early photos of Philmont North (now a 3rd Willie Park attribution!)

[Joe Bausch]

Just this morning I've run into a March 20, 1921 Philly Inquirer article stating Philmont has purchased land for a new golf course, and Willie Park will assist the pro in laying out the course.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

As many here agree,it's clear that Park did the routing and design work on North. Toomey&Flynn probably constructed the course using Gordon as the foreman. Strouse oversaw construction for the club and,according to the North American article, "...as the work progressed, he changed changed the plans to meet conditions overlooked in the beginning..."
Flynn may have visited the site but since no drawings were found of any holes he may have redisgned from Park's plans, as  was his modus operandi, in the cache found in Gordon's barn of Flynn's work, it is pure speculation that Flynn did any actual design work at North. I think the club confuses the construction company of T&F with Flynn's design business.

[TEPaul]

Steve:

Just to elucidate a bit on what you said above about T&F POSSIBLY doing construction contracting work at Philmont to Park's design plan (or with changes Strouse or the club generated).

The items that could lead one to assume that are these (although there is no direct proof of it).

1. The club does have a photo of William Gordon there on the opening day (I believe) so one could logically ask why was Gordon there in the photo if he wasn't involved in the project somehow?

2. According to a William Gordon bio he had become the "superintendent of golf course construction for Carters Tested Seed Company in 1920" but in 1923 he went to work for Toomey and Flynn (the company he would remain with as a primary foreman for at least the next 17-20 years).

3. Philmont was under construction or grassing in 1923.

Therefore, one could logically ask if Gordon had begun working for T&F in 1923, was their (T&F's) construction arm  building (not designing) the golf course?

One could also ask if perhaps Philmont had initially hired Carter's Tested Seed Company's construction division to build the course to Park's plan (particularly as Gordon was apparently known to construct Park courses)? With Gordon's photo at the course on opening that might make sense since he was the superintendent of Carter's golf course construction division. But then why did he go to work for T&F during that year (1923) before Philmont opened?

Another appropriate question is---was Willie Park Jr one of the English golf architects who was a representative of Carter's Tested Seed Company (probably the most successful seed company in the business at that time). We know that Colt was one of their representatives and perhaps Alison as well. That would make some sense if Gordon had been known to construct courses for Park Jr.

We know that Park was not on hand during the construction of Philmont and that he returned to England for the final time and shortly died.

There is another factor here----eg it's all about grasses and the development of them and a number of people around Philadephia at this very time and for a few years previous very much including the Wilson brothers and Toomey and Flynn had gotten into agronomic experimentation with the US Dept of Agriculture (Piper and Oakley) who were at this very time (1919-1924) getting into developing and setting up the USGA Green Section. Their purpose was to develop a more reliable strain of bent grass (through what was called the "vegetative planting process) because they felt the products of the seed companies were both over-priced and entirely unreliable. At this time Toomey and Flynn actually had their own commerical bent stolon nursery (the raw material of the "vegetative planting process) at their farm on North Wales, Montgomery County.

Since a few principals of Philmont were closely connected to GAP as were a number of the men above it seems there's little chance they were unaware of these events and issues and may've gone to T&F for construction and agronomic advice and input as well as planting and William Gordon transitioned over from Carters to T&F at this time because of all the above.

Again, this in not proof of a T&F construction and agronomic involvement with Philmont but one cannot deny there sure are a plethora of coincidences in these scenarios and exact timeline.

[Kyle Harris]

Tom:

Park's M.O. during this time was to spend several days on sight (6 days at Penn State, specifically) developing the plans and then passing the construction work off to a contractor and his brother, Mungo would make periodic visitations to consult and check on progress.

During this time, Park was working out of an office on 7th Avenue in New York City. It was ultimately Mungo who brought Park back to Musselburgh to convalesce and Mungo who then oversaw the remainder of Park's American projects.

[TEPaul]

Kyle:

I wonder if Mungo Park also represented the Carter Tested Seed Company and their construction division as apparently William Gordon did. I believe that Gordon bio did say that he supervised construction on Park designs as well as for others such as Ross, Leonard Macomber and Devereux Emmet.

The question with Philmont here is----did they go with Carter Tested seed or did they switch over and use this new "vegetative planting process" at that time highly touted by Piper and Oakley, the Wilson brothers and Toomey and Flynn in Philadelphia? The fact that Gordon switched from working for Carter's to Toomey and Flynn at this very time (1923) seems to indicate that.

