Best preserved Victorian inland courses

[BCrosby]

What are the best preserved Victorian inland courses? Courses that still have some of their old cop-bunkers, chocolate drop mounds, rifle pit trenches., etc.?

Even names of courses that have been rebuilt but have retained some of those old features would be helpful. Myopia comes to mind re the cop bunkers on the second hole. But other than those bunkers very few Victorian features remain there.

Bob

[Mark McKeever]

Somerset Hills really nails the old timeless features ion my opinion.

Mark

[Bill_McBride]

Chocolate drop mounds?   Grand Cypress (J. Nicklaus), Orlando.

[Lester George]

Maybe Myopia Hunt.

Lester

[Philip Gawith]

Queen Victoria died in 1901 which is the year Huntercombe opened Bob - i think it probably qualifies!

[BCrosby]

Philip -

Huntercombe occurred to me just after posting. An interesting transitional course, poised between two eras.

(One wonders how much Park's orignal design for Sunningdale looked like Huntercombe today.)

I would guess that most of the inland courses that have retained some of the old "Victorian" features are in England.

BTW, many of these features were used on courses well after Victoria's death, so 1901 should not be understood as a cut-off date. 

Bob

P.S. Congrats on the birth of your future king.   

[Tom_Doak]

The one I remember is in Scotland -- Braemar, near the future king's summer residence.  There are no sand bunkers, but many cops.

[BCrosby]

Bumping this with the hope that Mark Rowlinson might see my question.

Bob

[Thomas Dai]

The one I remember is in Scotland -- Braemar, near the future king's summer residence.  There are no sand bunkers, but many cops.

Nice call Tom. Your mention has prompted me to recall playing Braemar Golf Club many, many years ago. A pretty short 18-hole layout but enjoyable in a 'once-in-a-while' kinda way. Clubhouse at the time was a pretty small, unsophisticated but not in any way unpleasant wooden building. I wonder if it still is? First hole a flattish par-4 over the River Dee, second hole a good par-4 with a very raised green and the River Dee nearby to the right and below. A particularly fine par-3 somewhere, but I really can't recall which hole it was. Not much else about the course I can remember but it was a really very, very hot, for Scotland, and windy day, and all who played got extremely sun/wind burnt. I tried to post the clubs web address but the link was playing up.

There's also a course just along the road within the grounds of Balmoral Castle. And one at Windsor Castle as well. I wonder how many rounds a year are played on them? Bit snowy for golf Balmoral way in the winter though.

All the best.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Bob, I have now seen the thread and I don't have an immediate answer. Philip's suggestion of Huntercombe gets it spot on.

Here are a few suggestions off the top of my head, more to give pause for thought than to give a true answer.

My mind turned to Cheadle, a 9-hole course near me which has a number of archaic features, although no chocolate drops. How much of the course survives from the 1890s I cannot say, but you can take a look for yourself: http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,44829.msg978304/topicseen.html#msg978304

I don't know when JH Taylor constructed his mounds etc at Royal Mid-Surrey, but many of them survive.

I fancy that Mitcham Common is little altered from its glory days as the original Prince's GC.

Berkhamsted is an old club (1890) but it saw later work by Colt and Braid. However they retained some of the very ancient earthworks in the course's defences.

There are all sorts of artifices used at Royal Ashdown Forest, some of which, I presume, date back to the club's founding in 1888.

Holywell came into my head for its inventive use of old mining spoil, but it dates from 1906.

Interesting question - thank you, Bob.

[Bill_McBride]

Painswick feels like golf in the Iron Age.

New Zealand feels much like playing golf at the turn of the last century.   
And A. Conan Doyle's name is still on one of the lockers!

[BCrosby]

Mark -

Thanks. Now that I have gotten your take I can say with more assurance what I wanted to say a couple of days ago. I am shocked at how few original features of Victorian inland courses have survived. There aren't even many remnants of those old features still in existence.

Literally thousands of these inland courses were built in Britain and the US from about 1890 to about 1905. It was an important chapter in the history of golf architecture. They gave rise to two basic categories of golf courses, inland and links courses. But what the first inland courses  looked like is known today only through old photographs and drawings. I find that amazing.

Is there any other era in golf architecture for which the physical record has, essentially, vanished?

Bob 

[Pete Lavallee]

Bob,

There is a perfect example in Marion Ma. The 9 hole Marion Golf Club was George Thomas's first design, completed in 1914. It features hazards that are all parallel or perpendicular to the line of play. The site was littered with rocks, deposited by the glaciers. They were either piled up and covered with dirt forming large mounds or rock walls were errected blocking the direct path to the green along the ground. The place really is a step back in time.

[BCrosby]

Pete -

Does Marion still have cop bunkers with sand floors that span fw's?

Bob

[Pete Lavallee]

Bob,

I don't recall any cop bunkers streching across the width of the fairway. Here are a few photos I had on hand:


Marion GC just may be the course that started the rock wall craze. Built in 1914 by a certain Philadelphian it features 3 par 3's which incorporate New England stone walls;

The par 3 3rd 190 yards:


The par 3 8th 200 yards:


From behind the green:


The ingenious 120 yard par 3 9th. The fronting bunker is built up against a stone wall:


From behind the green:

[BCrosby]

Great stuff Pete. Thanks.

Bob

[DMoriarty]

Pete,  Are you sure about the date?  Their website says 1904.

Early Philadelphia school? 

[Thomas Dai]

Thanks for posting these Marion GC Photos.

I've seen stone walls on courses before but I don't recall seeing them used in quite this manner. What wonderful features. Are there any others courses that use stone walls like this or in other unusual ways?
All the best

[Pete Lavallee]

David,

Thanks for correcting me; it was 1904!

Thomas,

I can't think of any other examples of incorporating stone walls on New England courses. Kittansett GC is just down the road and they cured their stone problem by mounding them and covering the mounds with dirt. Gil Hanse latter topped them with long fescue. The Kittansett GC is profiled in the Courses By Country Section.

[BCrosby]

1904 sounds more like it. By 1914 those sorts of features would have already looked out of date. Tastes in golf courses were changing rapidly over that decade. Which helps account in part for the scarcity today of Victorian inland courses. 

Bob

[John Ezekowitz]

David,

Thanks for correcting me; it was 1904!

Thomas,

I can't think of any other examples of incorporating stone walls on New England courses. Kittansett GC is just down the road and they cured their stone problem by mounding them and covering the mounds with dirt. Gil Hanse latter topped them with long fescue. The Kittansett GC is profiled in the Courses By Country Section.

I believe it is a modern course, but Carnegie Abbey is routed around/through several stone walls supposedly of Revolutionary War origins. If I remember correctly, they cross the fairway on a hole on the front and one on the back.

[Robert_Ball]

Good call on Marion, Pete.  Very fun but I don't recall any cop bunkers or chocolate drop mounds.

Has anyone played Wawashkamo on Mackinac Island?  Looks like they are quite proud of their history...

http://wawashkamo.com/

[Rich Goodale]

Bridge of Allan (Old Tom Morris, 1895)

www.bofagc.com

[Tony_Muldoon]

I fancy that Mitcham Common is little altered from its glory days as the original Prince's GC.


Interesting question - thank you, Bob.

Sadly not, many holes changed as part of the course was moved to new land decades ago.  It's still a decent place to play and a few holes near the end are original.  Richard Pennell knows best about this.