Bob:

Of course it's pretty hard to include or exclude most anyone (within that group sort of in-the-know people back then) of the actual identity of Joe and Billy Bunker or Verdant Green but Hugh Wilson just doesn't seem to me to be a particularly logical candidate.

From available letters we have from him he just didn't seem to put any stock at all in his writing ability and sometimes joked about that.

I think there're probably a ton of likely candidates from back then that even if we may not be familiar with their names now when we find out who they were and their connections it will probably make perfect sense to us.

But if a Wilson is a candidate I'd tend to favor Hugh's brother Alan Wilson. It's easy for most to underestimate his significance in architecture in those days and that should never be done. He had a lot to do with things like Pine Valley and he definitely was always around to see these things going on around town.

Wouldn't Juniata be considered near the Tacony section of Philadelphia?

Kyle,

That's correct.   Although, some early versions talk about approving land in Pennypack Park for a golf course.

I'm not sure if Tacony Park is/was considered part of greater Pennypack Park with all of the FPC gerrymandering and such.

The official word from the Philadelphia Inquirer as to who Joe & Billy Bunker and Verdant Greene really were is... they have no idea at all!

They searched personnel records, and even their "morgue" research section and couldn't even find a hint. They believe that these 3 were well-known by all and that was why no records were kept.

I will once again go on the record as stating that I don't believe any on the three was tillinghast (sorry Mike). The reasons for this conclusion are:

1- Tilly was already writinga weekly sunday column for the Inquirer's rival the Record.

2- Tilly was so very busy designing courses during this decade that he would eventually have to give up doing the column for the record. If he had a difficult time doing a weekly column, doing one that ran several days a week and more would have been an impossibility.

3- There are a number of contradictory statements to others that Tilly is known to have written about various aspects of golf course construction and community. A good example of this is Tilly writing in 1913 and later in both the 20's & 30's that Crump found the land for Pine Valley after seeing it out the train window on a trip to Atlantic City and that Crump swore him to secrecy about it until his 1913 article. "Joe Bunker" wrote that Crump took a number of friends on a horseback ride & hunt and accidentally discovered it during this outing. There are several other similar examples...

4- The writing styles and vocabulary are quite different. This becomes more apparent as more of the unknown authored articles are read.

I'm not yet ready to give up on this and have a few other avenues that I am pursuing to see if we can figure it out...

Phil:

Thanks from me too for your efforts. If the identities of those pseudoyms are going to be found today I think we're just going to have to find some contemporaneous letters and such that identify them or else some unmistakable fact that links the real person.

Phil,

I don't have it in front of me right now, but I was just looking at that article yesterday.   I'm sure Tom Paul could tell us right off the top of his head, but I know those original investors included Howard Perrin, Simon Carr, and, as a further Cobbs Creek connection, Ab Smith.    There were two or three more.

I'll be away from the computer today so unable to followup, but I think it's a good lead, Phil.

Simon Carr is an interesting possibility. At about the same time as the Philly Inquirer articles he wrote several pieces for the US Golf Illustrated. They were on PV, but he might have covered other topics as well. I will need to check my files at home.

Given the nature of the comments that Joe uncovered, it can't be just a beat writer. The author had to to have been someone clued in to gca issues of the day.

So Carr would be a candidate.

Bob

I think Tom mentioned Alan Wilson in an earlier post as a candidate.  If I was a betting man, I would be putting my $ on him.  Just a hunch.

Tom -

I too was wondering if George Thomas might be the mystery man.

The writing style in the articles - he was a good writer - reminds me of someone, but I can't put my finger on who.

Bob

Judge for yourself if you think the tee on the 4th was very close to the creek, and perhaps even on the other side based upon these photos and this 1916 Philly Ledger photo.  After the Ledger photo is a Google map of the 4th annotated to show approximately where each photo is shot from and the angle (the best I can remember!).





Here's a view (A) from the green with the current tee in view.  I believe the original tees were to the right of this, probably on the other side of the creek.



This is shot (B) back to the green:



View C:



This is a view (D) from the walking path back to the 3rd green.  My proposed original tee area you'll see soon is just to the left of where this photo was taken.



Here's a view (E) of a possible teeing area, and would be fairly close to 150 yards.



The green is visible from this area (F):



View G, from about 100 yards:



Pic H:



Pic I:



Another possibility (J) for the tee, or the back tee, is from this spot to the right of the creek closer to the current tee:



This is another view (K) of the first possible teeing area I mentioned:



I'm very confident now that the current tee location is close, but not the same as when the course opened in 1916.

As Shivas would say:  Discuss!

Joe,

I'm fairly certain the Philly Inquirer picture you posted is of the green and not the tee. If you'll note in the picture of the 12th hole shown in Shackelford's book, the hole sign indicating it as the 12th is next to the green and not the tee.

In addition it occurs to me that our research has indicated that all of the greens tilted back to front and face their original approach shots.  The same seems to hold true for the fourth if the tee was located where we think it was.

Geoff,

If you'll look at the Vodges map, and the current aerial - something is terribly amiss in the area of the 4th hole.

I don't think the island in front of the green today exists on the Vodges map for a number of reasons:

A: The creek that goes in front of the present 17th green is drawn WAY differently than what is on the ground today. Take a look at the angle at which that creek intersects Cobb's Creek on the map, and compare that to the google aerial.

B: The same creek is directly behind the fifth tee today. Which would be directly to the right of the 4th green today. On the Vodges map. both the green and tee are almost 75 yards from that intersection.

Just take a look at the aerial and compare, but I think that the island in front of today's green was manufactured and the island shown on the Vodges map was in the neighborhood of the present 4th tee.

I believe there may have been 3 versions of the hole. The one as drawn by Vodges, the one you and Joe are describing, and the one as played today.

My ears heard recently that Hanse rebuilt the 4th green.  I'll try to confirm what I heard.