Garden City Golf Club #16 Overlay

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff Brauer,

The pond is not the lowest point within a reasonably short distance.  There are lower areas not far away, and out of play
The pond is also very shallow, and needs a tap to keep it wet on occassion.

On many an occassion I have observed wet bunkers adjacent to greens.  In many cases, relocation of the greenside irrigation heads, and different heads, have solved the problem.

Large trees that shade an area, preventing the sun from drying it out can also be a contributing factor.
I forget what Tommy's current picture of the hole looked like, but are there any nearby trees that could contribute to this  problem ?

TEPaul,

I maintain that Travis NEVER put bed of asparagus mounds immediately adjacent to the green, where the old bunker was.  It seems contrary to everything he did at GCGC regarding mounds and their proximity to the greens.

Why do you insist that the bed of asparugus mounds were immediately adjacent to the green, where the bunker was ?
What evidence do you have of that ?

P.S.  You're missing the global issue.
        The referendum before the club today is simple.
        should the pond stay or go ?  If the vote is, the pond  
        stays, then you'll never be able to put back what Travis
        or Emmett designed to be there.   Don't you get that
        So, you must deal with the immediate and real issue,
        Does the pond stay ?  It's a simple YES or NO vote,
        But, with dire global consequences if the answer is YES.
        Please tell me you get it !

[ed_getka]

YES the pond should stay, unless you guys have a ton of money lying around that you are dying to spend. IF there were no water ANYWHERE on the course, I could see eliminating the pond.
  From my one very enjoyable visit the two things that should by changed IMHO are 1) the aiming flags that show hazard location on at least one hole (NO WAY that those flags were originally there I would bet) and 2) change #12 to be more in keeping with the rest of the course (I don't think going back to the original design of that green would make much sense at todays green speeds.
   

[TEPaul]

"Why do you insist that the bed of asparugus mounds were immediately adjacent to the green,  where the bunker was?"

Here's why;

"The undulating theory was pushed to the limit on the 12th green according to the writer (Pottow) and a "hazard of a distinctly original type" was installed at several holes, including to the left of the 16th green. One writer described it as an "asparagus bed hazard," another likened it to "a dozen huge nutmeg graters laid side by side." Needless to say the mounds were controversial but Travis would still not be satisfied with the paltry changes. Over the decade he would head the green committee and then quit and vow to have nothing more to do with it. Later he would be right back in the thick of it, and so it went at his home course into the 1920s."

So you maintain that he never did anything like that next to a green do you Pat? Well, why do you maintain that? Do you think some of these people who wrote back then about 100 years ago were just making things up? What are you basing your maintenance that he never did anything like that on? Maybe you haven't read that before, and maybe you should. Maybe you should then see if that writing can be match to some old photograph for confirmation. Or are you just basing your belief on the fact that when you go out on the course you don't see anything like that? Well that's not the best way to go about researching restorations.

 

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Once again, you've got your facts wrong.

The 12th green had two large mounds in the green, one on the left and one on the right side.

They were large, they did not resemble beds of asparagus.

Your stretch is mind boggling.

The beds of asparagus mounds were left of the 16th green, they still are, but they weren't immediately adjacent to the
16th green, like the bunker was.

Examine CDishers pictures more closely, then perhaps, you'll start to get it.

You still don't seem to grasp the immediate problem.

Where is Coorshaw when you need him ?

[TEPaul]

"P.S.  You're missing the global issue.
        The referendum before the club today is simple.
        should the pond stay or go ?  If the vote is, the pond  
        stays, then you'll never be able to put back what Travis
        or Emmett designed to be there.  Don't you get that
        So, you must deal with the immediate and real issue,
        Does the pond stay ?  It's a simple YES or NO vote,
        But, with dire global consequences if the answer is YES.
        Please tell me you get it!"

I must've missed that P.S.;

Pat, Jesus Christ, no wonder you people at that club are having such a hard time getting anything done. You've got a bunch of people up there, including yourself, who're screaming at each other that this is just a simple yes or no answer either way and now the whole thing is in a membership referendum to be decided by a simple yes or no answer.

The f...ing question isn't simple Pat, and that club, that board, that committee should not have tried to make it look simple if that's what they've done or are doing. The best thing GCGC could do now is to cancel that referendum and go back and do your homework--do your research, inform the membership of it and then ask them to make an informed decision with enough information to make an informed decision.

You people up there, if they're doing things the way you say they are are doing things ass-backwards, putting the cart before the horse and trying come up with an answer before the right questions have been asked.

How many times do I need to tell you Pat--it's not a simple question so stop trying to get a simple answer!!! I don't care if it's a referendum, a gun to the head or a ticking time bomb, it's not a simple question and you people should not be trying to get a simple yes or no answer!

