A Mysterious Image

[Adam Lawrence]

I found the below painting by Harry Rountree the other day. It was on the site of a sporting gallery, and claimed to be Newport GC on the Isle of Wight.


Now, although Newport GC was founded in 1896 and has moved site since then, John Llewlleyn of Golf's Missing Links, has posted on my Facebook feed where the original course was, and it doesn't appear close enough to the sea to be the one in this painting.


What makes the image even more intriguing is that it's NOT one of the 64 plates that Rountree painted for Bernard Darwin's 1910 book 'The Golf Courses of the British Isles'. Nor is it one of the six courses he painted in about 1930 that appeared, in 1931, in the 'Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic Times' newspaper as 'Famous British Courses'. Now, those two series are the only known Rountree paintings of golf courses, so this one is unexplained. Where is it? When did he paint it? Why?

[Thomas Dai]

Adam,
Can you tell from the image you have if there is land on the horizon or just ships?
An initial suspicion, angles, cliffs etc, would be that it’s looking across the bay towards Ramsgate from the Princes/Sandwich/Deal area.
Atb

[Scott Warren]

Adam it wouldn’t surprise me if this is a picture of the 8th at Royal Cinque Ports.


That’s a spitting image of the green and its bunkering, the position relative to the beach, the position of the next tee and apparent direction of play of the next hole and the white cliffs (in this case at Ramsgate) in the distance.

[Tom_Doak]

I was going to suggest the same thing ... Deal before the sea wall was built.

[Adam Lawrence]

Yeah, I thought of East Kent too

[Marty Bonnar]

Hurrah!
What a knowledge base we have here.


https://www.royalcinqueports.com/hole_8

[James Boon]

Adam,


Funny, when I saw this on Facebook I immediately thought of the 8th at Deal, sorry Royal Cinque Ports  [size=78%] but it seemed from others that it was a confident ID as Newport so I naturally doubted my own sanity...[/size]
[/size]
[/size][size=78%]Cheers,[/size]
[/size]
[/size][size=78%]James[/size]

[James Brown]

It’s either Royal Cinque Ports or Sandwich, from the look of the dunes between the ocean and the hole, combined with the bay behind. 

[Adam Lawrence]

I think that's pretty conclusive. Thanks all. Now just need to figure out when it was painted.

[Scott Warren]

Adam,


I’ll have a flick through the club history to see when the sea wall was built exactly, but from memory it was the 50s or 60s so that’s probably not entirely helpful in ascertaining when this was painted.


There were some course changes made in the ‘30s that from memory involved the bunkering at the 8th — that may be more useful.

[Scott Warren]

Sea wall wasn’t built until 1979, so that’s - as expected - of no help!


Changes to the 8th between the wars were mostly superficial fiddling with the  bunkering and building a new tee, none of which is particularly useful for dating this painting, I’m sorry.

[Thomas Dai]

This is as close as streetcam goes to the hole folks have identified. The general view across tha Bay is there though - https://www.instantstreetview.com/@51.26974,1.386648,349.18h,1.29p,1z
As to the age, the players/caddies clothes, golf bags etc may give a clue, if you can zoom in sufficiently.
Atb

[James Reader]

Assuming it is the 8th at Deal, unless there was a bit of artistic licence being taken, the bunkering looks fantastic - even more so than today’s version.  The views without the sea wall are also incredible. I say all that as a huge fan of the course, having played it for the first time last summer.
As an aside, we rented the annex of the tudor-looking house you can see directly behind you if you spin round on the streetcam link in the previous post. Amazing location - right next to the 5th tee of RSG and 20 mins walk in one direction and you arrive at Deal, the same in the other and you’re at Princes.  Highly recommended!

[Peter Pallotta]

Atb - thanks much for that link.


It sure is my kind of eye candy.
We're still clearly in Middle Earth, but aren't in the 'Shire anymore...

[BCrosby]

Adam -


This thread is a reminder of the collective knowledge here at GCA. It never ceases to astonish me.


Long live GCA!


Bob

[Mark Chaplin]

Adam how accurate are the other images in the series? I agree it looks like the Kent coast and the angle from one of the three courses.