[TEPaul]

The fact is this website and most of its contributors are completely fixated on just the design aspect of these early courses but the truth is to those guys back then there was a whole lot more involved in bringing a course on line successfully than just that. The entire subject and context of grass and the importance of it is just too much overlooked on here when analyzing that early time, in my opinion. That particular aspect was just nothing remotely like our day, and we need to understand better what that meant back then.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Regardless of  if it's a Park/Strouse or Flynn, it's still a really good golf course and it's always a treat to play there. The greens are challenging and the course is always in fine condition.

[Joe Bausch]

Here is a Philadelphia Inquirer article from May 16, 1907 announcing the opening of Philmont.  With John Reid mentioned as laying out the nine hole course.

[TEPaul]

The following December 29, 1924 letter is from Alan Wilson to Dr. C. V. Piper of the US Dept of Agriculture about the formation of the USGA Green Section and raising money to fund the Green Section through a Pennsylvania corporatin formed to provide tax deductions for contributions independent of the USGA.

Note the name of Hugh Wilson as the man to approach for Philmont!



        "After you finish your campaign of subscriptions from individuals, or possibly concurrently with it, I think a lot of money could be gotten from the 802 member clubs of the Green Section. My thought would be to carry out this club campaign in four sections as follows:--

1. Ask Hugh I. Wilson and Robert W. Lesley if they thought Merion would like to start the ball rolling by contributing $1,000. I feel quite sure they would, If they do,

2. Write to a dozen or so clubs, stating that Merion has contributed $1,000 to the Endowment Fund, and asking if they would feel like doing the same in order to put us in a position to properly start the campaign among the member clubs. The following clubs occur to me and I am also giving the names of men through whom I think they should be approached;

                                   Inwood---Steiner                        Inverness—Marshall
                                   Columbia—Harban                      Flossmoor—Thompson
                                   Oakland Hills—Standish              Philmont—H.I. Wilson
                                   Pine Valley—Perrin                      St. Louis--Stickney"

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Tom,

Perhaps Wilson was listed because of his prior work done on the South with Henry Strouse and his influence in Philadelphia.

 

[TEPaul]

Coincidently and sadly, the date on the big J.E. Ford article on Philmont above is Sunday, Feb 1, 1925. The next day, Monday, Hugh I. Wilson died after a brief but severe illness.

In my opinion, without question the primary reason Hugh Wilson's name was mentioned by his brother as the man to approach at Philmont is that Hugh (and apparently Toomey and Flynn and perhaps William Gordon) had been involved with Philmont about going with the new bent vegetative planting process they had all been touting with the US Dept of Agriculture and the new USGA Green Section. Hugh Wilson was apparently involved in some design or redesign of Philmont's South course and perhaps Toomey and Flynn were involved in the grassing or even the construction of that and/or the North course.

NOTE:
In the last two paragraphs of the big J.E. Ford article above this new bent "vegetative planting" (stolon planting) process is mentioned.

[TEPaul]

I think the moral of this whole Philmont attribution subject and story is that we all need to consider more carefully that in and during these course projects there were a number of important things going on simultaneously with the people involved from and with the club, and generally that would include the separate but perhaps overlapping areas of DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION AND GRASSING!

Sometimes they may significantly overlap with the same people and sometimes they may not. Sometimes it may not be that much different than creating an automobile----eg the people who make and supply the car aren't necessarily the same as the people who make and supply its seats or transmission or tires! 

[Mike_Cirba]

Well, how about that!

You know, I had thought it a bit odd given Hugh Wilson's prior, well-received involvement in doing extensive rework, bunkering, and even new holes on the South Course (along with Strouse) that all of these years it was apparently easy to believe that there was a supposed, unproven Flynn connection, yet no mention of Hugh Wilson.

At the time Wilson and Strouse began their work on the South course, it was reported that the course had "no artificial hazards", which usually meant bunkers in the parlance of the time.

I'm sure Sean Arble would have loved it before Wilson and Strouse screwed it up! 

Given Wilson's humble low-profile style, I have very little doubt that he worked with Strouse (and probably brought Flynn over as well) to help Strouse negotiate some of the realities of actually trying to work with the Willie Park plan once trees were felled and construction began.

However, it also seems that this would have been a very informal arrangement. 

What would be interesting to determine is if Wilson was ever a Philmont member!

 

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Mike,

That's a longshot about Wilson being a member. As far as I know, he wasn't in "Our Crowd."

He may have been an honorary member.

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike,

That's a longshot about Wilson being a member. As far as I know, he wasn't in "Our Crowd."

He may have been an honorary member.

Steve,



I do find it interesting that Wilson was seen as the go-to guy to solicit funds.

It was probably due to his close relationship with Gimbel and Strouse, but who knows!

