[John Kavanaugh]

During my most fabulous day spent with Michael Fay playing French Lick he mentioned that people who claim Ross greens are Redans or Capes are oft base.  Do you have any evidence or examples where Ross may have recreated the typical Raynor templates?

Who built the best par 3's...Ross or Raynor?  It is fresh in my mind but those at French Lick yesterday in huge winds were as good as I think a set can get.  I think the 16th at French Lick is the best par three in the midwest given the set up provided by the three prior threes.

[JNagle]

My nod would go to Ross.  Not to say Raynor did not create great Par 3's.  I believe as a composition of holes on any given course Ross had greater varierty - variety in length, alignment, routing, green size, green undulation, green size.... Raynor did do the same, but from course to course you can predict which Par 3's you will find; Short, Eden, Redan, Biaritzz, Reverse Redan.  Ross may have been prototypical in some of his green undulations; center ridge, center swale, diagonal swale, center prowl, but from course to course there was much greater variety.

[Brad Klein]

No mention or reference to Raynor whatever anywhere in Ross letters, diaries. I'm sure he saw some of his work, but it never made a strong enough impression -- not that he writes much about any other architect, either.

[Phil McDade]

John:

I've always thought the 3rd at Ross' Wannamoisett (never played, only seen lots of pictures) is very similar to a Raynor Short. It's 132 from the tips, with deep bunkers center-front and left, and steep falloffs right and awkwardness long with the lie (cribbed from Fay's book on Ross courses...)

[JNagle]

Phil -

Ross was an expert just like Raynor at building great "Short" holes.  Those holes that are heavily guarded by bunkers and typically having a plateau green.  Wannamoisett's 3rd is a prime example.  There are so many others.

[Tyler Kearns]

John,

Outside of Winnipeg, Donald Ross' Pine Ridge GC features terrific "Punchbowl" and "Biarritz" green complexes on the back nine, as well as a "Double-Plateau". Ross' plans for the course clearly indicate these were his design ideas, and not left overs from the original Bendelow golf course.

TK

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ross actually wrote about the impracticality of the punch bowl green draining on the green surface, and used his 10th at Inverness in Toledo to demonstrate that a swale around the back of the green is better for drainage.

Overall, I think Ross started the trend, that continues to this day with Jack and Fazio of making a point to not go see anyone else's work, feeling there was nothing he could learn from it.  (Seriously) Only the earlier Philadelphia school really had that collaboration thing going on as they were feeling their way.

And, I don't think Ross had the chance, like Tillie, to go around changing others courses in the Depression. I think he just spent more time on his day job at Pinehurst.

[Brad Klein]

Jeff,

Ross saw a lot of stuff in the 1910-1920s when he was going around changing 9-hole layouts to 18. He also visited and played widely, so to say he didn't see other people's courses is simply off base. My point was that he didn't often comment, respond or deliberately copy things he saw. The closest thing I've ever seen to a Redan that he did, for example, is the 9th at Biltmore Forest, and the only Punchbowl I've seen him do was the 16th at Augusta CC in Ga.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Brad,

I was also thinking that Ross just didn't seem like the type to actively seek out others work, just from reading about him, including in your book.  While he traveled to a site to expand a course, did you find his schedule allowed him to randomly visit other courses?  It seemed from your book he scheduled stuff pretty tightly, and was "all business."

I am just speculating again, though.

[Brad Klein]

He was all business on the road, you are correct, when he did those 5 cites in 7 days tours. But he spent a lot of time traveling through Florida looking at courses and reporting back The Tufts family in the 1920, and he did wander off here and there to see things, such as two Bar Harbor courses while on the way to/fro New Brunswick. During his one West Coast visit in July 1922 he saw a dozen courses in the LA area and up the coast to SF.

[TEPaul]

Jim Nagle said:

"My nod would go to Ross.  Not to say Raynor did not create great Par 3's.  I believe as a composition of holes on any given course Ross had greater varierty - variety in length, alignment, routing, green size, green undulation, green size...."

Jimbo:

I noticed you mentioned green size twice. I suppose you think that element is quite important and needed to be underscored by a double mention. Do you think you should mention it again? Perhaps with the element of green size three's a charm?  

Oh, and just one last thing. How do you feel about green size?

[TEPaul]

Jeff Brauer said:

"Brad,
I was also thinking that Ross just didn't seem like the type to actively seek out others work, just from reading about him, including in your book."

Jeff:

I know of one course that Ross apparently wanted to see while it was still under construction. Pine Valley. The record shows he apparently tried to get in and out of there unobtrusively with a member of the place. When he was asked what he thought of the course and architecture apparently he said it was probably the best in America. And again, the place wasn't even finished.  

[TEPaul]

Did Ross study Raynor? Probably not.

Did Raynor study Ross? Probably not.

But the Love Design Company, particularly Mark and Davis, apparently love the styles of both and have even sought to combine them in what THEY do.

I'll tell you I sure can think of easier styles to try to meld together than Ross and Raynor.

On the other hand, if some architect tried to combine the styles of Raynor and Flynn somehow they'd have a really hard time, not to mention they'd make a lifelong mortal enemy out of one Wayno Morrison.  

