Golf Architecture Research and Archive Center

[wsmorrison]

Yesterday I found out that The Library Company of Philadelphia has a collection of 4000 aerial photographs taken by Virgil Kauffman of Aero Services Corporation.  These photographs were taken between 1924 and 1950 and include a number of golf courses such as Merion (13 photographs), Philmont (4), Huntingdon Valley (3), Gulph Mills (11), Whitemarsh Valley (1), Philadelphia Cricket (1), Philadelphia Country (2), Rolling Green (10), Old York Rd (1) and Langhorne Country (5).  Tom and I are going there today to look at some of the collection.

In order to assist in the effort to develop a comprehensive golf architecture archive and research center, let's put together a list of resources and collections that we can provide the USGA.  Tom Paul is very active in this effort and I'm sure he'll weigh in on this.  But let's help out and provide sources for the USGA to link to and catalog.  In the Philadelphia area we are lucky to have aerial photography and other materials from The Library Company of Philadelphia, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, The Hagley Museum and even the Cricket Library at Haverford College.  

Tom and others involved can compile a list of sources and use them in the valuable effort that the USGA is willing to undertake on behalf of the game.  

The digitization of the USGA collection is a huge initial step.  Let's keep the momentum going.

[wsmorrison]

I hope the architects out there that contribute on this site and others that visit the site will consider how they can make their collections of drawings and materials available to this effort.

Superintendents in many of the clubs I've visited tend to be the unofficial or official curators of club archival materials.  Perhaps they or club historians can catalog their collections and send the information to the USGA.  Any club that is a member of the USGA will get a letter to this effect at some point in the future and this will surely be an important channel of information.

[TEPaul]

"In order to assist in the effort to develop a comprehensive golf architecture archive and research center, let's put together a list of resources and collections that we can provide the USGA."

Just so this remark or this thought is not misunderstood, it is not exactly that the USGA in this new architecture archive initiative wants to HAVE or even be given everything anyone can think of that might be useful for a comprehensive archive of all golf architecture, just that they'd like to know where things are as much as possible.

The idea, or at least I hope the idea will be, that if ANYONE from ANYWHERE is looking for something to do with golf architecture they can tap into what hopefully will be a central repository of information on golf course architecture, to at least find out where something is.

To me the BYword of this USGA initiative should be "Ease of Access". If they don't have it at least they should be able to tell anyone where something is and how to access it.

So let us know where anything is so the USGA can at least help people find it.

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

I agree with you that a USGA archive and research center isn't about amassing a huge collection of original materials for someone to come to and visit on site but rather a means to find what you're looking for--links to other collections (no need to duplicate efforts) a catalog of information and where it exists or a repository of digital information accessible via the internet.  They might be able to take it a step further and allow interactive menus to take you where you want to go (even if you're not sure where that is).  Some people might want to donate original materials or digitized collections which would be the easiest way to disseminate the information to the most people.

How do you see this example working?  Let's say someone wants to see if there are aerial photographs of their club prior to a renovation.  Do you envision that it would be possible to go through a menu that might lead them there?  Say you type in the name of the course and a drop down menu allows you to click on "photographs" then another drop down menu allows you to pick "aerials" then another drop down menu allows you to pick among various collections that have aerial photographs of that course along with the corresponding dates of the photographs. Perhaps the photographs is available to view online, print at some cost or depending upon the collection's guidelines the contact information of the collection that holds the copyrighted photo is provided.  This would be a very valuable approach.

[Phil_the_Author]

Wayne,

As you & Tom well know, the Tillinghast Association has been working toward creating our own on-line research center for everything Tilly for the last year plus.

We are close to having the new web-site reflecting this and among our goals is to have everything that Tilly wrote displayed as separate from the magazines, newspapers, etc.. that they appeared in. This will drastically cut down on search time for those interested in learning about & studying his work.

In addition we are also setting up a separate section where we will display everything his father, B.C. Tillinghast, wrote.

We are in the process of starting to contact all of the existing Tillinghast original design clubs to seek permission to display photographs of the course(s) and to encourage them to use our web-site to serve as a digital storage facility for any & all documents pertaining to their club's history. This can serve as an important protection against loss due to fire, storm, etc...

We intend to expand the site in a number of other exciting ways that we will let all know about in coming months & years, once this first portion is complete.

[wsmorrison]

The Library Company of Philadelphia has a small but fascinating collection of aerial photographs.  While Tom Paul was hoping to see 11 photographs of Gulph Mills, there was in fact just one.  The other 10 were mislabeled and were in reality Oakmont CC circa mid-1920s.  We alerted the club historian (who sometimes posts and often checks out this website) and are having copies sent.  They show several sets of church pews and other bunkers that appear more geometric than the look of today.  What a great find.  These photos were taken at a low altitude and on an oblique so topography is easy to grasp with height and depth features well evidenced.  Good stuff!

[Jay Flemma]

Just in case anybody remembers the discussion form a couple weeks ago, sounds like we are doing the "Think Tank" work again!' '

What a solid idea and a noble cause too.

[wsmorrison]

Phil,

How's it going?  You probably know that Tillinghast wrote a weekly column for the Philadelphia Ledger or Inquirer (I forget which) on golf.  The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has all that on microfilm.  You should check that out.  Great job on getting the Tillie stuff on line.  You'r only about 3 decades ahead of the Flynn Society  

[Eric Franzen]

One way to solve this would be to set up a GCA research wiki, where historians and researchers can catalogue and post links to archival materials.

The are some powerful wiki applications out there with excellent search capabilities. And they are all distributed as open source software - in other words no license fee.

[Jason Topp]

For Minnesota aerial photographs the best source is the Borchert Map Library at the University of Minnesota.