Rees On Bethpage Et Al

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Paul
Don't worry having Pat insult you is quite an accomplishment. I agree with your assessment, those pecular fingers now found at Bethapge are nothing like the classy capes and bays at Ridgewood.

Mike
I completely agree with you comments regarding Golden Valley. Every course has different circumstances. Jeff McDowell posted an essay on Golden Valley a year or so ago and I recall Tillinghast's course sketch looking very similar to his other courses, but the one photo from behind the green featured a grass bank that Raynor would be proud of. I don't know if that is result of local contractors or a deliberate design feature of Tillinghasts (I suspect the former), but every course has to be analyzed individually and preconcieved ideas about an architect's tendancies result in predicatable plain Jane restorations (and potentially a loss of a particular stroke of genius). Seminole and Paul's photos of the Colt design with 300 bunkers (Tandridge?) are prefect examples.

[Paul Turner]

Oops a mistake.  I meant 3rd East (not Centre).

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick,

Sometimes I feel that we're both looking at a Rohrschact (spelling?) test.  I see one thing and you see another.  

I don't know what the Ridgewood bunkers looked like prior to Rees's work in 1988, but I don't agree that they look like Bethpage Black, which to me are overly fussy.

Instead, they looked more to me like the Tillinghast bunkers that Rees worked on at Baltusrol and Quaker Ridge.  They are more "rounded" in contour, and don't have a lot of capes and bays, extensions, or surprising changes of direction and angle.  They are more uniform than the original pictures of those courses suggest, and more manicured.  Rough edges or anomalies are smoothed away.

At Bethpage, there is a LOT going on with many of them and I can honestly say that they are much more fussy than anything I've ever seen from Tillinghast.  I respect that you look at the same thing and disagree with me, but I trust my eyes.  Interestingly, the 17th is almost an exact replica of what existed before, with perhaps just a little more grass showing.  However, many of the other bunkers seem to be simply overdone, perhaps in the enthusiasm to create something "grand".    

Patrick, if you want to seem some Tillinghast bunkering that exhibits both the flair of a true artist, as well as the complexity that is missing in some of the Tillie "restoration" work I've seen, I would encourage you to get out to Fenway.  The work that was done there is marvelous.  Now, if they just institute a tree management program!!

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

I'll try to describe the original configuration as seen in the '38 aerial.

1st: The original hole and bunkering was identical to the pre-Rees course, with one exception. There was a large bunker and smaller bunker to the right of the green pre-Rees - they combined to form one large bunker originally. The lefthand bunker was absolutley identical. Rees enlarged the leftside bunker and shrunk the rightside bunker and created pronounced protrusions of grass in both.

2nd: Again no fairway bunkering. The large bunker cut above the green on the right was original (and Rees reestablished it), it however did not have the capes and bays. The lefthand front bunker was slightly larger and up against the green, I suspect its grass bank was originally flashed with sand up to the green.

3rd: The green was guarded on the middle left by an oblong bunker. There was a large irregular bunker that started in front that bunker flowed down and back toward the tee - creating an interesting visual effect.

4th: A large irregular bunker down the left not as long as the current bunker but wider especially into the rough on the left - it appears to have an island of grass. A medium sized irregular bunker behind it and third bunker behind it cut on the hill on the edge of the forest. A large waste area on the rightside across from the bunkers. Glacier bunker was about the same strectching a little farther down the right, no fingers of grass, just an irregular outline - serpentine wall of sand. The hillside in front of the green guarded by larger longer bunker without any capes.

5th: Identical to the pre-Rees hole and almost identical to the post-Rees hole. The only change appears to be the left front bunker with is large grass notch.

6th: A very interesting hole. The fairway bunkering pre-Rees was very similar. Down the left out about 185 to 215 was large irregular bunker (combine the two bunkers of the pre-Rees course to create that single bunker) and down the right about 210 to 240 was another large irregular bunker (larger than the pre-Rees version). It appears the choice was to play safely to the right or attempt to carry the bunker on the left and possbily shoot down a large hill. The green was oriented toward the left with longish irregular bunkers (both left and right) stretching out the length of the green and slightly past the front. there was a second leftside bunker that strectched about another 20-25 yards straight out. For those approaching from the left their was an open ramp. From the right it was all carry to a severely bunkered green.

More later.

[Bruceski]

Tom,

Are you able to scan the '38 aerial and display it here?

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Bruceski
No can do. Unfortunately I don't have a scanner and the copies are small, a little dark and broken into two frames. I'm trying to get a better photographic version which I will send to Tommy N for scanning and posting.

If you are familar with the course pre-restoration you won't have trouble visualizing it, I was surprised how many of the features survived from the orginal design almost in their identical state. The most common change over the years (until the renovation) was chopping large bunkers into two or more bunkers.