[TEPaul]

Mike:

I have seen no direct evidence that either Wilson or Toomey and Flynn were involved in the DESIGN of Philmont North but I think we can certainly see that they were obviously involved with its grassing and perhaps T&F's construction arm was involved in its construction. After all if Gordon went to work for T&F in 1923 (having just quit as the construction superintendent of Carter's Tested Seed company) what was he doing there? Somebody (some construction entity) had to build that golf course so who was it----eg given all the grass involvement with Wilson and T&F it seems sort of logical to assume it was T&F (with their new hire, Gordon)? 

The raising of funds I mentioned had nothing directly to do with creating Philmont; it was strictly for the formation of the new USGA Green Section. And technically the new USGA Green Section was a separate corporation and separate technical entity from the USGA itself. By the way, the newly incorporated Green Section, INC. was a corporation registered in Pennsylvania!

Believe it or not, at that time, the men involved in trying to set up the USGA Green Section were attempting to raise a cool ONE MILLION DOLLARS! That is a ton of money in those days. The purpose of that amount was it was intended to be an Endowment Fund that would spin off enough yield (on that $1 mil principal) to fund the on-going annual operation and extensive agronomic research of the USGA Green Section.

Previously the so-called USGA Green Committee (not the new Green Section, Inc) that was chaired by first Eben Byers and then Alan Wilson was leaning on and essentially mooching off the golf agronomy research work of the US Dept of Agriculture and three men there (Piper, Oakley and Lymon Carrier). The USGA paid in a couple of thousand dollars a year to the US Dept of Agriculture but it wasn't enough as those US Dept of Agriculture guys had other things to do for the US Government and its agricultural involvement. Carrier quit the US Dept of Agriculture around 1923-4 and went into commercial agronomy and Piper and Oakley quit around 1925 and became the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the new USGA Green Section.

[Mike_Cirba]

Joe,

I see in the lengthy Ford Philmont article that it says next week "North Hills" would be profiled.

Did you happen to come across that one?

[Joe Bausch]

Joe,

I see in the lengthy Ford Philmont article that it says next week "North Hills" would be profiled.

Did you happen to come across that one?

Yes.

[Mike_Cirba]

Anything juicy? 

[Joe Bausch]

Anything juicy? 

Maybe.  Here are the important details from this JE Ford North American article (late 1924, I think) on North Hills:

First nine holes (not clear from the article when exactly this was) were done by William Ridgeway, J. Franklin Meehan, and Frank Sheble.

Additional nine holes added in 1914:  Alan Corson, chair of the greens committee, laid out the course with the help of Hugh Wilson, Meehan, and Ab Smith.  This sort of sounds like the boys are auditioning for their upcoming work at Cobb's Creek. 

And based upon some other articles I posted from an earlier thread, I'm not sure exactly when all the nines opened!

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,37041.0.html

[Mike_Cirba]

Joe,

That timing and the involvement of Wilson and Smith is exactly what I was hoping to pin down.

No wonder Wilson resigned from chairmanship of the Green Committee at Merion in December 1914.

As a amateur, doing this as a sideline and with a full time job running an Insurance business, he designed and built Merion East which opened in Sept 1912, then designed, built, and opened Merion West (opened May 1914), designed, built and opened Seaview (opened Summer 1914), redesigned 9 and added 9 (with the others mentioned) at North Hills which opened in 1914, and worked with Henry Strouse at Philmont to add new holes and bunker the course, which took place in that same timeframe.

Just think...he was called on to do all of that by business moguls Robert Lesley, Clarence Geist, J. Franklin Meehan, and Ellis Gimbel simply by being the construction foreman for the building of Merion East to others plans!   

[Joe Bausch]

Mike, see my slightly edited post above!

[Mike_Cirba]

Joe,

The memory is the first thing to go, obviously.   I now recall that thread, but didn't remember exactly the issue around dates.

In any case, we now know Wilson was involved in the design of the second nine at North Hills (with Meehan, Smith, and Corson) sometime between 1911-14, and also did work with Flynn, as well.

Here's a question for you, Joe...

Do you think the map of Cobb's Creek that Corson signed might have been older than the one Vogdes signed?   I was thinking about that recently.

If you recall, for some reason on the map the 5th green was in a different place, and the drawing of today's 17th hole was erased.

[Kyle Harris]

So what's the over/under for the article saying that Hugh Wilson brought is new good buddy William Stephen along with him to design a little 9 holer for the Apple Tree Gang up in the Bucks County seat?

[Mike_Cirba]

So what's the over/under for the article saying that Hugh Wilson brought is new good buddy William Stephen along with him to design a little 9 holer for the Apple Tree Gang up in the Bucks County seat?

Kyle?   What?

This one is even too obscure a reference for me!