NGLA'S CAPE & CLUBHOUSE

[DMoriarty]

Players downwind were getting close to driving the green - pissing him off and altering the basic coincept of his hole.

Also, of course, the new road to the new gate, yacht basin and bathing beach seemed to be more important to the overall interests of the club and its membership.

He must have had a heart attack thinking about moving that green inland  

George,

Will you explain a bit about how you came to these two conclusions?   (The part about how he must have had a heart attack needs no explanation!)

Thanks.
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jkinney,

I agree that the current location seems to be the obvious one.

Also, once the routing was determined there were basically two choices, one at each end of the out and back.   It is speculation on my part but I have a hard time believing he would have built the clubhouse right next to the Inn.  If he wanted the clubhouse at that end of the course he could have put it there after the Shinnecock Inn burned down.  

I also suppose one could argue that he wanted to try to split the out-and-back into two nines, with a clubhouse somewhere in the middle.  But the holes don't easily split at the middle into two nines.  Also, given his love for the old course, the out and back makes more sense.  

[Patrick_Mucci]

David,

NGLA didn't own the property directly behind the current 9th green, next to the Inn until more recently, so that could never be the site.

J,

The clubhouse, in its present site, wasn't an afterthought, a default site that only occured when the SI burned down.

The routing had been determined by the time the SI burned down.
The donut hole or gap between CBM's 9th and 10th holes was intentional, it was where he always intended to place his permanent clubhouse.

There's no way in the world that CBM would have sited a clubhouse, down below, in the shadow of Shinnecock's clubhouse.

That majestic site, up on the bluff, far from Shinnecock, the North Highway and Railroad tracks leaps out at anyone riding that property.

[George_Bahto]

jkinney - yes that was fun out at Common Ground

You know, I think that course is a lot better than the ranking/ratings and notices it gets - I could take a steady diet of that course

Clubhouse: CBM noted he was trying to conserve money by not building a new clubhouse in the beginning (see how conservative the guy was  - watta guy   ) - so the Inn would have worked perfectly until they built up the membership .......... if I remember correctly, that last piece of land by the clubhouse was a later purchase (I have two Deeds (or copies, thereof) for properties around here in the office but it would take a CE or someone to figure out the longitude and latitude information     (does that mean I own something out there    


David, not sure what you mean, but whenever the players were hitting balls beyond where he originally anticipated (altering the hole strategies in any way) he modified those holes or changed the strategies in order to reestablish the intent of the hole he envisioned. If it mean moving a tee, adding a bunker (as he added the PN on #8), moving bunkers, moving greens, as he did on 17 and 14, that’s what he did for all those years.

The bathing beach: in order to get there and return you had to walk across the 18th fairway -big problem for the players

The yacht basin was very important for most of the “big guys” came in their yachts: J P Morgan and his (over) 300-foot long yacht, Corsair, had such a draft it couldn’t get too close to the shore so they had to sen smaller vessels out to get the people off. George Borne, Vanderbilt - most had yachts - much easier for them (and, of course, much more dramatic - if you’ve got it - flaunt it!) than driving out there on those roads at the time or taking the train.

Traffic from the yacht basin to the clubhouse on the hill was also a problem. Changing the entrance gate location solved the beach and yacht basin problem and gave him the room he needed to make #17 longer.

Also, the new gate entrance negated all the traffic thru the course from the Eden green up thru the holes on each side, up to the clubhouse. The traffic thru the course in the beginning wasn’t bad but as the membership grew it became a problem ............ imagine some of those wealthy members having to wait to putt as some old Packard or Rolls drove by the green.

So in the end, altering the Cape hole to make room for the long entrance road was something he would have to give up. ............. (but look what he did - he mucked up the definition of his (invented) Cape hole

[Patrick_Mucci]

George Bahto,

Do you think that the 17th at Maidstone was a tribute to the Cape Hole at NGLA ?

In looking at the pictures that David Moriarty posted, especially where they're teeing off, it would seem that the tee for the original Cape presents a different angle of attack than any of today's tees.

Could it be that a tee was closer to the road by the water, versus today's tees ?.

[George_Bahto]

Bill Salinetti and I went back there one time and checked out the old foundation - very cool back there

Pat do you think they now own the area were the Inn was ?  I'm not sure

[Patrick_Mucci]

George,

I'm not so sure that the inlet to Bulls Head Bay had the width or the draft to accomodate large yachts.

CBM's site for the yacht basin was a tiny nook adjacent to Ram Island.
There's very little room to accomodate yachts, especially large yachts, and there's even less room to manueuver in that mini harbor.

I tend to view that aspect as "promotional" rather than substantive.

[George_Bahto]

Pat, I just checked the copy I have of the old blueprint and that print only indicates a single tee, even though he was going to put 3 tees on each hole, so the inicated tee on the print would be the champtionship tee. I also looked at two things I have and everything points to that tee just to the left of the Eden green, down by the water's edge, is the original tee.    (that's been a "given" for a long time)

and if you look at the back of those scorecard drawings near the beginning of this thread you can see the location of 14 tee

[George_Bahto]

Pat, the Hurricane of 1938 altered everything and virtually blew the yacht basin away. I've seen pictures of large yachts anchored out there - but, you might be right about the Corsair not being able to get in.

Out at Westhampton (during the storm of '38) boats came in three fairways on the (NLE) Oneck course

the story about the Corsair is very cool (not quite a cool as J P Morgan, though)

[jkinney]

The telescope through which the manager identified members yachts coming into Peconic Bay still sits in the bird cage and is in working order. The new back tee on Cape is slightly to the right of the others and so restores some of the intent of the original Cape design. However the original (prior to the present Sebonac Inlet Rd. routing) looks to have been a better hole - especially when factoring in the old clubs and balls. Mind you, I consider the present Cape one of the great short par 4's currently in existence. But would it ever be cool to go back in a time machine and play the old one with hickory shafts and gutta percha balls, especially with the SW trades quartering against from the tee !

[Patrick_Mucci]

George,

I think it was Bill Salinetti who told me that the property line used to be pretty tight to the 9th green until the club bought the property in modern times.

The tee that sits down by the water, to the left of # 13 green, seems tiny, especially in comparison to the area in David's photo.