John Reid of New York was the sort of bigtime guy who started the "Apple Tree" gang and is sometimes given credit for the first club in America (St Andrews on the Hudson). His son Archie Reid was a helluva player.

The John Reid wer're talking about here was one of those "jack of all trades in golf" immigrant Scotsmen. Obviously John Reid's bag was not job security!  

Wayne:

That early drawing of ACCC shows a lot of rudimentary looking cop bunkers and geometric features on it. That was John Reid, right?

 Are there 4 par threes in that one area ? One of the  par three fairways looks quite "french" for Flynn.

    This seems to be the tie-in area with the right of those threes different than the "clearly" Flynn on the left.

 Wayne,
    Thanks.
      Do see other evidence of Flynn bunching up par threes like this? I'm curious because of the speculation that has been on this thread about a possible different origin to the right side of the course.

   I must confess to also hoping that # 9 was done by someone else.

   I must confess to also hoping that # 9 was done by someone else.

Yes, and if Billy Flynn didn't design 1, 2, 10, and 18 that'll be just fine with me, as well.  

John Reed was a misprint in 'American Golfer'...it was John Reid--pro/greenkeeper CC of AC, Gulph Mills and Philmont. No relationship to John Reid of St. Andrews or John Reid, Jr of Yale and Pittsburgh. He was also involved in designing the early forms of Berkshire and Scranton.

I would agree John Reid was no doubt responsible for the first 18 at Philmont.

"I would agree John Reid was no doubt responsible for the first 18 at Philmont."

I think we should guard against making these sort of statements.  It is likely true but not undoubtedly so.

As for the remaining 18 holes, I think we need to look at early aerials to make a determination.  What's out there after 80 years time is too hard to discern.  Maybe Craig Disher will post or allow me to post a 1930s aerial photograph.  Fairway contours are different as are the bunkers.  Not dramatically so but enough.  

I'm leaning towards Park doing some of the work on the North and Flynn doing some.  But it remains to be seen.  Do you think the routing as is today supports having two separate nines, one by Park and one by Flynn?  I'm not so sure.

 Mike

  Yes !

     When there seems to be some doubt it only makes sense to speculate. It gives the analyst something to focus their work. I agree that those par threes seem to be the key.  Now the rigorous analyst like Wayne may blow your hypothesis out of the water. But, at least it is reasonable.

Mike,

The area on the west which is open relative to the other sections of Philmont was always less treed as can be seen in earlier photographs.  I'll call Craig and see if he'll let me post a low res photo.  

It would appear to me looking at earlier aerials that the club at some point acquired a tract of land to the west that was a farm and had open ground.  Could the holes that Mike C doesn't like be part of the original property and the club had 27 holes for a time?  Possible.  Maybe the club expanded in the boom years of the early 1920s to 36 holes and Flynn added the holes to the West.  I still don't see how the two nines were discreet from one another.  Please explain how the first nine of the north course would have progressed.

We probably need to look at land transfer records to get a handle on things.

Yes, Tom.  There was an opening day tournament.  Afterwards the great J. Wood Platt wrote the December 11, 1924 letter to Ellis Gimbel congratulating him on the terrific new Park course, how much he enjoyed playing the new course and for his invitation.  Nothing in the newspapers according to Bob Labbance.  That includes the Inquirer and Public Record, which had a terrific sports page and was devoted to golf.

Might it have received less press because of the Jewish membership?  Were these clubs ignored in the press during that time?

Tom and I had two independent conversations with Andy Karff of Philmont.  He said that Bob Labbance found a box containing early minutes and though architects are not mentioned it will help formulate the timeline.

An interesting wrinkle is that Wilson (and likely Flynn) remodeled the 10th and 11th holes on the South Course as described in an article in the Phila Public Ledger.  We'll get a copy of that sometime in October and that should be interesting.

Here's what is on the table as of now:

1908:  9 holes open for play by Reid, the head professional

1916:  18 holes in play, I don't know who is credited with this.  I'm not sure if Reid was around then, I think he left as professional in 1911.  Tom MacWood seemed to know, I hope he will present the evidence.

In 1918 the Jackson Farm was purchased giving the club land to build the new 18 holes.  Some of the holes (1,2,9, 10 and 18) were in old forest, the remainder were built in the open fields of Jackson Farm.

There is a photo, I believe on the 9th tee of Henry Strouse (board member), Alex Davis (superintendent) and William Gordon.  Gordon did work for Willie Park, Jr. for a time but I think as of 1922 he was with Flynn.  It may be that Gordon was the project supervisor for Flynn's designs and doing the work under Toomey and Flynn, Contracting Engineers.

What did Park do, if anything?  What can we say with certainty that Flynn did?  At this point I don't believe we have enough information except to make educated guesses.  

When Bob Labbance returns to Philadelphia in October, I bet we'll know a lot more.

Interestingly, Andy Karff, who was away at GAP meetings got back and he had 19 different emails and voicemails from members and friends that mentioned the Philmont thread on GCA.  

 Oh no !  Flynn may have designed that banana !  

  Can someone post a scorecard for this course or a routing?