Who would you hire?

[TEPaul]

Now Tom MacW---after asking you about a dozen times, do you think perhaps you could muster up an opinion of why you think PVGC and all Crump's friends and perhaps the entire Philadelphia golf region decided to glorify Crump and minimize Colt simply because he committed suicide? Not just that but to also instantly construct some "cover-up" story about poison from an abscess tooth!

Or are you just going to continue to respond and continue to deflect that question by asking my "off-the-wall" questions like the one about Archduke Ferdinand?

After-all you have stated a number of times that you think a possible Crump suicide was very significant. I'm assuming by that you mean architecturally significant because that certainly is what you've heretofore been implying on here.

[wsmorrison]

I think Tom MacWood is about to blow the cover on a 90 year conspiracy and that is.....drumroll please......Archduke Ferdinand was not assassinated by a crazed Serb but actually blew his own brains out.  He talked to the local clerk and was told of the true cause of death    Of course that clerk now does not admit to ever telling TMc anything like that.

From the 1912 Annual Meeting of the Merion Cricket Club:

Property Acquisition     $94,969.09
Boundary Road            $5,772.91
Course Construction     $44,977.63
Incorporation Expense  $487.27
House Construction      $35,000.00

[TEPaul]

Wayne, whatever you do---DO NOT call the clerk of Serbiaville and ask him if he told Tom MacWood that  Archduke Ferdinand blew his brains out and that he has seen his DC that proves it! We certianly wouldn't want to make Tom MacW ill again and compromise innocent bystanders in Middle Europe on the Internet!

[wsmorrison]

I learned my lesson, Tom.  Gotta be careful of those innocent bystanders--an historian must protect his sources from the likes of us  

[Paul_Turner]

Tom

"A few shared lines"...that's a succinct way of belittling a man's routing skills!  

The bottom line is that, in terms of routing, the course is as Colt drew in 1913 for 85-90% of the course.  No matter how long it took Crump to complete the job.  

Read the routing thread recently posted.  It's the art of getting the whole course routed that is the toughest.  Not finding a few great holes.

I don't have Finengan's book to hand, but I did read somwhere that Crump spent $6k on a couple of greens.

Regarding Camberley Heath.  It was a full design and supervision course by Colt.  I'm not sure about that 72 quid figure, whether it was full payment or a final installment.  RT is looking into that for me.  

Camberley Heath was a famously expensive project.

A question for you Tom:

How different would PV be if Crump hadn't hired Colt?  

Looking at the stick diagram and Crump's hand, I conclude that PV would have been much different and considerably worse.  

Stylistically, I believe the course could have been quite different too.  But that is difficult to prove.  We know Tillie mentioned "Mid Surrey Mounds".  Colt was the pioneer for the natural look.  He published a large article on "The Construction of New Courses"  where he emphasises the natural.  And I can prove that he took photos of St George's Hill, to the US/Canada, to get his ideas across.  

Do you think Crump routed 1-4 alone, or was he helped?

[T_MacWood]

TE
The going rate for an architect of Colt's repuation would range between $1000 and $2000, which would include "the general supervision which the Architect will give to the work is such periodical inspections by him or his deputy as may be necessry to ensure that the work is being carried out to his intentions, but constant superintendence of the work does not form part of the duties undertaken by him, and is not included for in the following scale of charges..."

In my estimation Colonel Baker was off by a zero.

$45,000 vs $300,000...Merion vs PV...that's like comparing apples and oranges.

Colt traveled to N.America in 1911/12 and again in 1913. Crump had every reason to believe that Colt would return again when he paid his fee. Unfortunately all hell broke loose when Ferdinand was assassinated. Ironically his deputy did return in the form of Alison (not to mention another visit or two by Reginald Beale).

Did Crump and Colt communicate after his visit in 1913?

[Paul_Turner]

Perhaps Baker was equating the $10K in terms of when he wrote the report.  

[T_MacWood]

Paul
I'm wrong about the $1000/$2000 figure....I miss read it.

