Seaview: Wilson laid out the course, Ross did the trapping

[Joe Bausch]

As I've written about here previously, this 1917 article further supports that Hugh Wilson deserves more credit for the Bay course at Seaview:

[Tom MacWood]

Joe
A very interesting article - do you know when the Seaview project began and if Wilson was involved from the beginning. I recall in one of his letters to Piper & Oakley (the first one dealing with Seaview I believe) Wilson was asking for some expert help with drainage. He says something about 'they' really messed up the building of dikes, or whatever, in attempt to drain some of the land intended for the golf course. He gives the impression he was fixing the mistakes of others.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Joe,

Didn't Ron Whitten write an article for GD a few years ago on this topic? I think it was mentioned and linked in another Seaview thread. It's no longer available online. Does Seaview have a copy?

[Joe Bausch]

Joe
A very interesting article - do you know when the Seaview project began and if Wilson was involved from the beginning. I recall in one of his letters to Piper & Oakley (the first one dealing with Seaview I believe) Wilson was asking for some expert help with drainage. He says something about 'they' really messed up the building of dikes, or whatever, in attempt to drain some of the land intended for the golf course. He gives the impression he was fixing the mistakes of others.

I'm away from my files right now (and I'm not heading into work with snow coming down like mad!), but I do know that Joe Bunker in June 1914 talked about the course being ready to open soon.  I may have earlier mentions, perhaps as early as 1913, but I will update later.

[Joe Bausch]

Joe,

Didn't Ron Whitten write an article for GD a few years ago on this topic? I think it was mentioned and linked in another Seaview thread. It's no longer available online. Does Seaview have a copy?

Yes, Steve, I remember you bringing up this topic in the previous Seaview thread.  Whitten did do some article but I do not have a link to it nor do I have a copy of it.  If somebody out there does have it, can they post it?

[DMoriarty]

Joe,

Thanks for posting the article.   I guess it is consistent with the understanding I had from the informative threads on Seaview from a year or so ago, although wasn't someone arguing that Ross did not really do much at all in the way of anything?   Or maybe I misremember?    It sounds like, from the author's perspective at least, that the new bunkering by Ross substantially altered the course from a playability perspective; ("those who have not played the Seaview course in two years would scarcely recognize it.")

I don't want to start a fight or conflict, but I have a recollection of some of the early reports about Seaview as being less than positive.   Did they bring in Ross because of dissatisfaction with the coursel, or for some other reason?   Or perhaps I should just ask why do you suppose they brought him in . . . I sounds like it must have been 1915 when he set out the bunkers, which was at the very beginning.

Some random questions for you or anyone:

1. Any ideas on who "Peter Putter" was?   Seems to have been from the Philly area.

2. Will you share the actual date and name of the publication? 

3. I can't quite make out the bottom of the first column.  It seems to be saying that the 17th was a dogleg, but people were playing it by driving into the 18th fairway; someone got hit, and so they made drives from the 15th tee out of bounds?  A typo maybe?  Any ideas on what hole was causing the problem, the 15th or 17th?  You guys have an original routing or scorecard or something, don't you? 

4. Any ideas of who did or supervised the actual construction work for the Ross bunkers?   

5. I'm confused as to the timing.  Was the course open for the two years between the time Ross marked the bunkers and the time of the article, or was it closed at some point?

6.  The article mentions that a few greens with clover had been dug up and re-turfed.  (Perhaps it is a jump, but does this imply that Hugh Wilson's involvement ended pretty early?  Hard to imagine the greens would have gotten away from him.) I assume that the greens themselves were not altered except for the turf?  Is this consistent with your understanding? 

Sorry for all the questions.  Not trying to create a research agenda for you, but if you have the answers handy, I'd appreciate you relaying the information.

Thanks again.

 

[Joe Bausch]

TM, this is from September 14, 1913 issue of the Public Ledger.  It was part of an earlier Seaview thread I started!

[Joe Bausch]

I was able to relocate the original routing, which was published in the Philly Inky (Oct 18, 1914).  The numbering of holes has since changed (I believe the original 17th is the current 10th; and it does play as a bit of a dogleg left.  And I think that is a typo in the article where it says at the end the 15th hole.

[DMoriarty]

Thanks Joe,

It looks like the 13th was very short.   Do you know the distance?   Can you make out the writing around the 13th green?   

Also, any ideas what is up with the extra dashed line which runs diagonally from near the 12th green to near the 10th green?   Is it dashes and dots?   Is there some sort of feature such as a ditch or stream there?

[Kyle Harris]

Thanks Joe,

It looks like the 13th was very short.   Do you know the distance?   Can you make out the writing around the 13th green?   

Also, any ideas what is up with the extra dashed line which runs diagonally from near the 12th green to near the 10th green?   Is it dashes and dots?   Is there some sort of feature such as a ditch or stream there?

David,

To this day, 13 is a 110 yard hole.

