Can you help identify this golf hole?

[wsmorrison]

Craig is amazing!  Scott, you can imagine what a great help he is for the Flynn book.  He constantly suprises us.  He is soon to be recognized for his contributions in a national publication.  

[Craig Disher]

TEP,
Columbia's original course was located in Petworth area of DC, near Georgia Ave. and Decatur St. Columbia leased the site from a syndicate headed by Marshall Brown, a local hotelier. This might have been the course designed by Harban. When the club moved to its Chevy Chase location, the Petworth property was leased to Town and Country Club, the predecessor of Woodmont CC. By the early 20s, the sale of the property to the Cafritz family for development convinced Woodmont to move and the site was leased in 1921 by the the club I now belong to - Argyle CC. Argyle stayed there for about 2 years (playing on only 9 holes, the other 9 were already being developed) before moving to Silver Spring, very near Ross's Indian Spring CC. In the mid-40s, Argyle moved farther out from the city, followed by Indian Spring about 10 years later.

[TEPaul]

Craig:

I'm not sure I get that hole. Is that a fairway crossing perpendicularly across the very front of that photo? And if so where did those golfers come from in that photo? Wherever Harban's Columbia C.C design was, Harban was a so-called Columbia C.C. official and he was one of the initiators of the turfgrass consulting effort that book generated that morphed into the USGA Green Section in the 1920s. Harban seemed to be on the board from way back as we continuously see his name on the list of board members on all the old agronomy letters. It's pretty logical to assume that Harban provided Piper and Oakley with that photo. It was his club afterall. By the way, Harban was apparently a dentist to a couple of US Presidents according to his bio.

[mike_malone]

Craig,
  You forgot to mark those missile launchers

[Craig Disher]

TEPaul,
The fairway in the immediate foreground is the 10th which plays from right to left. The golfers are playing the 11th which runs from left to right. The mounds in the middle of the picture appear to be on the back of the 13th green. If I recall correctly, there are raised mounds there still. Directly behind the 13th is the shelter which is visible both on the photo and the aerial.

[Tony_Chapman]

Sorry to break the subject here, but quite an interesting thread.

Is that the green keeper mowing the fairway on a riding maching behind a horse??

[TEPaul]

Craig:

I'm still not sure I understand the hole those golfers are on. Does the hole play from left to right across the photo? Are those golfers playing to the right of the photo? When I first saw it I thought they were playing to that green just over the hill sort of in line with the clubhouse. That's why Wayne and I first thought it may be Merion East's #4.

[T_MacWood]

TE
There are two holes in the picture. The golfers are on the green of the par-3 8th, the tee is up the hill toward the shelter. The fairway in the foreground is the par-4 ninth, that hole runs from left to right across the picture.

[Craig Disher]

Tom and TE,
I don't think that's right, Tom. I believe the golfers are walking up the 11th fairway; the 10th is in the foreground. There are 3 bunkers between the 10th and 11th fairways; all 3 are visible on the aerial and in the photo. There are also 2 bunkers on the left of the 11th which are also visible on both the aerial and the photo. Only the back of the 2nd bunker is visible in the photo. The 8th and 9th holes are actually behind and to the left of where the photo was taken.

[T_MacWood]

You're right.

[Craig Disher]

Tom,
You gave in too quickly  

I went back to the photos just to make sure I was on solid ground. The point's moot - but I'll post what I did anyway.

I marked several reference points in both the photo and the aerial. The lines drawn on the aerial show approximately where the photo was taken - very near the service road and maintenance area.

Note that the tree marked F is in both pictures. G is the 12th fairway near the green.

[Mike_Trenham]

Craig

I am impressed, wow.

[TEPaul]

Craig:

Take a close look at those golfers (and the mower) on that photo---they appear to be wandering all over the place. It looks to me like none of them know whether they're on the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th or 12th hole but even though I'm not crystal clear what's going on with the course in the photo or aerial it does look like those golfers did get back to the clubhouse at some point between the photo in 1917 and that aerial in 1937. Your're a helluva researcher pal but I want you to tell me how many strokes in Rule 6-7 penalties those guys got if they were wandering around out there for close to 20 years trying to finish that round. I'd like the answer on my desk at 6am too--thank you!

[Tommy Williamsen]

Craig I'm just totally impressed.

[wsmorrison]

It's 5:53 in the morning.  I just took the dog out for a walk 'cause she was barking and my wife wouldn't get up.  Though I did get to see a nice sliver of moon, Venus, and Jupiter.  I cranked up GCA and saw Craig's analysis.  The most impressive thing yet today!

[T_MacWood]

Wayne
What golf course did you think this was?

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

My first impression was that the players were on the 4th fairway at Merion East.  The land in the background never looked quite right and Tom Paul pretty much convinced me that it could not be Merion.  I thought the big white house in the distance might have been an estate on the far side of Haverford Road since I thought the distance was about a mile or so.

Some coincidences include tree lines, the shelter, the creek bed, and trees.  I thought the fairway on the left might be the 2nd with Ardmore Avenue behind it.  The foreground would've been behind and to the left (line of play) of the fifth green.  Flynn's 1916 drawings of Merion East show similar bunkers (outline and location) as are seen in the photo.  The bunker schemes and hole designs were changed dramatically from 1912 to 1924 and other more well known changes were made through 1934.

Now, for this hillside going down from right to left to have existed in 1916, there would have to have been some engineering of the fairway to create the shelves the bunkers on the left sit on today.  If you stand out on the course, there are a lot of similarities between the photo and what's out there today.  There are some inconsistancies as well and Tom Paul identified them right away.

Even though this hole has been identified as Columbia CC, I still think there may have been some significant earth moving to create the fairway bunkers on the left side of the current 4th at Merion East.  The bunkers today including the very large one shaped like a rumpled sock are not original bunkers.  The overall surrounding ground movement seems significantly different which may indicate some manufacturing.  Bill Kittleman is going to meet me out there to take a look.  Tom Paul is not so sure about the possibility of significant earth moving on the fairway (at least I think that is his take).  I've stood out there several times for long stretches really studying the ground and still think it likely.  I guess deep soil probes would be the only way to tell if there's been alteration and added dirt.

[Craig Disher]

TEP,
My guess is that the golfers were actually playing the 10th hole, realized it was the dentist, Dr. Harban, behind the camera, and are fleeing like rabbits.

[Bill Gayne]

Craig,

Awesome analysis and great use of software.

Bill

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