Architectural "Accuracy" vs. Course Continuity

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

I posted some information that was somewhat lost in an unrelated thread.  I recently got to play Essex County CC in NJ.  It is in the middle of a restoration, and that brought to mind an interesting question.  How would everyone think that you should treat a course whose 1-6 holes and 9th holes are A.W. Tillighast designed, and the balance were laid out by Seth Raynor and finished by Charles Banks (after Seth's death).  

I guess I wonder what some of the purists here think, and how they think this restoration should be handled.  On one hand the continuity of the course is important, however also some here are of the opinion that courses should be true to the "original" designers style.  It is quite apparent at this time as the restoration is half way through that the course is somewhat schitzophrentic as it is currently still a hodge-podge of bunker styles.  I look forward to seeing it when it is all done with the flat bottomed sand and steep grass faced bunkers.   I think it will be spectacular.  Those that are completed are.

What is everyones opinion on this?  On one hand you have continuity within a course to consider, but in order to do that you would have to either apply Banks style to 7 Tillie holes or apply Tillies style to 11 Banks holes.  What is a purist to do?

I would be interested to hear your thoughts about this, and any other courses that are of a mixed pedigree where this same situation comes into play.

[corey miller]

At Sleepy Hollow Tillie was bought in to make the complex 27 holes so the main course is a hodgepodge of both mcdonald and tillie. As far as I can tell.

1-tillie
2-mcdonald
3-mcdonald(tillie green)
4-mcdonald(tillie green)
5-mcdonald
6-mcdonald
7-mcdonald
8-tillie
9-tillie
10-tillie
11-tillie
12-tillie
13-mcdonald
14-mcdonald(tillie green)
15-mcdonald
16-mcdonald
17-mcdonald
18-tillie

All with Rees Jones bunkering.  Tillie was bought in when the club decided to sell off five holes(with the most spectacular views) for real estate development.  The club seems to be heading in the tillie direction on the renovation which is a shame as i much prefer the mcdonald holes.

[ian]

Turboe, What a great question....... which I could not possibly answer well.

How can you choose one architect over the other? If both architects holes are great, you sorta have to live with this unusual blend. If one architect's holes are much weaker, it does bring up the possibility of trying to renovate to become consistant. Tough question.

We run into a lot of rebuilt greens or new holes on old layouts. Often the bunkering is renovated on the new holes to make the bunkering consistant; and therefore tying the course back together. But again, yours is a more unusual question asssuming both architect's work is typically great.

[George Bahto]

Turboe: glad you liked Essex County CC - it is a very fine course. For starters, the club wanted uniform look to the bunkering throughout the course. They are getting the Women's Mid Am in a couple of years and are tuning the course accordingly.

I've tried to walk a sort of tightrope on the Tillinghast greens you mentioned - keeping their basic character while still trying to make them less different looking than the Raynor/Banks portion of the course.

I told the club they have the best of two worlds - two great architects.

Actually Banks did the green complexes over on those Tillinghast holes and, to me, it looks like he did some work on the 3rd, 4th and 5th greens because they look more like his than Tillie.

By the way I'm putting back in the huge, deep single bunker that fronted 9-green where there are now 4 silly looking bunkers set in the hill - we'll not get into who put them in there a number of years ago.

We're back under way in the restoration process with only six holes left to do. Hopefully I'll be putting in a number of strategic bunkers that Raynor and Banks had planned but were not put in when the course was built.

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

George,

Good stuff you have going on there at Essex.

I think you ran into a friend of mine who is a member at Essex, Joe Accardi while in Charleston a few weeks ago.

Keep us posted on the progress.

[Geprge Bahto]

Turboe: met Arccardi at Yeamans Hall (like there were just 5 people on the course)

....   anyhow we will be finishing this phase in a couple of months and hopefully move on to adding some of the great bunkering Raynor and Banks wanted to put on the course but that never hit the ground - stay tuned and thank you for the kind words.

[TEPaul]

To me this question is pretty simple or it can be! Certainly the process of answering the question can be.

The first thing to do is document the holes on the golf course as to who did what, when and why (that is if you can).

Then with that information you do an analysis of the quality of the holes regardless of who did them and how they play individually and together as a whole. You do it or hire an architect who understands those architects and get him to help you analyze the holes and do it and make some decisions together.

Then you start to decide what to do about the individual holes. I can't really imagine why a golf club, at any time, would hire Tillinghast to do his style of architecture on a Raynor/Banks course or vice versa!

But the sad truth is not a single one of those famous and well known architects EVER came into a golf course and tried to stay with the same style of another architect. The only time that ever happened is if the two architects happened to have the same basic style in the first place.

