Walter Travis's Misquamicut Club Routing Unearthed

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

A search of the Olmsted archives to see what the original plantings of the club looked like, leads to the discovery of the long-lost Travis routing that was rejected by members.

Click here to read all about it.

http://anthonypioppi.com/golf/blog/1234/misquamicuts-walter-travis-routing-rediscovered

Feel free, once on my site, to click on an add. I know that some are keeping track of what your devotion to my writing is earning me. Thus far, rounded off, I have made $0.00 through my site.

Anthony

[Jim_Kennedy]

Nice find Tony!

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Credit goes to Bill Morton at Misquamicut. The routing easily could have been overlooked.

[Jim_Kennedy]

  Nice reporting Tony!

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Thanks very much.

Hey, I'm the one who figured out that 17 is probably a Raynor Road Hole.

Tony

[Kye Goalby]

Tony,

I have played Misquamicit a ton over the past twenty years and have always thought Raynor had a hand in the course, but never heard  anyone even state he was there, much less as an actual fact.   Do they have records?

 If  he   really did work there,  and  only did five holes,  I would go with  the holes he did as number  6-Reverse Redan (maybe with green contours tweaked by Ross ), 8 - Short, 9 -Knoll?, 10- Alps,  and possibly 18 as a Biarritz that  had  the green changed by Ross ( total guess on my part thinking the back bunker could have been the swale) or  more likely,  Hole 1 - Punchbowl.

I personally never had a thought that 17 was a Road Hole.  Even after you point  it out I am not sure I see that.

Cool article about a cool course though! The Travis angle is interesting too.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Kye:

Club has definitive proof Raynor worked on five holes and was on site more than once, but no indication of which five holes. As far as what you surmise:

Six, possible; eight reminds me of the Short hole at Blind Brook, a Raynor; 10, I don't think so. I think the green might have been down below and then moved up on the hill by Ross; 18 was a par-3 before and after Raynor. I forgot how to post photos but I'll email you an aerial of the Misquamicut '34 picture. The angle and position of the greenside bunkering is very close to that of Fishers and elsewhere.

Tony

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tony,
Here's the '34 aerial of Misquamicut:

http://cslib.cdmhost.com/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p4005coll10/id/8720/rv/singleitem/rec/1

[Ed Homsey]

Our thanks to Tony for his contacts with Bill Morton, and others, that led to the discovery of the layout drawing attributed to Travis.  We know, from correspondence between Travis and the Misquamicut officials, that he created a course layout for them, though we had never seen a drawing of the actual layout.  Financial considerations intervened, and the Travis plan never advanced beyond the drawing board.  But, now we have an idea about it's layout and, interestingly, but not surprising, the Ross layout followed it pretty closely. 

Thanks for your research, Tony, and the terrific article on your blogsite.

Ed
www.travissociety.com

[BCrosby]

Ed -

Is there reason to think that Ross had seen the Travis plan before he did his own?

Bob

[Ed Homsey]

There is really no way to know.  We do know that Travis provided a report and blueprints of the golf course to Misquamicut in 1916.  So, it is possible that Ross saw those blueprints when he was there to lay out the course.  If the recently discovered course layout is Travis's, the similarity between it and the current course seems well beyond coincidence.   Ross's name was mentioned early in the correspondence with one of the gentleman suggesting that if they were unable to get Ross, (before May 1917) they should get Travis.  We do know of an instance where Ross was commissioned to remodel a Travis course and he left the Travis routing essentially intact, with the exception of, I believe, 3 holes.  That was at Camden CC.   

The mystery will be solved when we find those Travis blueprints.