William Flynn Greens

[John Connolly]

A routing innovator, Flynn often gets high praise for his ability to place holes naturally amongst the provided landforms. How about his greens? Is there a "Flynn style" of green design? Big, small, flat or contoured? Or did his green designs, like his routing, depend on the land he saw in front of him?

[Rory Connaughton]

John,

Thinking intersecting slopes created by the use of three high points ...plus pull ups at one side or other in the rear. Those intersecting slopes make for some great movement without major internal contour.

[Mike_Trenham]

Picture a potatoe chip.

[Willie_Dow]

Does your dad remember the old Flynn greens at Philly Country ?  When I was there in 1955 the greens were full of contours like I never treasured more.  True, they would never accept green speeds of today, but they were more than fun to putt at speeds of perhaps 7 on a Stimp (or less).


Farnum (?) made the changes in the late 50's, I think.

[J_ Crisham]

I have played 5 Flynn designs in the last 72 hours. Rolling Green, Manufacturers, LeHigh, Philly CC , and Lancaster CC . I would echo the comments of Rory.  Rolling Green and Lancaster stand out as having the most interesting/ diverse sets of greens that we played. Internal contours that keep you on your toes. I would consider the greens to be generally smallish to medium in size. Also, Bunkering greenside that effectively shrinks where a good miss is- ie , a short sided bunker shot leads to a sure bogey given the internal contouring.

[Mike_Young]

John,

Thinking intersecting slopes created by the use of three high points ...plus pull ups at one side or other in the rear. Those intersecting slopes make for some great movement without major internal contour.

Yep, I think Rory is dead on.  Ron Kirby once told me Dick Wilson used three mounds in some form for his greens and he got that from Flynn.

[MCirba]

Some of the best untouched early Flynn greens can be found at Cobb's Creek.

Very few know that although Wilson/Smith/Crump, et.al. designed the course, all of the man-made features including the greens were built by William Flynn.

The city never had money over the years to screw them up and the few that had to be rebuilt due to flooding we have very good early pictures of. 

The rest are original, and they are very good.

[Joe Bausch]

I have played 5 Flynn designs in the last 72 hours. Rolling Green, Manufacturers, LeHigh, Philly CC , and Lancaster CC . I would echo the comments of Rory.  Rolling Green and Lancaster stand out as having the most interesting/ diverse sets of greens that we played. Internal contours that keep you on your toes. I would consider the greens to be generally smallish to medium in size. Also, Bunkering greenside that effectively shrinks where a good miss is- ie , a short sided bunker shot leads to a sure bogey given the internal contouring.

http://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/RollingGreen_Oct2021/index.html


http://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/Manufacturers_2021/index.html


http://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/Lehigh/index.html


http://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/PhilaCC_2021/index.html


http://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/Lancaster_2020/index.html

[JNagle]

Not being in the office, I do not have access to some great drawings showing Flynn's grading plans for many of
his greens.  It is interesting to see his influence in the likes of Wilson and Gordon.  A quick study of their greens
will reveal a similar pattern of the three high points a various spots around the dial on their greens.  I was walking
Pine Tree just a few years ago studying this very thing.  Really making an effort to understand the placement of
the HP's and their impact on incoming shots.  We have rebuilt many Flynn greens over the years and I often start
with the premise of the three high points.  Most recently we even incorporated them into Gordon's work at
Whitford.

[Stephen Britton]

How much of East Potomac Golf Course and Rock Creek Park in DC are original Flynn?

[Ed Homsey]

Would it be sacrilege to suggest that Flynn may have learned something about the design and creation of greens from his construction of Travis courses at Westchester CC and Onondaga Golf and country Club?

[John Connolly]

Why would one suggest that?

[MCirba]

Stephen,

I'm not sure Flynn did much of anything at East Potomac Park...that was mostly Travis and Robert White with Dr. Harbin if memory serves.  I'll have to ask my Flynn expert.

I've not seen or played Rock Creek but we did have a good discussion here about its pre-Flynn origins a few months back that should be easily searchable.

[MCirba]

Ed Homsey,

As you know, in the winter of 1915 it was reported that Travis was helping out at Cobb's Creek (likely while in town with Crump trying to make Pine Valley a reversible course).  Im not sure what he was doing exactly as most construction was likely done at that point although Joe and I have our suspicions.

