Can you think of original challenges that need to be recovered?

[Mark_Fine]

Adding back tees presents an interesting dilemma.  I must have been asked a half dozen times during our recent member/member tourney about my thoughts on adding new back tees on some of the holes at Lehigh.  I support the idea if the tees help retain and/or help restore the original design intent of the hole, if they wouldn't look goofy (e.g. stuck way up on a pedestal or something), and/or if they would add interest to the golf hole.  However, I also made the point that there would probably only be a handful of players at the club that would even venture to play most of these back tees or who could handle the challenge.  As Wayne implied, is it reasonable to expect a membership of say 400 golfers to help pay for new tees that only a dozen or so golfers would benefit from?  Tough sell and that is where the dilemma comes in.    

I should note that in our mem/mem best ball of partners tourney (five nine hole matches), even par was the best score posted for the two day event (and the greens were soft from the heavy rain of Ernesto).  

[Jim_Coleman]

Kyle:
    It's not the bunkers so much that should cause your stomach to growl; it's the pinching in of the fairway.  The fairway should be out to the bunkers, showing them better and increasing the penalty for coming up short.  The fairway was pinched in a few years ago to keep balls from rolling down to a divit-filled gathering area.  Not a bad purpose, but undoubtedly a worsening of the hole.

[wsmorrison]

Kyle,

You're right about puking over those crappy bunkers.  Look at Flynn's drawing.  He only had one bunker on the left but it was so much better placed, at the front and extending towards the fairway and far better shaped than the bland bunker today that is way too far back.  It is hard to tell from James's photo, but the left bunker is at the rear of the green.  The old footprint of the original bunker site can still be seen.  

The bunker on the right, while not the exact shape of the left bunker looks very similar due to perspective.  The bunker work throughout the course was poorly done.  A lot of visibility was lost due to the raised surrounds, especially on the leading edges.  If there is to be a right bunker, I think it would be better oriented left to right rather than lengthwise along the line of play.

Jim,

Good point about the fairway width as well!

[Mark_Fine]

Bill,
I hear you but the course is for the members (at least that is who is paying the bills).  So even par in that tourney is a good guage for those picking up the construction tab and added maintenance, etc.  If that tropical storm didn't come through to soften up the greens, scores would have been much higher.  Adding back tees are always a tough sell whether you and I agree they might be good or not.  

Lehigh was in fabulous shape all year.  I know a local club that just spent a lot of money regrassing, etc. who I have heard would have liked to have enjoyed our conditions.  It may have come back now but the one course was really struggling.  

Just be happy you are not at Quaker Ridge or you'd be playing temps because all their greens (which were supposedly perfect two years ago) are gone!  

[Mark_Fine]

Bill,
Maybe you should join SV or Brookside so you have less to complain about  

I'd also like to know where you are playing if Lehigh is "the worst conditioned course you've played in three years"    I see at least 50-60 different courses every year and feel totally the opposite.  Lehigh had one tough year (2005) and that year was a train wreck up and down the East Coast.  And despite that year, we lost no greens and never closed the golf course.  I can name dozens of other top courses that were not so lucky including Merion and PV.  Ask Matt Shaffer what he went through.  He and John talk all the time.  

[mike_malone]

 A look at the Flynn drawing for #8 that the club has shows a forward tee to the right as Wayne's drawing does; the back tee is in the area of the current tees; the 1926 photos seem to confirm these teeing areas and show a bunker on the right but none on the left as the drawing shows. Interesting ?


  What seems quite clear is that the tree plantings on the left side of this hole have pushed the shot required too far right.

   

[mike_malone]

 I'm amazed that this esteemed group can come up with only one proposed recovery--Ed Baker's.

[Kyle Harris]

Wayne,

Do you know the story behind the 2nd green at Manufacturers'?

There is considerable evidence on the ground that suggest that Sandy Run split near the green and the green would have been contained on an island along with the 3rd tee and 5th green. Today, there is a drainage swale that runs right behind both those greens.

Furthermore, just off the property to the right side of 6, the creek makes a HARD left turn and then a HARD right turn along a similar line to that of the drainage swale.

The aerial even suggests this, here's a google image.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=%2B%22Oreland,+PA%22&ie=UTF8&t=k&om=1&z=17&ll=40.124898,-75.18072&spn=0.004734,0.012102&iwloc=A

I tried to focus the center of the image on the 2nd and 5th greens.

The bunkers around 5 that were removed are still there, and the collar around the 2nd green isn't nearly as big as it is today.

Note the left of the 6th hole how the creek seems to make a hard right angle twice. You can also see the swale, most notable disecting the 6th hole.

[wsmorrison]

Kyle,

Have you seen the Flynn drawing for the 2nd hole?  I'll post it in a little bit, maybe it will make sense to you as I don't know the course nearly so well as you.  Gotta do some errands, but I'll post it a bit later.

[wsmorrison]

Here's Flynn's plan for the 2nd at Manufacturers.  If you notice, in the stream it says, "New Line of Creek"

[mike_malone]

Wow! A green placed with water  behind it.----what a novel idea.

    Also, what's with the bunkers on the outside of the dogleg on #2 at Manny's? Are they original ?

   And another thing---why cover up the creek with trees?