Best preserved first course

[Mark_Rowlinson]

We are lucky in this country in that the first course designs of several well-known architects are still reasonably intact: Fowler/Walton Heath Old, MacKenzie/Alwoodley, Abercromby/Worplesdon.  Which first course design by a golden age architect remains the least changed?  I think a restored course is acceptable in this context.

[Bill_McBride]

I've only seen Alwoodley but I thought I was playing in a marvelous time capsule.

I really thought I was going to faint dead away when our host, the club's former captain and current historian, slipped away at the end of our post-round lunch and came back with MacKenzie's ORIGINAL hand-drawn routing map of the course.  Nothing has changed except the addition of a small parcel of land behind the original 10th green which allowed the hole to be lengthened to great advantage.

The course really did appear to be virtually the same as when originally built according to that plan.  Are any other courses as well-documented as well as well-preserved?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Bill, We've worked out that that sketch map was drawn in about 1910 and it shows that the course was built over a number of years, with crosses over bunkers completed and the rest simply suggestions.  There is also a map of 1910 by someone called HA Chapman (not a member) which shows detail differences.  You'll have to buy the book to find out more....  The one difference that MacKenzie would notice were he to come back is the style of the bunkering.  Most are in the same places that he left them and one or two have been filled in, but nothing irreversible has been done, which is good.  He wouldn't recognise the place, however, because of the growth of trees over the years, even though many have been taken down within the course to help restore MacK's original sight lines.

[Bill_McBride]

Good point about the growth of trees, although virtually all are on the perimeter and not in play.  Notable exception is the mighty oak front left of #!2 I'm sure.

Will the book be out in time for some limited distribution in a couple of weeks at Hoylake?

[T_MacWood]

Mark
Wasn't there some pretty strong criticism of the remodeled bunkering at Alwoodley?

It is pretty amazing there are three courses that old nearly unchanged. I suspect there maybe more. I can't think of any over here, even among our modern architects. Cornell maybe?

Did Fowler tweak Walton Heath over the years a la Pinehurst...if that is the case then NGLA would qualify..but that was not Macdonlad's first. What was Raynor's first design?

Another possible exception is Urbana CC designed by Paul Dye (Pete's father) in the 20s, but even it has a rebuilt green (thanks to PB Dye)....at least they kept in the family.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Tom, the bunkering at Alwoodley does provoke debate.  Mac's original bunkers were impractical to maintain and they were gradually changed over the years.  It's interesting to note how deep some now are (side of 14th green, for instance) in comparison with the originals.  A green staff of six could not maintain those old bunkers and a mechanical bunker raker was acquired.  Two men can complete raking the bunkers in three and a half hours while manually it takes four men five hours.  However, not all the bunkers can be raked by the machine and there is a noticable difference in the consistency of the sand between hand raked and mechanically raked bunkers.  it is an issue that will have to be addressed.  As there is no blueprint of the original course, just a sketch of about 1910 showing work in progress which indicates which bunkers had been built and which were still to be constructed, but it's not an accurate represenation of the shapes of the bunkers, so it is not possible to consider restoring to the original because we don't know what the original was.  

Martin Hawtree visited the course with a view to possible bunker restoration based on the few surviving early photographs.  His immediate reaction was that to recreate those earliest Mac bunkers was impracticable and even if it could be done the costs in sand and maintenance would be prohibitive.  In Mac's day the bunkers were unraked.  i have to go, but I'll follow this up later.

[Doug Ralston]

Jeff Osterfield's 1st course, Stonelick Hills, is still the exact same layout, and in great condition.

 

Doug

[T_MacWood]

How well preserved is Croome's Liphook?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Liphook - Quite well, but there is certainly one new hole.  It is now almost a woodland course when once it was barren heath.  The order of play is different.  It used to end at the present 9th.  I don't know whether they had a clubhouse then.  When the present clubhouse was built on the other side of the A3 the order of play was changed.  It has an excellent set of par 3s and some super holes just after the turn.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

It was not until 1921 that it was decided at Alwoodley to rake the bunkers once a week.  Incidentally some alterations, including a new 6th green, which had been sanctioned before the First World War, were carried out that year.  The 10th hole was not completed to Mac's original design until 1930, and first used in April of that year.  We know that Mac attended the Ryder Cup at Moortown in April 1929, but with his marriage failing (he divorced his wife at Reno on 21st Jan 1930 - a divorce not recognised at Alwoodley, where many considered him a bigamist) it is highly unlikely Mac ever saw his 10th hole, the one sometimes said t be the model for the 13th at Augusta.    

No, I'm afraid the book won't be available at the Buda Cup.  

