At some point the messages transitioned from "I'm going to post about Galen Hall and Brigantine" to questioning my moral integrity as though I were missing some form of golf architecture epistemological imperative.
Mike Cirba is correct, as is normal, but this is an historic Penn State Mens' Basketball Team, among other earthly and spiritual distractions.
Galen Hall Golf Club is required study for anyone seeking to understand the history of Golf Architecture in American from 1910-1994. I try not to go all R****** with linking to my own blog here, but alas, it's germane and prescient and perhaps represents a voice from my past not so jaded by the disappointment of the stock golf architecture "connoisseur." I'm no Bradley Klein or Tim Gavrich, but perhaps I can become a better Kyle Harris from the past.
What now follows is a love letter in multimedia form.
A sense of place:
Is there a better introduction to any golf course than a first tee mere steps out the shop door?
The first hole:
https://kylewharris.com/2011/02/09/an-opening-hole-galen-hall-golf-club/Click the link. But there is no better statement about anything at Galen Hall than what is the first approximately 330 yards of golf. You're never quite comfortable but everything is apparent. There are a slew of options to mitigate your discomfort and the green, while perched, isn't completely inaccessible. Bogey isn't a *great* feeling but it is also understandable. Play away, please.
Galen Hall is a rare case of a golf course that has undergone consistent improvement with each subsequent renovation. Seven of the original nine Alex Findlay holes remain untouched and the bones of the other two either lie under trees and cart path, or an irrigation/mitigation dam. Perhaps we can call this the Jeri Ryan loop.
But we digressed here, while making the seemingly strange walk to the second tee.
It's not strange in situ, because you are walking up the original Par-3 second as you do so. Look closely in the photo on my blog link (click the link, said the click whore) and you'll notice a slight "shelf" in the woods to the right of the house. Dead level. Also apparent just right of the two spruce trees is another plateau. Welp. Tee and green for a tricky little pitch shot Par-3. It's all right there.
I don't want to talk about the current 2nd hole because I don't want to tell Ryan Farrow why he is wrong, again.
The third is a candidate for best hole on the golf course and I disagree with the idea that the 4th may be over the top. The fifth, though, is an interesting study. It was enough of a golf hole in the original iteration that Tillinghast wrote about it (this is the hole labelled "Wernersville" in which Tillinghast Society compilation you see that) and the golfer original played to the plateau that is currently the pond and then over to the current green site. Tillinghast called it an elbow and if one takes the time study Alex Findlay you realize this style of hole is a close to a template as Findlay ever had. The original tenth at nearby Reading CC was a downhill version and the fifth at Pitman Golf Course in New Jersey is a mirror image in this style. There is a SEVERE version at the very-nearby and needs-to-be-seen Manor Golf Club which involves a public road.
The current version of the fifth (then sixth) plays straight through the terrain Findlay wisely avoided in an era where drainage was done via exposed gravity. It's awkward, but fun, like so many of my dates.
I liked the bunkerless sixth before they added bunkers. I haven't seen it since they've added bunkers but the hole didn't *need* bunkers. That's fine though because they left the greensite alone. Bunkers can go away easily. We now traverse to the Galen Hall mystery spot. A gander to the right shows the severe uphill seventeenth - the eighth for Mr. Findlay - and a path to the left takes us to the first of the Tillinghast holes.
Somewhere in the gorge created by the creek coming off the mountain, our beloved and misunderstood Albert Warren had a short hole; which means an interation of Galen Hall had three Par-3s fanning like a peacock's feathers using the same feature. It also means that two of these had to play consecutively.
But it also means that Galen Hall has a body count of short holes. More on this later.
The seventh is a spectacular Par-3, so we're going to skip it. Just go play it already.
The vista from the eighth tee is nothing short of stunning and one finally sees the majority of the golf course in the valley beneath. Even the Moat Hole is visible, yet still shrouded in mystery. There's also a green right next to a barn.
It's as good of a time as any to say this because the eighth
green is NOT Tillinghast. Enter William and David Gordon, the overly maligned and underrated heirs presumptive to the William Flynn legacy. Our first introduction to their contribution is the attractively saddled eighth green benched into the hillside beguiling the third shots on this gigantic Par-5. You sense the stylistic change but the combination works because Tillinghast used a rather gentle (read: non-existent) hand on the first 550 yards of the hole. [size=78%]
So let's just get it out of the way. The Albert Warren Tillinghast holes at Galen Hall are in the bottom tier of golfing quality on the property. While the barn and the moat represent the high points of quirk, neither are the quirkiest holes, and the other holes are well...
Meh.
I will hear arguments about the 14th, however, but this is a love letter and an opinion piece. I need to start somewhere.
Moving on. The Gordon loop of the eighth green to the eleventh green takes advantage of property not available to Tillinghast because of subsequent land purchase. Additionally this stretch places into and out of Lancaster County (we're in Amish country, baby!) and due to the quirks of Pennsylvania's Byzantine Blue Laws the half-way house after the lovely Par-3 tenth operates under different rules than the clubhouse in terms of your libation and mid-round frankfurter.
The holes are a solid representation of an era that valued engineering frugality and practical golf. Each shot is interesting and the greens are both sited and contoured well. What the poorly named dark-ages lacked in quirk and originality the made up for with solid golfing interest. You're still going to misread the dastardly little 11th green.
Onward to the Par-5 twelfth and it's barn. As you pass the forward tee out of the chute of trees and look left to the eighth green you look across the last of the Par-3s in Galen Hall's body count of holes. A high-to-high affair that Tillinghast used to get across the valley along the original property line. I'm not sure much was lost.
I happen to like the thirteenth and it's severe little green-site. Fourteen, as I alluded to above, is a great study in restraint, difficulty, and using the ground to challenge the golfer, but golly when it rains the hole is a just a quagmire and the green is almost the very definition of "uninspired, throw-away, quirk" though I suppose if Donald Ross had mailed in the plan someone like Andy Johnson might have something to say about it.
We've talked the Moat Hole to death and I'm eager to get back to the Findlay finish, though the 16th may be the only golf hole I've played where the most apt description is "cute." The little greensite with it's bunker makes me giggle in a good way.
And now... the seventeenth
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Who in the name of Mucci-Red builds this kind of hole in 19-whatever!?I am a staunch defender of the loooooooong Par-3 (there's two OG GCA Poster references in two lines, pardner) and the 17th at Galen Hall is on my short list of "See? those guys did it too, hit your driver and shut up, please." The front of this putting surface was raised to accommodate modern green speeds and a few new hole locations, but the Findlay version must have been invitingly fun to see the ball chase up the hill. It wasn't until recently that I had faced a final tee shot that inspired me to absolutely crush a driver on a specific line like the ultimate shot at Galen Hall has.
That golf course was Cherry Hills and I succeeded in my one attempt at Cherry Hills. I've yet to do so at Galen Hall. But somewhere out there my ability, mental focus, and the rough-and-tumble landing area will conspire to create a tee shot that is, as they say, stupid long. I hope they don't mess with this green for the sake of creating more hole locations. I hope they don't mess with this course. I actually do hope you all go play it. Which is rare for a course I like. Y'all tend to ruin things by... discussing... them. Just go play.