Adam:
It was always so interesting to me the way John looked at the golf course and its evolution.
He accepted most of what was done there over the years but certainly not all.
I think he really enjoyed the prospect of trees coming down but he never seemed to look at that as someone in a hurry would. How ironic is that at a time like this?
But I don't think he ever wanted to see as many come down as some on here do who will never understand the place and its history even 10% as well as he did. Like anyone he had his opinions on things like specific trees. For instance, he just couldn't stand that big tree on the right that balls can get near on the second shot on the 15th hole. I never knew why that was, I only know I automatically disagreed with him on that one every time he mentioned it just to get him going.
The way he looked at Crump was even more interesting to me.
He seemed to have total respect, perhaps even reference for the man. But the thing that interested me most was perhaps the thing he taught me that is the most valuable of all about Pine Valley and the so-called Philly School of architecture.
He said that in his opinion they were merely close friends and golfing companions who collaborated with one another as friends do on various things that are not considered by them to be proprietary. I used that remark of John's in some of the things I wrote about the Philly School in some publications, and I always mentioned the source as John Ott, the Mayor of Pine Valley.
He seemed to have a real sense of what they probably really were----eg men, amateurs--ie self-described sportsmen who probably had a lot more raw talent than most any professional architect is willing to admit but perhaps somewhat less than we, who tend to over-glorify them give them create for.
John always referred to him as Mr Crump.
Once when we were walkng off #2 green he said to me: 'What can you say about a man who had the imagination to create this?"
But the best time of all was when he sat next to me literally for hours as we went over Colt's hole by hole booklet as I redrew all the sketches and copied the text on legal paper. The eternal riddle of what Colt did and what Crump did was being solved in detail right before his eyes. John probably knew ever inch of that course better than anyone and certainly well enough to recognize exactly how to give credit to Colt for what he really did there as was shown in that booklet. On the other hand, when we were done he stood up and said: "My faith in Mr Crump is reconfirmed."
But then, when I began to explain to him in real detail the things the record shows Crump was willing to do or going to do had he lived, John said to me---"My God, if he tried to do that now, I might shoot him myself", and then he laughed.
There's a word for people who both love and appreciate the way things are if and when they truly like them. They really don't like or ever appreciate much change, if any.
I can never remember what that word is but it describes what John was like pretty well and the way he felt about architecture and Pine Valley.