The way Colt (and others) got paid was a percentage of the estimated cost of the project. If the work exceeded £2000, the Architect's fee would be 6% of the total cost (plus all traveling and hotel expenses). If the estimated cost was less than £2000, the percentage would be 10% plus expenses. From what I have gathered the PV project was estimated to cost between $50,000 and $150,000. Considering the distance perhaps Col. Baker was correct.

[Paul_Turner]

Back to the original question:

Lets list who had done what by 1913, I can do HSC from memory but not others:

So for Colt, the major courses were :

Rye (as it was)
Stoke Poges
Swinley Forest
Toronto (Canada's first great course, I think)
Detroit
St George's Hill
Camberley Heath

Major redos of:

Sunningdale Old (50% of the course roughly)
Woodhall Spa

Fowler/Simpson, I don't know, without a reference book.  Tillie?  Park?

Mack would have been:

Alwoodley
Moortown

Any other big projects?

[BuckeyeinBuffalo]

Go back - just one year.  Where was the 1912 U.S. Open played?  Who won? and who designed that course?  

Hint:  Today it is a public course that anyone can play for less than $15, and it is in upstate NY.

NOTE: I am not talking about Blackpage.

Old Dale
(In State College PA)

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom Macwood,

You wrote, "The way Colt (and others) got paid was a percentage of the estimated cost of the project. If the work exceeded £2000, the Architect's fee would be 6% of the total cost (plus all traveling and hotel expenses). If the estimated cost was less than £2000, the percentage would be 10% plus expenses."

May I ask how you arived at that blanket generality?

[TEPaul]

"The bottom line is that, in terms of routing, the course is as Colt drew in 1913 for 85-90% of the course.  No matter how long it took Crump to complete the job."

Paul:

I really don't know if you're blind, just don't know that course very well or you're such a Harry Colt advocate you just can't bring yourself to face facts.

For starters the routing of #1-4---and in my opinion, #6 (although numbered #8), #7, #17 (although moved to the right slightly) and #18 are Crump before Colt first arrived in Pine Valley. Most every one of them was described while clearing by Tillinghast before Colt arrived and that's the way they are today.

I sure wouldn't call that 85-90% of the routing Colt drew.

Then you have to add to that number #13, #14 that certainly aren't Colt. The way Colt drew #12 is about a 400 yard straight away hole with a drive right over the ridge. That's not what it is today and the 15th tee he has on the other side of the lake.

Crump's #15th hole on that stick routing in the super's office was from a tee in about the middle of the present hole to a green that appears to be almost exactly where #11 green is today. His #16 goes from a tee to the right side of that green to a green site about where #16 green is now but that hole on the original stick routing was a very long par 5!! Crump's #11, 12, 13 and 14 on that stick routing are nothing like they are now, although his original 10th isn't far off of what #12 is now---at least the tee appears in the same place. #13, #14 are the ones developed well after Colt left.

The holes that really appear to be undeniably Colt in the sense of being very different from anything Crump came up on that stick routing either in basic direction or use of landform (tee or green placement) are #5, #8, #9, #10, #11.  

[T_MacWood]

Phil
Colt, MacKenzie and Alison's scale of professional charges and conditions of agreement...which follow the scale created by Royal Institute of British Architects. Why?

[TEPaul]

"A question for you Tom:
How different would PV be if Crump hadn't hired Colt?"

Paul:

That's a pointless question! I can't determine something that never happened. I could just as easily ask you the same kind of pointless question by asking;

How different would PV be if Colt had been hired by someone other than Crump?  

You asked:

"Do you think Crump routed 1-4 alone, or was he helped?"

On that the only source I've seen is Tillinghast who seems to say Crump in what he wrote before Colt arrived. But who really knows since Tom MacWood says Tillinghast sold out his architectural principles and Tom MacWood obviously thinks Tillinghast was lying or involved in some type of campaign to glorify Crump at the expense of Colt when he wrote immediately following his good friend Crump's death;

"The death of Mr. George A. Crump has shocked Philadelphia golfers beyond expression. The end came suddenly on the morning of January 24th when an abscess found its way to his brain." (the identical description we have from Hugh Wilson in a letter to Piper days after Crump's death, by the way).

