Merion's minimal bunkering in 1915 and NOW: Seaview Origins

[TEPaul]

Mike:

It think that bunker type and style subject is a really fundamental one and should be one of the most important things imaginable to comprehensively look into and discuss on here but that kind of thing just doesn't look like it will happen on this website for what now seems like some pretty apparent reasons. That one and the Joshua Crane subject were the only reasons I posted on here again but they both look like a no-go.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

I think it needs its own thread and agree the topic, if kept to architecture by all, is a very fundamentally interesting one to explore.

[Mac Plumart]

FYI...

Tom, I'm still working on the Josh Crane stuff...just not ready to post yet.

[Bradley Anderson]

“BUNKERS.    The question of bunkers is a big one and the very best school for study we have found is along the seacoast among the dunes. Here one may study the different formations and obtain many ideas for bunkers. We have tried to make them natural and fit them into the landscape. The criticism had been made that we have made them too easy, that the banks are too sloping and that a man may often play a mid-iron shot out of the bunker where he should be forced to use a niblick. This opens a pretty big subject and we know that the tendency is to make bunkers more difficult. In the bunkers abroad on the seaside courses, the majority of them were formed by nature and the slopes are easy; the only exception being where on account of the shifting sand, they have been forced to put in railroad ties or some similar substance to keep the same from blowing. This had made a perfectly straight wall but was not done with the intention of making it difficult to get out but merely to retain the bunker as it exists. If we make the banks of every bunker so steep that the very best player is forced to use a niblick to get out and the only hope he has when he gets in is to be able to get his ball on the fairway again, why should we not make a rule as we have at present with water hazards, when a man may, if he so desires, drop back with the loss of a stroke. I thoroughly believe that for the good of Golf, that we should not make our bunkers so difficult, that there is no choice left in playing out of them and that the best and the worst must use a niblick.”

This is the best text I have seen to support the idea that Merion is home to what we might call the American bunker. He does indeed suggest that he is doing something different than others had done up to this point. Now was he accurate in saying that? That is hard to determine, but this text sure helps to support that idea.

[Tom MacWood]

Speaking of bunkers, those convex bunkers at Seaview are reminiscent of similar bunkers at GCGC.

[TEPaul]

"This is the best text I have seen to support the idea that Merion is home to what we might call the American bunker."


Brad:

That is a subject and question I would surely like to explore. If it is true---which admittedly might be massively hard to prove to the satisfaction of most or some, it sure would be significant---in my opinion. This is a theory or idea that was first suggested to me by Ron Prichard a good many years ago and it sure took me by surprise when he said it and I've definitely never forgotten what he said. However, how chronologically or historically exact Ron was being or trying to be I have never really known despite speaking with him about it a number of times but yesterday I had another wonderful and edifying conversation with him on this very subject.


"He does indeed suggest that he is doing something different than others had done up to this point."


Do you really think he was? If so I guess one would need to decide both who and what he really did mean when he used the words "we" and "I" in that remarkable statement which was truly lucky to survive for posterity (it was never actually published).


"Now was he accurate in saying that?"


I'm not sure what you mean by that. Accurate in what way?

 

"That is hard to determine, but this text sure helps to support that idea."


At this point, all I can say or suggest is that we try to find someone who said what he did before him and perhaps some place in America that did what he did with a bunker shape and type and style (not just flat sand floors) before him at Merion East-----an INLAND clay/loam soil site.

AGAIN, for all kinds of reasons, I think it is hugely important that no one supply examples of upswept sand floors before Merion East that were done on sand or sand/loam sites in America (such as NGLA and Pine Valley). The key would be INLAND clay/loam (compacted) sites as Merion East was.

In a real way, M&W suggested this massive distinction to MCC in their first visit to Ardmore in 1910 but they were basically talking about agronomy and not bunker construction and type and style. Macdonald's letter actually mentioned that the best place for MCC to go for advice (for agronomy on a clay/loam soil site) would be Baltustrol because they had such similar soil structure.

[Mike Cirba]

Speaking of bunkers, those convex bunkers at Seaview are reminiscent of similar bunkers at GCGC.

