16 at Atlantic City C.C.

[Jim Sherma]

In the Nature Faker the 1923 routing on page 661 appears to show the moat in the upper left side (#6 in the routing). It is also clear in the 1940 overhead on page 665.

Text from page 690:

Hole 16
Flynn 7: 400 yards, par 4
The hole was lengthened by 60 yards. The fairway was raised by 15 feet so that it is now
considerably above the 100-year flood plain. A burn surrounded the original Reid green
and Flynn‟s green in his redesign. Doak raised the green above the flood plain.

[Mark Fedeli]

Thanks for pulling that out, Jim. You just solved a huge mystery for me.

Since it says Flynn's moat green had a connection to Reid's original, it must mean the aerial at golfcoursehistories.com (http://golfcoursehistories.com/ACCC.html) is of a different course entirely, despite all the many surrounding similarities.

Their aerial has no golf holes at all in the vicinity of where the moated green would be (red circle):



and after further research, i see that the aerial is not ACCC, but is Linwood CC, a quarter mile south down the same road:

[Pete Blaisdell]

  I had the pleasure of playing ACCC just once and that was in 2003 when I was officiating at the USGA Public Links at Blue Heron Pines in Galloway.Snedeker won that Championship destroying Dayton Rose 10 & 9. Jeff Overton was the medalist. Our APL Committee always held a Committee Championship on the Sunday before stroke play qualifying on Monday. As a Committee, we were fortunate to have ACCC as our venue. I remember the feel, the ambience of the Club. I think at that time it was owned by a hotel group and was private. The staff was great and very professional and of course the track was exceptional and alot of fun to play. One situation that day that has always stuck with me was that on the opening tee shot, we teed off from the practce putting green. At first , I thought someone was playing a joke but that is where we teed off. Never encountered that before . Every thing I recall from that day was positive , one of the more enjoyable days I ever played. Every hole had a flavor and a distinct challenge. Afterwards, in the locker room, I got a real thrill looking at all the historic photos on the walls. It's one of the unique places in golf. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to get back there some day and see some of Tom's changes.

  On a personal note,  I would like my peers at GCA to know that I have been informed that I will be receiving the Ike Grainger Award at the USGA annual meeting on February 7th at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC. If anyone from GCA plans on attending, let me know. Perhaps we can have a drink .

[Mark McKeever]

Congratulations Pete!!

Mark

[Pete Blaisdell]

Mark,
  Thank you. Much appreciated.

  I knew Ike Grainger. He was a good friend of my Dad, Junie (Senator Blaisdell). Ike was one of the two people (Dr. Bob Elliott being the other) who got me involved in the Rules of Golf and Tournament Administration starting in 1977. Just a class individual so it's extra special for me to receive a national award with his name on it.

[Joe Bausch]

Mark,
  Thank you. Much appreciated.

  I knew Ike Grainger. He was a good friend of my Dad, Junie (Senator Blaisdell). Ike was one of the two people (Dr. Bob Elliott being the other) who got me involved in the Rules of Golf and Tournament Administration starting in 1977. Just a class individual so it's extra special for me to receive a national award with his name on it.

That's good knowledge Pete.

I hope you have a great award ceremony.

[Pete Blaisdell]

Joe,

  Thanks, Joe. Looking forward to it.

  Going back to my original post, have you ever seen a situation where you tee off at the practice putting green?

[Mark McKeever]

1 Tee at Philly Cricket. (Wissahickon) This was one of the features of the recent restoration of the golf course.  It provides a very nervous feeling on the tee! 

Also 14 at Merion was like that for a period of time.  I can't remember if it's still set up like that for the back tee?

[Jim Sherma]

Saucon Grace always used to have the back of #1 tee set up as a putting green. It's been a while since I've been there and am not sure if it is still like that these days.

[Pete Blaisdell]

Mark

  I certainly understand the term " nervous " in that situation. I recall not wanting to ground my club (three wood ) and holding it in the air at address not wanting to damage the green. I don't understand why it would be done in this day and age. Back in the beginning of the game, players would tee off on the the green of the hole just completed. Of course , the turf for putting was not as closely cut and manicured as they have been for the last 80-100 years in some cases. Greens for putting in the beginning were not much smoother than fairways today running 5-6 on the stimp.

[Mark McKeever]

I would not hit 3 wood for fear of taking a small divot!

MM

[Mark Fedeli]

Bumping this to see if Archie or Tom D. have anything else to add about the moat around the old 16th.

I was looking back at older aerials of ACCC and noticed a very pronounced and rather idiosyncratic moat around 16 green. Does anyone have any information about it? I wasn't able to find any mentions in past threads. Tom Doak, what were your thoughts? Did you ever consider keeping it?

This is from 1995:



And this is after TD's renovation:

[Tom_Doak]

the track was exceptional and alot of fun to play. One situation that day that has always stuck with me was that on the opening tee shot, we teed off from the practce putting green. At first , I thought someone was playing a joke but that is where we teed off. Never encountered that before . Every thing I recall from that day was positive , one of the more enjoyable days I ever played. Every hole had a flavor and a distinct challenge. Afterwards, in the locker room, I got a real thrill looking at all the historic photos on the walls. It's one of the unique places in golf. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to get back there some day and see some of Tom's changes.

Pete:

First, congratulations on your award.

You actually played Atlantic City just after our reconstruction of the course [so thanks for your compliments!].  I'm the one who put the back tee on the practice green, at the encouragement of their head pro, Billy Ziobro, just to get a few more yards out of the hole.

Mark:

Honestly, I do not remember if the moat went all the way around the green before our work, or not.  [It would have been classified as a wetland, and it's hard to get approval for wetlands changes, although we had a lot of leeway at ACCC because we created a very large new wetland on the 14th hole, and took out a lot of the phragmites at the edge of the marsh that the regulators consider an invasive weed.]

Since we were raising the fairway and green to keep them from flooding, it would have become a much deeper ditch if we'd tried to leave or restore it.  That corner of the property is four or five feet higher than it was when we started.

[Mark Fedeli]

Thanks, Tom. From reading your past comments, that's pretty much what I figured the answer would be. Not knowing how beloved (or not) that feature was, I guess I was holding out hope there was some memorable drama involved.

As a feature, is that something you would have considered keeping or did it not match up anyway with your vision for the renovation?

[Tom_Doak]

I'm generally not a fan of ditches right across the front of greens, especially on holes that play downwind a lot of the time.

[Joe Bausch]

I pretty much only play ACCC in the shoulder seasons, so I don't have Cavalier pics.  Grin.

But this album using photos from multiple visits over the last 5 uears gives a nice feel for this place oozing with history and niftyness:

http://xchem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/albums/AtlanticCityCC/