Origins of Pocono Manor East Course
by Mike Cirba
Despite being one of the most famous golf courses in the state of Pennsylvania, the architectural history of the East Course at Pocono Manor has been largely shrouded in mystery. The course that has hosted various professional tournaments played by golfers from Sam Snead to Arnold Palmer, and host to an episode of “Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf”, has long had a vague, undocumented design attribution to Donald Ross that seems largely a product of anecdotal legend.
Herein, I hope to document exactly what is known as fact, offer what are hopefully logical and reasonable suppositions, and possibly shed some light on the design origins of a course that is as enigmatic as it is well-known.
During the latter part of the 19th century, rising economic fortunes among the entrepreneurial classes associated with the Industrial Revolution led to increased leisure time unprecedented in human history. This increased wealth gave rise to a new phenomenon known as the “summer vacation”, where well-to-do denizens of the major industrial centers would get away from the crush and noise of the cities and enjoy the benefits of rest and relaxation in the solitude of more natural settings.
It was in response to this growing need for restorative recreation that the Pocono Manor was established by a group of Philadelphia “Friends”, or Quakers, in 1902. By 1907, Philadelphian Walter Smedley, an architect by trade, became the President of the Manor Association, taking over from founder George Abbott. Initially just a lodge with minor amenities, under Smedley Pocono Manor quickly expanded into a 400-bed hotel atop 2,800 acres, featuring roads, tennis courts, bowling alleys, and a golf course. In fact, Mr. Smedley was also the architect of the impressive hotel and manor house.
Not coincidentally, Walter Smedley was also an avid, proficient golfer, and one of the founding members of the country’s first (1901) “golfing society” known as the “Ozone Club”, with a small membership hailing from Philadelphia and nearby New Jersey. The idea of a golf society was based more on common demographic and religious affiliation, as opposed to being tied to a particular golf course like most clubs. The members of the Ozone Club, all Quaker men, would gather at a different course each month to celebrate the benefits of recreation out in the fresh air, hence the club name. The clubs primarily involved in these outings, mostly “home” clubs for the Ozone members, included Springhaven, Merion, Atlantic City, Riverton, and primarily Moorestown Field Club in New Jersey. Other founding members included Henry Biddle, Samuel Allen, Walter Stokes, and Charles Jenkins.
Jenkins’s father Howard had actually opened the nearby Buck Hill Falls Inn a year prior in 1901, but perished soon after in a fall into a gorge near the property in 1902. With son Charles at the helm, Buck Hill Falls soon prospered, and had nine holes of golf by 1907, likely laid out and built by other Ozone Club golfers. An account at the time refers to the course as being laid out by a “committee of golf experts”. By 1914 a second nine was opened, again probably created with internal resources, and then, according to the “Buck Hill Breeze” newsletter, architect Donald Ross was hired;
“….to the study the golf links and present a plan for increasing to 27 holes.”
1919
“Donald Ross lays out nine new holes.”**
1921
“New nine holes completed at the cost of over $100,000. Some of the holes, extremely expensive to build with No.3 on the Blue costing $13,000 and No.4 $15,000.”
This timeline is important in understanding the evolution of golf at Pocono Manor, as well, as many of the same men (and golfers) from the Ozone Club were heavily involved at both resort facilities in their earliest years.
Similarly, it seems that the evolution of golf at Moorestown Field Club in New Jersey is inextricably linked with Pocono Manor, as well. Writing an account for “American Golfer” under the pen name of “Hazard”, A.W. Tillinghast reported the following in 1910;
It is important to note that by 1910, the Ozone Club members seemed quite prepared and willing to design their own course, and it also seems that opinionated professional architect Tillinghast had some confidence in their knowledge and abilities. This was echoed some years later when Tillinghast wrote in 1917;
Samuel Allen (left) and Walter P. Stokes on the links.
In fact, after the Moorestown course opened for play in 1911, Tillinghast highlighted the design work done primarily by Samuel Allen;
It should be noted that Tillinghast lauds Samuel Allen’s design knowledge based on his study of the famous courses in the US and abroad. Given Tillinghast’s own extensive golf-related travels and subsequent course knowledge, this was high praise indeed.
Within a year after the design and opening of Moorestown, work on a golf course began under Ozone Club founder Walter Smedley’s watch at Pocono Manor. According to the resort’s website, “The beginning of today’s 18-hole East Course dates back to 1911, when it is recorded that “the new golf course has been laid out and work on clearing of same is well under way.” In 1912 the first 9-hole course at Pocono Manor opened.”