[T_MacWood]

Mark
Why are/were MacKenzie's original bunkers impractical to maintain? If I remember correctly they were a mix of convex, mounded bunkers and more conventional bunkers. I believe Garden City still has a few convex bunkers.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Many were raised above the level of the greens and very steeply faced - there are some corkers on a photo of the original 11th.  Basically he heaped up cones of earth around the putting surface with a hollow face in which he poured sand.  Down came the rains.  If you've got MacKenzie's 'Golf Architecture' you can see examples at Harrogate (facing page 52) and Headingley (facing page 94) both of which show skyline bunkers raised way above the level of the green.  There is a picture of the 5th at Alwoodley facing page 9, and those in the foreground look perfectly easy to maintain, but look at the raised ones behind the green.  I imagine examples of bunkers of this kind survive (Cypress Point perhaps?) but only where there is the money to employ a lot of labour.

Since then other things have happened.  For instance, where sand has been splashed out for years the tops of the bunkers get rolls of grass growing on the sand producing concave bunkers.  But the bunkers get deeper.  I'm thinking of that on theleft of the 14th green.  Not only is it several feet below its original level but with nearly a century of golfers entering the bunker on the further side from the green a depression has formed so that there is a prominent lip of grass on the low side of the bunker and a trough beyond it, from which escape is arguably more difficult than from the bunker itself.

I hope that in the book I've catalogued all the changes made to the bunkering over the years in terms of filling some in, making new ones and tracing where Mac's suggested ones have or have not been made - there is no sign of several, even from the air.  

The greens are smaller than they were in Mac's day - Tom Doak pointed out to the Chairman of the Green exactly to where they once would have extended, and even to my untrained eye a number are very obvious.  As I keep saying, no irreparable damage has been done, and if anyone ever had the money to invest in a new watering system and to extend the putting surfaces it could be done.  But I wonder if they extended the USGA layers right to the edge?....

[Bill_McBride]

#11 might have been my favorite hole at Alwoodley.  Of course #3, #5, #6, #8, #10, #16, #17 and #18 were awfully good too!

I will definitely want a copy of the book, Mark, and will get the details from you at Hoylake.  Thanks.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Bill, Did you know that there is a little bit of confusion about whether the 11th is the original 11th or one that Mac hinted at in that 1910 map?  The Committee authorised its construction at several stages, but we don't think it was ever built.  There is certainly no record to say it was nor money paid out for the work.  Its bunkering is in the same places, more or less, as the original hole (though now below the green rather than above it).  Yet where Mac sketched the proposed new tee is where it now is, the walk from the 11th green to the 12th tee is more like the one on the proposed hole....  We've spent hours deliberating and can't be sure, but our final opinion was that it remains the original hole.  Perhaps one day someone will shoot us down, but at least we've given the material with which to work.

But come on, this isn't just about Alwoodley.  What about Colt's Rye, Croome's Liphook, Aber's Worplesdon and Fowler's Walton Heath?  Someone out there knows more about these than I do.  Speak up!

[Chris_Clouser]

Mark,

I think there is a thread in the archives about the changes at Rye, so I think it would be excluded.  Possibly Walton Heath, although I don't know how much it has changed.  Worplesdon had some alterations by Colt from what I've read recently.  To what extent I don't know at this time.  Your comments on Liphook are interesting.  Another one that I am curious about is West Hill by Cuthbert Butchart.  Did he ever do another course and how much of his original work is still there?

Chris

[Paul_Turner]

Mark

I thought you probably already knew about Rye...

Not much Colt left:5?,11,12,15(longer now),16 and second half of 18.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Paul,  There are HUGE gaps in my education.  Never assume I know anything!

Chris, Thanks for the gen.  Butchart certainly did other courses, West Byfleet and Highgate that I am aware of.  Highgate was founded in 1904, West Byfleet in 1906 and West Hill in 1909.  Cornish and Whitten record him as having remodelled Highgate.  I know it quite well as it was one of two home courses for the Concert Golfing Society of which I was a member in the 1970s.  Part of the course is laid out over a covered-over reservoir so there are several unusual long holes in the middle of the round.  The first is an immensely tight right-angle dog-leg.  There are several hedges to be crossed during the round and there is quite a lot of scrubby rough in which to lose the ball.  It is also home to the London cabbies' golf society and the cabbies and scrubby rough (the musicians, too) are in stark contrast to the elegant embassy residences surrounding the course.  

Cornish and Whitten also credit him with Berlin and Oppersdorf Estate in Berlin and mention that he was a POW in Germany during WW1.  Eustis (nle) and Mayfair in Florida.

[Tommy Williamsen]

It has been a while since I played High Point (Tom Doak) but I'm not sure that has changed very much.

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