Tom MacWood,

As I asked before, do you have any idea at what stage of construction those pictures were taken?  Or the angle of the photo..is it facing the green or from the sides or rear?

I ask because I've shown that picture of the 4th bears no relation to the description of the hole from October 1914 I published.

Before you jump to conclusions here, characterizing it based on limited information and comparing it to Garden City as a purposeful design feature, I'm thinking a hint of what we're seeing might be found in Hugh Wilson's letter.

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
 

As best as I can tell, Tom, this photo was taken from behind the green, with one of the rear mounds described in the hole description at an early stage of grow-in.




Here's today's hole looking from the fairway to the green.   Sadly, what was described as Wilson's large fronting grassy hollow is no longer there;



Here's from behind the green looking back up the fairway out towards the bay.  I'm pretty sure THIS is where the picture was taken from, roughly.  If you scroll over to the right you can see some of the mounding.




Tom Paul,

I think to get to the answer to your question about Merion's bunkering, it might be useful to try and compile a listing of well-regarded inland courses in America before WWI...say, prior to 1916.

Most of those that come to mind as inland to me don't qualify because they were either built on sandy soil (i.e. Garden City, Shawnee, Pinehurst), or we already know they had pits of the more traditional sand-floored type (i.e. Oakmont, Myopia).

Perhaps it might be useful to first compile a listing of all of the best inland American golf courses in existence by 1915 as a starting point?

[mike_malone]

 For two poiints----who is the guy taking the picture in Tom MacWood's first photo of Seaview?

[TEPaul]

CIRBA is such a distinctive presence it is very difficult to fail to identify him in most any circumstance.

I expect in a hundred years the debate will be about whether Hugh Wilson or Donald Ross or even Bill Robinson designed him into that hole in 1913-14 (in that photograph).

[TEPaul]

"Tom Paul,

I think to get to the answer to your question about Merion's bunkering, it might be useful to try and compile a listing of well-regarded inland courses in America before WWI...say, prior to 1916.

Most of those that come to mind as inland to me don't qualify because they were either built on sandy soil (i.e. Garden City, Shawnee, Pinehurst), or we already know they had pits of the more traditional sand-floored type (i.e. Oakmont, Myopia).

Perhaps it might be useful to first compile a listing of all of the best inland American golf courses in existence by 1915 as a starting point?"




Mike:

You are no doubt right about that. However, I'd just as soon drop the qualification of "well regarded" as I am basically after the very first dedicated and articulated evidence and examples of that particular type and style of INLAND clay/loam soil structure bunker in America. I think we can all pretty much agree that making bunkers that departed from straight flat floored sand bunkers were not exactly a snap to make or perhaps even place compared to some of the early sand and sandy/loam sites.

[TEPaul]

Mike:

It just occured to me (from another thread) that the first or one of the first INLAND clay/loam sites and courses that may've first utilized the dish shaped or upswept sand faced bunker in America might have been the Thomas/Heebner Whitemarsh Valley, particularly because it was first designed around 1908/1909----a good 4-7 years before Wilson/Flynn and Merion East began developing their famous dished shaped sand upswept bunkers. I think that course and club should be comprehensively researched for any evidence of really old on-ground photographs of its original bunkers. Or did Thomas/Heebner wait for some time before developing the bunkers of Whitemarsh Valley?

I can certainly tell you that Thomas' first effort in architecture----Marion GC (1905) definitely did not have dished shaped bunkers. It was and still is one of the best remaining examples of a style of "steeplechase" architecture replete with a very good number of perpindicular stone walls used as cross hazards across holes in all kinds of places on holes----even one flush up against the front of a green and with a gate in the stone wall by which one enters the green!  

[Bradley Anderson]

Donald Ross had a bunker style that he refered to as the "scooped out pit". Though he may not have coined the term.
The short third at Wannamoissett is a good example - not sure when that one was built.

There has always been an enormous scooped out pit bunker on the 8th hole at Old Elm that was built in 1913.

Ross stated that "to provide this type of bunker you must have undulating ground, as they can only be constructed on the faces of slopes or knolls. I like them very much, as they usually have a natural appearance and are nearly always open to view, a desirable thing in all bunkers. To keep them in condition, sand must be used plentifully. The whole scooped-out surface should be completely covered with it."

