Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture Discussion Group => Topic started by: Joe Bausch on January 28, 2024, 08:37:55 PM
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Save the Date: Wednesday, March 13 in the evening at Phoenixville CC.
Pete Trenham and I will give another version of our Lost Links of the Main Line talk, with the huge bonus feature of Mike Cirba presenting on golden-age architect Hugh Wilson.
More details coming soon!
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Spoiler Alert - There may be some additional previously unearthed info about Hugh Wilson and Phoenixville presented.
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As someone may have asked about the initial talk, any chance of virtual attendance?
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As someone may have asked about the initial talk, any chance of virtual attendance?
Not much of a chance of that Greg.
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Wow, a double feature. Can't wait.
Thanks for making the effort.
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coat and tie?
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coat and tie?
Only you, Cousin Eddie!
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Details. Please reserve your spot by calling or e-mailing Dawn.
(https://www80.homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/Phoenixville_LostLinks_talk.png)
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As of yesterday, 11 people have already signed up for this superb event with a double feature. Keep on registering! See the details in the flier above.
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It's gonna be YUGE!! Biggest crowd ever!!!
Seriously, it should be a true architectural and golf history geek-fest at its most sublime.
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The presentation is a little over a month away and we have 20 people signed up for it (6 members and 14 guests). Keep on signing up! Get your spot reserved before space runs out.
Joe
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Golf is possible at Phoenixville on the afternoon before the talks. Contact me if interested.
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Golf is possible at Phoenixville on the afternoon before the talks. Contact me if interested.
For anyone who hasn't played Phoenixville, you're in for a real treat. Very cool old-school features and lay of the land golf holes with terrific variety.
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35 people attending as of this afternoon.
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Started work on my presentation this week. Its gonna be pretty, pretty, pretty good if I say so myself. ;)
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Started work on my presentation this week. Its gonna be pretty, pretty, pretty good if I say so myself. ;)
Quit with the modesty, willya!
Seriously though, any chance of a livestream or better still a YouTube video upload for later consumption for us poor unfortunates?
Love,
F.
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FBD,
Wish it were feasible but we'll be lucky to get the slide projector working. ;)
For anyone still looking to attend, please RSVP so the club can adequately prepare food and beverage. Thanks!!
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FBD,
Wish it were feasible but we'll be lucky to get the slide projector working. ;)
For anyone still looking to attend, please RSVP so the club can adequately prepare food and beverage. Thanks!!
1985 called - asking for their technology back! ;D
Have a great time.
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Looking forward to being in attendance. Can't wait to see what historical nuggets are revealed by Joe and Pete.
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As of Leap Day, 42 people are signed up.
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Looking forward to being in attendance. Can't wait to see what historical nuggets are revealed by Joe and Pete.
i assume there will be pointing?
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Long-range weather forecast is promising.
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FBD,
Wish it were feasible but we'll be lucky to get the slide projector working. ;)
For anyone still looking to attend, please RSVP so the club can adequately prepare food and beverage. Thanks!!
1985 called - asking for their technology back! ;D
Have a great time.
Martin,
I'll see if I can record it on my cassette player, or 8-track? Do you have Blu-Ray??
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FBD,
Wish it were feasible but we'll be lucky to get the slide projector working. ;)
For anyone still looking to attend, please RSVP so the club can adequately prepare food and beverage. Thanks!!
1985 called - asking for their technology back! ;D
Have a great time.
Martin,
I'll see if I can record it on my cassette player, or 8-track? Do you have Blu-Ray??
I have a Super-8 projector if that’s any use… 8)
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FBD,
Wish it were feasible but we'll be lucky to get the slide projector working. ;)
For anyone still looking to attend, please RSVP so the club can adequately prepare food and beverage. Thanks!!
1985 called - asking for their technology back! ;D
Have a great time.
Martin,
I'll see if I can record it on my cassette player, or 8-track? Do you have Blu-Ray??
I have a Super-8 projector if that’s any use… 8)
Marty was on the HD-DVD side. He came out bludgeoned.
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Bumping this thread for what is now known as the Phoenixville Phun Phest. :)
One group playing 9 in the afternoon will be 4 Mikes. 3 P's and 4 Mikes. ;)
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Weather forecast looks ideal for mid-March, partly cloudy with a high of 67.
