[Mike Sweeney]

Yale Golf Course

Via our friend Colin Sheehan of Punch Bowl Golf and Yale, I received the photo below late last night. At first I thought, "that is pretty cool." But then this morning it dawned on me, that this picture could have been taken on the greatest day in the history of Yale Golf Course.

(Cue in Keith Jackson as introducing the video)

* The Photo is from the Yale - Navy football program in 1940, 15 years after the course has opened. Back in those days, the grow ins took longer so I am guessing that the course had not been softened much at this point. Maintenance was probably very good and Yale probably had a big staff.

* The United States was roughly one year away from Pearl Harbor Day which changed America and many golf courses. Maintenance slid after this period for years and corners began to get cut.

* The Naval Academy at Yale in 1940 for a football game!! That had to be an awesome experience at that period in US history to add to the folklore of this specific date.

* Caddies were at Yale during this period.

* No carts. (your welcome Melvyn!)

* I happen to like the current Yale Club House, but a quieter version was on site in 1940.



* Yale is still amazingly isolated, but the purity of the surrounds in that picture is amazing.

* Obviously it is an aerial, but the tree/open space balance looks perfect.


So the two questions are:

1. Was this the greatest day in the history of Yale Golf Course?

2. What was the greatest day in the history of XYZ famous club?

In speaking with Mark Chalfant about his Devereux Emmet course list, it is clear that many of Emmet's have been chopped up. I personally like the concept of an owner or committee picking the perfect date in history of a golf course and trying to do a sympathetic restoration to that date while addressing modern ball flights and green speeds.

Thoughts?

[Kyle Harris]

The argument then becomes which date and why?

Wasn't that the premise behind the addition of the two bunkers along the creek to the left of the fifth fairway at Merion East?

[TEPaul]

Mike:

Yours is an interesting question and one that comes up more often than one might think----eg what was the best era and sort of "high-water-marks" for some of those great old Golden Era courses?

As with most things it's hard to generalize about that for a variety of reasons (ie the effects on some of the depression years) but I have found that more often than one might think, and particularly with the more prominent clubs, the best era seems to be in the 1930s and even the latter part of the 1930s and just before WW2.

I guess I should also mention that the era of around 1920 to just before the war is also the era when most of the really good old aerial photographs were taken, and that before about 1920, for obvious reasons (the development of flight and photographic stability), aerial photography itself did not really exist.

[Tyler Kearns]

Yale Golf Course


* The Photo is from the Yale - Navy football program in 1940, 15 years after the course has opened. Back in those days, the grow ins took longer so I am guessing that the course had not been softened much at this point. Maintenance was probably very good and Yale probably had a big staff.

* The United States was roughly one year away from Pearl Harbor Day which changed America and many golf courses. Maintenance slid after this period for years and corners began to get cut.

Mike,

I'm not sure of Yale specifically, but generally speaking, weren't maintenance budgets affected throughout the 1930's as the Great Depression deepened.

TK

[Mike Sweeney]

Mike,

I'm not sure of Yale specifically, but generally speaking, weren't maintenance budgets affected throughout the 1930's as the Great Depression deepened.

TK

At the risk of bringing Professor Shivas into the equation, 1940 seemed like a good date for Yale as the course had time to grow in and the economy was on the upswing from The Depression until things changed with Pearl Harbor Day in 1941:



Every course is situational. There is an aerial from Hollywood GC (NJ) in the 1920's in the men's locker room, and it would be hard to imagine a better day than that picture (which I don't have).

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mike,
Were they playing the football game on the course?

I don't know when that photo first appeared in a Yale football program as the caption says it was run prior to the Navy game, but I'd say the course would be in as true a form as could be seen in the 1934 aerial.

[Mike Sweeney]

I don't know when that photo first appeared in a Yale football program as the caption says it was run prior to the Navy game, but I'd say the course would be in as true a form as could be seen in the 1934 aerial.

This one at Punch Bowl what why you pick 1934?

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mike,
That's the one., It, and others like it, can be found at the Connecticut State Library site.

I wasn't trying to say that 1934 was any more representative than 1940, just that there is the possibility that it wasn't any better from '34 to '40. I agree that it never got any 'better' after the 1940 date.
Why I chose 1934: Yale was ca. 9 years old in '34 which would have made it a mature course, and who knows if may have been softened or tinkered with in the years between '34 and '40. If there had been any changes going on during that span they wouldn't have been done by Raynor or Banks, and everyone who has ever tinkered withYale since their demise has softened it, not made it more true to its roots.  

Therefore I'd say that it was more in keeping with it's original form in the 1934 aerial, mainly because it's the best and latest evidence that exists.

[Tom Dunne]

Superb! Today's course is very recognizable in that aerial. The one thing that jumps out at me...was there a bunker built into the side slope of the mountain on 18? What's that white blotch?

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tom,
Sure does look like one.

http://tinyurl.com/343s34m

[George Pazin]

Interesting that that is your idea of a perfect tree/open space balance. Mine looks a helluva lot more like the Sheep Ranch...

I'd suspect many courses have their peak attached to a specific event; the Hogan 1 iron, the Jones Grand Slam, etc.

[Tim Martin]

Mike Sweeney-Hard to believe that the property sits in the city limits of New Haven and that Fountain St. and Whalley Ave. are a spit away. That is a great aerial shot.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Mike Nice topic and nice graph. It has me thinking of what is the greatest day in the history of several clubs. Oh by the by, any day Ole Miss loses to LSU is a great day.

[John Mayhugh]

Greatest day concept is an interesting one.  One might argue that the dates that Yale hired Tom Beckett or Scott Ramsay were among the greatest in their modern history.

[Mike Sweeney]

Superb! Today's course is very recognizable in that aerial. The one thing that jumps out at me...was there a bunker built into the side slope of the mountain on 18? What's that white blotch?

I know. It is in a different position than what I understood. (via Jim's link)

[Patrick Kiser]

Mike,

Interesting thread.  It was quite amazing to see the prints from those recovered negatives in the clubhouse.  I can't believe I missed the Knoll carving while visiting recently.  Regarding question no.2, I wonder what the answer would be ... for Pinehurst.  

I know we won't call the Cal Club a full restoration, but didn't they take the same position and place a time of 1938 as the best point in time?  Because Lock / A.V. Macan and finally MacKenzie's bunker work had gone in?


All,

Not to threadjack but...

Why isn't there more on GCA about Yale?  I mean aside from Scott's good right up on Courses By Country (especially the background to the 3rd green), there's surprisingly little.  Could it be because George has good coverage the Evangelist?  Or because not much is known about the changes to the course over the years?  What about the recent restoration?

Before visiting recently, I did a lot of searching for threads and not much surfaced.

I guess I'm just surprised.  Such a fantastic course and so little coverage here.  Would love to learn more about the changes over time and how/why they happened.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mike,
If you zoom in on the oblique aerial from the football program you can see that a bunker has been added to the left side of the 16th green and the green has been moved into its present location(it's also in its present day location in the '34 aerial). Also, the bunker on the left side of #2 green is crescent shaped in your aerial, not so in the '34 version. A minor change, but still a change.

The more I think about it the more I feel that the optimal 'day' in the pre '41 history of Yale golf course was the day that Charles Banks said "That's it boys, we're outta here."    

Happy Thanksgiving
  

 

[Patrick Kiser]

I guess we had a rather recent thread on Yale and a good one at that.  Thought I'd refer the link here.  Many referral links which not even Google Advanced search pulled up... 

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,46203.0/

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