Patrick:
That structure we see on that 1913 photo of the 8th and 9th holes of Piping brings up a whole lot of really interesting questions, in my opinion.
Even though I grew up at Piping Rock more than any other golf club, and my recollection of the club and course goes back to the 1950s, one thing I know virtually nothing about is what the club was all about before Macdonald's golf course was built.
Macdonald himself tells us a number of prominent men from Piping Rock (he names them) asked him to build a golf course there in 1911.
What I don't know now and never have is when Piping Rock as a club was founded and for what purpose or even where. I would like to know if the club was formed around 1911 too or at some earlier time. If it was considerably earlier, then one wonders what exactly was going on at that club before Macdonald's golf course. Or even if they may've had some course there previous to his.
Obviously the club must have some records of all this (just last week I got a call from the USGA wondering if a history book of Piping Rock has ever been done---that I do not know).
In any case, if the club existed well previous to Macdonald's course what were the recreations there and when was that massive clubhouse, racetrack and polo fields built?
Macdonald himself tells us he had some problems with the horse interests at Piping Rock and putting holes where he wanted them. The long-lasting story is that he wanted to put holes where those two polo fields were just below the back of the clubhouse (the present large putting green and mammoth practice range today).
The only reason I mention any of this is because if the race-track and polo fields preexisted Macdonald's golf course at Piping for some years those structures we see in some of those early photos such as that structure on #8 and the stands below the wall behind the clubhouse probably were intended to be permanent. The reason is obvious----eg that track was certainly permanent as were the two side by side polo fields basically in the middle of that track probably because it wasn't for another couple of decades that that area even began to be used as a golf practice range (that may not have happened until the late 1940s or even 1950s).
I have also always heard that the reason Macdonald could not make #8 a Road Hole of the length of TOC's is because the horse interests would essentially not allow him to put a tee for the hole within what was then the far polo field, and so he put the tee in both short and to the left behind it.
I even remember many years ago (probably the 1950s and early 1960s) when the club was thinking about extending the tees on that hole back and to the right (where they are now) and that my father resisted that idea. I think the reason was that area was where he used to practice with his own practice balls just about everyday. Eventually he shifted his practice position with his own balls to the very far right side of that enormous range along the dirt road that still runs out to the 10th tee.
(Pat, here's an interesting story to do with that range and where my dad and I used to practice way off to the right. When I was in my early 20s I was hitting Dad's own practice balls in that area. I was way out there picking them up. It was near the evening and I could just see one person in the near darkness still hitting balls where golfers practice on the range. He must have been over 225 yards from where I was. To my amazement I watched him turn in my direction and swing and even if there was no way I could see it coming in the loaming a golf ball whizzed right past my head. I was furious as I watched that guy walk back to the clubhouse. I jumped in my car and raced back to the pro shot and asked them if they knew who that was on the range. They said they didn't but because it was so peculiar and so dangerous (if that ball had hit me in the head it could've killed me) I followed up with it and eventually the pro told me he thought it was Mike Long, the pro at GCGC. I'd played with Mike Long at Gulf Stream and he was one amazing player with some swing. But to my amazement they also told me that Mike had just been institutionalized!)
I'm going to try to find out when that club was formed and what the story was with the horse world at that club before Macdonald's golf course if that was in fact the case. That should probably tell us a lot more about what that structure on #8 was and whether it was temporary or permanent back in 1912-13 in that photo.