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Last Call.... we should have a terrific turnout and a great time commiserating with fellow architectural nerds but if you're on the fence we'd love to see you and the weather looks splendid!
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Thanks first to the great hospitality provided by Phoenixville CC. Then well done by Pete, Joe, and Mike. It was certainly a geek fest
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Thanks first to the great hospitality provided by Phoenixville CC. Then well done by Pete, Joe, and Mike. It was certainly a geek fest
They should have handed out pocket protectors at the door. ;)
Thanks, Mayday...great to see you and everyone. It was a packed house grooving on the merry minutae of a historical deep dive.
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Many thanks to Joe, Mike, Pete and Phoenixville. Great night.
You guys really brought out the golfestrati (glitterati?) of SE PA.
Query for Mike C:
Prior to the Depression (and especially during Wilson's life), did the rest of the Philadelphia School see Flynn merely as an extension of Wilson and his work as purely derivative?
I appreciate that Flynn was widely respected etc., but even so, he was not a member of the club so to speak.
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Adding to Rory’s question I think many of the comments you made about Wilson’s architectural style remind of Flynn ideas.
Mike,
You may want to state those for the crowd.
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Rory & Mayday,
Those are terrific questions and I'll formulate a response before the weekend as time permits. In the meantime, I just wanted to share a few photos from what was a terrific day/night in the company of friends, old and new. Thanks all who attended!
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53600564154_27947e562d_b.jpg)
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53600438083_fbce7f62c8_4k.jpg)
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53600436723_c09f2276d0_4k.jpg)
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Query for Mike C:
Prior to the Depression (and especially during Wilson's life), did the rest of the Philadelphia School see Flynn merely as an extension of Wilson and his work as purely derivative?
I appreciate that Flynn was widely respected etc., but even so, he was not a member of the club so to speak.
Rory (and Mayday),
Really interesting question as we spent a lot of time during the presentation discussing the dichotomy between amateurs and professionals during that time, as well as the "class" implications.
Perhaps early on when Flynn arrrived with his brother-in-law Fred Pickering to work on the construction of Merion East around 1911/12 Flynn might have been subject to some of that as a 22 year old Boston-bred Irishman of the working class. However, due to his precociousness, intelligence, creativity, athleticism, rugged good looks and proven talent it seems it wasn't long before the top brass at Merion took him under their wing, and he and Hugh Wilson were particularly close and worked together hand in glove, particularly after Pickering was let go during construction of the West Course and Flynn took over in 1913. Wilson was so fond of Flynn that he bought them an Airedale puppy after Flynn's first child was born and later bought Mrs. Flynn a horse and carriage so she could visit him onsite at Merion.
We all know about Wilson's two-month trip to GB&I to study, sketch, and photograph the great classic courses but in 1915 during the construction of Cobb's Creek (where Flynn worked as the shaper and almost certainly contributed ideas) he returned to his native Massachusetts where "In the past week or so he has visited Myopia, Essex County, the Country Club, Braeburn, Woodland and several other leading courses of the State, seeking ideas."
As we discussed, it was extremely unusual for an "amateur" like Wilson to be involved in architecture at clubs where they themselves were not a member, and his early work at Seaview, North Hills, Philmont, Cobb's Creek, and likely Phoenixville before the end of 1914 probably had him walking a fine line in terms of how that work was viewed by the USGA mavens. After Wilson and Flynn made major changes to Merion in 1916 to prep for the US Amateur that year, WWI and the Spanish flu intervened from 1917 - 1919 and it was a down time for course construction and maintenance, with a shortage of available workers.
It wasn't until after the war, and the death of George Crump, where the membership of Pine Valley asked Hugh & Alan Wilson to help them complete the last four holes (12-15) and almost certainly to assist with the troublesome agronomy issues they'd experienced since inception. Once again post-war America saw Wilson and Flynn working closely on that project, as well as additional clubs/courses such as Kittansett, Marble Hall, a proposed Bryn Mawr CC that never came to fruition, the recreation of holes 10-13 at Merion once new land south of the creek was purchased in 1922, and possibly others.
