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Paul_Turner

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #125 on: November 11, 2003, 05:47:35 PM »
"How are you so sure that the red lines are a working plan?"

Paul:

Have you seen face to face what we've been calling the second routing map that hangs in a frame in the front room of the clubhouse? One of the reasons I might refer to it as a "working plan" is because there's so much on it that appears to have possibly spanned a number of years--maybe two years, maybe even more. What all is on it certainly wasn't arrived at in May or June of 1913, in my opinion. The written and chronological record would indicate that to me.


Tom

Of course I've seen it, I sent you photos of it (+the superimposed pic) :D. Apart from around the 13/14 area, I don't think the red lines look iterative.  You don't see crossed out features, alternative greens...  It looks like most of it was drawn in one go.  Which made me wonder about an aerial pic, from much later.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2003, 05:48:25 PM by P_Turner »
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #126 on: November 11, 2003, 06:18:02 PM »
Tom MacW:

I don't agree with you that the working routing was finalized in 1914. Crump may have stopped using it at some point but there's so much going on in and around holes 12-15 in the written chronological record as well as that working routing. Even photographing it properly doesn't seem to show much. You have to really stand very close to it to see some of the now faint detail.

As far as I know it's sort of hard to say when Crump (or Tillinghast) or whomever it was actually discovered that green site which is today the 13th green and put it on the routing map. But the 12th green and the 14th holes are the most interesting to me as to timeframe and significance of when everything feel into place for Crump in both exact routing and hole design (I really do hope you understand what the real distinction and significance is to me when I use those two terms!!). The 14th hole alone had numerous iterations on the working routing and in other places.

All we really know from the written record (remembrances) is that Crump was not happy about the way #15 was evolving in a design way (not necessarily routing) and those were the last words he spoke with Carr. That likely was after the turn into 1918 as Carr and Crump saw each other so frequently, apparently. That to me sets a significant timeline--and that is that Crump was still confused as to how to finalize at least that hole maybe one or two others (12 & 14). That is why Merion, The Wilsons and Flynn were called in to finish them off perhaps a year and a half after Crump's death when everything ground to a halt for that reason alone!

Then there's something else that I still can't really figure out and that's the other set of individual hole drawings that no one seems to know much about. When were they done, who did them, etc? They had to have been done at the time or before Travis submitted his reversible course plan (1915) because Travis used those individual hole drawings as the "before" (normal way) to his comparative reversible plan hole drawings and submission to Crump--something Crump obviously did not accept (the reversible plan).

Who did them, and architecturally in both routing and design they appear to be very close to the way PVGC eventually got built with a few notable exceptions. What are those notable exceptions? Ah ha, they're #12 (which does not exist), #13 which in bunkering is quite different and #14 which is a completely fascinating NGLA style cape hole that goes sideways to the way #14 got built! And #15 in bunker design is basically nothing like how it was built! Were these the things that were concerning Crump among other things such as WW1 and agronomy and whatever else such as reworking the holes he had in play? Probably all of it.

But who did those other hole drawings that are quite exact other than what was mentioned above? The style is very unique--seeming to be relatively rudimentary (like Crump?). If one were to ask me I'd say they could be Crump but more likely Travis as they're very much like the reversible hole drawings he did. The details of the style between the normal routing  hole drawings and Travis's reversible hole drawings are just enough off, though, to give one pause. Gil Hanse is dying to figure this out--he really likes that odd drawing style and has even thought of copying it occasionally. But he would love to know whose it is.

Perhaps you can figure that out. That would certainly help!

TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #127 on: November 11, 2003, 06:51:36 PM »
From Paul Turner's post #109;

"My feeling is that the red pen is Crump's.  And that it's a sketched copy of an aerial photo.  Would love to find this aerial if it exists."

From his post #125

"Of course I've seen it, I sent you photos of it (+the superimposed pic). Apart from around the 13/14 area, I don't think the red lines look iterative.  You don't see crossed out features, alternative greens...  It looks like most of it was drawn in one go.  Which made me wonder about an aerial pic, from much later."

