Crump & Wilson do Cobb's Creek "for the love of the game" - Now EVEN MORE Crump!

[Karl Bernetich]

We are currently a 2-some, tomorrow 3/19 @12:30 under the name Kain.
If anybody would like continue this discussion on location.
Please call the pro shop and reserve yourself a tee time.

I look forward if anybody else can make it ...

Karl

[Joe Bausch]

I wish I could join you KB, but I think it isn't possible.

If you are looking for some real good, authentic grub (and cheap), try La Marqueza Mexican Grille.  It is pretty close to the course in nearby Upper Darby (not far from the Tower Theater).

[Mike Cirba]

Probably about the same but the difference with #18 at Merion and this situation is Merion has enough tees on flat ground ahead of the back tee. This situation doesn't have that because of the different topography at the tee end at Cobbs.

Tom,

What would you think if some forward tees were placed on the valley floor?

Karl,

I'd love to, but with solo golf plans to go away to Scottsdale next weekend I'd risk matricide, or patricide, or whatever it's called when one's enraged female spouse pulls a praying mantis act on her male mate.    Let's plan to do it in coming weeks.    Thanks!

[Karl Bernetich]

Karl,

I'd love to, but with solo golf plans to go away to Scottsdale next weekend I'd risk matricide, or patricide, or whatever it's called when one's enraged female spouse pulls a praying mantis act on her male mate.

So that's a MAYBE ...

[Mike Cirba]

Karl,

The only "MAYBE" would be MAYBE she'd let me live long enough to torture me slowly. 

[Mike Cirba]

Earlier in this thread there was some discussion related to how Cobb's Creek was viewed during its heyday.

This blurb from July 1918 indicates that it was exceptionally difficult.

While not any mark of quality in and of itself, it is indicative of the wishes of Wilson, Crump, and most of the leaders of Philadelphia golf at that time to build uber-challenging courses like Merion, Pine Valley, and Cobbs Creek with the idea that tough courses would help develop champion golfers.

[Mike Cirba]

Kyle Harris has walked through these areas and believes that the architects choice would have been to go down just below the old 17th green (today's 11th), and then play the finale up to the left of today's 17th hole.

It's a shorter carry to flat ground, a shorter walk to the tee, and runs more contiguously in terms of the property boundary they were traversing.  

Below I show what I think is his theory in blue, compared to the angle from the old 17th par three tee we proposed earlier, which is shown in red.

I think he may be rig...eerrr....rrrrrr....righhhhhh......umm....

Well, I think his theory bears consideration.  

[mike_malone]

 I was thinking along Kyle's line as well.

[Mike Cirba]

Mike/Kyle,

How would they get down that hill?  Isn't it pretty steep behind today's 11th green? 

I may just have to go look at that tomorrow morning. 

[Joe Bausch]

I was thinking along Kyle's line as well.

Dear Mike and Joe,

    NOW I'm not so sure that would have been a good hole.

Sincerely,
Wayne

 

[mike_malone]

 Well, I did not walk the property so I can't opine as Kyle did. I'm just suggesting that if trees could have been removed the tee would likely have been closer to the original # 17 geen. I was only thinking that, I trust Kyle's walking and looking capabilities.

   Who is this Wayne guy ? I think only members of the forum should be allowed to be snipers.

[Mike Cirba]

Mike,

We were there today.

Kyle must spend more time hiking through the woods on rough terrain than I do.   I still wasn't sure how to get down there without breaking my neck.   It drops about 60-65 feet in a span of about 40 yards.

Perhaps there's a way to go around to the left, else they would have needed to build stair steps ala 17 at Merion.

[Kyle Harris]

Mike,

We were there today.

Kyle must spend more time hiking through the woods on rough terrain than I do.   I still wasn't sure how to get down there without breaking my neck.   It drops about 60-65 feet in a span of about 40 yards.

Perhaps there's a way to go around to the left, else they would have needed to build stair steps ala 17 at Merion.

I was there this afternoon as well, we teed off at 3.

It is way more severe back there than I remember, but I still believe if there was to be a grand 18th hole, it would have taken a more "lefterly" route - perhaps even down the current 14th of the Karakung. A tee shot from the old 17th tee would probably land in the spectator mounding just behind the 17th green on the severe upslope near the current cart path.

