any new information, and spend much of your time trying to quash new discoveries that present an alternative perspective.

Ironically being an heir to the Drexel fortune you have some distinct advantages over many of us who have to work for a living and don't have direct access to some of these older very private clubs. Its too bad you haven't used those advantages productively.

[TEPaul]

"TEP
You're right. On occasion you thought you had some of the facts but unfortunately your information is limited to a few club histories (club histories are often not very reliable) and C&W (an excellent outline of golf architecture history but not a detailed look). To my knowledge you have conducted no independent research, as a result you don't have the facts at your disposal and your analysis is usually off the mark. You are heavily dependent on speculation."


Tom MacWood:

The true "KEY" words in that remark of yours above is "To my knowledge." The fact is your knowledge is extremely limited on what I have, have read and researched over the years. And that is why you always seem to just throw up that ridiculous remark about C&W. That's apparently the extent of "your knowledge" of what I've read, researched and know. The additional fact is I have relationships with various clubs and their administrative material through the years that you don't have and apparently will never try to get on your own so you just continue to disregard the importance of it and minimize what I know by using that ridiculous and constant remark of yours that all I know is what I've read in C&W.   


Furthermore, this thread is about NGLA and its bunkering and I will be more than happy to compare my knowledge of NLGA and the history of anything to do with its architecture with your knowledge of it any day.

[Bradley Anderson]

Bradley
Where did you come up with your information that in 1913 every club on LI reseeded the fairways in the fall? LI is relatively large island made of all sorts of different conditions and environments. What golf course on LI set the standard for condition in 1913?

Do you think you might be over generalizing Macdonald & Raynor's architectural style?

There's a lot to read in the links below, but I think they illustrate the difficulties in grass growing on the sandy soils of Long Island and Pine Valley. You are probably right that not EVERY club on Long Island had the exact same difficulties.

http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/GolfIllustrated/1915/gi4h.pdf

http://turf.lib.msu.edu/1920s/1921/210698B.pdf

[DMoriarty]

Patrick,

You are correct, but with the constant barrage of TEPaul's pompous and insultng posts -- nearly all without substance -- what are we to do?   How many times must he write that he think he is an expert on what happened in America between 1900-1910 because of where he played at least a half-century later?    

___________________________________________

"If I recall correctly, one of the early accounts (Hutchinson in 1910 maybe?) noted that NGLA irrigated both greens and fairways to maintain the turf.   If this was true then I don't think that what you are saying would necessarily hold, would it?"

Moriarty:

If you recall correctly? If you RECALL WHAT?  

If you had the first damn clue of the volume (quantity in millions of gallons per year) requirements of a site like NGLA's both back then and very much still today you probably wouldn't say something like the above, at least not to make this point about the look of those bunkers you seem to be trying to make on here.

Do you have any idea about the irrigation volume requirements of a site like NGLA's compared to say one like Merion East? If so, let's hear from you what it is. The point is that issue very much relates to what Bradley Anderson has been saying about the growing in or grassing of many of those NGLA bunkers.

From Horace Hutchinson's Fifty Years of Golf, describing his visit to America in 1910:

The National Golf Links has not only every green watered; it is watered all through the green by sprinklers going all night in dry weather.

[Bradley Anderson]

"Did CBM ever write about this or comment on this?"
Of the truly vertical bunkers originally, I give you as the best examples at NGLA I'm aware of----the massive Redan bunker.....

Tom Paul,

In David's photos you can see that the intent was to grass the face of the Redan bunkers. But you can see signs of erosion between the grass clumps that are on that slope. I submit that those faces took a lot of time to grass in. They appear to be planted with fescue. Fescue is very slow to move laterally to fill in voids. It requires more seed and time to fill in the voids. I'm sure the adage would have been, if at first you don't succeed, seed seed again. They may have even used plugs of fescue plants to fill in the voids on those bunker slopes. And this was on bunkering that was being irrigated with the greens watering. Whereas all the bunkering, through the green, benefited from no irrigation before 1913, unless if they hauled water wagons to those sites during grow-in.

[Tom MacWood]

There's a lot to read in the links below, but I think they illustrate the difficulties in grass growing on the sandy soils of Long Island and Pine Valley. You are probably right that not EVERY club on Long Island had the exact same difficulties.

http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/GolfIllustrated/1915/gi4h.pdf

http://turf.lib.msu.edu/1920s/1921/210698B.pdf

Bradley
I think you are taking after TEP with your speculation and exaggerations.  You also made a comment about Garden City having difficulty growing grass a few posts ago...where did that info come from? By the way not every site on LI is sandy. I also question your idea of what the expectations or standards for golf course conditions were in 1913. You seem to be applying modern expectations on these early courses.

