Restoration – How important are the photos ?

[Andrew Summerell]

Obviously, much restoration work does not have access to historic photos, but when they are available, how important are they ?

I have heard of some restoration work being initiated due to the discovery of old photographs, as well as photos being used as the primary source where detailed designs had been lost.

Where contouring maps of green complexes do not exist I’m sure photographs are very helpful, but how much reliance is placed on them when contouring & topography maps are available ? I would think photos help with the ‘feel’ of the original design, & other intangible qualities that the drawings may not necessarily show.

[michael j fay]

Photographs, especially overhead photographs are often crucial to restoration work.

Even if the original plans exist, overhead photographs will tell a story that the plans do not. Bunker placement can be verified, tee shapes can be easily seen and many green shapes and sizes can be approximated with the overheads. Another aspect is that the trees on the property can be quantified. It is startling to show a member, who swears that a certain copse of trees on a course has been there forever; that the land was barrren in the 20's or the 30's. A series of overheads from different decades can show dramatically when and why the course strayed from the original design of the Architect.

Two very good restorations of Ross courses that were restored from overhead shots are Timuquana in Jacksonville and The Grove Park Inn in Asheville. At Timuquana, the overhead was the indicator that a course that had 11 dog legged holes in 1996, only had two in 1931. Bobby Weed and his crew did a very realistic restoration of this 1923 Ross design without any original plans. The overheads that were found in the Clubhouse served as a guide for the effort.

Kris Spence did a masterful job at the Grove Park Inn with a tiny overhead shot. In both instances the overheads were relied upon heavily for bunker placement.

Flat shots and panoramics are very good for examples of bunker styling.

All in all photos are a very necessary part of any restoration.  

[ian]

Andrew,

It may be best understood visually.

Sometimes all you get is a plan, the strategies are usually very clear, but there is no detail. Your only hope is to have part or all of the forms still existing on site.



Quite often we can locate an aerial photo from the early days of the course. This is 1939. We also know there were NINE bunkers already changed in the 7 years before this photo. The one problem with relying on aerial photos is there is no 3D information to help make decisions, all you have is locations.



Some times you end up with a watercolour or illustrated plan produced by someone else. The biggest issue is, did they interpret or worse, was the plan showing proposed changes. We have a renovation plan by Stanley Thompson for Westmount in Kitchener, the renovations are to the course he had built a couple of years before.



The off angle photo is helpful, but a source of trouble too. This shows an unsual side angle of 18, and a far view of the 12th in the background. That is the only existing photo of the 12th hole, that we intend to restore. How do you make decisions based on this? You do, but I hope you understand the limits.



Finally this is the 18th hole from the 150 yard marker in the centre of the fairway. Every hole, at this course, has a photo from this position; and every hole was photographed the first year. It doesn't get any better than that.



Nothing beat the origional landforms still fully intact on site.
I think it is still a better guide than a photo, but the problem is some times its very hard to tell what has been altered.

To fully answer you, you need as much information as you can get to make good decisions. The more you are missing, the more you guess, the less effective the restoration.

[TEPaul]

Aerials, particularly old aerials of classic courses are real eye openers--they often give you a perspective on the course you never dreamed of if you haven't used or analyzed aerials before. The dimensions of length and width take on a whole new meaning with aerials vs on-ground or on-ground photos and they lend a wonderful restorative reference with length and width which basically wouldn't be so easily available with on-ground photos or even good drawings which utilize easily identifiable contour lines for the dimension of height. But after a while using exclusively aerial photography you come to realize more and more how limiting it can be for the third dimension---height. Sometimes low sun shadowing can assist in analyzing the height dimension but for obvious reasons that can get tricky to calculate properly.

See that last on-ground photo of Ian Andrews's above? Even fascinating and dramatic topography like that at high noon in an aerial 1,000 or 2,000 ft directly above the course would lose about 90% of its evident on-ground height dimension!

[Andrew Summerell]

Thanks Ian, great photos.

Obviously clubs that ask for restoration work are interested in the historical value of the original design. This has to be done with great honesty, otherwise there is no reason to do it at all.

Have you ever encounted conflict between what you have discovered & what the club's committee believe is true ? I'm sure selective memory often plays a part, especially for people who may have been members for 30 - 40 years.

Andrew

[ian]

There are many situations that come up, usually its about bunkers or landforms that are long gone; but here is an unusual case.

At St. Georges (in Toronto) the 16th hole has some back bunkers that are exactly like the existing back bunkers at Jaspar's 11th hole. Both sets are interesting and alike, and these really frame the hole exceptionally well.

John Gall (the super) and I discovered that the ones at St. Georges were not origional. This was the first anyone had heard, and it suprised us a lot.

It became a great debate within the green's committee. Some thought there was no way this could be true, these bunkers had never been questioned at any time. Do we remove them? Could Stanley have come back?

