Jim,
I put together a very comprehensive master plan and included chronologies like the one above documenting the historic evolution of all the holes at Cherry Hills. It is amazing how that golf course had been changed over the years. Much of the original design and strategy had been stripped right out of it. Fortunately, only two of the greens had been changed (#3 and #13) and yes Perry’s son Press gets credit for the work (#13 for example was rebuilt twice and looked nothing like the other Flynn holes). I think you might know that Press designed Cherry Hills par three course back in the early 1960’s.
Dave Lee was the Grounds Chairman back in 2003. We were just exchanging emails the other day and talking about how all this went down. I give him much of the credit for saving this golf course. Back in 2003, the club was trying to figure out what they needed to do to entice the USGA to bring back the 2010 U.S.Open to Cherry Hills to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Palmer’s 1960 victory. I happened to be out in Denver and stopped by the club to meet with Clayton Cole (Clayton is a real gentleman and pretty famous guy and was the head pro for many years at Cherry). He knew me and asked me to take a look around the golf course. After I finished my tour, I told him he had a nice golf course but other than the routing and 16 of the greens, most of his Flynn design had been lost to change. He asked me to write up my thoughts and send them to Dave Lee. Dave at the time had been interviewing architects trying to figure out what to do with the golf course (it seemed every one of the architects wanted to redesign Cherry and try to make it 8000 yards long). Dave read my report, talked it over with his committee, and had me fly out to do a walk around with his committee and various board members. My advice to the club was simple, "if you want to try to get the US Open, go find a celebrity architect and let them have free rein of the property, however, if you want your William Flynn golf course back (which I am pretty sure was awesome) I can help you". Two weeks later I got a signed contract from Dave and was hired to help them understand the evolution of their design and to develop a master plan for the possible restoration of the golf course. Dave and his team could have easily gone the other way and Tom and Eric and I would have never had the chance to do what we did.
One very interesting analysis that we made, there three holes at Cherry Hills that were modeled after three holes at Pine Valley GC in New Jersey (I remember after I was hired sitting in Philly with Wayne Morrison and he and I were talking about this). The members at Cherry Hills did not know any of this until I showed them the comparisons and explained the history of the design. As many you well know, William Flynn worked at Pine Valley for eight years and was seconded by Hugh Wilson at Merion to finish the last four holes at Pine Valley when George Crump passed away. Flynn took ideas from Pine Valley and incorporated them into his designs (including his design at Cherry Hills). The 17th hole at Cherry Hills is modeled after the design concept of #7 at Pine Valley. The other two holes are #14 and #7 at Cherry Hills (they are modeled respectively after #13 and #12 at Pine Valley). This makes a fascinating story and adds to the aura of Cherry Hills. And by the way, those cross bunkers (Flynn’s softer version at Cherry Hills of Hell’s Half acre) were originally designed by Flynn to tempt and torment. Yes big hitters could possibly fly them or "bounce over or through the leading ones" under the right conditions. If you got close to them or found a good lie you were left with a tempting shot to the island green. As you are watching on TV, it is hard for players to not go for it when they know they only have a long iron or hybrid in their hands. Temptation!! And thank goodness those trees came down on the island. That is another whole story. It was like a religious experience for me when they finally came down especially after years and years of explaining to members why Flynn would have cringed to see them there. Eric invited me out during construction when those trees were coming down and I am forever thankful!
I ended up working at Cherry Hills for over three years with four different Grounds Chairman (they changed every year). Everyone of them was a real pleasure to work with and all supported the restoration. We completed our master plan in 2006 (we even did full construction drawings, Forrest Richardson was instrumental in working we me on these and visited Cherry Hills many times during the process). However, despite all the years of effort and education, the club still was split on what they should do. It was then that it was decided to either do the restoration work that we had proposed or redesign the golf course. A vote must have been taken and thank goodness they made the right decision to restore. I would have of course liked to have stayed through the construction but at the time I didn't have the resume of courses to lean on from a construction standpoint as I had only been in the business for about five years at the time. I am just thankful they choose Tom and Eric or all that effort would have been lost and more importantly, we would have lost one of the great historic Flynn designs of all time.
I think the course is looking and playing great and I just hope it firms up for the last two rounds.
Mark