I have an article by Robert White that I will scan and post tonight that might show this kind of bunker style as well.

So I am not sure if Wilson was being accurate with his inference that what he was building was original or unique to what was being built elsewhere. But then maybe I am not being accurate in interpreting that that is what he was infering? 

[Bradley Anderson]

Mike,

I don't think that those sand piles are heaped up for the purpose of desalinization with lime.

That particular style of convex bunkers was being experimented with at the time on various golf courses. Generally those sand piles were being vegatatively planted with grass plugs. In 1914 they were all over Sandy Lodge. (see link below) Sandy Lodge may not be the best example because most of those, but not all, functioned more like mounds than they did hazards. But I have seen pictures of these where part of the sand is not planted with grass so that it would have been a bunker type hazard.

http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/GolfIllustrated/1914/gi1k.pdf

However one can not rule out the possibility that those sand piles may have been dumped and limed in the place where they intended to build convex bunkers, using native beach grasses.

Over time these convex bunkers became grassy mounds.

Technically they really shouldn't be called bunkers, rather mounds, because the term bunker comes from the old Scottish BONKER - chest or box - concave.


YIKEs this may be the most confusing thing I have ever posted.  

[Mike Cirba]

Brad,

As I look at this more, I think you're correct that they were meant to be mounds, and the 1914 hole description would seem to indicate that.   Whether or not this was material excavated from the bay is only speculation on my part based on Wilson's description.

Hopefully these slightly smaller pics will compare better.

Here is the view from the fairway looking to the green.   Note that it’s slightly downhill, and also note that if the old picture was taking from this angle you’d see the clubhouse in the background.

Note also the mound behind the left hand side of the green.   I believe it’s likely that this is the mounding in the foreground of the black-and-white photo, from a vantage point just behind the first green, which is at about 10-o’clock in this photo.



From the right side of the fairway,  the right side of the mound behind can be seen just beyond the flagstick;



Now, once again, here’s the black and white;



Followed by a modern picture from just behind the green…I believe the black and white was taken from a vantage point a little further right and a little further back, possibly even standing on the first green.




I think it’s highly likely that what you’re seeing in the old picture is sand mounds, possibly from the fill from the bay, prior to grassing.   Even the front mounds, green tilt towards the back, and distant topography seem to jive.

What do you think?

[Mike Cirba]

I blew the picture up a bit and what I'd really like to know is what are TEN people doing on the green?

Especially considering there are only SiX on the next tee (in the distance)

This is even more amateurish than I previously believed!   

[Tom MacWood]

Those bunkers appear to be modeled after similar bunkers at GCGC, and I doubt Wilson was responsible.

[Bradley Anderson]

Having a hard time posting pics tonight. Dang it I have some really good pics and I can't get them posted. Shoot.

[Bradley Anderson]

[Bradley Anderson]

Well Mike I have a good collection of convex bunkers but I can't get them up here. It would be nice to be able post picture on here easier. Wah wah wah.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom MacWood,

Why do yo think someone else built the features in question and who do you think did and why do you think that?

Thanks

[Bradley Anderson]

Mike,

How much you want to bet that those ten guys on the green are in Geists entourage?

[Mike Cirba]

Brad,

I'm on a blackberry right now and can't see the pics but I do appreciate you posting them and will check them out tomorrow.

I can tell you that on Donald Ross's drawing of proposed changes the feature to the right of the 4th green is titled "grass mound".

His proposed changes for hole 3 were more extnsive and included a new green (which was never done) so there is no corresponding identification of the original (still existing) features.

[Mike Cirba]

Brad,

From everything I've seen Clarence Geist was a bit of a megalomaniac, so a "tensome" would not surprise me. 

[TEPaul]

I'd guess that of those ten people, five were players and five caddies. Single caddies were pretty general back then.

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood,

Why do yo think someone else built the features in question and who do you think did and why do you think that?

Thanks

Someone very familiar with the new and improved GCGC; Connellan is the most likely candidate. I'm curious how Connellan became involved with Seaview.