Could Pine Valley survive, untouched if it were a typical local club ?

[TEPaul]

Pine Valley has had five presidents in over ninety years, and that in and of itself is amazing compared to most all other clubs. The President essentially has always been responsible for the overall decision making of most all that goes on with the club. Pine Valley may have a board of directors or a few people who essentially act in the same capacity of what other clubs call committee chairmen, although I'm not so sure about even that at any point in time, but nevertheless most everything can be done by the president if that's the way he wants it, until.......  

I don't believe Pine Valley has ever been structured in such a way that any president can just do any old thing he wants to endlessly including perpetuating himself endlessly. Perhaps the reason for THAT is behind the president of Pine Valley who has always had so much power compared to the way most all other clubs are structured and governed THERE IS a group of TRUSTEES! It has always been that way at PV, as far as I can tell. I'm sure a president can propose or name his successor but I believe that is not officially his call, but the Trustees. The president may be one of the Trustees, I don't know, I assume he would be, but if a president of PV became unpopular or something, at least with the Trustees he'd have a problem remaining as president. That has never happened with the five presidents in ninety years as far as I know.

Even though I believe their names are on the board, they seem to act remarkably quietly as the president is the one who handles all the affairs of the club, again, I assume if he wants to.

One of the most popular presidents of the club once asked what would happen if the club decided to sell the course and I believe he was told the By-Laws state that cannot happen without the club relocating somewhere else. But what if they wanted to sell and not relocate? I suppose that would logically take a vote of the Trustees to change the By-Laws to reflect that.

But again, I think a lot of the reason Pine Valley's course remains untouched over the years is the club, the president and the Trustees have such respect for George Crump who poured his heart and soul, his wallet and even his own life into the creation of that place. They just have huge respect for him or his aura and that is really cool, in my book, and I think to a large degree it has served to create something of a hands-off attitude about Crump's course. I think the way they operate that place is also very cool simply because it is so quiet and perhaps mysterious. That, to me, is perhaps part of its overall aura!  

On the other hand, it seems in many ways, ANGC is structured, governed and run about the same way and they've certainly changed their course! Maybe the difference between PV and ANGC in this way is ANGC never exactly had a George Crump but PV sure did!

[Tom Huckaby]

Patrick:

Fair enough.  I understand your position also; what I object to is that you seem to make it universal.  And your continued citing of a few departures - ascribing to them motives that they surely may or may not have - makes little sense to me.

To each his own.  We shall live and carry on.  I for one enjoy discussing all topics with just about anyone on here.  A site devoted purely to architecture would be boring as hell to me, especially these days when 99% of architectural topics are retreads.  

BTW re Ran, what he said to my face a few years ago as been confirmed by emails off and on thereafter.

All the best, once again,

Tom Huckaby

ps to Jed - thanks, gotcha.  And your last line is what I was trying to explain to Pat.  He may get it... he may not.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat, Tom, etc.:

I did think that Pat's reply was genuine. And I DO think that he's a great member of this fantastic board.

I just have problems with the rebuttals and deliveries.

I think the threads are, for the most part, fantastic.

I think that Pat Mucci is probably a hell of a guy to play a round of golf with, have drink with, etc.

I think that, at time, while he's well intentioned, he comes off as a bit of a dick.

That's not good.
I've got to work on that.
I don't want to come of as a "bit" of a dick,
I want to come off as a "huge" dick.

[Tom Huckaby]

Pat:

Rest assured that as unlikely as that is anatomically, you have succeeded completely via the written word in here.

 

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I understand what you've said, but, even Pine Valley has been altered.

As you know, I've always thought that the original 18th green, with its mound in the middle, was/is a much better version than today's version.

While Crump may not have been satisfied with the mound, he DID want and internal feature, a spine or ridge to seperate elements of the putting surface.

I wish someone would post the seed company picture showing the old 18th green.

It was far more strategic than the current version.

[Kalen Braley]

I'm very offended by the terse and vulgar language in this thread, especially as it relates to certain parts of the male anatomy!!

Pat stop posting these OT threads...and I demand this thread be deleted immediately!!   

[TEPaul]

My Goodness, Patrick, these wonkers are trying to beat you up. I'll be glad to stipulate that you aren't a dick at all; you're a great guy. You just happen to be a great guy who's wrong about 98.2% of the time.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

# 18 green at PV really fascinates me.

I loved the original version.

And, absent the original mound, I like Crump's intention for the putting surface, a spine or ridge running through it.

