(With tongue firmly planted in cheek)
By all accounts, William Flynn was a traditionalist when it came to golf. His courses built through the 20s were models of the consistent application of Golden Age principles. Brilliant routings, styling of tasteful elegance, intelligent use of native land forms, restraint exercised in the use of man-made hazards, and layouts generally devoid of frivolous mistakes were all hallmarks of Flynn’s resume.
Something changed in 1930.
No, silly…I’m not talking about the Great Depression.
I’m talking about Bobby Jones, Calamity Jane, and the BIG SHOW coming to town at Flynn’s local haunt, the Merion Golf Club.
All of a sudden, Flynn feels the pressure of the whole world staring at him and evidently goes mad. Known to be a tempestuous man whose course layouts paradoxically were the virtual avatars of sound judgment, Flynn suddenly seemingly got caught up in the limelight and we all know what sudden fame can do to a man. Perhaps the USGA slipped him a fin to toughen up the course…protect par, thwart Bobby…who knows?
Next thing you know Flynn is protecting the back end of creek carries with bunkers…
He sees a lovely creek bed and decides that balls shouldn’t go in it, so he builds pot bunkers next to it.
He decides that the work that he and the late Hugh Wilson had done so lovingly needed further refinements and toughening for the big boys. In a nightmarish night of whiskey, wheelbarrows, and wanton women, the regrettable deeds are done.
Some few years later, while recovering from the incident at a local halfway house in Newtown Square (since converted to a horse farm), Flynn soberly sees the error of his ways, throws his 50 pieces of USGA silver into the Schuykill River, returns to the scene of the crime and in a frenzied, all night blur of repentance, he buries those offending bunkers, never to be seen again. (or so he believed)
And now, you know the rest of the story….