[Kyle Harris]

Several days ago, I received an email from Jim Rattigan, the superintendent at Schuylkill Country Club in Orwigsburg, PA. He is a fairly frequent kibbutzer here on GCA and he contacted me because we share the home region of Schuylkill County, PA.

He also presented me with a bit of a mystery that I've been working on since...

SCC is fairly well known as a Donald Ross course, as Ross revised the early nine holes and added a new nine in 1945. The greens and bunkering for the most part had been kept in the shape Ross left them with a few exceptions, and except for tree plantings and new tees, the course pretty much is as it was in 1945. The club has brought in Ron Prichard to do some restoration work which is slated to begin in the next month.

Either way, the club has the original nine hole plans from 1922 displayed outside the proshop as well as the Ross plans, and aerials of both iterations of the course showing high detail. However, the original nine hole plans carry no signature of indication of designer, just the date December, 1922.

Here is the original nine hole plan and the aerials right below it (last one being the post-Ross picture):








I stared at this for a bit, and realized it looked awfully similar to the diagram of the original White Course at Penn State as designed by Willie Park, Jr. in September of 1922. Shown here:


The White Course diagram appears to be more of a presentation piece while the SCC diagram appears to be blueprints intended to be followed by construction.

Jim consulted Ron Prichard yesterday with my thoughts and Ron is of the opinion that this is enough evidence to link Willie Park to the orignal design at SCC. Furthermore, Jim has documents refering to a "Mr. James" in regard to the construction work. Could this be Frank James?

As an aside, SCC and the Park holes at the White Course (Holes 12, 17, 11, 8, 9 comprise Holes 7-11 of today's White Course, Hole 7's green is today's Par 4 6th green of the White, Hole 1's green is today's Par 3 12th green of the White, Hole 2, 3 comprise Holes 13 adn 14 of today's White) stand much as they did in 1922. Yesterday, on the "Humps around greens thread" I posted a picture of the tenth green (hole 8 on the old White). Also, note that the old first tee of the white (extreme right side of the picture) was off of present day US Bus. Rt 322 (Atherton Street).



Anyway, Jim reads here pretty regularly, so any thoughts or ideas you have regarding this would be much appreciated by both him and me.

[Mike_Cirba]

Kyle,

This is very cool stuff.

I haven't played Schuylkill CC (despite having driven by on Rte. 61 many times), but knew about the Ross revisions there.  

I'm hoping that someone can confirm Park's drawing style.  

One thing I find really interesting is that the Maidstone book (referred to on the other thread) makes the case that the bunkers with islands in them was a feature regularly employed by Perry Maxwell (who did revisions and rebuilding at Maidstone after a major hurricane in the late 30s).  However, if your drawings are from Willie Park, then the island bunker showing up on the aerial picture seems to indicate that others (Park? Ross?) of the time period built similar grass islands.

[Kyle Harris]

Mike,


Jim mentioned that to me. Part of his evidence is that the sod island behind 2 at Maidstone is similar to the one in the aerials... If you noticed though, it doesn't seem to have survived Ross's revision.

I've only played the front nine on SCC, and what you can see from Rt. 61 is one of the newer Ross nine. (8th green is right along the road there).

Ross integrated the old nine with his nines, and added 2, 3, 4 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 of the present day course.

The old ninth is today's 18th...

[Kelly Blake Moran]

Kyle,

Contact Jim Nagle through the IM.  He is w/ Forse and I believe they have been doing a lot of work on Park courses.  

By the way, if you have photoshop or similar take the b/w aerial of SCC and crop around it to remove the table and such, but leave the round disk that is holding down the plan on the right side and you have a UFO flying underneathe the plane that took the aerial shot!!

[Kyle Harris]

KBM,

Wow....

Simply wow...

Jim actually contacted my via email the other day regarding Park, Jr. and I mentioned this to him. Still awaiting the reply.

[TEPaul]

Kyle:

Hmmm, very interesting and I'm very glad to see those aerials displayed. I'm not sure what the story was but when Wayne and Craig Disher and I were down at the Hagley Museum in Wilmington in the last month looking at their Dallin aerial collection I just happened to call Ron Prichard right there from the room to ask him if there was anything in particular he was looking for aerial-wise on any courses. He asked if I could find anything there on Schuykill C.C. and we got Barbara Hall to check the records and lists and nothing turned up so I'm glad to see that nice stagger of aerials is available at the club. Maybe Ron was just looking to enhance what was available---I'm not sure.

[Kyle Harris]

Tom Paul,

That's probably why, he and Jim have apparently been wrangling this for awhile.

I've always wanted to go down to the Hagley museum, need to find the time though. :/

[TEPaul]

MikeC:

Do not dismiss it out of hand that Perry may've had something to do with those islands in those bunkers. Maxwell was in and out of Philadalphia a lot in the 1930s and did a lot of work here and there that may not be all that well tracked right now. Courses he did or may've contributed to in that way around here;

PCC
GMGC
Merion East
Chester Valley
PVGC
and God knows what else around here. If he was in town even briefly everyone seemed to know about it. He was a man on the move and mysterious too. There's this old story about him when he was doing work at PVGC---his "forgotten man" who apparently went everywhere with him was doing his instructions but they couldn't find Perry on the course which seemed odd because they thought they knew he was there. Turns out he snuck off and was taking in the Philadephia Orchestra!

Maxwell may've hit more places for quick fixes than anybody else in the decade of the 1930s except of course Tillie when he made that break-neck nation-wide tour for the PGA of America ripping out everyone else's bunkers and selling out his own architectural principles!

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom Paul,

I thought about that after I typed my message.

Still, my guess is that the island in the bunker would probably have been from the original 1922 course, and although Maxwell possibly could have been here then, it's unlikely.  

[Kyle Harris]

Mike/Tom,

The original plans show no bunker where the sod center bunker is, however, that aerial photo is from September 1938.

So, Maxwell's presence may have been felt.

The aerial shows several more bunkers added, too, any particular touches of Maxwell in them?

[TEPaul]

MikeC:

Actually, islands in bunkers really aren't that uncommon to plently of other architects. We saw an interesting one by Flynn in Virginia recently along with an accompanying photo of it 70 years ago. In person and in that 70 year old photo it was just about identical!

[TEPaul]

"....any particular touches of Maxwell in them?"

Kyle:

In aerials some of Maxwell's bunkers and his style often look like flowers--like a simple daisy.

[Kyle Harris]

The ninth hole in the 1922 diagram has no bunkers on it, yet in the aerial from 1938, the ninth has several...

Notice the one behind the green, seems to be of a free-form type deal: Tom, you said that his bunkers could look like simple daisies... does the one in the back of nine seem like a reasonable adaptation of that style or is that a bit of a stretch?

Didn't Maxwell also use "clam shell" bunkers?

[T_MacWood]

Kyle
Although the time frame is right, I don't believe that plan for Schuykill is Willie Park-Jr. The style is different--the drawing style and the architectural style. Park was also very good at documenting what he did and he never listed the course. My guess would be Loeffler, McGlynn, White or Bendelow.

What is the story behind Ross designing the course in 1945...was it an earlier design delayed by the war

[Kyle Harris]

Tom MacWood,

Couldn't tell you regarding Ross's work in 1945.

Is that a strange year for Ross to be designing in?

[TEPaul]

Kyle:

I'm not a big believer in the theory some seem to use on here that "if it sort of looks like an architect, it must be that architect". I've seen even some really good restorers make mistakes trying to do that---both with aerials, on ground photos and also in person.

I don't see any bunkers on that aerial that look like Maxwell bunkers on my course that were done at various times in the 1930s. And if there happens to be an island in a bunker you can't assume that means it's Maxwell. Maxwell did use islands in bunkers all the time but other architects used them now and again too.

[TEPaul]

If there's some Ross bunkering on that 1947 aerial I can almost guarantee you it'd probably be J.B. McGovern. Those little close sets look a bit like the things he did on a number of Ross courses in this region probably including Aronimink and Jeffersonville and according to Forse and probably Prichard some other courses into New York state that McGovern was know to ply for Ross.

[Kyle Harris]

Tom Paul,

I agree with you, it's more putting things in the realm of possibility than making things out to be certain that I am concerned with.

To me, it's a way of getting direction for further research.

Plus, kinda neat to think about all these people being involved with something near to home.  

[Mike_Cirba]

Kyle;

Don't overlook J. Franklyn Meehan, who designed a fair number of Philly area courses right around that timeframe.  

Schuylkill (above Reading) might have been a little out of the way for him, but we've already established that he travelled as far north as Allentown and Pottstown.  

[Kyle Harris]

Mike,

Very good point, Meehan did North Hills and Sandy Run, if I am not mistaken, and in the same era as Schuylkill.

Hmmmm, love this stuff, really I do.

[Mike_Cirba]

Kyle,

Meehan also did Ashbourne, Paxon Hollow, Brookside (Allentown), the first nine at Spring-Ford, revisions at Shawnee on the Delaware, and the first nine at LuLu, all in the period from about 1912 through 1929

Perhaps others as well?  

 

[TEPaul]

"Plus, kinda neat to think about all these people being involved with something near to home."

Kyle:

You might need to check out the almost ten year creation of PVGC before it finally opened all 18 holes if you want to see by far and away the most architects ever to go look at and get somehow involved in a golf course. There was never anything remotely like that and there sure never will be again. And I guarantee they were going to see PVGC not Clementon. You'd have to leave something pretty valuable in Clementon to want to go back there if there was no PVGC there!  

[Craig Disher]

TEP,
The aerials are ones I produced for Jim Rattigan a few weeks ago.

What I found interesting were the bunkers that disappeared between 1938 and 1947 (e.g. the fairway bunkers on 1 and 2, the back green bunkers on 9). The drawing doesn't show them so perhaps they were added later. The fairway bunkers don't appear to be more than 150 yards from the tee and they are at the edge of the fairway so they're not even top shot bunkers. Did Ross's plans indicate they were to be removed?

[Kyle Harris]

Not that I can think of, but if he made it up to Shawnee, it's conceivable he could make it to Pottsville, especially with the Reading being the busiest Railroad in the world at the time, and the Mainline of the Reading was between Philly and Pottsville.

[TEPaul]

MikeC:

Meehan designed the first nine at LuLu? How do you know that? I didn't know even Steve Sayers thought that and he probably knows more about that course than anyone ever has.

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