I wonder if, through all these years, the thought of restoring the mound or Crump's vision for the spine/ridge was entertained by the club.

If not, it should be.

How can you deny Crump's legacy ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

I'd be curious what you have in mind with the incline to the second green...are you speaking of the bunkers in that hill? Or the height of the hill itself?

I was referencing the entire area that transitions from the fronting fairway to the elevated green, including the bunkering.

As to the major domo hand picking his successor, you are likely correct in many instances, but at some point along the road there must be a vacancy in one of the two areas I identified and that is the fork in the road that can lead a course down the wrong path.

I've always felt that the admissions committee controls that.

It would be interesting to study the evolution of the membership at Hollywood as it relates to the altering/softening/disfiguring the golf course.

If you look at the old aerials of Hollywood, one could make the case that it was more difficult than PV, especially with the breezes off the nearby Atlantic Ocean.

[JMorgan]

If I recall correctly, there is a slight ridge that runs 45 degrees from front left to center right, no? 

The mound would be a humorous exclamation point on the round... but why would you want that mound after shooting over the creek, up the 60-70 degree slope, beyond the bunkers onto that rather large plateau?  That's sadistic.  (Maybe I just answered my own question. )

[JMorgan]

Pat,

I'd be curious what you have in mind with the incline to the second green...are you speaking of the bunkers in that hill? Or the height of the hill itself?

I was referencing the entire area that transitions from the fronting fairway to the elevated green, including the bunkering.

That would be expensive and no doubt money siphoned into the budget for the new pool and tennis courts and fountain on #5.  Qu'elle horror.

[G Jones]

Apologies for earlier involvement in local-gate. I still think PV is a local philly course, but that really isn't very important as others have stated. To each his own.

On the augusta vs pv line of discussion, I think it is definitely the crump factor that has kept pv relatively static. I recall a story about bobby jones and his father playing one of the first rounds at augusta, and there was a bunker in the middle of the 11th fairway that his father found and started swearing about. The bunker soon disappeared. Bobby also modelled the 16th hole on a hole Stoke Poges as I'm sure you all know, and then eventually had it changed when it didn't live up to expectations (incidentally note that, even on the stoke website, they wrongly think that their hole was the inspiration for the 12th at augusta, due to many incorrect magazine articles).

Augusta was like many courses (NGLA is another good example) where there was tinkering over the first decades of its life. NGLA was of course tinkering by the architect, whereas Augusta was tinkering initially by jones and later mainly by roberts and co (if I remember rightly).

So despite centralised power at both places, how come at PV there wasn't anywhere near as much tinkering...?

I would guess and (maybe slightly amusingly) frame it like this:
ANGC is the soviet union, lots of very centralised power amongst a small % of the population who are living in fear (of tiger/the masses), continually making changes in search of improvement but actually destroying itself gradually without realising it.
PV is America, lots of very centralised power amongst a small % of the population who are not living in fear (of tiger/the masses), a legacy to protect and respect (the constitution), changes made to improve it but carefully so as not to destroy the ethos or the legacy of those that created it.

So... could PV have survived untouched as a local club? There would probably have been the desire not to change Crump's legacy, but I suspect that without the power structure of PV this desire maybe have been in vain.

Similarly, maybe if ANGC had remained unchanged for the first decade or two (as PV probably did due to the lack of desire to change the living legacy of the departed crump) it would have been able to remain as-was due to a similar desire being born amongst a similar power structure. However, once there was a tradition of 'improvements', it was a slippery slope.

Although finally, of course, PV has changed a little bit... what happened to the right hand bit of fairway on the 17th? It looked quite interesting as an alternative but riskier route to the green... does anyone know when it disappeared? Plus the conversion from natural sandy expanse to sharp edged grass/bunker edges, although that has definitely been discussed before.

[wsmorrison]

Pat,,

I'm glad the pimple was popped.  There's no way that feature could be mowed at anything approaching today's green heights. 

[JESII]

Pat,

I would be surprised if any admissions committees have, as their charge, only admitting members both able and willing to run the club...was your comment "I've always felt that the admissions committee controls that" meant as a response to my suggestion that clubs might hit a dead end with respect to able and willing major domo's?

[JESII]

While the approach to the second green is severe for many men and most women, it's about the third feature on that hole that is so severe...