I'm certain a young Flynn would have been very open to learning from an experienced expert like Travis; in fact Flynn was very excited to do the work at Cobb's and made a special trip up to Massachusetts prior to construction to study features at Myopia, The Country Club (Brookline), Essex County, Braeburn, Woodland, and "several other leading courses of the state, seeking ideas.

[Ed Homsey]

Thanks, Mike.  I have not seen any reference to Flynn in connection with East Potomac Park.  OT--recently, I received the complete set of hole drawings for East Potomac Park, by Travis, including the reverse hole drawings.

My only interest in raising Travis's name relative to William Flynn's has to do with my interest in understanding the evolution of an individual's ideas or practices.

[Jonathan Sirois]

John,

Thinking intersecting slopes created by the use of three high points ...plus pull ups at one side or other in the rear. Those intersecting slopes make for some great movement without major internal contour.

I agree with Rory here, about the three high points and the push-ups - especially from the back. This is quite true at Kittansett. The famous par-3 3rd is a good example of the movement he referenced.


Of course, then you get to the par-3 11th, with about three feet of pitch from one half of the green to the next, and all ideas of convention are out the window.

[Rory Connaughton]

The three high point concept was brought to my attention by Jim Nagle a few years ago.

[John Connolly]

Great information gents, one and all. I appreciate the feedback.


A follow up thought: It would seem that Flynn greens are not considered as difficult, dramatic or intimidating as say Ross, MacKenzie or Maxwell greens. Is that a fair statement?

[Rory Connaughton]

John,

I do not agree with that conclusion.  They are subtle  so perhaps the lack of buried elephants makes their difficulty harder to discern on first look but those intersecting slopes can be very intimidating, especially when the greens are at pace

[Sean_A]

John,

Thinking intersecting slopes created by the use of three high points ...plus pull ups at one side or other in the rear. Those intersecting slopes make for some great movement without major internal contour.

Do folks think this concept is unique to Flynn?  I might be failing to grasp the idea, but I think I see many classic age greens which use this concept...is this not the case?


Ciao 

[John Connolly]

John,

I do not agree with that conclusion.  They are subtle  so perhaps the lack of buried elephants makes their difficulty harder to discern on first look but those intersecting slopes can be very intimidating, especially when the greens are at pace

Rory,
Perhaps Flynn's concepts would be categorized under "sublime," and those of the others mentioned "ridiculous." There is great potency in the understated.

[JNagle]

Great information gents, one and all. I appreciate the feedback.


A follow up thought: It would seem that Flynn greens are not considered as difficult, dramatic or intimidating as say Ross, MacKenzie or Maxwell greens. Is that a fair statement?

Subtle complexity - When viewed their internal slopes are not so apparent.  Yet, when played the slopes and varying degrees of change make for very difficult greens to read and putt.   

[Joe Bausch]

Some of the best untouched early Flynn greens can be found at Cobb's Creek.

Very few know that although Wilson/Smith/Crump, et.al. designed the course, all of the man-made features including the greens were built by William Flynn.

The city never had money over the years to screw them up and the few that had to be rebuilt due to flooding we have very good early pictures of. 

The rest are original, and they are very good.

http://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/CobbsCreek_May2020/index.html

[Joe Bausch]

Not being in the office, I do not have access to some great drawings showing Flynn's grading plans for many of
his greens.  It is interesting to see his influence in the likes of Wilson and Gordon.  A quick study of their greens
will reveal a similar pattern of the three high points a various spots around the dial on their greens.  I was walking
Pine Tree just a few years ago studying this very thing.  Really making an effort to understand the placement of
the HP's and their impact on incoming shots.  We have rebuilt many Flynn greens over the years and I often start
with the premise of the three high points.  Most recently we even incorporated them into Gordon's work at
Whitford.

http://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/PineTree/index.html


hhttp://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/Whitford/index.html

[Carl Rogers]

Have played the Cascades only twice and want to go back this summer. 

I am no great green reader, but I am not hopeless either.

But in contradiction to the pleasantly pastoral pictures, I find the green reading and putting to be very very counter intuitively subtle and thus very difficult.