Wicked Travis greens: CC of Scranton (a photo tour: broken links fixed!)

[GBoring]

Just completed the PA State Senior Am.  First state event since the renovation.  Course well received. 




http://www.pagolf.org/charts.asp?sfile=static/archive/2013_senior_am_story.html

[Mark McKeever]

Awesome.  Hopefully a sign of more things to come!

MM

[Ed Homsey]

I can imagine how well the course was received at the PA State Senior Am.  It is a terrific course that has some of the greatest Travis greens.  I stopped by there recently and was very impressed with the look of the course from the clubhouse.  With major tree removal, and major tall grass planting, the course is spectacular.  The new bunkering, though dramatically different from the original Travis bunkers on the course, is reminiscent of bunkering that Travis did at Hollywood Golf Club in 1917.  It is not a stretch to imagine that the new bunkering is consistent with the Travis philosophy gained from his extensive visit to Great Britain in 1901.  That trip was the source of his early ideas about golf course design.

Ed Homsey
www.travissociety.com  

[Mark McKeever]

Ed can you post a couple if the old Hollywood pictures for comparison?  Thanks!

[Ronald Montesano]

I had the great fortune to play this course this week. Greg Boring and Terry Hurst were great hosts and the members that stopped by to chat were informative and helpful. Despite a difficult (understatement) winter, Greg has the course in unbelievable (no hyperbole) shape. If dermatologists could do for teenaged skin what Greg did for CCS' greens, we'd have no more acne.

CCS has a marvelous set of Travis greens. 16 of them are original and the club seems to have plans to reclaim the other two. Numbers 9 and 18 are out of this world; numbers 10 and 7 are right behind, and the others are probably unlike anything you've seen if you don't know Travis.

The movement across the land is enchanting and there is a mixture of (mainly) up and down holes, and flat holes. I don't suffer from vertigo, but all great courses with topographical undulation need and have a balance between vertical and horizontal. There is great width and the rough is quite playable. If you lose a ball, you've really hit a goony.

It is unfortunate that the decision to not restore the bunkers to Travis' specs was made and carried out. CCS deserves to have its fairways and greens be the focal visual points of the round and too often, they are overshadowed by large, flashed-up bunkers.

I recommend this course to anyone with the opportunity to reach Scranton. Travis rejected four or five sites before settling on this one. Back in the day, Scranton was an energy capital of North America, not yet the butt of jokes in "The Office," so there was plenty of money to entice Old Walter J. to come to town and build a great track.

[Ian Andrew]

16 of them are original and the club seems to have plans to reclaim the other two.

15 - Greens 4,5 and 11 are not originals

[Ronald Montesano]

YOU"RE RIGHT!!! I forgot about 11. And our hosts even told us. #shameonme

[Ed Homsey]

Not to nitpick, Ron, but Travis was asked to inspect two proposed sites for the CC of Scranton course.  In his letter of June 6, 1925, he was emphatic in his recommendation for the site on which the course is built.  His letter contained an interesting appraisal of the land, including comments about routing that would avoid "holes running into the sun in the afternoon". 

Great that you had the opportunity to play CC of Scranton.   

[Ronald Montesano]

Nitpick all you want, Ed. As Kevin Lynch says, "your money's no good when I'm around."

Dr. Gershey wanted to say "hello" to you.

There may have been some embellishment on their (or my) part on the number of rejected sites.

[Richard Hetzel]

Great looking course Joe. I played Cape Arumdel 2 weeks ago for the first time and I see many similarities.

[Jim Sherma]

Wow!!! I played up at CC of Scranton on Friday and it is all that! Absolutely a wonderful old school course with possibly the best set of greens that I have ever seen. While the world probably does not really need a lot of Travis wannabe's making greens the original was really special based on the 15 greens that I saw. I'll have more to add when I get some time but suffice to say that everyone should try to make the trip up there. The staff treated us wonderfully and GCA'er Greg Boring, the superintendent, recognized my name on the tee sheet and came out to say hi. The course was in wonderful nick as Arble would say and the tree removal made for an awesome set of long views across the property. The greens were the fastest I've played all year but not by too much. Honestly there was no need to run them as fast as they were given the challenge in the contours, (I would guess they were running 11.5 to 12, maybe 12.5) saying that there were no clown's mouths and the pins all played fairly.

[Michael George]

The course looks really good.  I have heard that the course was underrated and was definitely something to see.   These pictures look like it could be even more than that. 

Unfortunately, the bunker style is simply terrible. The whole course looks so natural upon the land. The bunker style simply doesn't fit. I understand courses not wanting to restore a bunkering style that may be difficult to maintain.  So if they don't want to go back to the original Travis bunkers (which looked quite interesting, but with a ton of hand mowing accompanying it), I get it.  However, a classic grass faced style that Travis would have possibly used is at least needed.  This style is a scar upon the land as it looks wholly unnatural and doesn't fit the course.  Shame because it looks truly special otherwise.

[Jim Sherma]

The bunkering was jarring at times. I did not really think that any single bunker was too offputting but the different styles on the same hole was weird. The guys I played with, two club pros and a well traveled Hershey member, did not seem to find them as odd as I did. The flashed face bunkers were strange in that the tops of the lips were not at green height but rather 6-10 inches above green height with a sharp downhill fringe needed to tie back to the green. They did not naturally tie iback into the green surrounds at all but did serve to add quite a bit of required height to the recovery shot. They were effectively very deep bunkers and I am sure that travelling players that are not used to steep and deep must be shocked when they find themselves in some of them.

The strangeness of the bunkering did not lessen the joy of the course. Some renovation work like the the rebuilt 4th and 9th greens at Schuylkill are much more annoying to me than these bunkers. Does anyone know what these bunkers looked like originally? Maybe on the next investment cycle they will try for a more coherent style.

[Joe Bausch]

I've fixed all the broken links so these wonderful greens can be experienced again!

[Mark_Fine]

I played the golf course this summer. Highlight are the greens as everyone has said.  The greens have a tremendous amount of internal contour with surrounding mounding that is integrated into the edges.  The Marzolf bunkering is bold and artistic (though very arbitrary in regard to the grassing schemes).  Some bunkers have thick fescue surrounds on the back supports while many others are closely mown.  Most bunkers feature high flashed sand to the top edge maintained with the Austrailan method of firm compacted sand on the faces to drawn balls to the bottoms.  There are numerous drainage issues on the course and some of the mounding is a bit contrived/overdone.  Also many of the approaches need attention due to years of heavy topdressing.  Well worth seeing but unfortunately if you are a purist, [/size]much of the original Travis look/feel has been lost.  Still an excellent golf course.