[TEPaul]

Pat:

The mound or so-called pimple on the 18th green has been pretty well documented as a "temporary" feature by Crump and one he did not want to remain. From some of the oldest and best informed members of the club it's pretty obvious the feature was not popular with anyone ever, matter of fact it was remarkably unpopular and was one of the few things John Arthur Brown who was the president of that club for over fifty years did to change architecture there (the other thing I'm aware he did was to add the back tee on #12). I don't know when Brown added the 12th tee but he removed the mound on #18 in the 1920s not long after he took over the presidency from the club's first president, Howard Perrin.

A number of Crump's original greens were changed by the so-called 1921 Advisory Committee working with architect Hugh Alison. Those greens #6, #7, #11, #17. Maxwell changed #8, #9 and he added bunkering on the right of #5.

[JMorgan]

While the approach to the second green is severe for many men and most women, it's about the third feature on that hole that is so severe...

Jim, I'd say it's the third that is more than half.  You've got the narrow, cone-shaped carry off the tee and the rows of mini pew bunkers on either side of the fairway. 

But then you have something like this:



Hello Joan D'Arc.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

I would be surprised if any admissions committees have, as their charge, only admitting members both able and willing to run the club...was your comment

I never said it was their charge.

However, there's an old adage.
Thousand come to see the champion.
And, from the thousands, comes the new champion.

It's the same thing with admissions committees, they're the gatekeepper for the future of the club.


"I've always felt that the admissions committee controls that" meant as a response to my suggestion that clubs might hit a dead end with respect to able and willing major domo's?


If the admissions committee isn't admitting highly qualified candidates, then the future of the club is at stake, in terms of leadership, and the general culture.

[Patrick_Mucci]

While the approach to the second green is severe for many men and most women, it's about the third feature on that hole that is so severe...

I already stated that.

You must have been feeding the kids and missed it.
Either that, or you need more sleep.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Wayno,

Thanks for posting that picture.
It gives one a perspective on the configuration of the putting surface on # 18

I'm glad the pimple was popped.  There's no way that feature could be mowed at anything approaching today's green heights. 

I don't agree with that.
That looks like a large feature with slopes NOT APPROACHING those on the second green.
If they can mow the second green, they could mow that mound.

I'm one of those who feel that green speeds have gotten excessive at many courses, and PV is one of them.

It's a great tactical feature, requiring a higher degree of precision with the approach.

[SPDB]

Pat:
Are you saying that you believe that the 2d green has slopes that are far greater than
that created by the mound in Wayne's picture? The best part about this picture is the
treeless section it shows behind the 8th green.

But doesn't this picture illustrate that survival is a somewhat relative term. This is a feature
that didn't survive at PVGC, despite (or perhaps because of) its management structure?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Are you saying that you believe that the 2d green has slopes that are far greater than
that created by the mound in Wayne's picture?

Yes.

The best part about this picture is the
treeless section it shows behind the 8th green.

Agreed, I always felt that # 8 was intended as a skyline green.
The theory that the area immediately behind it was planted with trees to shore up the steep bank doesn't hold water when you analyze it in the context of above and below the horizon.

But doesn't this picture illustrate that survival is a somewhat relative term. This is a feature that didn't survive at PVGC, despite (or perhaps because of) its management structure?

I forget the chronology of events leading to its demise, but, it was clearly the result of Crump's design and construction.

Crump himself stated that a ridge or spine should be incorporated in and traverse that green, a green that is a semi to full punchbowl green, without much in the way of strategic demands from the approach.

Yet, despite the existance of the original mound, and Crump's statement, oral or written, that the green SHOULD have an internal ridge/spine, it has and continues to remain bland.

I'm very surprised that the club, so in tune with its connection to Crump and Crump's vision, would let this feature languish in exile.

I suspect that the party in power at the time of its removal quashed all subsequent efforts to restore it.

But, the club, so connected with its historical roots, armed with these photos and Crump's stated intentions, should restore that feature or a ridge/spine as Crump stated/intended.

[TEPaul]

"But doesn't this picture illustrate that survival is a somewhat relative term. This is a feature that didn't survive at PVGC, despite (or perhaps because of) its management structure?"




"I forget the chronology of events leading to its demise, but, it was clearly the result of Crump's design and construction.

Crump himself stated that a ridge or spine should be incorporated in and traverse that green, a green that is a semi to full punchbowl green, without much in the way of strategic demands from the approach.

Yet, despite the existance of the original mound, and Crump's statement, oral or written, that the green SHOULD have an internal ridge/spine, it has and continues to remain bland."


