[THuckaby2]

I find it an insult to KG that anyone is calling Klein The Ticket[/b].

JC:

Right on brother!  Oh man, that thought had immediately occurred to me as well.

And for those who are so into golf they follow no other sports, well.. KG is Kevin Garnett, incredible 7-foot forward/center for the Minnesota Timberwolves, and he truly is THE TICKET.

TH

[Brad Klein]

Tom, John, I have to disagree with you. Since I'm now in the middle of paying for my daughter's wedding in LA this weekend, I definitely am The Ticket - to them. (Actually, it's a modest event, 45 people, no open bar, no live music, but I'm still winging checks westward.)

[THuckaby2]

Tom, John, I have to disagree with you. Since I'm now in the middle of paying for my daughter's wedding in LA this weekend, I definitely am The Ticket - to them. (Actually, it's a modest event, 45 people, no open bar, no live music, but I'm still winging checks westward.)

Touche!  OK, that's cool by me, KG has nothing on you.

I have a 9 year old daughter... I see my future... hopefully at least 15 years off....

 

[gookin]

Brad,

You are my new hero.  With two daughters in in their 20's I am scared to death of weddings.  Forget writing about golf architecture, you need to write about how to keep the wedding crowd down to 45.

I spent two days walking Oakland Hills for the first time during the Ryder Cup.  Has there been anything written on this site that details the changes by RTJ.  I found myself constantly speculating what was Ross and what was RTJ.

[Brad Klein]

See my Golfweek review, Sept. 11:

routing: Ross
bunkers: Trent Jones
greens: Ross, though I'm now told by Rees that his dad did some considerable tweaking here and there. Still, I give Ross the bulk of credit for these ingenious surfaces.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Brad,

If RTJ did some "considerable tweaking" to the greens at Oakland Hills, I'm interested to know if there's another set of RTJ-designed greens out there even close to as interesting?

It seems odd that history tells us RTJ didn't touch the greens at Oakland Hills, and now Rees and RTJ Jr. are claiming different. It reminds me of my dad's reaction to stories our 103-year old grandmother tells.

"Once enough time has passed that there's no one else around to dispute a particular version of a certain story, I guess you can say anything you want."  

[Brad Klein]

one interesting note - RTJ's best design work was 1947-1953 or so - Peachtree, The Dunes, ANGC's 11th and 16th, some of Oakland Hills. By the way, I have just seen a comparable set of greens that RTJ did, or at least elements of it at, of all places, The Woodmere Club (1952) on Long Island by JFK Airport. They are surprisingly good after all these years, and I grew up there caddying. Just played it again and was very impressed. Maybe he was more talented back then than any of us give credit for.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Brad,

I always suspected the same. RTJ was talented. And I suspect, too, that that talent is probably more visible in his earliest works, before the golf course production line was fired up during the 1960s.

That said, I've long been very interested to see RTJ earliest work - like Peachtree and The Dunes C. I figure there's some very interesting stuff to be seen. Perhaps some 1940s and '50s era RTJ stuff that's been lost and deserves to be restored, too. That's my suspicion.    

Perhaps in another decade or so, golfers will be talking about restoring RTJ rather than Ross, Tillinghast, MacKenzie, et. al.

[Dick Kirkpatrick]

Jeff Mingay:
As I stated on a post a couple of years ago, I worked at Oakland Hills in 1968 or 69, I was working for Robbie Robinson and RTJ asked if I could go to Oakland Hills and do fine grading on some greens and bunkering there working for Wadsworth Construction.
I don't remember exactly which greens we did, some were complete new surfaces and others were extensions, mostly to the sides.
I do know that they had a pile of on site prepared root zone material (a combination of 90% USGA spec sand and !0% peat)
This pile was sufficient (in my memory and experience) to build at least six 6000 square foot greens. Some of it was also used to cover some new tee decks.
There was a LOT of bunker work done at that time.
I am sorry I can't give more detail but I can tell you that RTJ put his touches on quite a few greens at Oakland Hills.

Dick

[Jeff_Mingay]

Very interesting, Dick. Particularly the timeframe you're talking about - late 1960s.

RTJ's early 1950s renovation of Oakland Hills-South received a lot of media attention. Your post makes me wonder how many times he returned between 1951 and, say, the early 1990s to make additional changes without any fanfare? And, what exactly occurred during those subsequent visits.

Very interesting...  

[JakaB]

Jeff Mingay:
As I stated on a post a couple of years ago, I worked at Oakland Hills in 1968 or 69, I was working for Robbie Robinson and RTJ asked if I could go to Oakland Hills and do fine grading on some greens and bunkering there working for Wadsworth Construction.
I don't remember exactly which greens we did, some were complete new surfaces and others were extensions, mostly to the sides.
I do know that they had a pile of on site prepared root zone material (a combination of 90% USGA spec sand and !0% peat)
This pile was sufficient (in my memory and experience) to build at least six 6000 square foot greens. Some of it was also used to cover some new tee decks.
There was a LOT of bunker work done at that time.
I am sorry I can't give more detail but I can tell you that RTJ put his touches on quite a few greens at Oakland Hills.