Either Tom MacWood thinks an abscess is the same thing as a bullet or he must think A.W. Tillinghast does!

[TEPaul]

"Perhaps Baker was equating the $10K in terms of when he wrote the report. "

Right Paul! I can just see about an 85 year old man on his last legs 40 years after the fact in the early 1950s calling a bank, getting an inflation adjustment back to 1913, getting out his calcalculator and figuring the payment out in current dollars!    

[TEPaul]

"$45,000 vs $300,000...Merion vs PV...that's like comparing apples and oranges."

Tom MacW:

Perhaps you should go back and read exactly what I said about that and maybe you wouldn't think so. First of all Piper asked Wilson for construction costs, no more. Nobody that I know of has ever tried to break down exactly what PVGC's singled out architectural construction cost was. All I know is approximately what Crump put into the course, land purchase and construction of what he did there, and money that may've been raised while he was alive but certainly after he died.

[TEPaul]

"The way Colt (and others) got paid was a percentage of the estimated cost of the project. If the work exceeded £2000, the Architect's fee would be 6% of the total cost (plus all traveling and hotel expenses). If the estimated cost was less than £2000, the percentage would be 10% plus expenses. From what I have gathered the PV project was estimated to cost between $50,000 and $150,000. Considering the distance perhaps Col. Baker was correct."

Tom:

I really don't quite know what to make of your logic! That's just preposterous!

Do you really think Crump's going to agree to see this fellow Harry Colt for one single week in his life, continue to work on that golf course himself everyday for the next five years with a slew of other friends and collaborators and then when perhaps he's finished almost 10 years later, having spent God knows how much of his money doing thngs himself out there turn around and pay Harry Colt 6% of what the entire project cost him?

I found a letter recently from someone not connected to PVGC intimating that Harry Colt may've been called to Seaview and Merion at that same time he came down here from Canada, perhaps the one and only time he was ever here. Maybe he got paid $10,000 for his entire North American trip!

[tonyt]

With unlimited funds, I'd get Colt and pay him what was required to have him spend at least two extended periods of a couple of months each on the site. My selection is based on getting a great archie that is not as prolific in the nation of the site. If the site was in my homeland of Australia, that brings the Tilly option into play as well. Knowing what a 1913er would have known, many other candidates have not yet stood out as much as they did 10-20 years later.

There were comments earlier about brief visits, or the Golden Age version of something little more than a mail in. This is not as large a concern as the team involved on the site. A top archie without his A team would provide a lesser course, wheras the same archie with only days to spare and then a great team would increase the quality chances. Mackenzie in Australia is an excellent example of this.

[TEPaul]

"May I ask how you arived at that blanket generality?"

Phil:

I was sort of hoping you wouldn't ask him that because he's probably going to tell you the clerk of St Amands in England just told him in a phone call yesterday just after telling him it's illegal to give him that information but is doing it anyway because although he's never heard of this fellow from Ohio he sounds like such a great researcher, and that they got to talking about building architecture, the great old arts and Crafts movement in England in the late 1800s and stuff like that and the clerk just got softened up enough to break the law with info to a total stranger!  

Oh sorry, he told us he's not revealing these sources any longer because if someone exposes his source it makes him ill and injures innocent bystanders.

[TEPaul]

Paul Turner said yesterday;

“On the sauce a bit early today TEP?
We know of a payment to Colt at CHeath and so therefore we should know his fee at PV?  That's great logic    I have to rely on graft for my research.  An entire company's records didn't luckily fall in my lap...unlike for some here.”    

And then Tom MacWood weighs in with:

“The way Colt (and others) got paid was a percentage of the estimated cost of the project. If the work exceeded £2000, the Architect's fee would be 6% of the total cost (plus all traveling and hotel expenses). If the estimated cost was less than £2000, the percentage would be 10% plus expenses. From what I have gathered the PV project was estimated to cost between $50,000 and $150,000.”

Paul:

Who’s “we”? You and Tom MacWood?  Perhaps you should just ask Tom MacWood these details. Although you once said there may be no one who knows more about Colt than you do apparently you’ve got quite a bit to learn about the business arrangements of Harry Colt from Tom MacWood! You don't need business records dropped in your lap if you have a Colt researcher like him!

