I was the teaching professional at Silver Spring in 1993. It is a wonderful low key club that was still a heavily blue blood membership when I was there. And there were some serious CEOs back then.
It was designed by Banks, but he probably died very early in construction. It was finished by Robert White. Aside from holes 4,5,6, and 10, the rest of the holes are classic templates. And I presume that White filled in the dip on the Biarritz 8th. There was bad bunker vandalism but Roger Rulewich in the early 2000s. Hopefully, at some point the bunkers will get a proper rebuild.
Silver Spring is an interesting case. To my knowledge, the club has never found any documentation that Charles Banks designed Silver Spring. There are a few articles after the course was built that mention Robert White designed the course. Anyone who has stepped foot on the property can see the shaping and large built-up greens match up with Banks work on other courses. To me, Silver Spring feels like a cousin to Tamarack. If Banks was there as we suspect, there should be some documentation to prove this and I’d love to see it, before we go all in on Silver Spring as a Banks course.
The 11th hole used to be played through today’s parking lot, but was rerouted into a dogleg Par 5 by Alfred Tull in the 1940’s or 50’s. The 8th hole doesn’t appear to be a typical Biarritz we see on other Mac/Raynor/Banks courses, however these three architects didn’t build every Biarritz to look like 9 at Yale. Some courses just had a large plateau green with no dip, yet the hole still played 220 yards or so to test a long accurate shot. Essex County has a long Par 3 that isn’t a typical Biarritz. I believe North Shore had a hole similar, before Tom Doak introduced a dip into the Biarritz there. Oddly enough, Robert White was the construction superintendent at North Shore when Raynor designed it. Some of the other Par 3’s are a little odd for a Banks design as well, but I can see similarities to Knollwood 19th in Silver Springs 10th and the 17th hole reminds me of the 9th hole at Essex County which was a Tillinghast hole redesigned by Raynor and Banks.
Phil,
CC of Fairfield was opened in 1921 and Yale opened in 1926. Charles Banks didn’t design either of those courses, but John Pirie, who was Robert White’s brother-in-law was in charge of construction for CC of Fairfield around 1920. 10 years later John Pirie was building Whippoorwill for Charles Banks in Armonk, NY. So, there was definitely a connection between Robert White, his brother in laws and Raynor and Banks.