[GeoffreyC]

Tom

I gave TommyN Photoshop 6 last year.  Its quite amazing what that program can do to sharpen up and clear up a dark image.  That's possibly a bit of fudging on reality but I'm sure Tommy would work on it and post the images for us to look at.  If Tommy is unavailable, I'll find a scanner at work (my address is in the GW excel spreadsheet you have) and put the image through photoshop myself.  We'd all love to see it.

You are correct about the splitting up of large bunkers into clusters of smaller (but still pretty darn large) ones.  Hole #'s 2 and 14 are good examples of ones that Rees reclaimed into single huge bunkers during his work.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

Is it possible that there were changes to the bunkers at Bethpage between 1938 and 1998 ?

Wouldn't an aerial taken in 1996 better serve your exercise ?
To enable you to see what the 1938 course had evolved into,
and then make the comparison between the three aerials ?

Now you say that Tillinghast bunkers have capes and bays, why didn't you object when someone else said they didn't ?

Mike Cirba,

You need to get back to Ridgewood to make a more thorough analysis.

Fenway is Fenway,  WF is WF, Baltusrol is Baltusrol and
Bethpage is Bethpage.  Each is unique, and not a cookie cutter replica of the other, to be copied or held out as a true tillinghast amongst pretenders.

Memberships control the final product.

If an architect doesn't give the members what they want, they will go to another architect who will.

Arthur Goldberg fired Rees Jones at Atlantic City because Rees wouldn't do what he wanted.  He then retained Tom Doak who did the work.  Arthur Goldberg was going to get it his way, since he was paying the freight.  Non-dictatorial memberships are the same, they just take a little longer to act

And, if the architect does something contrary to the memberships directive, they will correct that deviation in time.

[Jeff_Lewis]

Can somebody PLEASE post this aerial?

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick,

Ohhhh, that it were only so.

If Rees's work is so site-specific, and so in tune with what made each original Tillinghast work so unique, then why was our group able to pick out every single bunker that he redid at Quaker Ridge, simply because of his ever-present trademarks that include "mound and round", soft, flowing lines, elimination of all natural irregularities, widening of narrow corners, elimination of seredipitous and whimsical flows, with obvious machine-built surrounds and sharp edging?

[WilliamWang]

the picture below is of bethpage black in april of 1994, pre u.s. open work.  it's from terraserver.  although it's not the 1938 aerial it does give you a point of comparison for the rees jones work.

holes 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9, 12, 13, and 14 are visible. parts of 10 and 11.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Cirba,

Probably because he did every one of them.

Tough to go wrong if that's the case.

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick;

I'll let others answer that question (whether Rees did ALL of the bunkering at QR) if they are comfortable addressing it.  

I've gathered that there is some sensitivity around the issue.  

[GeoffreyC]

Mike

OK- I'll fess up.  

I played Quaker Ridge with Mike and two other distinguished GCA participants last summer.

There were a few bunkers left on the course that were obviously original Tillinghast.  We picked them out immediately.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Geoffrey C,

Are you positive that those bunkers hadn't been touched between the time AWT designed them and the time you played them ??

[GeoffreyC]

Pat

Of course I can't be sure they were not touched.  I can only say there there are a few bunkers at Quaker Ridge that are

1- more in keeping with what I had thought of as Tillinghast-like shaping

2- different from all the other newer bunker shapes.

That's the extent of what I can say.

As you know very well, I'm a great supporter of Rees' work at Bethpage.  I think he did a great job.  I must say that the esthetics (only) of the bunkers at Quaker Ridge and Baltusrol are not even close to those done by Gil Hanse, Rodney Hine and Bill Kittleman at Fenway.  I am always attempting to be even handed and that's the way I honestly see this example.

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick,

It was also very clear which bunkers at QR the group preferred by a long stretch.  I'm sorry if you feel that's biased in some way.  

There is an old picture in one of Rick Wolffe's Tillinghast books of the fairway bunker complex on the par five 14th that is as good as anything you'll ever see (and interestingly, much like the 3rd at Fenway post-restoration).  To see the Reestorized version today could make a grown man cry.    

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

7th: The waste bunker is identical. The two staggered fairway bunkers that guarded the second shot are also nearly identical - any difference is minor. The left greenside bunker is very close to the pre-Rees version prehaps a little more irregualr in outline. The hook shaped bunker on the right was actually part of what looks like another waste area that extended back toward the tee maybe twenty yards and up to the right portion of the green. Rees added a large right greenside bunker featuring a whale's tail and increased the size of the left hand bunker which looks to be closer to the green.