The dashed line you reference is either a tree line, fence line or some sort of other property line. I forget the specific feature but you can still see the remnants of the old property line there.

[DMoriarty]

Thanks Kyle.

[Mike Cirba]

It appears that the timeline around Seaview indicates the course was laid out and construction started sometime in the first half of 1913.

The course opened to member play in early summer 1914, although the club itself did not formally open until January 1915 due to the fact that Clarence Geist was sick with "the grip" for many months in the latter half of 1914.

This brief article from April 28, 1914 gives an update on things;

[Tom MacWood]

When did Wilson first become involved with the Seaview project?

[Mike Cirba]

When did Wilson first become involved with the Seaview project?

We don't know yet.   We were scheduled to go down to Atlantic County Historical Society earlier this winter but a major snowstorm struck and we haven't been able to get back down.

I don't think the March 1914 letter to P&O was his entree to the project.   I do know that there were accounts about reclaiming materials from the bay that was the context of that letter, and that the article I posted yesterday referred to, but the course opened that summer and all the early accounts credited Wilson with the design.

[Tom MacWood]

When did the project begin?

[TEPaul]

I don't know directly from Seaview when the Bay course project began but it does appear Wilson was involved in it from the beginning as he's been credited with its design in a number of contemporaneous local newspaper reports.

From Wilson himself all I'm aware of are the P&O letters which only involve the agronomy of Seaview other than that correspondence in March 1914 when he asks P&O if they can recommend someone from the US Government to consult on marshland problems at Seaview. Wilson did stay involved with the agronomy of Seaview at least because he does mention Seaview and the potential acquisition of some of the best bent grass (from P&O and others) for a number of years (at least up until 1920) and he does continue to ask P&O to come up to Philly to go over Seaview as well at Merion, Sunnybrook and Pine Valley (which they do from time to time).

However, there's another interesting set of circumstances that probably puts Wilson at Seaview in the spring of 1913, and that has to do with at least one report from Tillinghast that Colt is to visit Seaview at that time. That would make sense since that was the time Colt spent at least a week with Crump at Pine Valley (late May/early June 1913).

The other interesting circumstance is that Colt wrote Wilson in the early 1920s mentioning it had been so long since they saw one another that he hoped H.I.W. remembered him. At the end of that letter Colt asked Wilson to remember Mrs Colt to Mrs Wilson. That would suggest to me that when Colt was around Philadelphia at that time in 1913 he and Mrs Colt probably stayed with the Wilsons (apparently ship manifest lists show Mrs Colt traveling to America with Harry in 1913). That isn't unusual as Wilson was always asking Piper and Oakley to stay at his place when they were in Philly.

Since Colt apparently only came to North America 3-4 times not to return again after 1914 and since Wilson's only documented trip abroad seems to have been 1912 and not with Mrs Wilson, that particular time in the spring of 1913 in and around Philadelphia appears to have been the only time Mrs Colt and Mrs Wilson had an opportunity to meet and get to know one another.

Why did Colt write Wilson after all those years? He does give at least one reason but there may be other reasons that unfortunately will probably never get beyond a certain amount of speculation.

[Tom MacWood]

Mrs. Colt did travel to the US with Harry. There are reports the Colt visited PV, Merion and Seaview on that visit. On that same trip Colt collaborated with HH Barker in Chicago (prior to coming to Philadelphia).

Wilson wrote to P&O about Seaview prior to March 1914, and in that letter he gives the impression he had inherited a mess.

[TEPaul]

A side note---this time on Clarence Geist.

Geist was seemingly a fairly to massively controversial character and he apparently got more controversial as time went on, particularly in his later Boca Raton years. He was a big-time player in business for sure though----eg apparently Geist ended up owning more utilities stock than any other single American.

He lived in a gigantic mansion that is today Notre Dame (etc) school for girls that isn't more than about three miles (as the crow flies) from Merion. Geist was also a regular at Atlantic City G.C. in the winter probably with Crump and the boys and the rumor goes that he got pissed at having to wait on the first tee and that was his inspiration to create the massive Seaview complex and courses.

His gigantic mansion was right across the street from what is today Overbrook GC (McGovern, early 1950s) and when Overbrook moved to that site they bought the massive house on the large property from Mrs Geist Ely, Geist's daughter who had been given the place and massive house across the street as a wedding present (I got all this from Geist's grandson, Geist Ely, himself a massively controversial figure (but always a bundle of laughs), now sadly departed).

William Flynn and Clarence Geist also became very close personal friends (this from Flynn's still living daughter). So it would appear that Clarence Geist and Hugh Wilson were apparently pretty close friends from way back then and for that reason alone it makes a lot of sense that Geist would have turned to Wilson in the early teens to design Seaview as he turned to Flynn about 15 years later to design the massive Boca Raton project as well as the second course at Seaview.

