[Ian Andrew]

[PCCraig]

How neat!

Funny to see how different the clubhouse actually turned out.

[Tom_Doak]

That last paragraph is interesting, too.

[Bill_McBride]

Tom, do you think that's when Martha Burks started to get huffy?

What I noticed most is that the championship course was to play at 6700 yards when the course opened in 1932.  Sixty years later I believe it was 6890.  What is it today, 7400?  What golf ball problem?

[ChipOat]

The author referred to the existing Redan holes in the U.S. as "abortions of the original".  Besides being an absurd statement, I'll bet that didn't get him any invitations to play National after the article was published.

He also characterizes the "deadly" 18th at TOC to be among the "most dangerous in the world".  I beg to differ.

Finally, is there an Alps, Redan or Tom Morris-type hole at AGNC?

Also, other than #14 and, arguably, #8, is there any opportunity for the ground game at all?

It's still a great course, BTW - regardless of how it actually got built (and amended).

[Dan Herrmann]

That last paragraph is interesting, too.

I thought women were allowed to play if accompanied by a member.  No?

[BCrosby]

Women play ANGC all the time. A number of women's golf teams in the area play every spring. Members play with them.

The 6th was originally designed as a Redan.

The 7th was originally modelled on the 18th at TOC. It had a Valley of Sin at an angle across the right side of a green at fairway grade.

I can't think of an Alps hole unless it was the uphill 8th with the mound on the left side of the green. But that's a stretch.

In 1933 approaches on the ground made sense on 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 (from the correct side of the fairway), 14  and 17.

Bob

[Tom_Doak]

Dan:  They could from the beginning and they still can.

Yet, I'm still a bit surprised that Jones would found a club which wouldn't allow women members.  He played with great women golfers all his life (from Alexa Stirling to Marion Hollins to Joyce Wethered) and genuinely admired their golf ... it was Wethered whom he called the best golfer he had ever seen.

[BCrosby]

Jones grew up with Alexa at East Lake, they travelled to exhibition matches together, they played hundreds of round together. There were a couple of other girls at EL that Jones played a lot with who went on to distinguished amateur careers.  But the concept of a woman member at EL or any other private club in the SE was pretty far out at the time.

However much we all wish it were different, Jones was very much a man of his times. He didn't rock many boats.

Bob

[Richard Phinney]

Enjoyed that...interesting to find such an early and distinguished example of the most overused cliche in golf course promotion:

"it is a course equally pleasurable to a long handicap player as one of championship calibre."  

did the PR guys at Augusta really need to resort to that?

[BCrosby]

It sounds like a cliche now, but it was not a cliche at the time.

Certainly no one at Oakmont, PV, Merion, Shinnie, PII or any number of other major courses talked that way.

The idea of building a testing, championship course that is not penal remains a central challenge for gca. Easy to say. And these days every developer who can sit upright and hold a brochure says it.

But now as then, much harder to do.

Bob

[TEPaul]

Bob:

In my opinion, that cliche was born of the desire to promote and popularize golf back then, particularly after the onset of some really difficult championship courses that weren't supposed to be for normal golfers. So, that type of remark probably was a cliche back then too, but I think as you're probably finding with ANGC, if ever anyone really meant it, it was Bob Jones with ANGC. As you said, that just may've been the real reason ANGC and its novel and wholly unique design and its intent may never have been completely understood. Not to mention the fact that it's pretty hard for that interesting accomodating design and intent to coexist with a tournament like the Masters year after year.

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