But maybe even Wayno is lightening up some on his opinion of Macdonald/Raynor or Raynor architecture. We were driving by the Southampton cemetary again last Sunday where both Macdonald and Raynor are buried within 20 yards of one another and I asked Wayno if he wanted me to turn into the cemetary so he could piss on their graves again.

To my total surprise he said no and so we kept on going west down Rte 27 on the way home to Philly and the land of Flynn.

[TEPaul]

I'll tell you one thing that has always really fascinated me and that is I have this suspicion that Perry Maxwell may've dedicatedly studied Ross, particularly his greens and their internal contouring. I think Maxwell took a considerable amount of time at the very beginning of his career to study some of the architecture of others, particularly around Boston.

There are a few Ross green contours up there that look a whole lot like some of the contours Maxwell eventually became famous for, and many years later Bill Coore described as "poofs".

[JC Jones]

I asked Wayno if he wanted me to turn into the cemetary so he could piss on their graves again.

There is one part of the above statement that I find beyond hilarious.  

[JESII]

I asked Wayno if he wanted me to turn into the cemetary so he could piss on their graves again.

There is one part of the above statement that I find beyond hilarious.  

JC,

If it's the word "again", you have clearly not been paying attention...



TEP,

expand on the term "poofs" a bit if you could...

[JC Jones]

I asked Wayno if he wanted me to turn into the cemetary so he could piss on their graves again.

There is one part of the above statement that I find beyond hilarious.  

JC,

If it's the word "again", you have clearly not been paying attention...

I understand his man crush on Flynn and his not so friendly attitude re CB/SR, I guess I must have missed the story where he pissed on their graves.

That is taking it to a whole new level, one that I find to be beyond funny.  

[JNagle]

TEPaul -

Thank you for noticing my love of green size.  Forget undulation, angles, elevation and such, just give me a big green and I will be happy.  I guess that means I should give theto nod to Raynor over Ross, his greens were much large.

[Mike Hendren]

John,

I thought the 16th at the Hill Course was Raynoresque it its bunker styling, squared green and small thumbprint front middle (which I suspect was actually for drainage purposes as opposed to a pin location).  Vintage Ross lay-of-the-land green on the upslope whereas Raynor perhaps would have pushed up the front of the green to flatten the surface so it would not be wholly visible from the tee. The hole juxtaposes with the other short holes there which are not short at all and likely required drivers or 3-woods back in the day (or for yours truly today).  

If you're up for a replay I will take a day off and drive up in the next few weeks.  Please advise.

Mike

[Jerry Lemons]

If you're up for a replay I will take a day off and drive up in the next few weeks.  Please advise.

Mike

Mike I will tag along from Nashville if there is a seat open.

Jerry

[TEPaul]

"TEP,
expand on the term "poofs" a bit if you could..."

Ok, Sully, it's a pretty interesting expansion.

Back around 2000 or so when I got Bill Coore here to look at that Ardrossan land for the potential move of GMGC, after a while I took him over to Gulph Mills so he could take a look at the kind of course the membership was used to.

I had to get him to the airport and we only had about 30 minutes to look at GMGC. So we got in a cart a flew down #1 and around. I told him the course was a 1916 Ross and he didn't say much until we flew by #8 green and down #9 at which point he said out of the blue that #8 green sure looked like a Maxwell green to him. That kind of blew me away because he was right even though I told him the course was Ross.

Then as we went by #10 green he said he had to get out and look at that surface and its contours. Again he said the green sure looked like Maxwell to him. He was right again.

He talked about some of the little low ridgy/moundy contours and when I asked him what he meant he said they looked sort of like Maxwell got a bit of air under the surface somehow and it just went "poof" and a little part of the green raised up.

So ever since I've called those cool little low ridgy/moundy contours in Perry Maxwell greens "poofs".  

There's a poof or two or three in the left 9th green at Pine Valley.

And there're a couple of really cool poofs in the 10th green of a course in Boston by Ross that I believe preceded Maxwell's career in architecture. The question is did Maxwell see them when he studied the courses around Boston before beginning his career?

[JESII]

Thanks Tom, very interesting...and to think John Kavanaugh raised a hell of a ruckus on here by saying he could pick a Tom Doak green out of a lineup and Coore did pick out a couple Maxwell greens even after some mis-direction...

#1 at GMGC has some of those "poofs" as well, doesn't it?

[TEPaul]

"#1 at GMGC has some of those "poofs" as well, doesn't it?"

Nope.

That's a Ross green and none of the Ross greens at GMGC have poofs. Those who actually remember Ross say he was not as dour a guy as he looked to be but nevertheless it's not that hard to tell he was basically a poofless kind of guy.

[TEPaul]

But, Sully, you take Tillinghast, for instance---whoa---that's another matter altogether. He got into doing greens that had "whiffenpoofs" in them and some with "whiffensnoosars" and some of his smaller greens had little "sneezers" in them.

But those kind of things were generally the result of late afternoon flask architecture and unfortunately most of those cool little green contours have been removed over the years by humorless idiots.

[Mark Bourgeois]

There's a poof or two or three in the left 9th green at Pine Valley.

And there're a couple of really cool poofs in the 10th green of a course in Boston by Ross that I believe preceded Maxwell's career in architecture. The question is did Maxwell see them when he studied the courses around Boston before beginning his career?

This is ridiculous -- if you can't afford a digital camera let us know and we'll pass the hat!

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