[Bradley Anderson]

Mr. MacWood,

Did you read the links I posted?

[Tom MacWood]

Emmet did not grow very good grass at GCGC through the green either. In fact  I think GCGC put the Boston Sprinkler system in before NGLA by a month or two.

Travis would have given great advice on putting green contours, but he dropped out of the project fairly early - if I am not mistaken.

As far as Hutchinson, Low, Fowler, and Beale are concerned, one can only wonder if the climatic conditions in Europe were comparable to those on Long Island. I can dig for it somewhere and show you how even Beale was on the learning curve with respect to the climatic differences between America and Europe, during his early trips here.

Yes, I have read both links. The article from 1915 mentioned GCGC playing exceedingly firm in the summer before they introduced a modern irrigation system. From that you construed Emmet did not grow very good grass....and every club on LI reseeded their fairways in the fall?

[TEPaul]

"Bradley
I think you are taking after TEP with your speculation and exaggerations."



Bradley:

And this is coming from the same man who concluded that HH Barker must have designed Merion East because he found something that mentioned Barker took a train from New York to Georgia in Dec. of 1910??  

Speculation and exaggeration doesn't get much better than THAT!




Brad:

Go back and check out Moriarty's post #153 and take note of the two bottom photos on that post (the golfers in the Sahara bunker of NGLA). It is very interesting to me that Moriarty failed to include the photo in that 1926 article just below those two photos that shows the fronting bunker on the "Bottle" hole with its distinctly grassed down face to a flat sand floor. Talk about selective evidence and argumentation!

[TEPaul]

"I also question your idea of what the expectations or standards for golf course conditions were in 1913. You seem to be applying modern expectations on these early courses."


Bradley:

I really do wonder where or how anyone seriously reading this thread and understanding it could get the impression that statement above expresses, particularly that last sentence. I doubt there is anyone on this website and perhaps noone anywhere who has done such extensive research as you have on the way agronomy, maintenance practices and even equipment was back in that early era.

[Tom MacWood]

"Bradley
I think you are taking after TEP with your speculation and exaggerations."



Bradley:

And this is coming from the same man who concluded that HH Barker must have designed Merion East because he found something that mentioned Barker took a train from New York to Georgia in Dec. of 1910??  

Speculation and exaggeration doesn't get much better than THAT!

There you go again. Exhibit E....E as in exaggeration. 

[TEPaul]

"There you go again. Exhibit E....E as in exaggeration."


Tom MacWood:


Well that sure is a relief to know. So you mean you were completely exaggerating when you speculated on here that HH Barker stopped off in Philadelphia and designed Merion East in Dec. 1910 while on his way from New York to Georgia on a train?  
 
 

[Tom MacWood]

Tom:


I think we have shown throughout all the years of you labelling us that way and suggesting such a thing that there is absolutely no factual or historically accurate reason or evidence that we have ever done such a thing. In your attempts to suggest other architects were largely responsible for the things attributed to the likes of Wilson, Crump and Leeds, the best you have done is to imply there is some article in Boston, that you constantly refused to produce that says Willie Campbell designed Myopia or that HH Barker must have stopped at Merion and designed the East course in a day in early Dec, 1912 simply because you found he took a train trip from New York to Georgia at that time.

I told you what I found on Campbell and Myopia, and I told you where you could find the articles. If you are too lazy or incompetent to follow up whose fault is that? I have no idea if Barker stopped at Merion in the winter of 1910. I simply made the point he would have travelled through Philadelphia (twice) during the time in question. And combined with the fact he had just been annouced as the designer of Merion and the other report about him laying out new courses its worth considering.

tEp
The search engine on GCA works pretty well...with your memory failing you might want to give it a try.

[TEPaul]

"I simply made the point he would have travelled through Philadelphia (twice) during the time in question. And combined with the fact he had just been annouced as the designer of Merion and the other report about him laying out new courses its worth considering."



Tom MacWood:

And if you'd use the search engine on here you would see that we pointed out just how wrong that newspaper article was given all the information from the administrative records of the club itself to the contrary about HH Barker designing Merion East. So if you thought or still think it's worth considering that HH Barker designed Merion East, again, you should do what we have always told you to do----eg go to Merion, as any good researcher on it does, and carefully analyze the club's own administrative records about who designed Merion East. It definitely wasn't HH Barker.  

