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MCirba

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The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« on: January 09, 2018, 05:13:49 PM »
Sorry if this is redundant, but I don't recall seeing this before.

Evidently the mounds along the 12th at Garden City were part of the putting surface and part of Walter Travis' 1906 changes to the golf course.

From a September 1906 article in the NY Herald.  Scroll right to see them, please.

« Last Edit: January 09, 2018, 05:15:32 PM by MCirba »
"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge

https://cobbscreek.org/

MCirba

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2018, 05:34:17 PM »
Just realized I chopped off the article on the left hand column.   Here's the remainder;

"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge

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Ed Homsey

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2018, 05:51:46 PM »
That is an excellent find, Mike, offering the best description I've seen to date of the specific changes Travis made to the Garden City Golf Club's course.  In particular, I've wondered whether Travis could be given credit (or criticism) for the "dromedary" humps on 12.

mark chalfant

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2018, 01:02:28 AM »

Great find Mike !!




Some great use of 1906 language............ Travis .adding some forward tees  is touted as  a " Pacific Innovation"




neat info especially regarding  nine and twelve.


Didn't  Tillinghast  alter the first hole much later on ?

Tom_Doak

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2018, 02:55:23 AM »
Mike:  this is terrific stuff.  The Garden City archives did not have it.  I'd always assumed the mounds were Travis's work because the original 16th at Columbia had similar features, but I've never seen the proof!


I can't tell on my phone, though, if the work on #12 green was done before they shortened the hole into a par 3.  I've just assumed they(and the cross bunker in front of the green) were built as part of the original 290-yard par-4.

Kyle Harris

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2018, 08:55:53 AM »
Mike:  this is terrific stuff.  The Garden City archives did not have it.  I'd always assumed the mounds were Travis's work because the original 16th at Columbia had similar features, but I've never seen the proof!


I can't tell on my phone, though, if the work on #12 green was done before they shortened the hole into a par 3.  I've just assumed they(and the cross bunker in front of the green) were built as part of the original 290-yard par-4.

Hmm.

Seems like a neat idea to somehow incorporate a similar feature as part of both a Par-3 and a Par-4.

Oh wait...  ;D
http://kylewharris.com

Constantly blamed by 8-handicaps for their 7 missed 12-footers each round.

Thank you for changing the font of your posts. It makes them easier to scroll past.

MCirba

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2018, 10:44:56 AM »
Tom,

I'll see what I can find related to the par/distance of the hole at that time.   In the meantime, here's a Brooklyn Daily Eagle article from June of 1906 outlining the approved changes suggested by Travis.

"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge

https://cobbscreek.org/

Sven Nilsen

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2018, 11:17:19 AM »
Mike:  this is terrific stuff.  The Garden City archives did not have it.  I'd always assumed the mounds were Travis's work because the original 16th at Columbia had similar features, but I've never seen the proof!


I can't tell on my phone, though, if the work on #12 green was done before they shortened the hole into a par 3.  I've just assumed they(and the cross bunker in front of the green) were built as part of the original 290-yard par-4.


Pretty sure the 12th was shortened from 254 to 174 in 1908.
"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

Sven Nilsen

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2018, 11:22:50 AM »
The short pitch to the 12th.

Golf Magazine May 1907 -

"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

Sven Nilsen

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2018, 12:00:41 PM »
I'm guessing that this photo was of the 12th as well.

Aug. 1917 Golf Illustrated -

"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

MCirba

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2018, 12:04:15 PM »
If I'm interpreting correctly, it seems as though the 12th at Garden City started life as a par three length, was expanded to a short four length, and then quickly changed back to a three.

As Sven notes, it was indeed a 254 yard hole when Travis changed the green to include the mounds.

The progression;

From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle September 24, 1899;



This June 1906 NY Sun article shows that the changes being made are to the hole when it played 254 yards.



I believe Joe Bausch may have posted this article prior from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 7, 1908 that talks about reducing the hole length.




Of course, you can't please everyone as this critique of the 12th hole (and GCGC in general) by Leighton Calkins originally published in 1909 points out;





« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 12:11:12 PM by MCirba »
"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge

https://cobbscreek.org/

Sven Nilsen

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2018, 12:50:57 PM »
Mike:


Is the assertion here that the mounds were supposed to be part of the putting surface?


From the description in the first article you posted (calling them more in the line of cop bunkers) and the photos, I don't see how that could be the case.


