Beverly CC - 1908 Routing Questions

[Sven Nilsen]

Moving this discussion out of the Maps and Plans thread so as not to clutter it up.

Tim:

I'm pretty sure that the map shows a preliminary routing, and with respect to the front nine differs in some ways from what was actually built.  An article that appeared a month later in Golfers Magazine noted such, and another article from October of the same year has a description of the nine holes on the north end of the property that doesn't exactly match up with the map.  That being said, that description does have the 2nd hole as a par 3, which jives with what you said about the old green pad.

Sven

Based on my research for the Beverly book, including info from club documents, this was what was built. Six and seven are today's seventh hole (albeit now shortened by 87th Street), eight and nine follow the same basic line. But the original 3-4-5-6 were remodeled/replaced by the current 2-3-4-5 under Ross' direction. Likewise the revamping of 11-12 and the last four holes on the back. We have property line maps that show O'Neil, Janes and Middleton (two members) couldn't go anywhere else.

Tim:

Not sure if I properly conveyed the point I was trying to get across.  Perhaps it makes sense to lay out the plan with the articles I noted.

Here's the plan from the April 1908 edition of Golfers Magazine:



Here's the May 1908 Golfers Magazine article which contains a description of the first nine built (today's back nine).  The last paragraph of this article notes that the plan above does not represent what was actually being built, although the written description is pretty similar to the holes as laid out on the plan for this half of the course.







Here's another Golfers Magazine article, this time from October of 1908, which notes the existing nine holes were to become the back nine and describes the new front nine.  For many of these holes (specifically holes 5 -9), I have a hard time matching the written descriptions with what was drawn in the plan above.

[Tim_Cronin]

Sven,
   That map isn't perfect, especially in scale, but it's closer to the original plan of the course than Higgins' description, based on what I had to go on for the club's centennial book. While there were occasional updates in the club newsletter, the club's minutes from the early years were lost in a fire, so specific dates of changes can't all be pinned down. There may have been changes during construction. The plan was to open the front nine in the fall of 1908, but there was a delay due to poor grow-in on some holes.
   Perhaps those were the ones changed to what we find in a 1915 map, which I can send you for posting. (It also shows a proposed and rejected third nine on land not them available.) Further pre-Ross changes aligned the front nine to something near what we have today (after the 87th Street widening), including the moving of the eighth tee and ninth green to bring the pond (now gone) into play on the ninth.
Tim

[Sven Nilsen]

Tim:

I've seen the 1915 map.  It seems to match the written descriptions pretty well, including the pond you mentioned on the 9th.

Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

Here's the 1915 Map noted above: