I played golf yesterday with a GCA forum lurker named Dave Roewer who lives in Dublin, OH (near Columbus) but who grew up living in the little town of Granville and playing the Donald Ross designed Granville Golf Course back in the 1960's and 70's. He had seen my post and sent me E-mail offering to join me for my round there and show me some of the remnants of the course that he knew and love, much of which has been altered (generally not for the better by the standards of GCA regulars). The most obvious change was the construction of four brand new holes about twenty years ago after some of the course was sold to a housing development. However, the property given over to houses only contained one entire hole (the sixteenth, pretty much what we'd now refer to as the "signature" hole at Granville and the toughest Par 4 you'd ever want to play) but the new holes also serve to replace the old eighteenth (removed to make room for a driving range), tenth (clubhouse and parking lot) and the postage-stamp fifteenth (still there but replaced in normal play by a slightly longer one-shotter with a bigger green). The rest of this message is adapted from a long message I just sent to a mailing list with a lot of people who've played at Granville. I hope it gives a flavor of just how much fun I had yesterday...
As we played our round, Dave was able to point out old bunker outlines and even showed me the place now deep in the woods where the tee boxes for the old seventeenth (now eighteenth) hole used to be. Some greens have had their slopes much flattened and many were expanded from their original very small dimensions. In addition, Dave learned a couple of new pieces of information from our perusing of the Donald Ross drawings on the wall of the clubhouse grill. He had already shown me where the tenth hole was when he was playing there. It was a long uphill Par 3 with the tee down below what is now the lower parking lot and the green exactly where the practice green by the pro shop is now located. However, according to the original drawings that was to be a 280 yard Par 4 which actually played semi-blind over the crown of the hill with the tee box almost back to the road and the green up around the tee boxes for the current tenth hole (originally eleventh). The then-eleventh hole was a 406 yard Par 4 instead of a Par 5 with its tees right about where that slight diagonal ridge crosses 100 yards out from the
current tees.
We also "found" a tee box to the left of the (current) sixth hole back tees that could only have been used as a way-back teeing ground for (current) ninth hole. We're talking about an angle from the right of the ninth tee now in use, over the entire length of the pond with the tree down the right side of the hole directly between the tee and green. Of course that big tree on the bank of the pond by the back tees on #9 now wouldn't have been much of a tree if it were there at all. Right now it blocks the use of that back tee (if indeed it was intended for use on that hole at all).
Another feature that was new to Dave were a set of three small "eye candy" bunkers on the tiny postage stamp Par 3 up on the ridge overlooking the town of Granville and much of the course. It was the fifteenth hole but was in play yesterday as a temporary replacement for the current fourteenth whose green is being recontoured. Dave told me the story of his brother's hole-in-one on that hole which happened when another kid "goosed" him during his swing, causing a bladed shot that hit the little speed ramp 20 yards short of the green, kicked onto the green and into the hole. In the original drawings, there were little bunkers in the face of that berm (in fact the berm was probably pushed up with a mule-powered scraper in order as part of constructing the bunkers) and that hole-in-one fluke would not have been possible in the early years of the course. There were also some actual greenside bunkers in play back in 1960 that are no longer extant.
While we're in that area, I'll mention the previous green. That's the short Par 4 reverse-camber dogleg right whose green is set into the side of the ridge atop which the postage stamp hole lies. He showed me the original outline of the green which was narrow but long front to back and SEVERELY!!! sloped. I'm not sure a ball would have stayed at the top of that green even in the 1940's when the greens would have stimped about 3 or 3.5 for normal play. And if it rolled back to the front of the green it would roll into a bunker from which you'd face a shot that might do the same again. And Dave mentioned that they used to once in a great while drive that green because the hillside was hard as a brick and seldom had any sort of lush grass on it. Like a superspeedway banking from which you could carom tee shots and hope they take a lucky bounce on or near the green.
One more minor cool thing and then I'll stop. Most people who've played at Granville know that the current second hole (one of the coolest holes on the course IMO) was originally the ninth, playing back to the clubhouse which was on the hill next to the road. What you might not think about is that made the current third hole (with the creek down the left side) the opening hole. Apparently it was a little nerve wracking hitting ones first shot of the day (remember, no such thing as driving ranges back then although Dave showed me the open grassy area where they hit shag balls) from a tee box just a few steps from the clubhouse porch with all that water staring at you. Fortunately, Dave was 10 years old when he first played there and as we know 10-year-olds haven't learned to be nervous on a golf course yet.
Anyway, we spent more time talking than playing. We hit a few good shots, each of us had a skanky hole or two (although a skanky hole for Dave is a pretty good hole by my standards) and basically it was a beautiful day and a real treat to be shown the course as it is and as it was by someone who has seen Granville Golf Course for more than half its history. BTW, the greens were in marvelous shape and the fairways were if anything too lush with very little roll on drives and no real sense of the role that the course's little humps, hollows and cambering had on shots back in the day. Still, for modern players it was in near perfect condition.
Postscript for Architecture Geeks:
It is my impression that some of the features on the Ross drawings being displayed in the clubhouse were possibly never built. For instance, that 280-yard version of the tenth hole (which looks to me like it would have been a pretty unique and super-fun hole akin to the fifteenth at Palmetto) is not present in any old photographs and Dave never heard it mentioned. Wasn't it normal for Ross to do drawings of his original design and then make changes in the field for budget or construction difficulty reasons? If so, I think the currently extant drawing are a long way from "as built".