GCA Archeology

[Dan Herrmann]

On the Estate Courses thread, Pat Craig noted an archeology effort to try to find remnants of long-abandoned golf courses.

Do you know of any other archeological efforts to look at NLE golf courses?

[Phil_the_Author]

Seevral years back a team of intrepid Tilly fanatics rowed the Delaware River down from Dhawnee to Poxono Island in search of Tilly's course there. You can read about it on www.tillinghast.net.

[Melvyn Morrow]

There are many courses in Scotland no longer in play. I am slowly uncovering their locations, one recently with much help from Niall has been finally put to bed. It was called Kelvinside a 9 hole course by Old Tom and Willie Fernie based in Glasgow. We now have its location but it’s under a housing development.

I have passed on to Gordon Irvine a site at Collieston which is another 9 hole Morris course commissioned by Lady Cathcart (of Askernish & Braid Hills fame). Currently have locations for nearly a couple of dozen courses mainly in Scotland but a few in England (Hanger Hill Course West London now a housing estate. There is a course in Darien Georgia dating from the 1880's but that’s under a School. Have found the site of another course on Islay (a links) some 10 miles from Machrie. As I sad about another couple of dozen sites are known, many now just under the plough, some never touched since they closed.

The site I would like to find is the Crieff course at called Dornock, but I have mislaid my file on that site so can't confirm original location, but that’s the next to look at.

As for archaeology, the best known must be Askernish, but there are many that could with money be reopened but a few that will never be able as they have been built upon.

The search is most enjoyable am currently looking for Sir Donald Curry’ private course at garth House nr Loch Tay and recently found Broughton Ferry Ladies course in Dundee, it’s now in part a park at Barnhill, but Dornock is the one that is eluding me but that’s down to lost information.

Melvyn
   

[Ben Stephens]

Dear GCA Archaeologists!

Google Earth has a number of aerial maps from 1945 - the one that intrigues me the most is the original Northampton Golf Club course by Willie Park jr which is NLE. Northampton GC's new course by Donald Steel is now at Harlestone on part of the Althorp Estate. I know someone who was a member of Northampton original course and said that the opening and closing holes were over rumpled links like land - sadly most of the greens remains are in a park and the 1st and 18th are replaced a supermarket which has flattened the natural land. By looking at the 1945 map gives more clues to Park's bunkering which is interesting.

Cheers
Ben

[Chris_Clouser]

I went arouund the National Lakeshore park in Northern Indiana trying to find any remnants of the old Beverly Shores course.  We were able to find a couple of old greensites and tee boxes.  We also walked off what we thought were three or four other holes that were in the forested part of the park based on the routing map we had of the layout.  It gave me a good idea of what the Doaks of the world must feel when they are trying to route a course through a forested area.  Routing a course over cleared area has to be a lot simpler than through a wooded area. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

I have seen a few remnants of Dan Jenkins made famous "Goat Hill" golf course on the TCU campus in Ft Worth, TX.  The old fourth tee is near the NW corner of the tennis facility.

I have seen former greens at Pinehurst, courtesy of either caddies or Dan Maples pointing them out.

On the reverse side, in my work near Atlanta, I saw many Civil War relic earth trenches that we incorporated into the golf course.  You wonder about routing a golf course in heavy trees. I came to understand that the first hour of shooting in many of those battles was to fell the trees so they could see the enemy!

[Niall C]

Melvyn

I'll resend you the Dornick Crieff layout.

In the last year I've found a plan of a NLE MacKenzie course in Aberdeenshire, which has reverted back to farmland. Sadly, its hard to see any remaining features as its been under the plough for a good many years but the land is still there.

I've also found a plan of and identified the Ferryhills site, with the help of Rich, that Dunfermline GC used to play out of. The course was an Old Tom Morris course that MacKenzie did some work on. Part of the site was taken for a quarry and the remainder is now lying fallow.

I've also found a plan for the original Forres course at Findhorn Bay which was abondoned in the first decade of the last century although I can't say I've gone looking to try and find any features.

Mostly though I find it fun to spot old green sites, tees, bunkers etc on old courses and try and work out what was the original hole.

Niall

[PCCraig]

On the Estate Courses thread, Pat Craig noted an archeology effort to try to find remnants of long-abandoned golf courses.

Do you know of any other archeological efforts to look at NLE golf courses?

I just noticed this thread and thought I would post a link to a recent Chicago Tribune article explaining the search. Very interesting stuff including a Flynn green pad now being used as a backyard teatherball court!

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-06-26/news/0906240565_1_albert-lasker-first-tee-club

[JC Urbina]

Dan,

I got to enjoy a little  discovery at Aetna Springs resort when I was laying out the routing for this nine hole course in Napa Valley California.

Your term,  GCA Archeology applied to a golf course that had been laid out in the early 1890's by a Scotsman for this famous artesian water resort.  We had some old pictures of people playing out on this land and I was determined to figure out that routing based on where people were standing in the pictures.  We found the old sand based greens that had turned rock hard because of the liquid used to hold the sand in place.  The sun had baked some of them to a crusty hard surface and we never found all 9 greens.  We preserved two of them and built over the top of the other two. 

If you were to go out there today you would find one just as it appeared in the routing up on a ridge.  It is covered over by tall grass and the size of the green would surprise you.  Two of the greens were used in the routing and are under the current 4th green and 7th green.  The last one is just grassed over and it lays next to the 6th green just of to the right.

Very interesting for me to explore the history of Aetna Springs.  I determined that one of the holes went up a valley now occupied by a small pond that was built years ago to irrigate the vineyards and or grass for the golf course.

[Dan Herrmann]

Jim - that's a fantastic story!

[Jason Topp]

This thread shows my investigation into holes that NLE at my course.  It was entertaining to see the history as depicted in photographs and then look on the ground for remnants of those old holes.  It explained a few strange mounds on the course today.

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,21451.0/

I definitely recommend that others pursue a similar investigation if their course has been around for awhile.  It is worth an evening in the middle of winter.

[Jeff_Brauer]

One of my first projects for Killian and Nugent involved designing a replica of Wisconsin Indian Burial Mounds.  Apparently some were going to be destroyed and we wanted to preserve the look.  I actually can't imagine those allowed to be taken out and rebuilt today, though.

I am doing a project now with a mob connection in its past. I am proposing some faux burial mounds to suggest that some of the boys (and maybe Jimmy Hoffa) were actually buried there.  We will see if my sense of humor holds up and its accepted......

[Phil_the_Author]

Jeff,

I'd worry if they insisted that one of thembe named the "Brauer Bower"...

[Bill Gayne]

With the help of aerials I was able to find parts of about nine golf holes on the Yorktown, Va. Battlefields. Prior to the National Park Service taking control of the land, the battlefields were a Flynn designed golf course. The golf course was actually designed around the redoubts and had somewhat of a revolutionary war theme including cannon balls for tee markers. The Park Service kept nine holes open to about 1949 and then just let the grass grow and basically stopped maintaining it as a golf course. The grass on the Battlefields is still cut but looks more like a pasture or a field for visitors.

It's impossible to find the remaining holes because all maintenance on those areas stopped and it's now forest. In Southeastern Virginia it's 25 years from farmland to forest.

If somebody IMs me I can email a couple pictures of the "archeology" if thery will post for the group.