During the '20s, RTJ designed 21 courses in the NY Metro area.  Only Tillinghast and Emmet designed more courses in the NYC area during this period (26 and 23, respectively.)  

Here is RTJ's early timeline:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=31846

You must have been counting those 20's RTJ courses during a very rushed 15 minute drive to Bethpage!  

I don't think it's fair to compare Ross "mailing" in a design with someone doing that today, given the gigantic differences in travel. His clients likely knew what they were getting, and I'd venture a guess most were satisfied with the results, or he wouldn't have continued to see new work.

As for the rest of the thread, in all likelihood, no one has ever heard of the worst one - he probably did one or two and disappeared.

Jeff,

Funny you should mention Brunswick CC, as it is scheduled to reopen tomorrow.  I think you can call it a restoration- we faithfully rebuilt the greens based on Ross' original sketches (although there was some interpretation based on lack of sketch detail), a renovation- we put it in a new and good condition, and an improvement- at least we hope the members will think so.

Time can be a good thing or bad thing depending on the circumstances.  Brunswick is an example of where time did the course no favors because the club always lacked either the focus or the funds to keep the course up to date.  As a result, by the time you were playing it in the 1980's, every green had become a 4,000 sq. ft. inverted saucer.  Fairly mundane, yet still interesting enough that the membership enjoyed playing it every day.  

What we learned through this renovation process is how good Ross really was at green design.  He created 18 wonderful green complexes on a dead flat, nothing site.  The putting surfaces are a mixture of bold and subtle contouring that allow for a large number of incredible pin locations.  His use of mounding around and into the greens is genious, featuring a great sense of proportion to frame the target and create depth perception on every hole.  The overall routing is nothing special, but he inherited the front nine layout and the back nine that he routed flows in different directions and, we would guess at the time, provided plenty of variety.  

I didn't mean to ramble on, but I guess my point to this is that you mentioned BCC as an example of one of Ross' "lesser" courses based on what you saw at the time you played.  Before the renovation, I would not have necessarily disagreed, but now I have a whole new respect for what Ross was able to do.  As to this thread in general, I'm sure Ross designed some "clunkers" within the 400 courses he supposedly did, but I'm willing to bet that there is something good and/or at least interesting in every one of them.  I would also say that his good stuff was great and has to far outweigh anything questionable he may have ever produced.

John

 

John.
By the way,I enjoyed Brunswick CC when I played it as I am a big fan of older courses and the inverted saucers the greens had become favored my short game.
However, I was certainly in the minority and my fellow competitors certainly preferred the more modern courses of nearby Sea Island.
Of course I used to love driving over to Jekyl to play the old 9 holer.

When you say you became a bigger fan of Ross's work from the process I assume you are basing that on the sketches that were found.
I think Mike's point is that many of these sketches were submitted by Ross all over the country,but he often never returned to the site to implement them or see how they were actually built.
Is anyone sure the greens were built as Ross sketched them at Brunswick CC?

Regardless, it sounds as if the course is improved regardless of whether it's defined as a restoration or a renovation. Congratulations to Love and Cowley as well as the membership.

"I wonder if Wayne would try to kill me if I said Flynn..."

JC Jones,

I don't begrudge you your opinions.  Everyone is entitled to them and your is no exception.  Do you really feel that way or are you just kidding?  Like most Americans and nearly all rest of the worlds, little is understood about William Flynn.

Flynn, more than any other classic era architect I have encountered, has the least changed courses save for added tee length, which for the most part was designed in.  Having stood the test of time far better than his contemporaries can be attributed to either the quality of the architecture or the cheapness of the clubs.  I'll let everyone judge that on a case by case basis.

If you think that Flynn was the worst ODG, you must not like or know:

Shinnecock Hills (100% Flynn)
Merion (~60% Flynn)
Cascades
Kittansett (100% Flynn)
The Country Club, Brookline (~60% Flynn at one point)
The Country Club, Pepper Pike
Philadelphia Country Club
Huntingdon Valley
Rolling Green
Indian Creek
Manufacturers
Pocantico Hills
Lancaster CC
Lehigh CC
Cherry Hills
Washington GCC
Pepper Pike Club
Merion West
Atlantic City CC
Eagles Mere

Name me a single architect in America with a better set of 20 golf courses (which is about1/2 the Flynn courses still in existence).