8th: The is the first hole that appears in the second frame (which is poorer in quality). The green is guarded by a fairly large bunker to the left-rear that rose up the hill and smaller bunker behind and a bunker carved into the hill on the right.

9th: The tee shot was dominated by singular mid-fairway bunker carved into the base of the hillside. It appears the safe choice evidently was out to the right (or short of it, probably leaving a blind approach). The bold play would to sneek your drive to the left and cutt the dogleg or directly over the bunker - which may have been less difficult than appears - I don't know. An exciting shot none the less. The green was guarded by a large righthand bunker (a combination of the two pre-Rees bunkers) and left hand bunker of a more regular shape - very similar to the pre-Rees bunker. Rees created two wing bunkers with grassy protrusions.

10th: There was series of large bunkers gently curving down the entire left side (the remnants can be seen in Mr.Wangs aerial, although not ordinary in outline not as excentric as what is seen today). Two more irregular bunkers guard the right. The green was bunkering was similar to pre-Rees. The left hand bunker was more boomerang in shape. A simple shaped bunker behind the green.

11th: An irregularly shaped directional bunker short of the fairway. The same series of gently curving bunkers down the left that stretch right up to the green. Bunker to the right off the fairway, followed by two more irregular bunkers, the last just short of the green. Rees created two large flanking greenside bunkers with bold grassy protrusions

12th: (Back to the 1st frame)The corner of the dogleg was guarded by a very similar irregular bunker. The greenside bunkering was inearly dentical to pre-Rees. One the left a large bunker with smaller oddly shaped bunker behind it. The bunker on the right was nearly the same as pre-Rees with the rear globe bulging a bit more. In place of this very typical Tillinghast bunkering scheme Rees created two wing bunkers with distinctive grassy capes (including another whale's tail).

More later.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Pat
I think you misunderstood my description on #2. The bunker to the right did not originally have capes and bays, they were added by Rees when he re-established the bunker.

[WilliamWang]

i've added two more aerials from the 1994 series.

holes

holes 1-3 and 15-18

[GeoffreyC]

See what photoshop can do!  

Tom send the 1938 aerial and we can post it.







The old bunkers on 10 and 11 look pretty familiar.

Notice the scale of the bunkers on the black are in general much larger then the other courses.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

13th: No fairway bunkers off the tee. The clover-like bunker seen in the pre-Rees photo was similar, but with the righthand lobe stretching out into the fairway at 90 degrees - nearly forming a cross-hazard. The bunker short of the green was larger and ran diagonally from the right to the left - closest to the approach on the left. The angle would mirror a long left to right approach. Rees left the first fairway bunker pretty much the same, for some reason it was not fully restored. The bunker short of the green was rebuilt but at the opposite angle. A new bunker left of the green was added.

14th: This green was originally protected by two bunkers where the single bunker now sits. There was a third bunker between the left hand bunker and the tee. These bunkers were larger than the 'Mickey Mouse' bunkers and in different locations.

15th: This hole is very similar to the hole as it looks today. There were no fairway bunkers and there were three bunkers up on the ridge guarding the green. Nearly identical to what is seen in the black & white photo above. Rees added  deep grassy notch in the left hand bunker and expanded the right hand bunker with large capes and bays.

16th: Again no fairway bunkers. By the green, the lefthand bunker was the same as what is seen pre-Rees perhaps slightly more irregular in shape. There were two bunkers on the right that stretched well down the fairway - an elongated-Y puffy shape and a squarish L-shape - their shape was very typical of Tillinghast. Rees expanded the lefthand bunker addding distinct capes and bays. His single righthand bunker sits where the two bunkers once sat. The Y-shape can be seen but the original did not have the obvious cape more of a subtle bulge.

17th: The configuration of the bunkers is identical.

18th: The complex of fairway bunkers was very similar as what is seen in the black & white photo above. The difference, on the right the two smaller bunkers nearest the fairway were not original and the four small bunkers of the leftside complex that form the Principals Nose were also added after 1938. The front greenside bunker was the same, the two back bunkers were actually a single large bunker with straight edge closest to the green. Rees re-did the fairway cluster bunkers left and right. He also created new wing bunkers by the green - left and right - with massive fingers of grass.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Geoffrey
You will find my hole by hole account of the changes at the end of this thread. As a Bethpage expert where do you think my description misses the mark.

I believe you said you had a program that could enhance less than perfect pictures, blow up the aerial in the US Open program and do some enhancing. If you want better quality call me at 614-792-2846 and I'll hook you up with the person with the LI State parks. And I'll say it once again -- I'll make a deal, you do that and I'll send you my aerial. And you can brow beat me all you want. I'm quite comfortable with what I found, what did you find?