Paul:

Yes, you did send me photos of it but I've basically used my own approximately 15 snapshots of it in my file as they're closer to it. And that transposition of the second routing map onto the first stick routing map was brilliant work on your part--really brilliant. That kind of thing does make it so much easier to pick out even minor little changes and adjustments versus comparing two separate routings side by side.

Maybe I'm getting dense or burned out on this thread but I'm not really following why you're saying that you think the second routing map that hangs on the wall in the club house might be a sketch from an aerial picture or even an aerial picture. Why would you say that? What do you think the significance of that would be?

If PVGC is reading all this stuff, and I'm sure you are, I know you think we're nuts. We are nuts but I hope you don't mind all this. We're only doing it because we love your golf course so much and for me I'm trying to prove this English Heathland/Colt advocate and maniac wrong about some of the really dreadful things he's said about our man George and even all of you.

If he proves me wrong there's no doubt we'll all just have to accept it, I guess, but if I do eventually prove him wrong I hope you'll join me and have him officially removed from the United States of America for at least five years so he can properly repent before returning. This damn vestige of that old "Empire Mentality" of these English has got to end. As for his henchman from Ohio--I don't know what we'll do with him but we'll think of something appropriate, I'm sure!

Paul_Turner

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #128 on: November 11, 2003, 07:12:24 PM »
Quote
All we really know from the written record (remembrances) is that Crump was not happy about the way #15 was evolving in a design way (not necessarily routing) and those were the last words he spoke with Carr. That likely was after the turn into 1918 as Carr and Crump saw each other so frequently, apparently. That to me sets a significant timeline--and that is that Crump was still confused as to how to finalize at least that hole maybe one or two others (12 & 14). That is why Merion, The Wilsons and Flynn were called in to finish them off perhaps a year and a half after Crump's death when everything ground to a halt for that reason alone!

Then there's something else that I still can't really figure out and that's the other set of individual hole drawings that no one seems to know much about. When were they done, who did them, etc? They had to have been done at the time or before Travis submitted his reversible course plan (1915) because Travis used those individual hole drawings as the "before" (normal way) to his comparative reversible plan hole drawings and submission to Crump--something Crump obviously did not accept (the reversible plan).

I'm convinced that the design of 14 was set before Crump died and it was definitely partly built.  You can see it in the background in the photo of the 16th in Colt's photo book, which was sent to him by Crump.  The site for the island 15th tee is also shown explicitly in Colt's photo book.  

Note that Travis calls the plans "engravings" (TEP you don't have the second part of Travis's reverse article i.e. the solution to the reverse puzzle) and they do have 3D look to them.

About the plan, it just looks to my eye that the red lines were drawn with a single pen and in one go.  And that would be more likely at the end of the building phase, rather than the beginning.  Possibly copied from an aerial photo.  Does it really look to you as if someone (Crump?) has added features piecemeal over a few years?  Why the same pen?

You lot are far too sensitive  ::)  I'm hardly the first to claim that the easiest way to wind up a PV member is to question the design credit; that's old hat  ;D.
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

T_MacWood

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #129 on: November 11, 2003, 08:13:17 PM »
I agree the Red pen looks to be drawn in one go...with the exception of the 13th. The 13th was altered in 1914 or earlier. Tillie wrote about it in March 1915, but it was already in place in December 1914 when Dr. Carr described the holes. At that time the 13th was a long approach (cleek) and the 14th was a drive and pitch (the Cape). Colt had the 13th as shorter hole and the 14th as a longish par-3. When they lengthened the 13th it necesitated altering the 14th. The Travis etching actually shows that the Cape 14th could bre play as a par-4 or shorter par-3, not unlike the par-3 in the Red routing.

TE
I agree with your take on Finegan's book. Although he covers the architecture to a certain extent, that was not his focus. It doesn't appear he looked into it in great depth, once he accepted the idea that Crump produced the routing prior to Colt's visit, he probalby concluded there wasn't much to look for.

TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #130 on: November 11, 2003, 08:17:18 PM »
Paul Turner said;

"About the plan, it just looks to my eye that the red lines were drawn with a single pen and in one go.  And that would be more likely at the end of the building phase, rather than the beginning.  Possibly copied from an aerial photo.  Does it really look to you as if someone (Crump?) has added features piecemeal over a few years?  Why the same pen?"

Paul:

Some interesting points--the kind I like to consider. One might even call them deep research considerations.

Why do I tend to disagree with you that those red lines probably weren't drawn in a single go? Think about it--basically commonsense. Plug in what we do know. Crump and Govan were shot testers despite what you and Tom MacWood might think about that.

I'll guarantee you when Jim Finegan wrote that in his history of PVGC and in pretty interesting detail he sure as hell didn't make that fact of shot testing up out of whole cloth, no matter what you guys think. I know Jim--I have a real feel for the way he researchs and writes--I've sure read all his stuff. Jim reads research documents, sometimes he quotes pertinent remarks and information, but mostly he writes what he reads from actual research information in his own narrative. But the facts are pretty exact in his narrative---often the narration is a reformation, in some way, of the quote that's actually recognizable. That's the only way TO WRITE WELL, in my opinion--who wants to read endless quotations? Jim Finegan, above all else, in this context, is a great writer--a writer who has a completely fascinating style and turn of phrase and technique. If you know Jim you can actually see his own personality in his writing and you can see his fascinating speaking style too--the very thing Kelly Blake Moran was amazed at just the other day. But Jim has never been an elaborator on research--he reports it, even in narrative form, basically the way it is and the way it comes off the research page to him.

Plus, I'm told those PVGC archives have a ton of letters in them--from Crump and others and all kind of this and that stuff. And we have to remember--the things we're looking at might be just a small part of what's in those archives that we've never seen.

So think about it--if Crump and Govan were shot testers, and they surely were, even if they were shot testing a plan that Colt had given them while at PVGC or even sent to them from England, it takes a lot of time to shot test, to consider what it means, how you want to tweak or change things, what you might want to do with bunkering, this or that. That all takes time maybe a lot of time to consider. If you're building and shot testing and thinking you might even take a month on a hole and still not be satisfied and finished. We do know from written reports that Crump considered a ton of things that he build to be temporary to come back and improve later. Probably the very reason he said he was never going to finish working on PVGC!

We sure do know that Crump was in no real hurry--taking five years and not being done is a ton of time in any time on any project--and still not done. Don't forget, again, when Crump was asked when he finally would finish PVGC his answer was "NEVER!"

So it's logical to me that the red lines may have taken time and a lot of it--and they probably were piecemeal. Why are they all red lines if it took time and a lot of it?

Well, now you're getting into some things, similarities and  analogies that Wayne Morrison and I have picked up on without a question of a doubt from our Flynn research.

Flynn used a rusty colored pencil for years to make routing and design changes on working routing maps in the field. Why? Who really knows but think about it because it's basically commonsense, common habit, whatever. Maybe there was a stationery store next to his office and maybe he just liked a rusty colored pencil. Furthermore in a working, communicating sense it's consistent, it's understandable, those who are working for him, foremen, constructors, whatever, can recognize it easily, who it is easily--whatever.

Why would the lines even if over years (piecemeal) look to you like 'one go". I don't know about you but when I did routing map drawings I tried to make it consistent--call me anal or whatever but I think most people doing that kind of thing on a working routing would basically do the same.

It wasn't like Crump had a Xerox machine spitting out endless copies of the topo map and even if that were possible, habit, particularly in those days sort of makes you keep it all together on a single copy for obvious reasons. You should see the Flynn working routing of Shinnecock--frankly, it's beautiful, it's tattered, and a form of an evolutionary architectural roadmap of that project!

I still have the working routing map drawings I did of about 500 hours on Ardrossan Farm and it's all pretty consistent because I think that's basically human nature. Call it a style!

« Last Edit: November 11, 2003, 08:36:03 PM by TEPaul »

TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #131 on: November 11, 2003, 08:22:48 PM »
"I'm hardly the first to claim that the easiest way to wind up a PV member is to question the design credit; that's old hat."