Tillinghast?  Not at all in my mind.  Then again, I do not like Bethpage Black at all and I don't think very highly of Baltusrol Lower and Winged Foot West.  Call me crazy  

Tillinghast?  Not at all in my mind.  Then again, I do not like Bethpage Black at all and I don't think very highly of Baltusrol Lower and Winged Foot West.  Call me crazy  

I love you Wayne but you are crazy.  No - you are freekin out of your mind!  

Name a Flynn course including Shinnecock that has 4 WORLD CLASS golf holes better then Bethpage Black #'s 4, 5, 15 and 17?  Not going to happen.  Without world class golf holes you don't have a world class golf course.

Name a Flynn course with better sets of par 3's then Winged Foot EAST or Newport CC.  Don't think its going to happen.

Name Flynn Short par 4's better then Fenway # 15 or the nickel and dime at Ridgewood?  Don't think its going to happen.

Name an architect including Flynn with such amazing variety of design to include Bethpage Black, Fenway, Quaker Ridge, Newport CC, Somerset Hills, Rockaway Hunting Club, Baltimore CC and others.  He built with such variety in style of bunkering, green contours, pushups, extensions of fairways, parkland and links.  He was truly GREAT.

Sorry buddy but I had to come out of retirement for this diatribe.

Hey, Geoff.  It was worth it to get you back on board this wacky ship of fools  

Tillinghast without a doubt benefits from the NY push.  That isn't to say that SFGC and Somerset Hills aren't great courses and that Tillinghast has a portfolio of very solid and some great works.  But compare his top 20 courses to Flynn and it is arguable that he falls short.

So what are you saying, that Bethpage Black is a better course than Shinnecock Hills?  Preposterous.   Our definitions of world class do not seem to jive.  There is nothing world class about the greens at Bethpage Black.  That is a tough fact to overcome.  Along with the boring fairway contours (lack of in reality) and overdone bunkering (by several magnitudes) and there's a lot to find fault with at the championship venue of a large golf complex.  In my mind, 4 is a solid but unspectacular hole.  5 is quite good.  The only interest on 15 is the slope of the green and the elevation change.  World class?  Hardly.  I like the 17th quite a bit, but it isn't a world class par 3 by any stretch of the imagination.  And your imagination seems to be stretched pretty far.

As for collections of par 3s, Rolling Green, Kittansett, Philadelphia Country, Huntingdon Valley, Lehigh and Shinnecock are all better groups than WFE and Newport CC.  Far better.

Short par 4s as good as or better than Fenway 15?  I can name a lot starting with 10,11 and 12 at Merion East.  Rolling Green's 12th and 15th are far superior as are the 11th at Huntingdon Valley; the 1st and 16th at Philadelphia Country; The 2nd and 4th at Lancaster; the 4th, 7th and 13th at Indian Creek; the 17th at TCC in Pepper Pike; the 4th and 6th at Pocantico Hills; and while there are plenty more, I'll stop with the 13th at Shinnecock Hills.  Although the general concept was Crump, Flynn and Wilson built the only template hole that Flynn would make use of (and excellently)...the great 12th at Pine Valley.

I am not saying that Tillinghast wasn't a great architect; he was.  But he wasn't as great as many make him out to be.  Winged Foot West does not have interesting fairways and is repetitive in its demands.  I think Winged Foot East is a far better course.  I think Baltusrol Lower also lacks enjoyable difficulty and is even worse after the narrowing.  Baltusrol Upper is a fine course but surely no better than Rolling Green.  It gets trumpeted more than RGGC, but I discount that as the near NY factor.