 

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Please tell me you're not serious with that post #80 of yours. Go back and read that quote again about the 12th hole and the 16th hole and then come back on here and tell me if you've figured what the word "and" means in that quote. The writer didn't say the 12 hole had "asparagus bed mounds" next to the 12th green or on the 12th green--he said they were to the left of #16 green.

Since you're into simple questions and simple answers here's one for you. Who designed and built that bunker to the left of #16 green in Craig Disher's photo and when?  Once you've answered that then we (and the club) can begin to move on logically! I don't want to hear you say "I maintain" or "I assume" either--I want you to prove who designed and built that bunker and when and if you can't prove it just say so.

[T_MacWood]

The aspargus hazard was a series of elongated half barrels...Travis put them in 1906. I reckon they were an experiment he wasn't totally statisfied with...I do not any survived the 1940 aerial and as far as I know he never utilized them in his subsequent designs. travis called in Colt to advise when he was visiting the States, and I feel confident he would have advised Travis to get rid of them.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

Can you show us where it says that Travis's "asparagus bed hazards" were a series of elongated half barrels and where it implies that Colt came to GCGC and advised him to take them out?

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

I’m just wondering about that bunker on the old aerial on this thread. Here are some of the things you seem to be saying or implying on this thread about it and who may have done it;

“The 16th in the old aerial is the work of Emmet--that was his pet project.”

“rgkeller
If you'll read my last post...I said the hole was Emmet's pet project.”

“rgkeller
I was wrong...it was Emmet...I should have checked my notes before posting.
Emmet is Chauncy the greenchairman?
It would be even funnier if the members of the club make architectural/restorations decisions without having a good understanding of their own course's evolution.”

“rgkeller
Have you read the original article?”

“I have no doubt that the Travis and Emmet heritage are taken seriously at GCGC....you, however, don't appear to take it quite as seriously....based on your view of the pond and the jokes about Emmet's work at #16. Do you know when Emmet (aka Chauncy) performed his work at #16?”

“rg
The bunker is Emmet's. Emmet, Travis, Tillie, Colt, RTJ, Doak...it wouldn't matter who did it, the bunker is much more in character with historic GCGC. Do you have any idea when Emmet performed his work at #16?”

“rg
God help GCGC. Oh yes you were all over that bunker not being Travis's...I think you said it was the work of Chauncy.
Shortly after Travis's death Emmet modified the 4th, 7th and 17th greens. He also redsigned the 16th into what the great American golf writer (and underrated architectural scholar) HB Martin called "a hole which many experts consider architecturally perfect." Ironic that Hubbell and Emmet would design an 18 hole course that would be totally revamped by Travis...more or less making the course his own...then after his death a more seasoned Emmet would re-establish his stamp.”

Tom MacW;

I’m completely confused. Do you have anything at all on who built that bunker to the left of #16 green or if Emmet did and if not what exactly are you saying of trying to imply in those remarks above? I just can’t figure it out.

[T_MacWood]

TE
On another thread I had mistakenly credited Travis for the bunker....which rg pointed out.

[T_MacWood]

TE
Regarding the aspargus hazards...as I said in a previous post they were described in an article in 'The Illustrated Outdoor News' Novemeber 1906:
"another critic has likened it to a 'dozen huge nutmeg-graters laid side by side'"

The article also has a very good photo of this type of hazard...elongated half barrels is good description for those not into haute cuisine.

Colt came to GCGC to advise. Did I write that he advised them to take them out? I meant to write he likely would have advised them to get rid of them based on their awkwardness and unnatural appearance.

[rgkeller]

"P.S.  You're missing the global issue.
        The referendum before the club today is simple.
        should the pond stay or go ?  If the vote is, the pond  
        stays, then you'll never be able to put back what Travis
        or Emmett designed to be there.  Don't you get that
        So, you must deal with the immediate and real issue,
        Does the pond stay ?  It's a simple YES or NO vote,
        But, with dire global consequences if the answer is YES.
        Please tell me you get it!"

I must've missed that P.S.;

Pat, Jesus Christ, no wonder you people at that club are having such a hard time getting anything done. You've got a bunch of people up there, including yourself, who're screaming at each other that this is just a simple yes or no answer either way and now the whole thing is in a membership referendum to be decided by a simple yes or no answer.

The f...ing question isn't simple Pat, and that club, that board, that committee should not have tried to make it look simple if that's what they've done or are doing. The best thing GCGC could do now is to cancel that referendum and go back and do your homework--do your research, inform the membership of it and then ask them to make an informed decision with enough information to make an informed decision.

You people up there, if they're doing things the way you say they are are doing things ass-backwards, putting the cart before the horse and trying come up with an answer before the right questions have been asked.