Dick

For the people who wonder why I come to this site and do whatever I do....It's for posts like the one above...Thank you, thank you, thank you...God, I do love it when the truth rears its ugly head.

[Brad Klein]

Kavanaugh, while there's value in the above post, its appearance doesn't justify or validate your acerbic tone. None of it resulted from your belligerent interventions.

[Paul Richards]

Brad

Give it up.

Barney is just trying to push your buttons.

Enjoy your daughter's wedding this weekend!

Congrats!!!

 

[Brad Klein]

Paul, thanks for the much-needed advice. I feel better already.

[Rick Shefchik]

There was a LOT of bunker work done at that time.
I am sorry I can't give more detail but I can tell you that RTJ put his touches on quite a few greens at Oakland Hills.

Okay, I gotta ask -- was no one paying attention to this stuff back in the '50s and '60s? Did no one write any of this down? When we hear broadcasters tell us, or read golf course architecuture pieces assure us, that the greens at Oakland Hills are pure Donald Ross, what are they basing this on? A lack of documentation about significant earthwork that would today be scrutinized down to the last shovelfull?

[Paul Richards]

Rick

I am reposting this reply from: Re:Aronimink vs Oakland Hills

« Reply #33 on: Yesterday at 10:08:51pm »

         
In conversation tonight with Ron Prichard, he pointed out to me that he felt that RTJ Sr. had enough respect for Donald Ross' greens at Oakland Hills that he pretty much left well-enough alone.

[TEPaul]

"Okay, I gotta ask -- was no one paying attention to this stuff back in the '50s and '60s? Did no one write any of this down? When we hear broadcasters tell us, or read golf course architecuture pieces assure us, that the greens at Oakland Hills are pure Donald Ross, what are they basing this on? A lack of documentation about significant earthwork that would today be scrutinized down to the last shovelfull?"

Rick Shefchik:

That's right---they're basing it on a lack of documentation and a lot of assumptions in most cases. Clubs themselves almost never seem to write any of that stuff down. The best sources of what may've happened on a course like that is to analyze the proposals and work records of RTJ's company and any contractors if the club kept any of them. The best way to tell what happened is to analyze those proposals and go out and see if it exists (if it hasn't been changed since). Aerials can help some if you have the right stagger of them but aerials only show length and width not height or the vertical dimension. I have this stuff from the time RTJ did work at my course in the mid 1960s. Where did I get it? The man who was the green chairman in the 1960s gave it to me in the last five years because he knew I was interested. He had the whole file in his house for the last 35 years. He's 95 years old and it's a good thing he's still around or that file would most likely have been thrown out and then few to none would ever know what RTJ really did. Someone who may've worked on a project like Dick Kirkpatrick can be really valuable too, if they remember well.

The way they looked at that stuff back then is not the way we look at it now. There wasn't any GOLFCLUBATLAS.com back then and there wasn't this fixation with classic architecture and classic architects back then!  

[JakaB]

Someone who may've worked on a project like Dick Kirkpatrick can be really valuable too, if they remember well.

Tom Paul,

While your basing facts on the feelings of Ron Prichard and basically calling Dick Kirkpatrick either a lier or a fool....why don't you call up your old friend Ethel Merman and sing the old song Everythings comming up Rosses.   The crux of this problem lies in Golfweek pigeon holing courses after 1960 as Modern.....If RTJ was seen as the Classic architect he truly is, the revisionist numbnuts like yourself would not be so quick to poo pooh his work.   RTJ made the greens at Oakland Hills better....better for the members and better for the championships that followed.   Ross laid out a nice little blueprint for success and deserves his credit too...so let me be the first to say....Thanks Donald..thanks for giving RTJ a chance to create a truly great course for our modern times..

[Brad Klein]

John, I understand why you give Golfweek so much credit, but it's really not merited. That's not what changed the landscape. Golfweek's list itself is part of a larger pheonomenon of architectural heritage and awareness that was brewing by the mid-1990s. Back in the 1950s and 1960s there was

-no Ron Whitten or Tom Doak
-no "Architects of Golf" book
-not a single golf course architecture book published between 1930s and 1981 that I know of
-no Frank Hannigan extolling Tillinghast in the pages of "Golf Journal"
-no retro U.S. Opens (Shinnecock in '86, Country Cub in '88)
-nobody talked about a Golden Age
-no clubs displayed their design plans in the clubhouse or put their course architects name on the scorecard

That's how hundreds of classic courses could be levelled and modernized without anyone batting an eye. Today there would be an uproar, or at least meticulous scrutiny.

[JakaB]

Is RTJ a classic or a modern architect.....and when will architectural historians call for the restoration of some of his great works.....

[Brad Klein]

Good question on RTJ. A very tough call. Nominally, he straddles the divide, but my sense of his work and his business practice is that he saw himself as a mdoernizer who turned his back on the past. He did some very fine work in the process that is impressive even today (Peachtree, Dunes Club). The tough one is when will folks call for his restoration - if they will at all. I really don't think it'll ever happen.

[JakaB]

Brad,

Go to Bellerive...some of the more informed members are allready calling for a restoration away from some of the work Roger R has done in recent years..

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