Sven
"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

Sven Nilsen

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2018, 12:59:52 PM »
The 1900 Harpers Guide describes the hole as a 200 yarder named "Drive and Putt" and notes the par as 4.  (The Home hole is noted as a 3.)  A May 1900 Golf Magazine article notes the same distance but has the par at 3.


By the time the 1902 Official Golf Guide came out, the length had been increased to 260 yards.



Sven
« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 01:03:58 PM by Sven Nilsen »
"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

Rick Lane

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #13 on: January 10, 2018, 01:44:18 PM »
The 1901 Harpers Guide has it at 263.  I wonder if they were using "par" yet or still using "bogey"?
The 1901 guide does not say

Shorter holes, like the 18th at GC at the time, would be a bogey 3, but once you get much longer that , they became bogey 4? 

On our old 1899 card, we have a level hole at 145 which is bogey 3, another level hole at 228 which is bogey 4, a downhill 178 which is bogey 3, and a downhill 215 which is bogey 4.   

MCirba

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #14 on: January 10, 2018, 01:54:34 PM »
Mike:

Is the assertion here that the mounds were supposed to be part of the putting surface?

From the description in the first article you posted (calling them more in the line of cop bunkers) and the photos, I don't see how that could be the case.

Sven

Hi Sven,

Thanks for the additional information.

As far as my interpretation that the extreme "undulations" on the 12th were built to be maintained as part of the green, I may be wrong but it sounds to me like the author is saying that the proposed bunker changes are not as fierce as feared, but that the "undulations" on some greens resemble camel humps, are so "extreme" as to almost serve as "cop bunkers". 

Some of the headings suggest that, as well as the text.   To wit;

"Radical Efforts on Greens"

"Dromedary Lumps Described As Undulations On (italics for emphasis mine) Garden City's Putting Greens..."

"Dromedary Humps On Green"  with the following text description:

" At the fourth, and particularly the ninth and twelfth, one might more properly describe the "undulations" as modified cop bunkers.   At the ninth, however, there is a rational argument for the "cop bunker" plumb on the green.   In fact, this piece of Travis' ingenuity more resembles the union of a dromedary's two humps than anything else."...

"As regards the twelfth, the placement of the "humps" is sound, but surely their purpose would have been better served had they been more rolling and less precipitous, and perhaps the same argument applies to the ninth.   One swallow, however, no more makes a  summer than does one test of radical changes on a golf course, warrant a positive opinion."

Finally, the second paragraph provides some additional info:

"The radical departures, however, are on some of the putting greens, and when the turf has had time to settle down and is in true working order, then it can be determined whether Mr. Travis and his followers have not gone too much to extremes." 

Thanks again for helping flesh this out.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 02:04:09 PM by MCirba »
"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge

https://cobbscreek.org/

Sven Nilsen

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #15 on: January 10, 2018, 02:20:43 PM »
Here's how Travis himself described them in 1908:

"Playing the twelfth hole at Garden City the other day, I put my tee shot in the bunker to the right—where it usually goes—and in playing out, lodged the ball on the very apex of a conical mound about three feet high, which had stymied my approach. How the ball managed to stay there is an absolute mystery. I suppose I could try it a million times again, from any distance, and with any club, without getting it to stay right on the very pinnacle. And wonders did not cease there! From the top of that mound I holed the ball with a mid-iron! The hole is one hundred and eighty-six yards from the middle of the tee to the middle of the green. The tee is some twenty-two yards in depth, the theory of the hole being that a full shot is demanded, involving a carry of at least one hundred and sixty yards, the tee-plates being moved backward or forward, according to the wind. It is a very difficult hole. On either side of the green are large mounds, beautifully turfed, some five feet at the highest point, tapering down to nothing. Over these mounds a ball may be putted or pitched. Immediately in front, about ten yards from the edge of the green, is a very deep bunker with big sand piles on either side and a sand bunker semi-circling the green about 20 yards equidistant from the edge of the green. During the last Amateur Championship, this hole came in for a great deal of criticism, both favorable and otherwise, and was variously dubbed, the Camel; the Dromedary; the Goat; the Sea Serpent; the Sacred Cow; the Hog's Back; the Razor Back; the Gate of Hell; the Humps; the Hummocks; the Hillocks; Travis's trap; and Travis's travesty. As somebody very truly observed, a hole which lends itself so easily to so many names must have undoubted merits. It is one of the hardest holes I know of, anywhere."

From the early photos it is clear those mounds were not maintained at green height.  They may have technically been inside the edges of the green, but it wasn't until later that the mounds themselves were maintained as part of the green.