I suspect that Wilson encouraged Flynn branching out on his own, as well, particularly where the course/club was some fair distance from Philadelphia in places like Harrisburg, Lancaster, the Poconos, and others but even in those venues I'm thinking that the two men would at least compare notes.
By that time, in the early to mid 1920s, the rise of the professional golf architect as a respected profession began its ascent due to the work of Donald Ross, Walter Travis, Tillinghast, Seth Raynor, and others whose work began to be viewed as artistry, as well as craftsmanship, and some of the class distinctions began to diminish. Flynn also had the advantage of living in Philadelphia, which has always viewed itself as a blue-collar town where hard work and Quaker common-sense and industriousness were highly valued and Flynn certainly fit right into that cultural aspect.
From an architectural perspective, there is no doubt that both men shared many of the same ideas regarding blending with nature, use of natural landforms, variety in lengths, half-par type holes, bunker stylings, and defense of the golf course through diagonals and protection of the greens. I also think Flynn was not only a disciple of Wilson's style, and learned much in working with him, but also had his own ideas and architectural evolution, particularly as he had the opportunity to work in different environments from Long Island to Florida throughout the 1920s and beyond after Wilson's death in early 1925.
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Mike,
Very rich comments.
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Mike,
I echo Mayday's comments. Thank you for taking the time to provide this response.
The Wilson Flynn relationship seems to have had a great deal more to it than I would have ever thought.
I knew that they worked closely together, of course, but you describe a mentor protege relationship on top of a
real friendship.
I suspect that they had a lot of fun learning and ultimately excelling together.
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Mayday and Rory,
Thanks...glad you found it of value.
This week I picked up a copy of Piper & Oakley's "Turf for Golf Courses" where Hugh Wilson writes extensively in 1916 about the creation of Merion and their ongoing study of the creation and ongoing care and feeding of golf courses and it's amazing how Wilson and Flynn devised a very systematic approach to their budgeting, planning, and work, almost treating the Superintendent (Flynn) as a member with fiduciary responsibility.
A snippet;
"It is a very simple matter for the greenkeeper to keep track of the cost of a new bunker or the sodding of a green, and each time he does it he learns a little more about the cost question and why it is such an important factor in all work. It also gives him new interest in the work, and a basis for competition with his former work, and we believe you will find that your greenkeeper is keener for knowing that the last bunker cost $20.80 to build and that the next one he is going to build will cost a little less because he has figured a way of doing it more cheaply. We have obtained splendid results by sending our greenkeeper to as many courses as possible in order that he may see what other persons are doing and profit by their good results, as well as by their errors."
I would suggest that both men continued this same process of lifetime learning and continuous quality improvement not only in the maintenance of turfgrass but in their study of the architecture and creation of golf holes throughout their careers.
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Mike:
Great reading, thanks for making the effort to write the post.
So sorry that I could not make the event but I was jammed up trying to get work done and pack for my Spring training trip.
B C
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The primary author of "The Nature Faker", the detailed story of William Flynn sent me the following regarding Flynn's influences.
"Flynn was heavily influenced by Frederick Winslow Taylor, a Philadelphia engineer, often considered the father of industrial efficiency and scientific management. Flynn applied these first-hand lessons to golf course construction and maintenance."
"Taylor also devised a method of green construction - a few PVGC greens were built by that method."
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Thought this might be of interest to this thread, particularly given the time of year.
The following articles, from a Strathclyde, Scotland newspaper (4/05/1912) and a second from the Irish Independent (4/10/1912) found by Joe Bausch provide some details and commentary on Wilson's early March trip to GB&I to study the classic courses, originally planned for about a month.
The second date is particularly noteworthy as it was the day the Titanic left Southampton, England on her maiden voyage, a ship on which Mr. Wilson had a ticket. Had he not decided to see/play more golf courses during his visit, his golf genius would have most likely been lost at sea. He eventually returned in mid-May, 1912.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53614419751_0157362d9c_c.jpg)
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53614423051_fb95d3ebcc_n.jpg)
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Proving it is always worth playing more golf.
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Proving it is always worth playing more golf.
Undeniable, indisputable proof.
Someone please share with my wife.