Revisionist History - Masters site moved

[Patrick_Mucci]

If the "Masters" was held every year since the early 1930's at Pine Valley instead of Augusta, do you think both courses would be the same today, or do you envision changes at either one

What changes would you think might have been made over the last 68 years, and what do you think might have stayed the same ?

[TEPaul]

Patrick:

Interesting rhetorical question! Have you ever wondered why Pine Valley has held so few major tournaments in its history?

Or alternatively, could ANGC have stood for the underexposure of an annual MacKenzie/Jones Cup for 100 amateurs?

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

The composition of the membership at both clubs is probably far different today than it was in the 30's, 40's and 50's.

Cosmetically and from a maintainance point of view what might be different about both clubs.

Would the changes a #7 and # 16 have taken place at ANGC
Would the course be substantively shorter.
Would the greens still be bermuda
Would Mac's look exist today ?

When I look at Pine Valley I don't see much room for substantive lengthening.  I believe # 3*, maybe # 4, # 12, # 14*, # 16* .  Some has been done I believe *

Perhaps tree and scrub encroachment would have been checked.

How would bunker maintainance be at both clubs today ?

Two great courses embarked on two different journeys, and I'm curious as to what some hypothocize had they switched places.

Can these clubs learn anything from each other ?

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Not a bad question really, but the question probably needs to be expanded.

If you're talking about moving the Masters to Pine Valley and what that would do or would have done to the evolution of Pine Valley, are you also talking about moving Augusta's membership and administration to Pine Valley too and vice versa with Pine Valley's to Augusta? Or are you talking about if the Masters had been moved to Pine Valley years ago or even now and having Pine Valley's past and current membership and administration run the tournament? To me that would be the interesting question and the best one to hypothesize on and personally I think that specific question would be central to any reasonable conclusion.

I could be wrong and I'm pretty sure you'll deny it but I think you're posing a question like this to try to argue that what Augusta has done to their course for the last 68 years would have been done to and by Pine Valley also if they had run an annual tournament like the Masters. I think this is sort of a back-door way of constructing an argument and then an analogy to defend what Augusta has done to their golf course and how they apparently fail to adhere to some of the architectural principles of their original designer, Alister MacKenzie!

To me how Pine Valley views its original designer, what he did, and what he intended for the course and its future, and how Augusta looks at these issues could not be more diametrically opposed! To me that's the issue to keep front and center and focused on if you're going to have a hypothetical discussion on a question like this. In a nutshell Pine Valley venerates George Crump and Augusta does not venerate MacKenzie (they only use his name when convenient) and furthermore Augusta never even paid MacKenzie even when he begged them to, even claiming he was growing broke. In this way Pine Valley got off the mark well with their designer and stuck to him and Augusta seems  to have been about the opposite.

Pine Valley has added a bit of tee length to the course over the decades but essentially the course is as it always has been and there's a very good reason for that!

So although Pine Valley obviously has not held major tournaments for their own particular and probably very good reasons they certainly could have if they wanted to! It's intersting too that both courses were designed to be championship courses.

So my hypothesis would be if you could ship Pine Valley's membership and administration down to Augusta some interesting things might happen but if you shipped Augusta's up to Pine Valley to run the Master's there I would hypothesis thusly; "God Help Pine Valley!"

It's also interesting that no matter who went where and for what purpose somewhere nearby you will find the ubiquitous Tom Fazio!

[Jim_Kennedy]

You know, it's probably too bad that we didn't see a Mackenzie/Jones cup at Augusta. It may have evolved into augusta becoming a permanent site for the US Amateur, what with Jones' reputation, and we would have an amateur tournament that rivals anything on the Pro circuit today.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

You are wrong, and I won't deny it  

My thread has nothing to do with defending what ANGC did.

It has to do with the paths the two courses took understanding that ANGC had a mission relative to tournament golf from the very outset and PV though designed to be a championship course never got caught up in the Tour Prep syndrome.

The questions were, how would both clubs be different if they swapped roles.

I agree with the gist of your suggestion, but since the memberships at both clubs had so little to say, I think we'd have to confine stewardship to a few individuals.

How would ANGC have evolved without the Masters, from an architectual perspective, and what if anything might have changed if PV held a Major every year.

Even PV has been known to take it to the edge when a competition, albeit amateur, is in town.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Sorry, but there's nothing in your post to respond to that wasn't in my first post to this topic.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Then let's look at stewardship--it's not hard to do since we would basically be comparing Cliff Roberts and John Arthur Brown. They knew each other, you know! Roberts belonged to Pine Valley and Brown did not get along well with Roberts!

Pine Valley does take it to the edge for tournaments like the Crump Cup but that's a maintenance and course set-up deal and not design or redesign. And anyway, even that is not much. Haven't you ever noticed that a golf course in tournament condition can be near or on the edge on Sunday and on Tuesday it will be right back to normal?

[TEPaul]

On second thought this is a subject I don't think is worthwhile discussing because it's total speculation and I can't see how it could ever be anything but! And Pat, if you get your foot in the door on this one you're bound to start turning  speculative analogies into real ones and then your going to start making conclusions that look to be valid but never can be!!!

The important thing to focus on in a comparison between Pine Valley and Augusta if the comparison is going to revolve around the subject of a major tournament is that Pine Valley has never wanted to do one and most of Augusta's "ethos" revolves around its major tournament! So we'd be comparing total apples and oranges with both courses.

And the more recent stewards of Augusta are probably the ones who have made the course a "Michael Jackson" type thing with the advent of TV and their odd desire to let the world see something that appears otherworldly pristine! The golf course even with the Masters was probably doing OK before the advent of TV anyway. Sure there were architectural changes in the 1930s and 1940s and early 1950s (a great deal more during those years than Pine Valley has ever had, by the way) but the pristine look with artifical flowers and colorizing of water and vegetation is a more recent phenomenon and probably television inspired!

I'll grant you a few interesting things on this subject of course evolution (Pine Valley vs Augusta), though, that makes things interesting to discuss (without the subject of the Masters though). And that is that Mackenzie was never really considered after opening--they never even paid him for Crisssakes! But Bobby Jones was his co-designer and Roberts was the Man and things continued to change because they were there for many years.

But what if George Crump had lived?? Would the course look different today than it does (since the 1921 Committee finalized the course in the form they thought Crump wanted it)and it has remained remarkably unchanged since.

Last night I finished the Colt hole drawings and reading the actual remembrances of what Crump wanted from a group of his friends who knew him best, were there with him during the lengthy creation and wrote down his wishes for the 1921 Committee to work off of and finish the course!

I was amazed at some of the things they said Crump wanted to do that have never been done. It's almost as if they used his last thoughts on the day he died and just left the course  as is for the future. And there is an interesting remark in some of these remembrances from Crump. He was once asked when he would finish the golf course! His answer; "NEVER!"

[Gary Smith (Guest)]

Have never been to PV, but isn't the drawback to holding a major professional event there a lack of space for any sizeable galleries?

[TEPaul]

Gary:

Yes that is a drawback for a major event there! It probably could be done but it would be tricky.

[THuckaby2]

PV HAS hosted a major - haven't any of you guys read "A Mulligan for Bobby Jobe"?

 

TH

[TEPaul]

It's hosted a couple of Walker Cups in its history and next year PVGC is hosting the Philadelphia Open which we're extremely pleased about. The problem is to figure out how many qualifying sites we should schedule for this tournament since this will be the max definition of over-subscribed!!

[THuckaby2]

I knew about the Walker Cups... I was just being priggish mentioning Bobby Jobe.

Now as for next year's Philly Open - Tom, where can I get my exemption application?  Come on, there's gotta be a spot for out-of-state 5 handicappers....

 

TH

[George Pazin]

Any way the rest of us could find out what Crump wanted done that wasn't done? :-)

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,


Maintainance differences are substantive, and affect play on the course.

Look at the condition or maintainance of the bunkers at both courses.  Do you think they would have remained the same had the two courses traded places ?

How would the Nation viewing PV have affected PV, golf and golf architecture ?

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Again, all this is totally speculative so I have no idea just personal gut feeling, but,

On the first paragraph, not sure what you're saying , on the second paragraph/question don't really know what you mean, and on the last paragraph I really don't think the world watching would affect Pine Valley that much. As for golf generally, likely better with the the world viewing Pine Valley than ANGC and I think PV would have had a much more positive effect on naturalness in golf architecture, except the "Pine Valley syndrome" would probably have influenced  more "isolation" on more courses in America but only because  most would not understand the differences in design style between PV and other courses.

[Tim_Weiman]

Tom Huckaby:

If you get your exemption, I want to be your caddy!

Anyway, I have another Southern California story that relates to golf, in this case golf at Pine Valley.

My next door neighbors were folks that grew up in New Jersey. Occasionally, we would play golf together....at the world famous Rec Park in Long Beach.

One night we were just hanging out drinking beer and the subject of Pine Valley came up, specifically the famous story about Woody Platt.

Out of the blue my neighbor's wife said "I know that name".

Completely stunned I asked her how she possibly recognized the name Woody Platt.

"Oh", she said, "my father used to play with him all the time".

You just never know what a small world it is!

[TEPaul]

Tim:

That's interesting about Woody Platt! There's another man around the Philly area who is fascinating to talk with--one Bud Lewis of Manufacturers G.C., their long time pro and a guy who with others around here like Skee Riegal have basically seen and heard it all and they knew everybody in golf!

We were talking about Woody Platt--he was one helluva player but to hang around him too long could be somewhat dangerous--because the finale to the Woody Platt/Pine Valley first four holes story and the punchline of him repairing to the bar was not isolated or unusual for Woody--cuz he wasn't just a great player he was a really great drinker too!

[John_McMillan]

Just to be a little bit anal (what are discussion boards for?), and to bump up my post total -

A "revisionist" history is a different interpretation of a set of events (i.e., an argument that Hitler was a good leader of Germany).  Since you're changing the set of events, (moving the Masters Tournament from Georgia to New Jersey), the exercise is more a "hypothetical" than a "revisionist" history.

[Patrick_Mucci]

John Mc Millan,

When you start worrying about interpretations of subject titles, it's obvious that winter has gotten to you early.

If we revise history, by swapping at birth, two golf courses, I don't think we've compromised any of Noah Webster' definitions.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Hate to see some of these threads devolve into a discussion of what the words we use mean but John MacMillan is right, this subject is not a revisionist take on history it's a total hypothetical!

Maybe we should do a few minutes a day on a sideline website that discusses the etymology, meanings and definitions of words!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Isn't much of what is discussed on GCA, hypothetical ?

Is John's and your next step critiquing the 16 funny faces ?

[TEPaul]

Hypothetical? I hope not!