Given the fact that the Ozone Club members at Moorestown utilized the design knowledge and talents of Samuel Allen to build their new course there, it seems quite reasonable to assume that these same men would have used Mr. Allen’s talents at their summer retreat in the Poconos. This would seem quite likely when one also considers that by 1912, Samuel Allen was playing winter tournaments in Atlantic City with a club affiliation of Pocono Manor!
It’s important at this juncture to understand more about Samuel L. Allen. According to his brief biography found on Wikipedia;
Samuel Leeds Allen (1841-1918) was an American inventor and industrialist, whose most famous invention was the Flexible Flyer, the world's first steerable runner sled. His revolutionary sled was first developed and tested in Westtown Township, Pennsylvania but many throughout the years have chosen his home across from Stokes Hill in Moorestown Township, New Jersey as the symbolic birthplace of the Flexible Flyer despite Breidenhart having been built 5 years after the invention.
Allen was awarded almost 300 patents for a wide range of farming machinery, including the fertilizer drill, seed drill, potato digger, cultivator, furrower, pulverizer, grass edger and numerous other farm implements. In order to provide year-round employment for his workers producing farm equipment, Mr. Allen sought to create a product that could be sold during the winter. His passion for sledding led him to develop a series of sleds and sled improvements. Allen was issued U.S. Patent number 408,681 on August 13, 1889 for the Flexible Flyer.
Understanding the entrepreneurial spirit of men like Allen and Smedley is fundamental to the origins and early evolution of Pocono Manor. Given that understanding, it also seems very unlikely that Donald Ross would have been brought in at this time by this group of “do it yourselfers” who were captains of industry and quite the hands-on bunch. Given the fact that there is no record of Donald Ross doing any design work in Pennsylvania prior to about 1916 makes it a virtual impossibility that he could have designed the original nine holes at Pocono Manor as anecdotal legend would indicate.
Modern day Ross historian and author Brad Klein (“Discovering Donald Ross”) has also questioned the Ross origin of the original nine holes, stating basically that he would be “stunned” to find Ross ever designed holes like the uber punchbowl par three 3rd, or the 90 degree dogleg of today’s 17th. However, he also pointed out that the newer holes north of Route 314 are “wonderful and seamlessly integrated”, comparing the stretch from 8 through 15 as “right of out Pine Needles”, a lovely wooded Ross design in North Carolina.
It should be noted that both Donald Ross and William Flynn were competitive contemporaries, each with a similar design style that largely took advantage of the natural terrain of any given site and mostly avoided obvious artifice and contrivances.
(The present par three Third Hole – Original Hole
Prominent golf course architect and author Tom Doak also cast doubt on Ross’s role at Pocono Manor, saying in his “Confidential Guide to Golf Courses”, “if Donald Ross designed holes like the 77-yard 7th hole, he had more of a sense of humor than I ever knew”.
(The present 7th hole from the original 115 yard tee)
The original nine hole course as we understand it today includes all of today’s East course holes south of Route 314, beginning near the wildly undulating practice green (the halfway house there being the original golf clubhouse), and beginning with today’s 5th hole, then the 6th, followed by today’s 17, 18, 1, then an abandoned par three still visible between the 1st green and 2nd tee, then today’s 2, 3, and 4 as the finisher.
However, it may be that even that routing scheme went through some changes. Following on the next page is a very early sketch recently found that indicates clearly that not only golf was a priority at Pocono Manor, but lots and cabin-sites for those who wished to invest was a major concern of the owners, as well. In fact, it retrospect, it seems be one of the very first “real-estate” courses in this country!
Although not easily seen without magnifying the drawing, a good number of prime plots that abutted the golf course had already been purchased by the Smedley and Allen families respectively; including one a large one for the Allen’s just off the 9th green.
From a golf course perspective, one might suppose that the somewhat steep terrain around today’s present 1st green might not have been so useful for golf coming the other way, as had seemingly been proposed for the 3rd hole.. Instead, in looking at the 1939 aerial further below, it looks as though trees were cleared for the proposed 3rd fairway, only to quickly make a right-hand detour to the proposed site of the 4th green. This seemingly necessitated adding another hole, which seems to have been solved by breaking up the very long, uphill proposed ninth into a wild par three down into a bowl, followed by a finishing uphill par four.
It is also interesting to note that although Pocono Manor became wildly successful as a resort hotel, it appears that the plans for wall-to-wall cabins along most of the golf holes went for naught, with only a handful of cabins visible by 1939, which is still true today.