Pat:

Well, I did not forget the chronology of the removal of the mound on #18. Furthermore, you seem to be suggesting or implying two different things here----eg the restoration of the mound and/or the construction of a spine that Crump had in mind in place of it. Both cannot be done, that's for sure, so one simply cannot forget the chronology (or the intended chronology) and the reason the mound was there in the first place and what Crump apparently intended to do with that green had he lived. I even have the exact reasoning of why Crump put it there in the first place including the fact that he did consider it to be both experimental AND temporary!

There is almost no question at all there is not another contour on any green on that golf course (or perhaps anywhere else with the possible exception of one on Somerset Hills), including the second green that would be as radical and difficulat (probably impossible) to mow and maintain as that "pimple" as it was the way Crump originally did it.

The other thing to consider here is over a period of about ten years it was completely unpopular with everyone and that is the very reason a real "hands-off" president, John Arthur Brown, removed it rather quickly when he came in as president in the mid 1920s!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Well, I did not forget the chronology of the removal of the mound on #18.

Furthermore, you seem to be suggesting or implying two different things here----eg the restoration of the mound and/or the construction of a spine that Crump had in mind in place of it.

Delete the word "and"

Both cannot be done, that's for sure, so one simply cannot forget the chronology (or the intended chronology) and the reason the mound was there in the first place and what Crump apparently intended to do with that green had he lived.


I NEVER suggested that both be done.
However, ONE OR THE OTHER SHOULD BE DONE

I even have the exact reasoning of why Crump put it there in the first place including the fact that he did consider it to be both experimental AND temporary!

That it was there is a fact.
He conceived of the concept, designed it and built it.

He always had in mind an internal feature that would enhance the value of the hole, be it a mound or a ridge/spine.

Therefore, his intent should be carried out.

There is almost no question at all there is not another contour on any green on that golf course (or perhaps anywhere else with the possible exception of one on Somerset Hills), including the second green that would be as radical and difficulat (probably impossible) to mow and maintain as that "pimple" as it was the way Crump originally did it.

That's not true.

The 2nd green at PV has slopes far steeper than those found on that mound.

You're going to defend the disfiguration/eradication of that feature on speculation.

And, you're going to continue to defend the failure on the club's part to re-introduce a spine/ridge as Crump intended.

As the green exists today, it's bland, from the approach, recovery and putt.

Crump's vision for the green makes strategic sense.
It makes the green brilliant, from the approach, recovery and putt.

Surely even you see that.
I know that Coorshaw does.

Inertia, not maintainance is the reason this hasn't been done.

The other thing to consider here is over a period of about ten years it was completely unpopular with everyone and that is the very reason a real "hands-off" president, John Arthur Brown, removed it rather quickly when he came in as president in the mid 1920s!


That's the most common cry we hear at clubs.
A dramatic, quirky or unique feature is "unpopular"
That's the reason that so many great, quirky, unique features have been obliterated over the years.

But, let's assume that the mound wasn't the appropriate feature for that green.
Why not follow through with Crump's thinking that a ridge/spine should be introduced into the putting surface to give the green far more character and demand, on the approach, recovery and putt ?

Why hasn't the club fulfilled Crump's intent ?

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,
How many first time golfers would ever consider trying the "Zorro" putt, especially in a competition ?
That putt takes a lot of practice and a lot more nerve."


Patrick:

I have no idea how many first time golfers would consider trying that putt or would even recognize it. Does that matter? The point is, it is there and it can be done.

This kinda gets into something I learned from Bill Coore when they were building Friars Head and the 7th green. He was just going apeshit over a potential putt and chip on a part of that hole. Then I said: "Bill, how many golfers do you think would even recognize that it's possible?", and he said: "I don't know but at least it is there and it's possible."

Patrick, THIS is what really great architecture is all about and it's those kinds of architects who can visualize that kind of nuance that it emanates from! 

Speaking of the 2nd green at PV----most do not know that Colt wanted to put it about 20-30 yards to the left and he wanted to put the tee for #3 at about the back middle of the present 2nd green. Crump would not have that and he put it where he originally had it on his routing before Colt arrived.

However, in Colt's hole by hole booklet that really doesn't have any internal (vertical) green contouring on it on any of the holes or green areas he drew in that booklet or on the big map we bought off Ebay, there is one really interesting little thing on the top of the page on that particular hole---eg #2. On the top of it there is this little doodle that matches the swales and inline rolls on that green if viewed from the front. Who did that little doodle? I have no idea but I doubt it was Colt. More likely Crump after Colt left since he did do the green in a place where it is now and to the right of where Colt proposed it. Plus the doddle was done with another type of marker.