How many times do I need to tell you Pat--it's not a simple question so stop trying to get a simple answer!!! I don't care if it's a referendum, a gun to the head or a ticking time bomb, it's not a simple question and you people should not be trying to get a simple yes or no answer!

 

There is no referendum on this issue today. There will never be a referendum on this issue.

[TEPaul]

"The article also has a very good photo of this type of hazard...elongated half barrels is good description for those not into haute cuisine.

Tom MacW:

I see--well that explains that then. "Asparagus bed bunker" if you're into haute cuisine and "elongated barrels" if you're in the oil business, I guess.

But Tom--I just can't imagine what all this fuss is with Pat and some of the other purists at GCGC who are insisting the pond must be removed ONLY for a wet bunker of questionable original authorship! They have this wonderful opportunity to restore an "asparagus bed bunker" that's definitely an original Travis feature.

Matter of fact they have a wonderful opportunity to restore an original Travis feature and they have three distinct looks to choose from. It could look like an "asparagus bed bunker" or "a dozen nutmeg graters laid on their sides" or even "elongated barrels" according to you.

The club should vote tomorrow for this original Travis feature to be restored to the left of #16! I'd get Doak and his band of shaping and architectural geniuses in there as soon as possible. However, if it was me who had anything to do with it I'd tell TomD that he damn straight better get those Travis mounds to look like "asparagus beds" and not "a dozen nutmeg graters laid on their sides" and most definitely not "elongated barrels".

In my opinion, if he restored that Travis feature to look like the "asparagus bed" he'd be a hero in my eyes--if he made it look like "a dozen nutmeg graters laid on their sides" I'd get more than a little pissed at him and probaby hold off on his pay for a year or so and if he made it look like "elongated barrels" I'd fire his ass with no questions asked.

This exact Travis restoration look is serious business!!!  

[T_MacWood]

TE
You appear to be from the Sean B school of strict restoration...wishing to restore a feature that even Travis abandoned.

[TEPaul]

rg said:

"There is no referendum on this issue today. There will never be a referendum on this issue."

rg:

Really? Do you mean to say that Pat is wrong? Imagine that!? Is it just a green committee meeting then? Is it possible that this issue will not be determined today for the rest of time as Pat implies and there may actually be another opportunity to do a little good old fashioned reseach on this issue--like whose bunker that was, what the history of that wetness problem might be or even this incredibly delicious opportunity to restore Travis "asparagus bed" mounds? I'd seriously consider the latter! You guys are in the unique postion to potentially have the only Travis "asparagus bed" mounds in the world! Do your best to go for it!! If Doak doesn't want to do it I'd be glad to advise. I have an asparagus bed right here on the farm. I'll take all kinds of photos of it from every angle and we can do a bang up job of mimicing it exactly  

Crummy old ponds are a dime a dozen but imagine how penal or exhilerating it could be to pull off a greenside recovery with a full grown asparagus tickling your nose!

[A_Clay_Man]

Thanx, Rg for articulating.

I am slightly confused, could someone clear it up? In the first pics the fairway is on the right, correct? In some of these other pictures it looks like it's on the left. Could it have been a split fairway? With the three bunkers serving as centerline? Didn't someone mention that the original was altered to remove the centerline hazrards (or am I making this shit up?).

Some more stupid questions;

Is there a bunker to the left of the green now?

How ridiculous of a compromise would it be to put a bunker in and leave the pond?

Would it be as ridiculous as a club sticking to some Dogma at all costs? Or answering the wrong questions?

Once the facts are known, and all the half truths are made full, any decision will be an easy one.

[Craig Disher]

I think I have the correct mental picture of an asparagus bed and a nutmeg grater. Now I have to imagine "elongated barrels." I certainly don't see those anywhere in the earlier pictures I posted.

How about these. The first shows a wild collection of hazards; the marked ones are close to what I imagine elongated barrels would look like if they wound up on a golf course. Could these have survived from 1906?



Or maybe these? Could be natural ground features.

[SPDB]

Tom M

That's rich. When theories don't work, just make stuff up and falsely attribute. Care to elucidate on my strict school of restoration?

[T_MacWood]

Craig
The picture of the first hole looks like them to me. The other looks like some kind of natural phenomenon.

[T_MacWood]

SPDB
Care to elaborate?

[TEPaul]

Craig:

I'm having trouble identifying the second photo. Is that holes #6, 7, 10 and 11?

Tom MacW:

"TE
You appear to be from the Sean B school of strict restoration...wishing to restore a feature that even Travis abandoned."

What feature would you be referring to on the course that you say I'm wishing to restore that Travis abandoned?

Craig:

The features you pointed to with arrows are still fairly clear today on the course, I think, and onground they look like combinations of mounds and sort of separated berm affairs--the latter could probably fairly be described by some as "elongated barrels". Today some of them might not be so easily identified as they're probably within some fescue.