In the years following the opening of the first nine holes, it can be reasonably assumed that the Manor saw the same growth in golfing popularity among the upper classes that was seen at Buck Hill Falls, even with the world at war, and with the cessation of hostilities and Allied victory, an optimistic eye was cast towards the future.
However, those years also saw the death of Samuel L. Allen, who passed away in 1918. As reported by Tillinghast in “American Golfer”;
If Samuel Allen had indeed been the guiding golf course architectural force for the Ozone Club at Pocono Manor and/or Buck Hill Falls as seems quite possible, it would therefore seem logical that his death would have left a void to be filled before considering any expansion of the courses at those facilities. Indeed, the very concept of a professional “golf course architect” evolved considerably into common understanding during the years from around 1910 to 1920 as men like Ross, Tillinghast, Mackenzie, Park, Macdonald, Wilson, Colt, and William Flynn opened new courses to considerable acclaim and fame. If the men of the Ozone Club were hands-on, they were also men of practical vision, and it would seem likely that they would have anticipated the future was moving away from the “amateur architect”, and towards greater specialization.
For a long time the common understanding was also that Donald Ross designed the second nine at Pocono Manor, roughly around 1920. This theory was propagated to the point where Pocono Manor advertised themselves as a Donald Ross course for a number of decades without any apparent proof or documentation of that fact.
That theory ultimately was dispelled with the finding of William Flynn’s architectural files in the barn of architect David Gordon, whose father William Gordon had worked for Flynn. Included in those files included a routing map and individual hole drawings for 10 new holes at Pocono Manor, all of which exist today (as holes 7 thru 16), exactly as drawn in Flynn’s own handwriting! A good number of bunkers were also drawn which seem to have been built to Flynn’s specs (if one looks at the 1937 aerial) but that disappeared over the years.
What remains at mystery are two questions; Why did the Ozone Club members at Buck Hill Falls choose Donald Ross for their documented expansion to 27 holes while choosing William Flynn to build out to 18 holes at Pocono Manor, and why was the Flynn legacy forgotten and replaced with one of Ross’s direct involvement?
Possibly, it had to do with the greater fame of Ross over the years, and possibly some marketing trying to capitalize on that notoriety. For instance, even today the Pocono Manor website reports;
In 1927 the present 18-hole East Course was completed. Designed by Donald Ross to keep uphill climbing to a minimum, the 6,350-yard course had a Par of 73. It was also in 1927 that the golf headquarters were established at the present Golf House.
This is simply inaccurate. In 1922, the “American Annual Golf Guide” reported at Pocono Manor that in addition to the existing 9 holes built in 1912, an “additional nine holes is under construction.” By 1925, that same periodical, issued at the beginning of each year, indicated that there was an 18 hole course in play at Pocono Manor with a par of 70.
By 1926, the following synopsis was published;
While it’s probable that the new clubhouse (today’s) was opened and the hole configurations revised in 1927 to accommodate the new flow, the full 18 holes with the new nine as conceived by William Flynn were drawn, built, and opened well before then.
So, what’s the source of the Ross speculation? Did he stop by while working on Buck Hill Falls and weigh in on the work underway? Did he submit a plan that was never implemented? We’ll likely never know.
What is important to note is that with the newly documented William Flynn attribution, the rich design legacy of Pocono Manor is enhanced and preserved. It also continues a strong linkage with Philadelphia and the original Ozone Club founders of Pocono Manor, as Flynn was an adopted “native son” of the Quaker city.
One final name also likely deserves recognition as one of the “silent men” who work on the building and upkeep of golf courses. You’ll note above in the 1926 thumbnail that the Greenskeeper at Pocono Manor was one Edwin A. Hoopes. According to the “History of Monroe County, Pennsylvania”, written by Francis H. Taylor in 1927, his reporting on Pocono Manor includes the following;
“During the whole period of development, the expansion of the physical plant has been in charge of Edwin A. Hoopes, as Superintendent. Mr. Hoopes, as a citizen of Monroe County of long standing, is most intimately connected with everything that has made Pocono Manor.”
While this paper does not answer every outstanding question, I believe that it’s highly likely that the original nine holes that opened in 1912 were designed by Samuel Allen, assisted by President Walter Smedley, and it’s clear now that the second nine was designed around 1920 by William Flynn and built over the next several years, likely opening in 1924. It also seems that Edwin Hoopes was responsible for the construction of both courses.