The articles leading up to the 1906 changes discuss how undulations were going to be added to a few of the greens (the 12th being one of them).  You can sense the author of your article's surprise at first seeing those "undulations" in person, and my read on what he wrote, in combination with the photographs and Travis' own description, is that these were not your normal green surface bumps or waves, but something completely different.  The author even goes so far as to distinguish the 2nd green from the 4th, 9th and 12th, noting it as the only one of the four where the term "undulations" could be applied.

I think this distinction is important, and is a different approach from what was done by CBM et al a few years later when developing the short at NGLA.  There, the contours in the green were clearly undulations within the green surface.

Sven
"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

Sven Nilsen

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #16 on: January 10, 2018, 02:47:44 PM »
To add a bit more color to the development of the 12th, here are a few additional photos (pretty sure most of these were "borrowed" from an earlier discussion on the hole found here - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59538.0.html):

From 1913 -



A later aerial -



Not sure of the date of this Life Magazine shoot (my guess is some time in the '30's), or if this is the 12th (the angle of the building seems off), but if it was you can see how the bumps were maintained at that time.



A 1949 aerial -

« Last Edit: January 14, 2018, 09:58:18 AM by Sven Nilsen »
"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

MCirba

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #17 on: January 10, 2018, 03:07:49 PM »
Sven,

Good stuff, thanks.

My eyes aren't as good these days but on some of those holes it seems that the mounds are cut about the same as the green surface, others not so much.

I did note that Travis mentioned that you could putt or chip over them, and they are clearly within the perimeter of the green.   Either way, they are pretty cool and I was glad to see them restored a few years back.
"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge

https://cobbscreek.org/

Sven Nilsen

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #18 on: January 10, 2018, 03:26:09 PM »
Mike:


Clearly not green surface.  They may have changed the practice later (and at some point probably lowered the height of the bumps), but no one is disputing that point.


Sven





"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

MCirba

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #19 on: January 12, 2018, 01:04:41 PM »
Sven,


It appears from the various photos that the mounds were maintained different ways at times.


It does seem by 1908 that Travis wanted the option to putt (or chip) over them so I don't believe he intended them to be rough covered.   
"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge

https://cobbscreek.org/

Bret Lawrence

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #20 on: January 13, 2018, 10:14:43 AM »
To add a bit more color to the development of the 12th, here are a few additional photos (pretty sure most of these were "borrowed" from an earlier discussion on the hole found here - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59538.0.html):

From 1913 -



A later aerial -



Not sure of the date of this Life Magazine shoot (my guess is some time in the '30's), or if this is the 12th (the angle of the building seems off), but if it was you can see how the bumps were maintained.



A 1949 aerial -




Nice find Mike!


Tom mentioned the similarity with the 16th green at Columbia Country Club.  Here are a few pictures of that green from the Library of Congress website.  I copied a few of Sven's photos above for comparison.




The last photo appears to have been taken during the 1921 US Open:
« Last Edit: January 13, 2018, 10:21:25 AM by Bret Lawrence »

MCirba

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #21 on: January 13, 2018, 11:14:13 AM »
Thanks, Bret. 


Would you happen to know if Columbia still has those features and if so, how they are maintained?


I'm hoping to get down and see that course someday.  It has always intrigued me.
"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge

https://cobbscreek.org/

Jon Wiggett

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #22 on: January 13, 2018, 12:49:02 PM »

Some really cool architecture shown in many of the photos. I love the mushroom bunker on the right of this photo. I wonder if it still exists today?



Bret Lawrence

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #23 on: January 13, 2018, 01:50:03 PM »
Thanks, Bret. 


Would you happen to know if Columbia still has those features and if so, how they are maintained?


I'm hoping to get down and see that course someday.  It has always intrigued me.


Mike,


I have never played Columbia Country Club, but the modern pictures of the 16th make me think these features no longer exist.  To my eye, the current 16th at Columbia CC looks a lot more like the 12th at Augusta National than the 12th at Garden City.  However, I have never played Columbia CC before, so I would defer to someone who has.


Here is a link to the club website, There is a picture of the 16th green and 17th hole in the pictures that scroll across the top of the homepage.:
http://www.columbiacc.org


Bret


Sven Nilsen

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Re: The Creation of the 12th at Garden City
« Reply #24 on: January 13, 2018, 08:20:00 PM »
Here's another look at Columbia's 16th with a brief description of how it played after it had been revamped.

Golfers Magazine June 1921 -

"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

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