A lot of people traveled by train from New York to Georgia and back even in Dec, 1910 but it does not necessarily follow that they designed Merion East because the train stopped in Philadelphia!  
 

[DMoriarty]

In David's photos you can see that the intent was to grass the face of the Redan bunkers. But you can see signs of erosion between the grass clumps that are on that slope. I submit that those faces took a lot of time to grass in. They appear to be planted with fescue. Fescue is very slow to move laterally to fill in voids. It requires more seed and time to fill in the voids. I'm sure the adage would have been, if at first you don't succeed, seed seed again. They may have even used plugs of fescue plants to fill in the voids on those bunker slopes. And this was on bunkering that was being irrigated with the greens watering. Whereas all the bunkering, through the green, benefited from no irrigation before 1913, unless if they hauled water wagons to those sites during grow-in.   

Bradley,

Are you really saying that you can tell by my photos that they were having problems growing in the Redan bunkers, and that you can see "signs of erosion?"   That would be pretty impressive, given the photo, posted here again . . .



Surely you agree that despite what you see as "signs of erosion between the clumps" the grass face is pretty much grown in?  In fact, in all the photos I have posted, do you see any bunkers that look like they were supposed to be grass faces, but were not because of the grow in porblems?    I don't.   

As for the date NGLA began watering its fairways, see the quote by Hutchinson above. 

With TEPaul's ranting you may have missed my question above.  What do you think of the bunkers a few posts above, on the cape hole.  We seem to have a sand faced bunker with a sharp edge, a grass faced bunker (in the foreground) and a couple bunker where the sand goes close to the lip but not quite.   Would you agree with me that all of these bunkers appear to have the look that was intended?  In other words, they do not look like that because of grow in issues, do they?   I don't see any signs of erosion or serious grow in issues, do you?   

_______________________________________________________________

Brad:
Go back and check out Moriarty's post #153 and take note of the two bottom photos on that post (the golfers in the Sahara bunker of NGLA). It is very interesting to me that Moriarty failed to include the photo in that 1926 article just below those two photos that shows the fronting bunker on the "Bottle" hole with its distinctly grassed down face to a flat sand floor. Talk about selective evidence and argumentation!

Bradley, TEPaul apparently has forgotten or ignored most of the early posts, or he is intentionally trying to muddy the record.   So let me again clarify a few points:

1.  I have written repeatedly and from the beginning that not ALL of the bunkers had the wilder, flashed faced style as seen in some of the photos.  See a few posts above, where I wrote this in response to a question from Anthony:   "But it was not all flashed-face rugged bunkers then, so I assume that it wasn't intended to be.  There were obviously some of these, but there were also some flashed face bunkers with a more defined edge, and also some grass faced bunkers.  All three of these types can be seen photo immediately above.  CBM emphasized variety in almost every aspect of golf course design."    So TEPaul's insinuation is nonsense.  Again. 

2.  Each of the photos from 1926 shows a different bunker.  The first is the diagonal bunker on the Alps hole, the second on the Sahara.   

___________________________________________

At this point, Bradley, I am not sure what you are arguing.   It is well documented that NGLA had grow-in troubles in 1907-1908, and also that it is difficult to grow grass in pure sand.  No one is arguing this.

But your problems in grow-in theory does not support your conclusions with regard to the look of any of the photos shown, does it?     
1.  The roughest and wildesy bunkers shown in the photos were still rough and wild in 1926. 
2. The rest of the bunkers appear to look pretty much as intended, don't they? 

[TEPaul]

The point is there were a number of grassed down bunkers with flat-sand floors at NGLA under Macdonald's reign and tenure there so he must have intended them to be that way. There were a number of different types of bunkers at NGLA under Macdonald and there still are at NLGA. The suggestion was made on this thread by Moriarty apparently seriously and then when he was corrected he claimed he was half joking or whatever that the look of the grassed down fairly vertical faces to flat sand floors must have been the look of Raynor or something Raynor did to mess up the look of the bunkers of NLGA.

THAT is what the nonsense was!

And it might be pretty indicative that Moriarty did not post the photograph in the same article right below the two he did post that shows a grassed down face to a fairly flat floor. It was in the same Oct 1926 American Golfer article by Thomas Uzell. Did he leave it out because the look of that grassed down bunker to a fairly flat floor on the "Bottle" hole (and others like it at NGLA) did not exactly support the point he was apparently trying to make that Macdonald may not have been responsible for that well known NLGA bunker look?  