It may have been possible to switch back down the hill along the right side - but that would have been quite the schlog! Keep in mind, for a decade or more, that golfers were required to walk through there without the current 17th!

...what if they had planned to build a bridge?

[Mike Cirba]

Kyle,

Yes, I'm still wondering exactly how they walked from the old 17th green to the old 18th tee...whether they went right towards today's 17th or down and then up along the left.

Either way had to be difficult traversal, and even if you look at the lower tee of today's 17th it is built up quite a bit which helps ease the transition.   

Clearly a riddle we may never answer...

[mike_malone]

 Kyle,

    Don't let your feet fail me now!

[Joe Bausch]

We've researched for a couple of years the early origins of Cobb's Creek and feel confident it was done by committee with a handful of very prominent people involved, including Hugh Wilson, Ab Smith, George Klauder, George Crump, heck, maybe even throw in Flynn and Travis too.

Imagine the profound disappointment we felt yesterday when we discovered Cobb's is really a Ross course.

[Mike Cirba]

Joe,

Too funny....bet they don't have any record of that in the Tuft Archives!

btw...I came across a few things that make me confident that Hugh Wilson also took part in designing Juniata Golf Course (Philly's second muni) with Ab Smith, J. Franklin Meehan, and Alan Corson in 1924/25 before he died.   The first nine holes of that course opened in 1927, the full eighteen in 1930.

We knew he was part of the committee who found that site (along with the site of today's FDR course in south Philly), but I'm now confident he was part of the "architects", as well.

Steve Shaffer grew up playing Juniata, so it's all good. 

[Kyle Harris]

Joe,

Too funny....bet they don't have any record of that in the Tuft Archives!

btw...I came across a few things that make me confident that Hugh Wilson also took part in designing Juniata Golf Course (Philly's second muni) with Ab Smith, J. Franklin Meehan, and Alan Corson in 1924/25 before he died.   The first nine holes of that course opened in 1927, the full eighteen in 1930.

We knew he was part of the committee who found that site (along with the site of today's FDR course in south Philly), but I'm now confident he was part of the "architects", as well.

Steve Shaffer grew up playing Juniata, so it's all good. 

I can't help but wonder how much that place has changed.

Didn't one of the Joe Dey articles show one of the holes from Juniata? For the life of me I can't determine exactly which hole it is - but the closest seems to be the 17th.

It wasn't the 17th back then, though.

[Mike Cirba]

Kyle,

I know that Ed Ault did some signficant revisions in 1965 but don't know the extent of it.   

I do know the original course was built on about 65 acres, so it's always been a bit of an executive track.

Here's an aerial from 1939;

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2776/4455424022_aacf736a02_o.jpg

I have a course drawing around here somewhere too, but will try to find it later.

[Joe Bausch]

The Dey Waterloo article on Juniata:

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle,

I know that Ed Ault did some signficant revisions in 1965 but don't know the extent of it.   

I do know the original course was built on about 65 acres, so it's always been a bit of an executive track.

Here's an aerial from 1939;

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2776/4455424022_aacf736a02_o.jpg

I have a course drawing around here somewhere too, but will try to find it later.

Definitely looks to be around the same terrain as the current 17th.

[Mike Cirba]

I finally found an article that lists the entire collaborative committee who designed and constructed Cobb's Creek.  All of the men involved have shown up in other various newspaper articles (mostly through Joe Bausch's research) and original GAP meeting minutes, but mostly in bits and pieces, and maddeningly never all in one place.

It was under my nose all the time, given to me a few years back after the article was copied by Pete Trenham, but I never thought to read below the "Rules of the Course" and apparently neither did anyone else.

This is the germane section, clipped from a larger Philadelphia Inquirer article just a few days before the course opened.

Anyone who doubts that the collaborative "Philadelphia School" of design actually existed might find this article enlightening.  

[Mike Cirba]

Might this be the only case of a clergyman involved with the design of a golf course? 

[Rick Sides]

Mike,
We know that Father Dr. Simon Carr also helped Crump a lot with laying out or making suggestions to Pine Valley.

[Mike Cirba]

Rick,

Yes, I thought about that after I posted.  It seems Carr and Crump were almost inseperable for a number of years.

Thanks, and I'll resist the urge to make cracks about the course turning out divinely.