Tom
It’s fine with me if you wish to give Harry Colt co-design credit for Pine Valley—you certainly wouldn’t be the first. You seem to think I’m trying to minimize his architectural contribution there. Nothing of the kind. I’m just trying to understand what happened and when and then hopefully who’s ideas were used regarding the way the course got built. To do that it’s extremely important to establish when various things happened---that can create an all important timeline particularly one before Colt arrived which of course is essential to do if one wishes to understand which ideas and holes may have been uniquely George Crump’s (or Harry Colt’s). After Colt was at Pine Valley for a week or two things become more complex to understand who came up with what obviously. I suppose it’s also important to understand that Colt never returned to Pine Valley after May 1913 and perhaps never again to America"
Tom, I agree, but you have to come up with some substance on what Crump actually did in those remaining 5 years, particularly on the first 14 holes built.
Regarding the routing map. The red pen is definitely over the blue for the hole outlines (apart from the second half of 13) The hole outlines were first drawn and defined by Colt.
The green shapes look reasonably accurate for the blue pen. I don't see many greens
The routing
is critical and even more so on a fantastic site like Pine Valley.
I do agree that Colt would have been primarily involved in the routing and hazard placement, given the time constraint.
Regarding the bunkers. I don't think the red bunkers drawn are entirely more accurate than Colt's blue bunkers. This is true on some holes but certainly not all:
Look at how the red hand has drawn a cluster of about 20 bunkers down the right hand side of the 6th, underneath that is a huge single bunker drawn by Colt. The same could be stated for the left hand greenside bunkers. In these cases, Colt's bunker is more accurate to what was actually built.
For the 10th, I count about 10 bunkers drawn in red, Colt's blue bunkers are hard to decipher- I believe I can make out two large bunkers- but the hole was never built as it was in red.
There are bunkers in blue that were never built, and there are bunkers in red that were never built.
There are a couple of holes in blue that were never built (13 and 14) there is a single hole in red that was never built (14).
And then one is left to wonder about the remaining five hole (that made up some combination of nine in total that Tillinghast mentioned apparently before Colt arrived).
Again, Tillie didn't describe 9 holes before Colt arrived. Just 6 and a very weird 7th (I don't see how this 7th could have gone from the present tee in the opposite direction, that's over the boundary.) I have the Tillie articles.
But why has there always been so much confusion about what Colt may have done at Pine Valley? Probably because there exists articles like the one of Simon Carr in 1914 giving Colt a lot of credit (at that point) and other articles at other times giving him very little credit or even minimal credit for things that happened much later (when clearly he was long gone). But mostly because so many of the architectural design details in Colt’s individual hole design booklet really don’t look very much like the details of the way the course was built, particularly the bunkering and probably the greens too. Mostly it’s probably because basically until very recently no one has EVER fully realized that Colt also did something on the topo routing map.
One can see this fact from the two history books written about Pine Valley by first Warner Shelly and then Jim Finegan. Jim Finegan, or perhaps Warner Shelly before him assumed there was no Colt routing map. One or both obviously assumed that not necessarily because they were trying to glorify Crump and give him more credit than he was due (or Colt less credit than he was due) but simply because either one or both authors assumed that the surveyors date on the routing topo map that’s hung on the wall so long was the date that the routing topo was completed by Crump. And they obviously only made that assumption because that date (March 1913) preceded Colt’s arrival by a couple of months.
I don't think the Carr article is confusing. It hasn't been commented on, or noticed, in any of the Pine Valley histories- either it was missed or ignored. Finegan was the one that got confused about the routing, Colt is usually credited or co-credited with the routing phase. In fact one of the Pine Valley histories does mention the routing plan on the wall and credits it to both Colt and Crump, there are 3 club histories.
I don't see any magazine articles other than Tillie's, immediately after Crump's death, that minimise Colt's credit. It's interesting that at that time, Tillie doesn't make any claim for Hell's Half Acre and 13th. He does later on. I think that club reveres Crump and sees the course as a monument to him, and this will naturally tend to minimise the credit given to Colt. If I asked to see the Colt booklet do you think I could (probably blown it now!)?
But there’s no reason to perpetuate more misunderstanding. And in that vein it does no good to say things like you’ve implied, Paul, that the course looks to you like the Heathlands and Sunningdale so that concludes that it had to have been Harry Colt that designed the golf course. Whether it’s Ben Sayers, you, or someone else that says that now---that’s just not good and not accurate. We can do better than that now with what we know to be true so far.
I'm not perpetuating a misunderstanding. I am being specific about STYLE of design. When Colt writes in his detailed booklet "tear ridge..." for that huge bunker at the 17th, I look at his work
immediately prior to working at Pine Valley and see the famous photo of the 8th at St George's Hill. That photo is shown on the cover of Hunter's "The Links" and I can obviously see a huge, torn out, ragged bunker, can't you? I know for a
fact that Colt took photos of St George's Hill to America, it's stated in Golt Illustrated (UK). I see great similarities of bunkers like those shown at St George's Hill's 8th and that bunker at Pine Valley's 17th. Crump didn't see St George's Hill and those bunkers were
much larger and far more dramatic than anything built before on the heaths at Sunningdale, Walton Heath...
I believe your theory of a Carr and Crump using Colt's name as a publicity stunt perpetuates more misunderstanding than anything I've written. As does the repetion of Crump only giving credit to Colt for moving the 5th green, I don't know where that comes from.
I'm not sure what style Crump had in mind before Colt arrived. As he had no prior design experience, it's very difficult to say. I do agree that the London heaths would have been of some influence. The fact that Crump was considering Alpinization, that Colt disliked this style and it was never built, suggests that Colt's design style was influential.
It would be good if Tom Doak could comment on Colt's design booklet.