Jim,
I don't think you can distinguish between which mounds are in front of the green and which mounds are behind from that angle, unless your eyes are much better than mine. And you certainly cannot tell how far the green sits below the front mounds in that picture. Do you sincerely think you can?
Locate the LEFT fairway bunker, which is in the center of the photo. The line of play is from the right of that, so it is largely right to left in this photo, so I don't see how seeing the bunker tells us whether a fronting mounding would block visibility on the approach. But even from this angle, we are not seeing the bottom of the bunker in that photo. Look at the shape of the bottom of the bunker in the photo and compare it to the shape in the photos from closer up. Even from this angle something short of the green (actually left and short) is blocking visibility the bottom of the bunker.
It looks to me like a large mound might be visible just right of the back bunker in this photo, but unlike you and Mike and your super-vision, I can't say for sure.
As for the distance to the top of the hill, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I think those at Merion would have disagreed. They listed this hole as 380+. It wasn't anywhere near that, but based on AWilson's description of their strange measuring ideas, they apparently thought it played 380+ because of the upslope from the creek. If so, then the approach would have been much longer than you are estimating. While I disagree with the methodology, the hole certainly plays longer with hickories, from a lower tee. While I don't quite understand how they could be so far off the actual distance, I do know that for me those fairway bunkers were very much in play with hickories from one of the lower tees.
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As for my comment about the Philadelphia School, I was just being snide. Sorry. Beyond that it was an off the cuff response to a general attitude often expressed here and elsewhere by the usual suspects.
Since you asked, it has been suggested by some that CBM represented the old, dark ages style, and that while he had no influence at Merion if he had any influence at Merion it was just the crappy dark ages stuff, and that stuff was immediately replaced with a more natural looking, enlightened architecture. This is of course B.S. We have also been told repeatedly that the "Philadelphia School" made a clean break from the CBM approach and blazed their own trail, and that in doing so they wiped the vestiges of the dark ages off the map and defined American design. This is also B.S.
And here we have what might have been an attempt at something like an Alps hole from Hugh Wilson and some of his "Philadelphia School" buddies, unaided by CBM and HJW. What do you think? I don't know how the hole played, and the strategic concept might very well have worked great. But it sure as hell doesn't exemplify any of for what we are told the Philadelphia School stood, does it? If they thought Merion's Alps hole was as bad as some here have indicated, then why the hell would the same men built something like this? In comparison, It seems Merion's hole would have looked relatively natural, at least from the front.
Anyway, you asked about the Philadelphia School's "ultimate influence" but I can't answer the question until you tell me what that "ultimate influence" was. Some of those commonly associated with the "school" certainly had an big influence of different aspects of golf design, and I have tremendous respect for some of those associated with the supposed "school." But if we take the group as a whole instead of looking at them individually, the waters
Unless we want Mike to piss himself, maybe we should leave it at that. Actually, it is probably already too late.
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Reportedly, MacRaynor Alps holes oftentimes had a punchbowl green.
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If you guys are down to arguing the length of the flag, then you might as well give it up.