Ocean Links- Digital Restoration

[Ronald Montesano]

Cannot wait to play this course.

[Mark Fedeli]

I’ve been closely following this thread and that last picture really makes the challenge and strategy of #7 clear. Thanks for posting it, Peter. I have a much greater understanding now.


I really hope you’ll do the original Biarritz course as your next project 

[Paul Rudovsky]

I really hope you’ll do the original Biarritz course as your next project 


Peter--

Original Biarritz is a good idea.  Other thoughts might be:

Original Tokyo Golf Club (Asaka)
Laksers (along Lake Mich north of Chicago)
CC of Havana

All three of the above NLE and were on the Tom MacWood "Spoof List" that purported to be the first top 100 list ever (published in 1939 or so).

Others to consider:

Original Fresh Meadow CC, NY (hosted US Open and PGA Championship in early 1930's)
Prestwick 12 hole course (used for initial 15 Open Championships)

Also guess your plate is fairly full right now.

[Peter Flory]

On the 3rd hole (Redan), I was just assuming that it was a R to L sloped Redan.  The hole goes diagonally toward the property line on the right side of the square block of land that it and the 4th hole are on.  However, based on the photo and the painting of it, it looks like a Reverse Redan.  The hole is written about a bit and that is never mentioned.

Super high back left shoulder and relatively low right side of the green in this photo.



In this painting, the back left shoulder doesn't look like it is there (either the painting is inaccurate or they added the shoulder later to help balls hold and/or feed).  This shows that the FW short of the green is tilted substantially L to R.  There was that oil rig thing out there that was a fixture I read, but it seems to be gone by the time the aerials were taken nearly 20 years later. 


It's strange to me that he didn't paint the land in the background across the bay. But in another painting of the Road Hole, he also looks like he omitted Newport CC and replaced it with a field with some hay bales.  So maybe just some artistic license.  The golf features look very specific and true as you can see from the grass formation in the right trap.

[Bryan Izatt]

Here are two more aerials - the first one not much different than Craig's but perhaps a bit clearer.  The second looks older and grainier but the features of the course are clearer.  The second one shows a lot of bunkering in the paddock where #1 and #9 were.  I wonder if the curved string of 5 bunkers was on the inside or the outside of the dogleg on the first hole?  Perhaps those bunkers were the reason players didn't try to go directly at the green rather than over the trees.





Although I don't put much trust in Google Earth's fine detail elevations, the ground level view does show a small hill about 70 yards from where the 7th tee likely was and on a line to where the green likely was.  It's peak is approximately 30 feet above sea level.  The teeing area appears to be 10 to 15 feet above sea level.  So, perhaps the report of a 30 foot hill is relative to sea level and not to elevation above the fairway.



Here is another picture that I think is from behind the 6th green looking out to sea.  Since the camera angle is down to the green, perhaps it was taken from the 30' hill.  Also notable are the two cops to the right, presumably backing the bunkers on the 5th hole.  Only one cop per pair of bunkers.  And, is that a lighthouse over the right hand cop?

[Peter Flory]

That bottom pick is from behind the Road Hole green (8th).  Apparently, the player hit over the green on this occasion. The cop on the right is the bunker that one of the residents there found in his yard and restored and you can see it as the last FW bunker in the 8th fairway in those aerials. 

The structure that you see in the background was a windmill and the 8th tee was just short of it.  That windmill is now an observation tower in the park.  I stumbled across a reference to that last night and knowing that the tee was there allows the hole to get to the distance on the card as the dogleg left adds some yardage. 

On that 1st hole in the distance, you can see why they said that driving right off the tee would give you the best angle to the green.

[Bret Lawrence]

Here are two more aerials - the first one not much different than Craig's but perhaps a bit clearer.  The second looks older and grainier but the features of the course are clearer.  The second one shows a lot of bunkering in the paddock where #1 and #9 were.  I wonder if the curved string of 5 bunkers was on the inside or the outside of the dogleg on the first hole?  Perhaps those bunkers were the reason players didn't try to go directly at the green rather than over the trees.

Bryan,


The first aerial is from 1939.  The second aerial looks like sometime prior to 1930, when the course was in play.  That’s a great aerial, I’ve never seen that one before.