Judging from the drawing of the golf course as originally built by Emmet with numerous crossbunkers it'd appear that most of what shows up on those aerial photos of yours would be the "redesigned" features of Walter Travis. Travis removed or altered most of Emmet's cross hazards and installed on the course what can be seen on those aerials.

Again, the golf course is probably about 90% or so Emmet's original routing but Travis altered the "design" of many of the holes by rebunkering them (refeaturing them with bunkers, mounds, berms, whatever) and altering the green designs by reworking green slopes and contours from the basically flat Emmet original greens.

Back to the left of #16 green. It seems possible from looking at the available aerials shown on here (which may not precede the 1930s) that the bunker that exists today on the left of #16 green but alongside the green and relatively deep into the green may have been there for some time. It's hard to say if that piece of the bunker that shows up on the aerial on this thread was original Emmet, a Travis redesign, or perhaps even a later redesign by Emmet of a Travis feature or perhaps even something after Emmet died in 1934.

However, it's seems the bunker left of #16 today (or in that later aerial) is just the top piece of that original very large bunker and that the area in question on this thread is the area of that very large bunker to the left of the green but slightly short of it. That's the area which could have been Travis's "asparagus bed" hazard, and was once, obviously later, the front section of a very large bunker and today is the relatively small pond or a part of it. And furthermore, this is very likely the area that suffered a wetness problem either originally or at some later time.

[TEPaul]

I'd slightly amend that. It appears that about the first 2/3 to 3/4 of the very large bunker that shows up on the aerial on the first page of this thread is the pond today. That area or perhaps the entire left side along #16 green is the area described in Labance's book "The Old Man" (Travis) by the writer Pottow of the description by a couple of other early writers as looking like an "asparagus bed" hazard or one that looked like "a dozen nutmeg graters laid side by side." But there still appears to be the top portion of that very large bunker to the left of #16 green.

[Craig Disher]

TEP,
As you say, the holes are 6, 7, 10, and 11. I updated the picture.

Do you know when the cross bunkers were removed? The aerial shows that several still existed in 1940 - #3, #10, #13, #14, #15, and a top-shot bunker at #16 (a ghost of it can be seen in Tommy's contemporary view that started this thread).

[Tin Man]

 

here's a close up of those features' shape



Could this really be the secret origin of the Pews at Oakmont?

[TEPaul]

Craig:

I certainly don't know the architectural evolution of GCGC as well as many. Certainly not as well at Pat Mucci does (or maybe rgkeller whom I don't really know) because I was there with Pat and went through many of the details of the course and its architectural evolution with him. He definitely does know his stuff about the architecture and its evolution at GCGC. However, it very well may be that no one at this point is completely analyzing what was done by whom and when and clearly for a course such as GCGC that's an extremely important thing to do now, in my opinion.

The reason for that, in my opinion, is because firstly GCGC is exceptionally old in the context of American architecture (1898) and that alone is truly important and secondly it's basically had the combined input of two very interesting and good early American architects who truth be told were at GCGC and contributing to GCGC simultaneously in somewhat of an architectural counterpoint. Obviously those two are Emmet and Travis.

The club today lives with this curious early evolution and considers it to be very much part of their course's history, tradition and heritage.

That's admirable, it's cool and unique. However, they should do their very best to distinguish between the input of Emmet and Travis and perhaps restore some interesting combination of both if and when possible. Clearly that's a tricky thing to do when in many cases they're talking about the same holes and features. In other words you can't restore both to any particular architectural feature (such as a single bunker), for instance!

Anyway, what I do know about GCGC's evolution comes from photos and aerials from anywhere and everywhere but it's all brought together for me by going through the early architectural evolution of the course from the club's very good history book which Pat Mucci very kindly gave me about three years ago.

Basically, this is the way the architectural evolution went (according to GCGC's history book). Emmet (Hubbell) created the first nine hole course in 1897 and Emmet (Digby) proceeded to evolve that nine hole course into basically the present routing of 18 holes in 1898. Some of holes from the original nine hole course are basically in the same general position but certainly not all. Most of the holes from Emmet's 18 hole course are the same although some or many have been lengthened tee-wise, a few greens have been redesigned and even moved primarily for additional length at some point in the course's evolution. Travis apparently lengthened Emmet's original 18 from 6070 yds to 6400yds.

Possibly beginnng as early as 1901-02 and continuing perhaps into the 1920s Travis began to redesign Emmet's routing (basically still intact today) in various ways to do with hole features and green contour and perhaps shape. So to answer your question Travis very well may have left some pieces of Emmet's original cross bunkering but by no means all of it and Travis did create a great deal more architectural features in the way of his own bunkers, mounds, low berms, whatever, green contours, shapes and designs.