BCrosby:
This will probably turn into a long digression but if it makes you feel any better my golf club had very little awareness or interest in the historical significance of our course too. The most informed was aware that we have a Ross course and that was sort of cool but that's about as far as it went. Understanding the details of the architecture or restoring it was on noone's mind.
The interesting thing about all the material, records, minutes, whatnot is we had it despite ourselves! You see, you have to understand the general mentality or ethos of a membership like ours. The classic old line Philadephian who basically lives and looks like he lives about 30 years ago. This club is living proof of W.C. Fields's belief that if the world comes to an end be sure you're in Philadelphia because it's about 30 years behind times!
Anyway, this membership is a bunch of squirrels and wouldn't think to throw anything away! Many of these people are very rich but there is absolutely no way of telling that by looking at them or talking to them. Some have probably forgotten that they are or have always been unaware of that fact.
The perfect example of how they tend to live is my cousin (who died at 85 last week) who sold his farm about a year ago. I went into his dressing room and there were so many old clothes stacked in there you just can't believe it. We had to clean the whole place out and when we got to the bottom of one pile we found some article of clothing he'd been looking for since 1936. His farm also had to have about 50 years of deferred maintenance to it! You get the picture?
That's sort of the way the club works too. It's ironic as hell that GMGC has actually had seven architects come through the place over the years and to me that just shows how changing things architecturally was as generally prevalent as it was even for a club like mine.
You don't have to go much farther than our clubhouse to tell what kind of club it is! It looks sort of like somebody's house. The theme of the club is low play and if somebody found out that we happened to do more than fifteen thousand rounds a year somebody is going to get fired!
After about an eighty year dicussion about whether we should try and have good food or no food at all the club brought in a manager for the house and kitchen (a wonderfully effecient youny lady--we never had any kind of manager before--Yikes, way too expensive and unnecessary!!). Anyway, now we have nice meals and she has prevailed upon us to expand the kitchen! Not for no reason, mind you, but because if we didn't someone is likely to lose their life in there!
So that was approved with much gnashing of teeth and unfortunately in came the local and County permitting guys ("What you need a permit to expand a kitchen?"). Talk about opening Pandora's Box! The first reaction of the permitting boys was we had to tear the whole clubhouse down and start again, because frankly, this place probably doesn't even conform to code in 1951! More head-scratching and foot shuffling (and a few tears) until finally one of the more progressive members says he's a pretty good friend of the local congressman and he'll give him a call to see if these permitting boys can really take our beloved clubhouse from us and make us pay something! Somehow the next day the permittting boys were gone for good.
If you could see our lockerroom you'd also understand! The most expensive hooks money can buy! If we did in fact ever move to Ardrossan Farms I was instructed to duplicate that lockerroom! Somebody just last week made me aware that there are far too many Audis, BMWs and Mercedes in our parking lot and this signifies the beginning of the end of our club the way we know it and love it! I said, "are you sure about that?" and he said; "well maybe not the beginning of the end but it certainly is the end of the beginning"!
Anyway, I think now we are beginning to have a much greater appreciation for our golf course and there is pride building in its architecture too. They are beginning to understand the details and architectural significance of Donald Ross and Perry Maxwell. And hopefully more awareness is coming!
Again, we've had seven architects through the course over the years and Gil Hanse is the eighth. I don't look at Gil (and his restoration plan) as the eighth architect though! I look at him as the reincarnation of Donald and Perry. And me? I'm sort of like Perry's "forgotten man".
Bob, if you have nothing to go on, at least interview the older members with good memories. If there are any old caddies around interview them too. And take my advice and don't wait until tomorrow to do it or you will likely lose another valuable resource.
Hope this makes you feel a little better Bob, and I sure as hell hope noone from my club reads this or I'm cooked!