And that's basically a fact that I'd challenge anyone to prove otherwise! Just show me a course where a Tillinghast ever would have tried to stay with the "character" and style of Raynor or vice versa! I'll bet you will never find a single example! And that sort of thing goes for every single architect I ever heard of--that is up until maybe 15-20 years ago Again, that sort of thing never happened until maybe 15-20 years ago when restoration first started to appear on the scene.

Previously every architect I've ever heard of basically did his own thing regardless of who built the course in the first place or who did what later!

But again, I can't imagine why any golf course at anytime in their evolution would have hired Tillinghast to do holes on a Raynor course or vice versa but apparently that happened.

So, once the quality of the holes has been established (that is if they're good) the club should just go with the styles they created and evolved into on that course during their evolution and live with it and forget completely about this thing called "continuity" or "staying in character" today.

The thought of wiping out some good Tillinghast holes to stay "in character" with Raynor's style or wiping out Raynor's holes to stay in character with Tillinghast is madness to me--that is if all the holes are good--regardless of the "in character" thing!

And believe me, I know from where I speak!

Probably up to seven different architects have been through my course, Gulph Mills, over the years!

And not a single one of them EVER tried to stay "in character" with any other!

But now we know who did what, when and why--we have a completely documented architectural evolution report of every hole and every single thing about every hole from the very beginning (1919) to today!!

The breakdown goes like this;

#1 changed from a par 5 to a 4 by moving the tees and removing and adding some bunkering--probably William Gordon
#2-6 are original Ross!
#7-8 were redesigned by Perry Maxwell
#9 was redesigned by at the green-end by McGovern and then RTJ.
#10 was redesigned by Maxwell at the green-end and later the rest of the hole was redone by RTJ.
#11 was redesigned by Maxwell
#12 redesigned by RTJ on the second half
#13 redesigned by RTJ on the first half
#14 redesigned by Maxwell
15-18 are original Ross

And furthermore, through that mid-section of the course, and a few other places there are a number of things from Wayne Stiles, William Gordon, RTJ and even Tom Fazio!

And you want to know the most interesting thing of all? All these holes basically went through what I call the "BLIND TASTE TEST for a number of decades!!

Although nobody in the club seemed to really know who did what--the holes that are original Ross and the holes redone by Perry Maxwell have always been the holes that have been most admired and respected by the membership and other people, again, without anyone knowing who did what on the golf course!

So what does that tell you?

It tells me that in the restoration that we're doing right now we'll do our best to PRESERVE and RESTORE both Donald Ross AND Perry Maxwell, and also do our best to return the other holes that were altered by the other architects (with their own styles) to the look of Ross (or Maxwell) as best we can!

Were the Ross holes and the Maxwell holes EVER in "continuity" or in the "same character"?

NO!! But who cares? They're all good holes and they play very well individually and together despite the look of them!

Some of Ross's bunkering actually doesn't look all that different than some of Maxwells bunkering (at least not after decades of maintenance) so it looks like the overall bunker style will be a little more Ross overall than Maxwell!

That will probably be the only real concession to "continuity". But I'm hoping when we do our next aerial that the Maxwell bunkers from the air will look as different from the Ross bunkers (from the air) as they always have!

But the greens? They're going to be clearly preserved as the Maxwells we have and the Rosses we have and there isn't much similarity in those two styles, that's for sure!

There actually is one new entry in this restoration process. That's our #7 green that was a Maxwell redesign on which Maxwell basically made a mistake in concept and the green and green-end was unpopular and it was redesigned again and basically was never improved and never really right. But through lots of research and a bit of deduction I would stake my life on what Maxwell was doing, what he wanted to do, and exactly how he made a mistake at the green-end.

So in the last month Gil Hanse redid #7 green to look like and play like what I'd stake my life on was Maxwell's original redesign ideas for that hole or what he would have done if he'd been able to! And from what I can see Gil did a helluva job of staying "in character" with Maxwell!! Matter of fact we went around to the other Maxwell greens on the course and sort of picked out some internal contours and such and reused them by flipping the postioning around and such. I think this hole, because of the green-end redo, will now really work great after being a one dimensional hole for decades!

So that's how I would handle a situation like that and that's how I'd answer a question like this one!

Jim Finegan said something about the way our course is now after all that's happened there over the decades.

"Gulph Mills is a mongrel but it's a wonderful mongrel!!"

So through this restoration were just gettin rid of some of the flees and we're sticking with our wonderful mongrel, at least we're sticking with the blood that's good blood!

And the fact that the good blood passed the "blind taste test of time" is all the more proof that we're doing the right thing!

So that's one example--but I should add that Perry Maxwell's style is certainly not the same as Ross's style but it sure as hell was a lot closer to Ross than Raynor's style was to Tillinghast's style!