Joe Dey 1931 Evening Bulletin articles

[wsmorrison]

Mike,

The Dub in Dey's article mentions that it is a narrow fairway, so it probably isn't significantly narrower today.  An aerial photograph from 1938 shows it to be slightly wider than today.  That hole is kind of strange.  With the elevated tee and modern technology it is probably a better hole today.  I can't stand par 5s that require negotiating a turn like that with two medium irons after a good tee shot.  It is reminiscent of the 18th at Rolling Green in that regard with the new back tee except the Philmont fairway cant is with the turn while the Rolling Green cant is opposite the turn.

[mike_malone]

 If I read correctly the Llanerch hole says #6; now #7

 The North Hills sketch confirms my disdain for the trees they planted in the quarry to eliminate the diagonal attempt.

  Springhaven #15. It looks like it approaches the present par three green.

   After a relook the Springhaven hole is the NLE # 5. The green is now a par 3 and the fairway is the first part of a new dogleg left hole.

[Dan Herrmann]

Boy - Rolling Green #14 IS my Waterloo.  What a cool hole it is.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Joe, thanks for posting these. Are you sure it was the Evening Bulletin? I thought it was the Public Ledger.

Anyway, my understanding is his writing career led directly to his becoming the USGA's first executive director.

A brief resume of the remarkable early career of Joe Dey:

*He started writing at age 16 for the Public Ledger when his family moved from New Orleans to Philadelphia.
*He went to Penn for 1.5 years then at age 19 returned to the sports page of the Ledger.
*At the time of these articles he was 24. Three years after these articles, his reputation as a golf writer was such that it led Herbert Jacques to ask him to run the New York office of the USGA.
*Dey had just applied to the Princeton Theological Seminary, but apparently wasn't confident he'd get in -- and the more he thought about the USGA position, the more it appealed to him, perhaps for similar reasons as the clergy!
*In December 1934 he became the USGA's Executive Secretary.
*One of his early "decisions" -- to his credit he owned up to it only as: he "brought the matter to the committee's attention" -- was to spread USGA tournaments across the country.  He noted that in 1936 all four USGA championships plus the Walker Cup were held within 100 miles of NYC.

Mark

[Joe Bausch]

Joe, thanks for posting these. Are you sure it was the Evening Bulletin? I thought it was the Public Ledger.

Yes, I'm quite sure it was for the Evening Bulletin.  I'm making my way through the Philly Public Ledger so it would not surprise me if he wrote in that before the EB.

Joe
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[Mike_Cirba]

A couple of interesting tidbits;

The "island" hole at Olde York Road was designed by Tillinghast.

The hole at North Hills was designed by J. Franklin Meehan, with a little help from friends Hugh Wilson, William Flynn, and Ab Smith.

[Dan Herrmann]

Mike, didn't Tillie also build an "island" hole at Galen Hall?

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike, didn't Tillie also build an "island" hole at Galen Hall?

Dan,

Yes he did, and at the early version of Aronimink, as well.

There was also one at Cobb's Creek.

In fact, it seems that for a period of time in early American architecture, they were all the rage.

It's sort of humorous how folks think Pete Dye invented the island green, although he did certainly repopularize it for better or worse.

[Joe Bausch]

Joe, thanks for posting these. Are you sure it was the Evening Bulletin? I thought it was the Public Ledger.

Yes, I'm quite sure it was for the Evening Bulletin.  I'm making my way through the Philly Public Ledger so it would not surprise me if he wrote in that before the EB.

Joe
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Mark, from some work this past weekend, I've discovered that Joe Dey also wrote for the Evening Public Ledger in 1927.  I think this might have been his first newspaper job, but I'm not for certain.  Interestingly, he was writing on college sports at the time, mostly UPenn stuff.  The golf writer at the time for the EPL was Ted Hoyt.

[Joe Bausch]

Bump, based upon the recent thread where Joe Dey is mentioned.