If his paintings are accurate I don’t think it’s the 8th at Deal, the land falls away to the left of the green down to bunkers rather than the bunkers being level with the green and lipped. Obviously it’s a long time ago and changes have been made but that’s a lot of sand to shift. Plus it’s a bit further from the sea.


I’m more inclined to think it’s probably a defunct hole at Princes. The timings around 1930/1 are the peak of Princes fame.

[Adam Lawrence]

I can't answer that question I'm afraid. But you should note that there is no evidence that this picture dates from 30-31

[Ally Mcintosh]

Has no-one got one of those RAF aerials from years ago?


I'm sure the sea wall was built because so much land was eroding, wasn't it - other courses have lost 100m of land in the same timeframe.


Mark C would be the man to know the land intimately but an old aerial would likely give the answer. What year was Princes rejigged?

[Scott Warren]

Ally,

The sea wall was built to reduce the impact of flooding on the region - towns and golf courses alike.

Deal lost two Opens to flooding and had countless other incidents of flooding due to North Sea surges that would flood the entire town and golf course.

This was 1978:





There is a great deal that suggests the hole in the picture is RCP #8. The difference in the bunkering left of the green is pretty superficial in the context of 67 years having passed since Rountree died, and about 100 since the earliest time that he may have painted it. 

[Mark Chaplin]

Ally Princes was destroyed in WWII and rebuilt after the war. Scott is partially right the sea wall was built to protect the town from flooding and as a by product the course is protected as well. Homes come before golf courses for rich Londoners! I cannot post pictures in here but there’s a well know photograph of a fishing boat sticking out of a Woolworths window in the High Street.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Another possibility is the 5th from the pre WW11 course at Princes.   

I can’t find the scorecard but from memory a Par 3 of over 200 yards. It played towards the sea and Princes is closer to the White Cliffs in Pegwell Bay than Deal. However, the flat area to the left of the green in the picture was not where the next teeing grounds were believed to be, whereas they are perfect for Deal’s 8^th to fit (as they are today).  The green was in the middle of the course so the angle and distance to the sea look right.
Today the green is the basis for the 8^th hole on the Dunes loop. Playing today from 90 degrees to the right of the picture, its shaped to help receive a downwind shot from the original tee.  In the Flyover there appear to be indentations for would have been the frontal bunkers. However Princes is full of such shapes and its anyone’s guess if they are old bunkers or shell craters.
https://www.princesgolfclub.co.uk/play/course-overview/dunes/8
 
Another great find Adam.

[Tony_Muldoon]

One curios thing, the golfer and caddy on the green appear to be watching the other, right handed,  golfer play back from a good way [size=78%]long Bartlett of the target. Of course it could be artistic license which begs the question of how accurate Rouwtree tended to be.[/size]



(Arguably playing from long of the green is ' not unknown' at Deal's 8th.)

[Niall C]

Adam how accurate are the other images in the series? I agree it looks like the Kent coast and the angle from one of the three courses.


If his paintings are accurate I don’t think it’s the 8th at Deal, the land falls away to the left of the green down to bunkers rather than the bunkers being level with the green and lipped. Obviously it’s a long time ago and changes have been made but that’s a lot of sand to shift. Plus it’s a bit further from the sea.


I’m more inclined to think it’s probably a defunct hole at Princes. The timings around 1930/1 are the peak of Princes fame.

Mark

A couple of comments;

The far side of the green looks like it may be lower than the green surface, and perhaps what Roundtree did was exaggerate the far lip of the far away bunkers in order to make them more visible in the painting. If you look at the near side bunkers they are in the face of a slope whereas the far side ones are perched as you point out. Maybe it was painted during Rowntrees impressionist phase 

The other thought I had was perhaps material on the far side of the green was used in the building of the sea wall and therefore the level back then was higher ?

Niall

[Adam Lawrence]

Niall -- pretty impressive to find two different ways, neither of them correct, to spell Mr Rountree's name

[Niall C]

Listen Adim, if I need any speling lessons from you I'll let you no.


Niall