You're right you aren't the first--and you probably won't be the last to get thrown into the proverbial dust-bin either!  ;)  
« Last Edit: November 11, 2003, 08:42:06 PM by TEPaul »

Paul_Turner

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #132 on: November 11, 2003, 08:44:07 PM »
Tom

Which chapter does Finegan write about shot testing?  I have part of 2 and all of 3.

If the red details and shot testing patterns were drawn in piecemeal, I'd expect to see more alternative holes and hazards crossed out... A bit like the stick plan where there are lots of crossings out and alternative greens...   Just more iterations.  So, I believe the red was possibly drawn in one go and towards the end of Crump's life.  

I just sent you clearer copies of the stick plan, have you got these?

Don't worry, I won't grill Finegan at the winter meeting ;)  I'm sure it never crossed his mind that he'd be writing for fanatics like me and thee.
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

Paul_Turner

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #133 on: November 11, 2003, 08:51:37 PM »
PS

The club should add in Colt's large bunker on the right of the 11th.  It would look perfect "torn out" of that ridge: it would add visual appeal to the tee shot.

Maybe the big one on the left hand side of the 17th too.  Catch the chicken shot left.

I know there's zero chance of this happening!
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #134 on: November 11, 2003, 08:58:39 PM »
"Tom
Which chapter does Finegan write about shot testing?  I have part of 2 and all of 3."

Paul;

Are you serious?? Do you mean to tell me you don't have Jim Finegan's book either and haven't read it all? I don't know what I'm going to do with you two. Tomorrow I might have to report you two to the International Committee on Proper Standards and Etiquette of Golf Architectural Research, the CIA, NIA, or perhaps even the Thomas Nacarrato Investigation Center. You two are a blight and a bad name to all of golf architectural research.


TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #135 on: November 11, 2003, 09:33:38 PM »
"Maybe the big one on the left hand side of the 17th too.  Catch the chicken shot left."

Preposterous!

You people have no understanding at all. That hole is semi-fine the way it is--although, it should have it's alternate fairway restored--Sssssssh, neither of you two have the vaguest understanding of the ramifications of that restoration and with your "off the wall" research technique and scatter-shot criticisms could be nothing other than completely dangerous to its consideration!

A bunker on the left of the fairway on #17 would be ridiculous--Colt was an idiot for suggesting it or drawing it! No wonder George Crump was forced to spend five of the last years of his life fixing that original Colt routing and design plan into what it is today. I don't know why G.A. Crump hired that prissy English tight-ass in the first place. The $10,000 payment fee was obviously a publicity hoax in 1913 of a relatively inexperienced architect who had a incredible learning curve in front of him but didn't exactly realize it at the time--eg in the first half of 1913 when he mistakenly called for him in the first place.

We have a very valid little saying here in Philadelphia which is basically;

"All things that are in Canada, even temporarily, should remain in Canada and never enter the United States of America!"


Paul_Turner

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #136 on: November 11, 2003, 09:38:45 PM »
Tom

So where is the shot testing stuff?  

That book is bloody expensive!

Do you think that the 1st green is natural?  The contours suggest it is!  I thought it was built up, but perhaps not.
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

Paul_Turner

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #137 on: November 11, 2003, 09:40:32 PM »
PS

Tom

What does Mark Twain have engraved on his tombstone?
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #138 on: November 11, 2003, 10:02:31 PM »
"Tom
So where is the shot testing stuff?"

The entire Govan material is in Chapter 2 but obviously neither you nor Tom MacWood have it and I'm not giving it to you because not only are you dangerous to competent architectural research you're becoming dangerous to decent humanity.

What do you mean bloody expensive? Didn't your Mom tell you no go things in life are free? I'll get the both of you copies but it'll cost you $500 each--that'd be $110 cost to me and $375 in whiskey money to be distributed by me to those I deal with!  


TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #139 on: November 11, 2003, 10:05:50 PM »
"PS
Tom
What does Mark Twain have engraved on his tombstone?"

What's this--like one guess?

Ok, fine!

"If you don't like the weather in Boston, just wait a minute because it'll change."  ??