Who knows, but we choose to keep them after doing some digatal before and afters to se what the hole would look like without them. There was a definate possibility Stanley could have come back and added the bunkers since they had been added in his lifetime.

Still a choice all the same wasn't it.

[Andrew Summerell]

I suppose it's a matter of what's best for the course.

[ian]

The tough question becomes, what to do with evolution. For example:

Pine Valley's wasteland plantings, Merion's bunker faces and and internal plantings, every lip that has ben raised by bunker sand splashes. Do you go all the way back, or do you go with the evolution.

This is pure judgemment, and full of interesting and tough decisions. There is no easy answer, unless your an absolute purist (and that may not be the best solution either).

[Tommy_Naccarato]

There is no easy answer, unless your an absolute purist (and that may not be the best solution either).

Ian, This bold statement alone could be grounds for dismissal. Your walking a thin line right now. WATCH YOURSELF! (I'm watching you!)

[ian]

Tommy,

I'm getting in trouble for being honest. Being a purist is the easiest answer. Most often, I choose to go back to the earliest record of the work, but even you must admit occasionally the work that evolved is better than the work that was first built.

Now you face a decision. In all honesty Tommy, do you always go back? I would like your honest thoughts on this.

[texsport]

Mike Nuzzo should weigh in on this suject.

JK

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tommy (I know you're kidding above), but a great example of going with the evolved condition of things is right in your backyard, at Riviera. Coore and Crenshaw, Axland and Proctor decided to redo the bunkers there in their evolved state.

Right or wrong? Opinions probably vary, but it was the architect's decision. And they made one, going against the original Thomas/Bell style. Can you believe it?!?!  

[gookin]

I think aerial photos are invaluable.  They tell the story.  Our course has them going back about every ten years since being built in 1926.  It is fascinating to take one hole and put the photos from different decades side by side.  We saw our course evolve from wide fairways with strategic options to bowling alleys with the single choice of hitting a straight shot.  When they said a picture is worth a thousand words they were right.  Without these old aerials I doubt we could build support for making much needed changes. We would be stuck forever as an arboretum.

[TEPaul]

From Ian Andrews above;

"The tough question becomes, what to do with evolution. For example:
Pine Valley's wasteland plantings, Merion's bunker faces and and internal plantings, every lip that has ben raised by bunker sand splashes. Do you go all the way back, or do you go with the evolution.
This is pure judgemment, and full of interesting and tough decisions. There is no easy answer, unless your an absolute purist (and that may not be the best solution either)."

Ian:

It might be a bit dicey sometimes to be too much of a purist when you consider some of the other ramifications today of going all the way back.

Here's a perfect example you may be aware of.

Merion, during their recent bunker project apparently had the option of taking out all the evolutionary build-up on their bunker surrounds. By far the most notable examples on the course are the fronting bunkers on holes #8 and #13. Both those front faces have probably grown higher by a good four feet or more over the years which has most definitely evotutionarily recontoured the green surface just over them to one that slopes away from the approach shot compared to a green slope that used to slope at the approach shot.

The club had in their possession a recent written analysis of the situation by one Mel Lucas (once the simultaneous superintendent of Piping Rock and GCGC).

Mel Lucas wrote if one took a probe and cored straight down through the top of the bunker many feet below he would discover the original top of the bunker construction that he referred to as "Hugh Wilson's fingerprints".

Mel also wrote if those bunkers were taken back down to that original level and the corresponding green surface just over them sloped from back to front into those bunkers as they did originally that with the greenspeeds Merion runs on their greens today compared to the speeds the greens were at that earlier time that those two greens, at least, could and probably would turn into a freak show!!

Sometimes, it seems, if you really do your homework you just might find it's not the smartest thing to be a total purist. I think Merion probably really dodged a bullet by sticking with the multi feet of evolutionary build-up on those bunkers and greens as Riviera did with Coore and Crenshaw!

Personally I tend to view THAT KIND OF decades old golfer induced evolution as architectural maturity and architectural character. Those bunkers and greens had never been previously redesigned they just evolved in form and shape over the decades.

[ian]

Tom,

Greg at CC of Scranton had talked with Mel about recapturing old green areas through probing. We obviously have recaptured almost all of them now. The 13th was a prime example of a green that had shrunk do to build up (very similar in size and scale to Merion and Riviera (the membership's favourite green site). It stayed, rather than recapture the green, they enjoyed the evolution and so did I. Why change these things to be perfectly pure, I couldn't imagine Riviera looking as good without those wonderful raised faces.

We left all those features at St. Georges by digging them out by hand and replacing them with topsoil for easier growing conditions.

At St. Georges I was asked about how accurate we were going to try and be. I had said as close to the photos as we possibly can unless evolution had delivered a better bunker. Then we would leave that bunker as it had become.

I ask why purists accept tees to modernize length, or recapture strategy, whereas leaving the evolution of bunkers seems to be a capitol offence.