[TEPaul]

For the fact Macdonald obviously wanted that really vertical and engineered looking grassed down bunker face to flat sand floors and to confirm that look was not Raynor's idea or him messing up the look of the bunkers at NGLA check out the October, 1925 Golf Illustrated article by Dorothy Campbell Hurd and the photos of NGLA bunkers in that article. The green-side bunker on #15 (The Narrows) is about as engineered looking as NGLA gets, and so is the elongated bunker surround the front of #6 (the Short)-----not that there is anything wrong with that but there they are in 1925 under Macdonald's reign so he clearly must have intended them to look that way.

[DMoriarty]

TomPaul,

If you were at all willing or able to follow this thread you'd know that I have repeatedly noted that there were different bunker styles at NGLA from the beginning, and even posted multiple photos showing grass faced bunkers at NGLA, including the photo above of the Redan and the one above that of the Cape.  It has come up again and again, yet you continue to try to twist my position into something it never was.   Same goes for your bizarre commentary on what you claim was a serious statement from me about Raynor.  How the hell would you know?  You don't even know the context in which it was made.  For a guy who thinks he is so funny, you sure cannot take a joke.

The questions from the beginning have been: What happened to those bunkers which were once sand faced and wild looking and to the bunkers which were once sand faced but with a more defined top edge?   Your rantings and ravings are not getting us any closer to that answer.   Neither are your paranoid delusions about why you think might not have posted a certain photo (even though I posted othes showing the same thing.)

Isn't it about time you grew up, sobered up, or at least pulled yourself together enough to be able (or willing) to follow and participate in a reasonable conversation?   Or will you continue to make a fool of yourself and a mockery of the website?

[Bradley Anderson]

David,

I probably won't post on this thread again because I am getting too busy to spend sooooo much time on here. Anyways.....

When I first posted on this thread I thought that we were discussing why there is less of the natural looking bunkering at NGLA today than there was in the beginning.

So I thought I could contribute to the dialogue by suggesting that: in their earliest stage, the bunkers at NGLA would have appeared to be more natural because there were forces of nature, beyond their control, at this early stage, that had a hand in the more natural look that the bunkers had back then.

I hesitate to call these proof texts, because I am really not trying to prove anything. But here they are:

In 1914 Horace Hutchinson wrote of his golf trip to America in 1910. Macdonald motored him from Myopia to his house at Rosslyn whereafter they played a round at Garden City Golf Club. Hutchinson’s diary of that round stated “course very brown and baked.”

In January 1915 Max Behr writes:

“It is just two and a half years ago that the Boston Sprinkler was introduced to the notice of the Green Committee of the National Golf Links. Summer golf up to that time had been almost the despair of the two clubs on the Shinnecock Hills. About the middle of May the drought begins in that region and it lasts with the exception of a rare thunderstorm until the middle of August. The ground is baked by incessant sunshine so that the fair-green becomes as hard as a barren road.”

This would date the installation of the, much needed, fair green irrigation system at NGLA in 1913.

In Hutchinson’s 1914 article he does indeed say that “The National Golf Links has not only every green watered; it is watered all through the green by sprinklers going all night in dry weather.” But this statement was written in 1914. If you read the whole article, you will see that in it’s context the statement speaks of what the American businessman golfer expected of their golf courses at the time that the author wrote the article. It is not in the context of the 1910 golf narrative.

Behr continues:

“Along came the man from Boston and showed how the big sprinkler worked in the public parks, and very soon convinced the National that it was perfectly possible to keep the whole course soft and green throughout the entire three months of dry scorching weather.....”

Now I may be reading my own bias into this David, but all these text’s speak of a harsh environment that scorched unirrigated golf turf in the summer months. On bunker lips and hummocks, and on bunker edges, you just wouldn’t have the defined grass edges or grass faces that you have at NGLA today - certainly not without irrigation.

Behr now speaks of the cost savings associated with watering the fair green:

Now the saving in the way of seeding and top dressing and fertilizing is certainly more than $1,000 a year. On nearly every American course a considerable amount of turf is ruined every year by drought, and the damage has to be repaired by seeding and topdressing. All this is saved by the new watering system. Garden City and the National are two examples of the inestimable advantages of laying down a four-inch pipe and adopting the Boston sprinkler for the fair green.”

[DMoriarty]

Bradley,  I am disappointed if that was your last post on this thread.  For one, I am interested in your take on this.  For two, you did not answer any of my questions.

I too thought  "we were discussing why there is less of the natural looking bunkering at NGLA today than there was in the beginning."   And I think I understood and understand the basis for your suggestion that "the bunkers at NGLA would have appeared to be more natural because there were forces of nature, beyond their control, at this early stage, that had a hand in the more natural look that the bunkers had back then."

