[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

I think that "repair" at The Creek Club involved bringing fill to all the fairways on the low end of the golf course.  That was a pretty big deal for prewar construction.

Somewhere in my files I've got the construction cost breakdowns for Chicago Golf Club (Raynor's reconstruction) and for Shinnecock Hills (Flynn's reconstruction).  Both of them were bargains even for the day.  The bottom line is that if an architect is really doing good work, it should show up on the bottom line!

[TEPaul]

"I think that "repair" at The Creek Club involved bringing fill to all the fairways on the low end of the golf course.  That was a pretty big deal for prewar construction."

TomD:

Since you worked on Creek you should definitely be made aware of all the documentation that exists at the club leading up to the "repair" of those so-called six "water holes" at the Creek for over $100,000 in the early 1930s which really does seem like a lot of money for six holes in that day and age.

It's my impression all that documentation may have been found in the basement of the club since you worked there but perhaps not! The documentation leading up to repairing those holes is enormous and voluminous and historically interesting too as Macdonald and the czar of the club surely did get extremely pissed off at each other because of it eventually causing Macdonald (one of the founders) to quit the club.

What's odd though is after all that voluminous documentation leading up to what to do about it there's basically nothing at all about what they did do to repair those holes or who did it. It appears there was no golf architect involved in the end, perhaps only a contract engineer.

The reason we were asked to get involved is William Flynn made a rather detailed proposal of how to fix those holes but it's obvious his proposal wasn't accepted. But as to who did it and what they did in relation to what was there previously is not well known it seems.

Flynn did propose in his "water hole" repair recommendations (we have the drawings) that two new additional holes (a new #16 and #17) be built basically perpindicular to the general routing direction on that end of the course on land that the club had an option on (to the east of #17 & #18) but that option or purchase was never exercised and obviously consideration of those new holes was dropped.

In a way Creek dodged a bullet by not accepting Flynn's proposal because it appears if they had that glorious Biarritz, for one, would've been history!!

[wsmorrison]

Tom Doak,

The costs of redesign at Shinnecock Hills that I have seen is in an August 6, 1930 letter from Flynn to Shinnecock Hills and accepted by Lucien Tyng.  If you have additional material, would you please let me know?  I don't think that this letter regards the final plan.  The letter indicates that only 4 new greens were to be built 10,11,17,18; 12 and 16 were to be rebuilt; 5 new tees on 10,11,12,17,18, 21 new fairway bunkers; rebuild 7 fairway bunkers on 4 and 3 on 16; all old bunkers to be filled in as necessary; and build 2 new sand wastes and 2 new fairways.

The total cost of the project was $32,250

greens:  $1350 for each green when graded, $450 for each green planted, $650 for 12 and 16

tees:  $500 for each tee when graded, $150 for each planted

fairways:  $900 for each new fairway when completed

fairway bunkers:  $500 for each fairway bunker, $300 to rebuild each bunker, $100 for each old bunker to be filled

sand wastes:  $1000 for each sand waste completed

In the end, only 5 green sites were kept with 13 new greens. Each of the original greens were changed significantly and the greenside bunkers and surrounds changed as well.  These green sites are presently the current 2,3,7,8, and 9.  There were many more bunkers and tees put in than described in the August 1930 letter.  I don't know what the final cost was for the redesign, but I suspect it was more than the original $32,250 (not included water system, sand, manure, and topsoil).

Regards,
Wayne

[Neal_Meagher]

Thanks one and all; these are some pretty fascinating facts and figures and the sort of thing that I had hoped this thread would uncover.

[TEPaul]

Of course the thing I'd be interested in knowing is what the annual inflation factors were from say 1910 into the 1930s, particularly the annual inflation factors in say the latter half of the 1920s! That might give us a base to really undertand and compare some of this stuff!

[Bill Gayne]

Tom,

WWW.EH.NET  has a currency convertor and inflation calculator that allows you to put in date periods such as 1920 to 1933. It also allows for historical conversion of dollars into pounds so if you want to look at a project done in the UK in the 1920s versus a United States project in the same time period you can adjust for currency valuations. It will also convert pounds into dollars from pror periods to current dollars.

Bill

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