If you knew the variety of bunkering by Flynn you may think more highly of his range in styles.  Please bear in mind that the American archetype flashed bunkering can be attributed to Flynn and Wilson.  Flynn's naturalism at such seaside courses as Shinnecock, Indian Creek, Boca Raton South (may be the best course now NLE--along with Boca Raton North and Mill Road Farm, 3 great Flynn courses that are NLE), Atlantic City CC, Norfolk CC and Kittansett were works of art.  Flynn's improved bunkers at TCC and Merion East were integral parts of major improvements at both courses.  There is no finer bunkered par 5 in America than the 3rd at Philadelphia Country Club.  The bunkering at Bethpage Black looks silly and caricatured by comparison.

Tillinghast did not have a monopoly of variety when it comes to "bunkering, green contours, pushups, extensions of fairways, parkland and links."  He wasn't as innovative with angles, perception deception, offsets and subtle interplays of green slopes.  He wasn't as proficient at shot testing and creating individual courses that provided interest for a wider range of player classes.  He wasn't as innovative with multiple tees for different classes of players.  In America, it probably was best employed by Flynn.

Jeff,

Funny you should mention Brunswick CC, as it is scheduled to reopen tomorrow.  I think you can call it a restoration- we faithfully rebuilt the greens based on Ross' original sketches (although there was some interpretation based on lack of sketch detail), a renovation- we put it in a new and good condition, and an improvement- at least we hope the members will think so.

Time can be a good thing or bad thing depending on the circumstances.  Brunswick is an example of where time did the course no favors because the club always lacked either the focus or the funds to keep the course up to date.  As a result, by the time you were playing it in the 1980's, every green had become a 4,000 sq. ft. inverted saucer.  Fairly mundane, yet still interesting enough that the membership enjoyed playing it every day.  

What we learned through this renovation process is how good Ross really was at green design.  He created 18 wonderful green complexes on a dead flat, nothing site.  The putting surfaces are a mixture of bold and subtle contouring that allow for a large number of incredible pin locations.  His use of mounding around and into the greens is genious, featuring a great sense of proportion to frame the target and create depth perception on every hole.  The overall routing is nothing special, but he inherited the front nine layout and the back nine that he routed flows in different directions and, we would guess at the time, provided plenty of variety.  

I didn't mean to ramble on, but I guess my point to this is that you mentioned BCC as an example of one of Ross' "lesser" courses based on what you saw at the time you played.  Before the renovation, I would not have necessarily disagreed, but now I have a whole new respect for what Ross was able to do.  As to this thread in general, I'm sure Ross designed some "clunkers" within the 400 courses he supposedly did, but I'm willing to bet that there is something good and/or at least interesting in every one of them.  I would also say that his good stuff was great and has to far outweigh anything questionable he may have ever produced.

John

 

John,
I am sure BCC will be fine....best of luck with the opening....
my point was as you describe....if you restored it to his drawings it could be completely different than what was on the ground originally because half of the farmers out there could not even decipher his plan being they had no understanding of golf.....therefore there are a lot of Ross courses built out there that would be totally different if they were rebuilt today as per his plans.....IMHO.
Mike

Has anyone ever heard of the worst anything 80 years later?


Just like whomever is the worst today will never have been heard of 80 years from now...


That's the wall you and Jeff Brauer bumb up against in these arguments...we (the non-gca guys on here) think the ten we know of from those days were the only ones doing it...

Has anyone ever heard of the worst anything 80 years later?


Just like whomever is the worst today will never have been heard of 80 years from now...


That's the wall you and Jeff Brauer bumb up against in these arguments...we (the non-gca guys on here) think the ten we know of from those days were the only ones doing it...

Well, I have heard of the Edsall. I guess it has to be an all time stinker to remain alive in the public consciousness.  

Looking at it 75 years down the road, we can see a couple different paths of creation for quality early 20th century courses. There are a handful of great courses that MacKenzie, Flynn, etc. labored over until they were great and future generations have more or less preserved them in their greatness. And then there were guys like Ross who seeded great swathes of the country with mediocre courses underpinned by quality routings. Over the decades natural selection has worked to destroy or disfigured most of them but a few matured into something pretty darned nice.

It's all kind of like Darwinian versus ex nihilo creation.

I feel like I've been channelling Paul Cowley on one of his more easy-to-understand days.