Paul_Turner

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #140 on: November 11, 2003, 10:10:58 PM »
Oops! It was W C Fields and his tombstone:

"I'd rather be here than in Philadelphia"
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #141 on: November 11, 2003, 10:18:11 PM »
OOps nothing--I could see that one coming a mile away but I thought I'd just let you fall into it all by yourself! Just another example of shoddy research but you're getting better--that one only took about five minutes to correct!  ;)

TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #142 on: November 11, 2003, 10:22:43 PM »
"I'd rather be here than in Philadelphia"

I'm not surprised at that either! You blew the reseach on that too.

On W.C Fields's Tombstone (albeit apparenty apocraphal) is:

"All things considered I'd rather be in Philadelphia."

T_MacWood

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #143 on: November 11, 2003, 10:24:34 PM »
TE
"We sure do know that Crump was in no real hurry--taking five years and not being done is a ton of time in any time on any project--and still not done."

Are you certain Crump wasn't in a hurry? It appears to me that the length the project took had nothing to do with Crump's patience. Did he have unlimited funds? Didn't he face numerous unexpected hurdles? Didn't his fiancé die during the project? Depending on the accuracy of some reports regarding the circumstances of his death, it appears he was at the end of his rope.   If the reports are true, he was in many ways a tragic figure and I don't think Finegan was able to capture that important aspect.

In my experience the truth is nearly always more interesting than the story commonly told.

Strangely quiet is the Valley;
Through the clouds, the new moon shines;
Now the whimp'ring winds of winter
Brings a murmur from the pines.
Listen to the moaning night-wind.
For the whispers sadly say: --
"How desolate our Valley Since George has gone away."
"Men may raise a shaft of marble
And make words in chiseled lines,
But his true shrine, everlasting,
Shall be here among the pines; --
In the hearts of those, who loved him,
Deep in hearts of men, who'll say; --
'How desolate our Valley
Since George has gone away.'

--AW Tillinghast
« Last Edit: November 11, 2003, 10:30:58 PM by Tom MacWood »

Paul_Turner

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #144 on: November 11, 2003, 10:27:21 PM »
Like PV there seems to be a lot of confusion:

http://www.ericcreative.com/work_etchings_wc_fields.htm

can't get to heaven with a three chord song

TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #145 on: November 11, 2003, 10:35:41 PM »
Eric Shenker?

The man is as confused as you and Tom MacWood! If he's right Ronald Reagan blew one of the all time great impromtu lines of his life!

TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #146 on: November 11, 2003, 10:38:38 PM »
Good Night Paul--get a good night's sleep for tomorrow I'll be waiting before you wake!  :)

ian

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #147 on: November 11, 2003, 10:58:08 PM »
Tom Paul,

"All things that are in Canada, even temporarily, should remain in Canada and never enter the United States of America!"

Ouch!

Tom P, Tom M and Paul,

Keep going, I'm enjoying what I'm reading (except the Canada crack ;D), I'm waiting for you guys to finally solve all this. I have the routing plan from the maintenance building, do any of you have something digital to show me the plans from the clubhouse. Apparently, they won't let Colt Canadians in the clubhouse (something to do with Colt I hear).

Ian

TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #148 on: November 11, 2003, 11:41:40 PM »
""All things that are in Canada, even temporarily, should remain in Canada and never enter the United States of America!"

Ian:

Don't you worry about that remark one little iota. I'm sort of used to saying that because my best friend and his wife who live one place over from me are Canadians from London Ontario and I tell them that every other time I see them and they tell me how could they ever have been so dumb as to let me talk them into moving down here next to me!  ;)


TEPaul

Re:Harry Colt
« Reply #149 on: November 11, 2003, 11:49:19 PM »
"I'm waiting for you guys to finally solve all this."

It's been solved Ian--I'm just waiting for these two Coltists to figure it out. They think I'm a Crumpet but they don't know anything. Their criticizing the hell out of PV and Jim Finegan and neither one of them have ever had their mitts on his book. This is a lowpoint in the history of golf architectural research!