"Tom,
RE: The "C.A." notation...I was just asking if Mr. Allison was so kind as to notate his contribution for posterity on that map?
"
Mike:
I know you're being jocular but frankly that is a very good question with a ton of interesting answers and facts involved in it when one considers how Alison worked and what he did there. But no Alison did not put anything on that seemingly amazing and information-laden "blue/red" line topo map which on its lower left side has the surveyors wording "Property of George A. Crump."
By the way, at first glance one may assume that meant the topo map itself was the property of George Crump while I feel it meant that the property of Pine Valley itself was George Crump's and as Rick Sides is beginning to prove in detail with a series of deeds that was in fact true at that time.
When Alison arrived on the scene it was just about three years after Crump died and apparently that "blue/red" line topo that Crump used so much and for so long as the design and development of the course progressed from 1913 to his death in Jan. 1918 had been put away.
Alison, essentially worked off a document that I have for some years referred to as "The Remembrances" as he studied the course and came to his recommendations or suggestions for it hole by hole that were submitted to what I call the "1921 Advisory Committee." Alison had at least some recommendation or suggestion for every hole with the exception of the 14th.
If any man (and his contribution) who made a fairly significant contribution to the architecture of Pine Valley really has been somewhat misunderstood or not well enough recognized over the years, in my opinion that man is definitely Hugh Alison. It's odd how these things begin to reveal themselves over time but there may be a very logical reason that happened. I have a very strong hunch that the material that Alison generated for the 1921 Advisory Committee although always at the club, for some reason found its way into another place than most all the rest of the resource material that makes up the PV archives of the creation of the golf course. These things just happen and to most of us. I put things in places sometimes without really thinking and sometimes I find them again by accident many years later after having wondered for so long where they went or were.
In that vein, I should also mention that whole course topo map that is labeled "Scheme For the Pine Valley Golf Course as Suggested by H.S. Colt" that a few of us picked off of ebay when apparently no one extant even knew it existed. The "fold lines" in it are fairly light so it probably just walked itself off the course one day in someone's pocket probably during the creation and did not come back again and was not seen again by PV until some bartender in Clementon bought it at a Flea Market around Clementon about five years ago for $56 and put it on ebay.
In my opinion, these kinds of little things are the real and most interesting little facets of the entire tapestries and the histories of some significant clubs and courses----eg some things happen over time for just the damnedest reasons, but if one looks hard enough they can begin to reveal themselves. Others who don't get into it so deeply seem to tend to automatically look at these things as some kind of conspiracy theory of a club trying to minimize someone unfairly to build someone else up inaccurately.
By the way, who even introduced Alison to Pine Valley? It is not conclusive but there is something factual or actually a few things that lead me to believe it was none other than Hugh Wilson. He had been for a time after Crump's death the Green Chairman of Pine Valley.