[T_MacWood]

"Do you really think Crump's going to agree to see this fellow Harry Colt for one single week in his life, continue to work on that golf course himself everyday for the next five years with a slew of other friends and collaborators and then when perhaps he's finished almost 10 years later, having spent God knows how much of his money doing thngs himself out there turn around and pay Harry Colt 6% of what the entire project cost him?"

TE
6% of the estimated cost. No pay; no plan. When Crump engaged Colt (1913), neither man knew the War would prevent Colt from returning. Ironically his deputy (Alison) did eventually return (not mention at least one visit by Reginald Beale in 1914).

Your emotional ties to the legend of Crump and PV seemed to have gotten the best of you and your better judgment.

[TEPaul]

"TE
6% of the estimated cost. No pay; no plan. When Crump engaged Colt (1913), neither man knew the War would prevent Colt from returning. Ironically his deputy (Alison) did eventually return (not mention at least one visit by Reginald Beale in 1914)."

Oh I see, Tom; now you're beginning to rationalize that Colt was returning to PVGC and Archduke Ferdinand put the scotch on that plan! You're probably assuming that as a way of rationalizing that $10,000 payment story. Where did you hear about that $10,000 payment to Colt Tom?

"Your emotional ties to the legend of Crump and PV seemed to have gotten the best of you and your better judgment."

I don't deny I love PVGC but I think despite that I have a lot better and clearer judgement about it and what happened there than someone who's never even laid eyes on it!

"Ironically his deputy (Alison) did eventually return (not mention at least one visit by Reginald Beale in 1914)."

Alison returned to Pine Valley? Gee, I didn't know that!

Yes he did, a little over three years after Crump died to make improvements on various things that weren't playing very well and to make recommendations to finish the four still to be completed holes. I believe I've listed in pretty specific detail what Alison did in 1921. Do you think Alison would've returned and made these recommendations if Crump had still be alive? Do you think he would've paid him $10,000 or did he return so the firm of Colt and Alison could fulfill the work they owed PVGC since Archduke Ferndinand prevented them from returning for eight years?

Reginald Beale? What did he do in 1914, perfect the routing of the back nine for Crump? Or was he the guy who designed the short course that Fazio found 75 years later and reused?

[T_MacWood]

TE
I'm sure you're aware of the Great War that began in 1914...it was in all the papers.  

During the War Colt's design activities came to a hault. He became Deputy Commissioner for the Soutwest District Ministry of Food and Justice of the Peace for Berkshire.

You should be proud of PV and Crump, but I sometimes wonder if your emotional investement in the legend might affect your judgement at times.

Did Crump and Colt communicate after his visit in 1913?

[TEPaul]

"TE
I'm sure you're aware of the Great War that began in 1914...it was in all the papers."

Yep, I actually heard about that one too Tom. I've even heard about that big boat---what was it called? Oh yeah, the Titanic! Do you think Harry was on his way to America on that and just swam the rest of the way?  

[TEPaul]

"During the War Colt's design activities came to a hault. He became Deputy Commissioner for the Soutwest District Ministry of Food and Justice of the Peace for Berkshire."

Isn't that interesting! Does that prove to you that Harry was coming back to PVGC but just could seem to find a ride?  

"You should be proud of PV and Crump, but I sometimes wonder if your emotional investement in the legend might affect your judgement at times."

I realize you feel that way, but frankly it's just BS and you know it. Well, most people know it but maybe you don't. The reason you say things like that is I have a ton more information on the place than you, I've know it well for 25 years and frankly there's no subsitute for that. And I'm not some blind advocate of any architect like you seem to be with Colt.

"Did Crump and Colt communicate after his visit in 1913?"

I don't really know, do you? Why don't you ask Paul Turner? Apparently Crump sent Colt photographs of PVGC that he turned into a photo album or something like that. I do know that the Wilson's were members and very close to PVGC from the beginning and in 1920 Colt wrote Wilson a letter about agronomy in which he asked Wilson if he remembered him. That doesn't sound like particularly close contact to PVGC to me but maybe it does to you.