If you look at the 1st hole on the second aerial, the hole almost appears to be straight.  The fairway starts out very wide and then bottlenecks after the string of bunkers. If it were considered a dogleg, the string of bunkers would be on the outside of the dogleg.  Here is a link to a very clear oblique aerial of the 1st and 9th holes.  The course appears to be going to hay, but you can still make out many of the original features if you zoom in on the link:


https://digitalcollections.smu.edu/digital/collection/ryr/id/553/rec/1


Bret

[Peter Flory]

Bret- thanks for that link.  That will be incredibly helpful.  Can even see most of the fairway lines.  This answers the question of why players wouldn't have automatically hit to the right on the 9th.  Besides that FW bunker on 1, there was rough over it from the line of the 9th tee.  So you'd have to go way right.  It still seems like the best play.  In the last Golden Mashie, the winner knocked it straight over the pine trees, which sounded like a daring and unusual feat. 

On 1, one of the write ups said the play was to drive it as far right as you dared (without going in the pine trees I suppose).  Going left was the safe route and left the trickier approach.  And they mentioned that if you drove it left in the bunkers or rough, you could basically kiss par goodbye. 

I believe that Mrs Tailer kept the course maintained until about 1932.  So that photo is very close to when it went truly fallow.  And for all I know, this was the type of condition that she was having it kept.  This is about 3-5 years into the great depression depending on the exact date of the photo. 

[Bret Lawrence]

On the 3rd hole (Redan), I was just assuming that it was a R to L sloped Redan.  The hole goes diagonally toward the property line on the right side of the square block of land that it and the 4th hole are on.  However, based on the photo and the painting of it, it looks like a Reverse Redan.  The hole is written about a bit and that is never mentioned.

Super high back left shoulder and relatively low right side of the green in this photo.



In this painting, the back left shoulder doesn't look like it is there (either the painting is inaccurate or they added the shoulder later to help balls hold and/or feed).  This shows that the FW short of the green is tilted substantially L to R.  There was that oil rig thing out there that was a fixture I read, but it seems to be gone by the time the aerials were taken nearly 20 years later. 


It's strange to me that he didn't paint the land in the background across the bay. But in another painting of the Road Hole, he also looks like he omitted Newport CC and replaced it with a field with some hay bales.  So maybe just some artistic license.  The golf features look very specific and true as you can see from the grass formation in the right trap.

Peter,


If you look at the aerial that Bryan posted, the Redan appears to be a Regular (right to left) Redan.  I think the picture was just taken from a strange angle, so it’s hard to see the right to left slope.  To me the highest point on the green appears to be the front right lobe.


Here is a picture with some markings to explain what I’m seeing and to show how it compares to the Yeamans Hall Redan (which was taken from a slightly different angle)







Courtesy of the Olmsted Associates Archives-



Bret

[Peter Flory]

Here are a few additional images to add to the collective knowledge base here. 

I'll attach them as large as it allows to preserve resolution- so scroll right to see it all.

This is #9 and #1 with Newport CC in the background.  Course appears to already be going fallow here judging by the 9th fairway.  But can still see a lot of the mow lines.



And here is a fantastic find by a RI resident Louis Falcone.  He's a fellow hickory golfer and has a strong interest in the history of Ocean Links.  https://www.instagram.com/ri_hickory_golf/?hl=en

He found this image in a 1933 books called Rhode Island Sports.  Totally obscure.

This photo may have been from a few years before, but surely after Tailer passed away and when Ms Tailer was keeping it afloat.  You can see that there is no sand in the sahara bunker on Hill to Carry.  These mow lines may not match the original version of the course, but it is still the only source I have that shows them.

On the Hill to carry hole, it looks like 3 bunkers short and right of the green, but it is actually 2 and the rightmost one is just blocked in the middle by a rise from this perspective.  You can see the windmill past that, which is still standing as an observation tower at the park.


With the lidar data and all of these great photos, I definitely have enough information to get 5, 6, and 7 nearly perfect.  I'll probably flesh those out first until they are complete and then branch out from there. 

Here is what that observation tower/ windmill looks like now:


Here was the Reef- the Budlong Estate that is also in that pic above:


When I was trying to research old newspaper articles 90% of them were cluttered with gossip about the Budlongs.  It was a surprisingly gossipy time and place. 

[Bret Lawrence]

Peter,


Recently found this in a 1927 Town & Country Magazine.  This shows some nice detail of the 6th green at Ocean Links: