How great were Long Island's courses? A reporter's 1935 "perfect" LI course

[Mark Bourgeois]

Tommy Naccarato's posts about California NLEs reminded me of how many great courses have been lost on the Right Coast, specifically on Long Island (including the vastly underrated golf courses of Queens, whose NLEs include a Tillinghast that hosted US Opens, a Mackenzie that influenced his philosophy of ANGC, and a Raynor).

One sense of the quality lost came in a series written in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle by Ralph Trost. He composed his "ideal" 18 consisting of Long Island courses. Judging by his comments, he played everything on the Island -- and / or covered many amateur and professional tournaments on these courses.

He fitted his 18 in order -- the first on his ideal course came from LI's 1st holes -- and gave consideration to routing ( at least, coming up with a balance of pars and not including back-to-back par 3s, that sort of thing) and rhythm (eg taking care not to include too many water carries, choosing his 1st and 10th holes in part for their ability to ease the golfer into the nine, etc).

Here they are -- note all the NLE holes:

1 St Albans 355 yd par 4
2 Garden City 132 yd par 3
3 NGLA “Alps / “Bell Hole” 416 yd par 4
4 Lido “Channel” 466 yd par 5
5 Lido “Cape” 378 yd par 4
6 Fresh Meadow (at 1932 US Open the “least-parred” hole) 431 yd par 4
7 Cherry Valley 147 yd par 3
8 Timber Point 510 yd par 5 -- split fairway w optional carries
9 Rockaway Hunt 406 yd par 4
10 Seawane 300 yd par 4
11 Shinnecock 160 yd par 3
12 Wheatley Hills 560 yd par 5
13 Seawane 406 yd par 4
14 Piping Rock 395 yd par 4
15 Timber Point “Gibraltar” 200 yd par 3
16 Timber Point 355 yd par 4 (“one of the grandest holes of that length ever built”)
17 Garden City GC 495 yds?? par 5 (yardage not listed in the article so I just plugged in what I understand to be the hole's current length)
18 Lido 405 yd par 4

Total

6,517 yards par 72

We think of NGLA and Shinny as great, but Trost didn't have the "benefit" of hindsight: he saw the courses as they were in 1935, and while, yes, many were ballyhooed there undoubtedly was more room for independent thinking.

At any rate, his 18 supplies food for thought.

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark - that's fascinating in so many ways, including the 'unknowable', i.e. what kind of man and golfer Mr. Trost was, and how he'd come to acquiring his tastes and formulating his ideals in regards to golf and its fields of play. (For all I know, he could've been the great uncle of the man who 25 years later ran Golf Digest's "100 Toughest Tests" panel). But also: how a par 72 was an early benchmark, as was a goodly amount of length, for an ideal American course; and how the official template holes played a part -- but only a part, and a small one at that -- in an ideal course's capacity to provide challenge and variety and interest. And yes, it is interesting to note the change re NGLA from when it first opened (with unanimous and I assume well earned praise for both the individual holes and the sum of its parts) to when a 'second generation' observer weighed its strengths (I won't assume weaknesses) against the strengths of other courses, now lesser known or NLE.

Peter  

[Mark Bourgeois]

Peter

He certainly discusses other courses and holes, such that catch him on a different day and perhaps the list changes considerably. And he's listing the course from the tips; even so, I don't think people would have freaked out over the length of his ideal.

I wonder how eclectic a current "LI ideal" would be and how that would stack up against his list. What is the magnitude of what's lost and how does that stack up against other parts of the US?

[Tom_Doak]

I don't know all of the holes listed above, but the first thing that strikes me is how many water holes he had on his ideal 18.

Seeing 17 at Garden City is an odd choice.

[Joe Bausch]

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,44394.0.html

 

[Mark Bourgeois]

You're killing me, Joe!

Tom: he references his string of water holes in one of his choices. It's like he got through the first run then caught himself, thinking: "Uh oh, I better steer some of these back on dry land." Re GCGC 17, his argument was that after a bear of a 16th he wanted his 17th to be "a hole of sufficient length to permit letting out." A reachable par 5 in other words. (I'm assuming 1935's 17th remains the same as today's.)

Anyway, it'd be an interesting exercise to stack just LI's NLEs against California's in terms of quality lost.

[Patrick_Mucci]

I don't know all of the holes listed above, but the first thing that strikes me is how many water holes he had on his ideal 18.

Seeing 17 at Garden City is an odd choice.

Tom,

Could it be because carrying the diagonal fairway bunker off the tee might have been a significant challenge in 1935 ?

The prevailing wind often makes that task more difficult,

Thus, the right side slot is a difficult target and makes the hole, with it's right side OB, pretty challenging ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark,

Surprised that The Creek, Engineers and others didn't garner any votes

[Alex Lagowitz]

6500 yards for 1935 seems like a long course.  Also Tom Doak points out that he chose a lot of water holes.
Maybe he had a thing with greatness = difficulty?

[David_Elvins]

6500 yards for 1935 seems like a long course.  Also Tom Doak points out that he chose a lot of water holes.
Maybe he had a thing with greatness = difficulty?

Not sure about the yardage being long, Alex.  Augusta was 6800 and Oakmont was 6900+ to name a couple of the longer courses at the time.

[Alex Lagowitz]

6500 yards for 1935 seems like a long course.  Also Tom Doak points out that he chose a lot of water holes.
Maybe he had a thing with greatness = difficulty?

Not sure about the yardage being long, Alex.  Augusta was 6800 and Oakmont was 6900+ to name a couple of the longer courses at the time.

Bad conclusion on my part.  Maybe to save myself, isn't 6500 at sea level still pretty long?