[TEPaul]

“Wilson wrote to P&O about Seaview prior to March 1914, and in that letter he gives the impression he had inherited a mess.”



No, the very first time Wilson wrote P&O (Oakley actually) about Seaview was on March 16, 1914, and he didn’t give them any impression that he had inherited a mess. Matter of fact, it doesn’t even appear that the land Wilson was talking about at Seaview was part of the Bay course at that time because it appears by 1914 the course was built and into its initial “grow in” phase (It was scheduled to open for play in the fall of 1914 and generally in those days those men would give a course a year to grow in, as Wilson had with Merion East two years previous).

This is what Wilson actually said to Oakley about Seaview in that March 16th 1914 letter (his first mention to them about Seaview) and frankly it doesn’t even necessarily appear it had to do with the subject of golf course architecture at all----basically just salt water marsh reclamation.


“March 16, 1914

Dear Mr. Oakley:-
                         A friend of mine, Mr. C. H. Giest, is building a golf course near Atlantic City and there are from 30 to 50 acres of marsh land which he wishes to reclaim. He has tried to do some of this work under the advice of the local people and it has been a dismal failure. What he wants to get is an expert in this line of work. Is there any one in the Government employ or outside of it who could come up and tell him how to do it? He is perfectly willing to pay anything that is right for this and is very anxious to get a thoroughly good man who has experience in the salt water marshes.”


One logical reason Geist may've wanted to do between 30-50 acres of salt water marsh reclamation was to prevent or alleviate some real problems with mosquitoes and insects which certainly wouldn't have been the last time that sort of thing created huge problems on a golf course on sites like Seaview's Bay course in that particular area (or Long Island).

[Mike Cirba]

With fear and trepidation at potentially interrupting what sounds like an actual conversation, if not a lovefest between Tom and Tom , I would venture that the following article hints at some of what was going on with "reclamation", that apparently had to be abandoned but was still being considered as having promise.

I don't know if Geist originally wanted to build more holes out by the bay, but it might be telling that the 2nd course actually was built on the far side of the clubhouse, in the woods away from the bay.

In any case, the timeline Tom P. mentions is correct...the first course (with the same routing as today's "Bay" course with slight renumbering) was open to member play by early summer 1914, with an officlal club opening in January 1915.

In April/May of 1915, Clarence Geist partnered with Hugh Wilson to play Francis Ouimet (and I forget who) in a match on the course.  EDIT*** - Wilson paired with Ouimet in a match against Clarence Geist and the new pro at Seaview, Wilfred Reid.

[Tom MacWood]

I don't know directly from Seaview when the Bay course project began but it does appear Wilson was involved in it from the beginning as he's been credited with its design in a number of contemporaneous local newspaper reports.

Speaking of newspaper reports does anyone know what is the earliest mention of Wilson's involvement at Seaview?

[Mike Cirba]

Tom MacWood,

The earliest one I've seen was found by Joe Bausch, written by William Evans in the Philly Public Ledger, 10/12/13.

Here's the pertinent part;



Here's one from July 1914 Philadelphia Record




Tom Paul,

Evidently there was a letter prior...you posted this on a Seaview thread I started last year;

Mike and Joe:

Here's Wilson's first letter to Russell Oakley on the Seaview project:



R.A. Oakley
U.S. Dept of Agriculture
Washington, D.C.                                                                                                         Novemeber 21, 1913


Dear Mr. Oakley--

             I am very much interested in the golf course at Atlantic City where five of the holes are on salt meadows. The have drained the meadows and put in a sluice gate and have pumped in sand for the formation of some of the greens. In pumping in the sand they have pumped in a great deal of mud over the marsh and made a pretty bad mess of it. They have diked the marsh and put in a sluice gate but it does not seem to dry out very well. They are anxious to get an expert to come down and go over the ground with them and tell them what they ought to do and what can be done. Is there anyone you can tell me about who really knows something of this kind of work? It is not a question of cost, as they are perfectly willing to pay them any reasonable sum for the work.
              I asked them to send you some of the sod or peat by express so that you could look over it and see if it would not be very useful in treating the sandy soil as top dressing. At present they are piling it up in mounds and covering it with lime, expecting to let it stay there all winter and then mix it up with some soil in order to sweeten it. Do you think that it will be in shape to use next spring of will it have to stand longer before the salt is out of it and it is thoroughly purified?
                                                                                                             Very Truly Yours,
                                                                                                                      Hugh I. Wilson

[Tom MacWood]

October 12, 1913? Are you sure? Isn't 10.12.1914 more likely?

[Mike Cirba]

October 12, 1913? Are you sure? Isn't 10.12.1914 more likely?

Tom,

I'll doublecheck.   I copied what was written on the old thread.

[Joe Bausch]

October 12, 1913? Are you sure? Isn't 10.12.1914 more likely?

Tom,

I'll doublecheck.   I copied what was written on the old thread.

And I'll check my files in the morning.  I could have mistyped the year.