It isn't an unreasonable suggestion, but when we look closely at the photos and at the dates they were taken, I don't think your theory explains the early look at all.  Which of the pictured bunkers do not look as intended because of grow-in issues? 


If there were bunkers like the ones you seem to be describing, I don't think we've seen photos of them.    Agree?   

As for the irrigation timing, it is beside the point.   But since you brought it up, note that Hutchinson wrote that Garden City was hard and brown, not NGLA (he saw both.)  In the same article he wrote that NGLA was irrigating through the green.  And I disagree with your conclusion that HH was NOT discussing his trip in this section.   In fact, after briefly describing the rest of his itinerary he wrote "Their witness suffices.  It suffices to show the zeal and kindness . . . "  and then goes on to describe how crazy they were about the game and how much money they spend.   He is writing about his trip which was in 1910.   Now maybe he broke away when discussing NGLA and watering, but if so it is out of context from the rest of the discussion.   

But like I said, when it doesnt matter, because the photos do not show what you thought might have existed.

As for Behr, perhaps he had the date wrong, or perhaps they were irrigating by some other less efficient method before Boston sprinkler.  They did have a water tower.  Or maybe Hutchinson is misleading on the issue.  Like I said, it doesn't matter, because at least the photographed bunkers don't support your suggestion. 

[TEPaul]

"TomPaul,
If you were at all willing or able to follow this thread you'd know that I have repeatedly noted that there were different bunker styles at NGLA from the beginning, and even posted multiple photos showing grass faced bunkers at NGLA, including the photo above of the Redan and the one above that of the Cape.  It has come up again and again, yet you continue to try to twist my position into something it never was.   Same goes for your bizarre commentary on what you claim was a serious statement from me about Raynor.  How the hell would you know?  You don't even know the context in which it was made.  For a guy who thinks he is so funny, you sure cannot take a joke."



Moriarty:


Is that right?

Then why don't you try to sum up what point exactly you're trying to make on here regarding NGLA's bunkers and/or Macdonald's intention for them at any particular point in time? 

For starters, let me point you to what you said in posts #1 and #38. After that and after you were corrected on what you said on those posts it seems the rest of what you've said or are trying to say on here is an excercise in obfuscation which is pretty typical of your modus operandi on every thread you have ever participated on during your time on this website!

What exactly is your point on the bunkers of NGLA since you've pretty much been all over the place on that subject in these last seven pages?

If your point that Raynor messed up the look of them really was a joke what exactly was the point of saying it was a joke other than to weasle your way out of a point that you realized was untenable because the untenability of it was pointed out to you loud and clear?



 

[DMoriarty]

Is that right?

Then why don't you try to sum up what point exactly you're trying to make on here regarding NGLA's bunkers and/or Macdonald's intention for them at any particular point in time?

Did you black out while reading the second half of my post?  Or while reading my post to Bradley?

My point is that the aesthetic style of many of the bunkers at NGLA has significantly changed over the years.  Particularly, the bunkers with the splashed sand faces and rugged edges have changed.  Also the bunkers with the splashed sand faces and the more defined edges have changed.

My question is:  When and why did these changes take place?

Bradley's answer (and various of your answers) have failed to explain the change.   Most particularly, there is no photographic support for the suggestion that the wild look resulted from the grow in conditions rather than an intentional stylistic choice on the part of CBM.

What is your point, Tom?  

[TEPaul]

"What is your point, Tom?"


It's that on this thread and on this thread's subject the look of NGLA's bunkers, the reason for the look of NGLA's bunkers and who was responsible for it, at any point in time, is pretty definable and explainable if one knows NGLA and its history over an extended period of time.

[DMoriarty]

Really?  Well if you know, you sure as hell aren't saying.  At least not in any COHERENT, FACT BASED manner.

[TEPaul]

Sure I have if you weren't so incapable of listening and understanding. I've known that course for fifty years and I know its architectural history, its evolution and nuances better than you do by a factor of about 100! But that reality is something an argumentative light-weight like you just doesn't want to hear or ever will. Don't worry about it, I've known a few people over the years who act something like you and particularly after the phenomenon of GOLFCLUBATLAS.com let people on it like you!  

It's too bad some people are so resistant and adverse to learning about some golf architecture from others who have been around it long before them. In your case your resistance is petty jealousy, plain and simple. Get hysterical again about that fact----it doesn't matter---it's the unvarnished truth!

Watch his reply amigos----something like----"That's the most PATHETIC......"