Pine Valley and Topos

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bryan,

I don't know, if you were out hunting game, on land you were very familiar with, for decades, that you'd be thinking, "hey, this would make a great dogleg par 4 with the tee over there and the green over here."  And, don't forget, this is 1909, it's not like there were golf courses every five miles in every direction.  While GCGC had been open for a decade, NGLA was just opening and golf and golf course architecture were in their infancy in America.

Somehow, Mike and others want to confer Bill Coore like talents and years of experience upon a pure novice, 100 years earlier..

So, we have a golfer, hunting in the woods, no doubt familiar with them, but in the context of a hunter, not a golf course architect and not three (3) years prior to pursuing the land.

If he actively pursued the land in 1909 I might give the "field" effort more weighting, but, the task didn't take form until the fall of 1912.  If Carr is to be believed, that the land was forest and underbrush, it seems hard to believe that unaided, GAC could visualize the masterpiece that exists today. purely or primarily via field expeditions.

Understanding a topo, once the proximity of the lines are explained to you is fairly easy.
With a little time and experience, understanding, reading and interpreting topos becomes easier and easier.
One would imagine that within a month one would be rather proficient at reading topos.

A common earlly theme leads one to believe that surveyors/engineers, not seat of the pants hunting guides, held the key to the land and the golf courses built on them.  Frances, Raynor, Toomey, etc., etc..  Surely, Crump would seem to have had to retain someone who could provide those services.  Perhaps early surveys reveal the firm/individual and if that firm/individual had prior golf course eperience.

The next issue is, when did Colt first come to PV.
The exact date/s are signficant.

It's said that Crump prefered field testing shots to schematics, but, you couldn't field test until the property was cleared.
Perhaps that explains the 22,000 trees that were removed.

But, wouldn't you remove them from the area intended to be golf holes ?

And if so, wouldn't you have figured that out on maps/topos rather than field walks.

I know, many will say it was both, but, I'm not so sure that the bulk of the credit shouldn't go to topos/surveys.

That's all for now, I have other project to tend to and the police in Newtown Square, PA just called me,
Seems that some deranged resident is wandering the streets, riding a bicylce, dressed in a kilt and high heeled sneakers claiming that he can fnid his way from Newtown Square, to Southampton, NY, then back to Clementon, NJ, strictly with the 87 topo maps he's carrying in a napsack, in less than 107 days.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Patrick,

Contrary to part of your senitments in post #213, I am not all that tied into defending Tillie's articles on this one. I mean, not so much that I would directly lie about what train line PV sat on, or anything like that.

I do suspect that TMac sees more legendmaking than really happened, and don't really see why Tillie would do that in a newspaper article, hence my oft stated conclusion that TMac was right originally that there is at least a kernel of truth in all the stories.  

Mike has gone through all the possible problems with your 15 years after the creation member and 50 years after the fact writing, but it still offers some direct perspective on the issue of those train stories, AND indicates there was some doubt from way back when, which is more convincing than something written that much after the fact usually is.  And certainly more convincing than arguments about what might have been seen from the train by someone 100 years after the fact.  Its a historic document, not a goofy excersize in rationalizing one's opinion.

With that said, this argument is very similar to the Merion ones when we debated whether Whighams eulogy many years later carried more weight than interviewing the actual committee about ten years after the creation.  Or debating what this word or that meant.  None of us really know.  

As long as its fun and we realize that, no problem.  Years from now, when the history of this website is written, there will likely be some train references, probably along the lines of "multiple train wrecks."

[Dan Herrmann]

Choo, Choo!

[archie_struthers]

   


Don't think there is a definitive answer here boys. But I can tell you that I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Warner Shelley, or Mr Shelley. He was quite a guy and a deep thinker, prone to introspection about lots of things, Pine Valley being an obvious favorite.  I have seen the "famous" picture of Mr Crump sitting Indian style in the woods, and another of him with his hunting dogs.  He could surely have been in Clementon, or anywhere else for that matter.

Back to Mr Shelley, he was quite serious about the history. He was a man prone to factual statements, yet quite willing to postulate why ?  So, can we really ascertain the genesis of Crump's interest in the property from Shelley's book?   I tend to doubt it

[Tom MacWood]

Tom,

It doesn't shed any light on the process when Howard Perrin tells prospective members that this had been discussed among the interested parties "for some years" in April of 1913?   Or when Carr tells us in an article published in January 1915 that the men met "some few years ago"?

Well, it might not shed light on the exact date, but I can tell you this much...it sure as hell wasn't in the fall of 1912 as Shelley suggested in his book! (as transcribed here by you and Patrick)    

As far as Camden County, it actually WAS the last place Crump looked, so you're right on that statement!  

The postcard account is told in "Pine Valley Golf Club - A Unique Haven for the Game" by James (Jim) A. Finegan, Copyright 2000.

In the section where he quotes and paraphrases from James Baker's 1950 remembrances, he writes;

A postcard dated December 1, 1910, that Crump sent from England to his brother-in-law Ralph Kellam, in Merchantville, suggests that the traveler had in the forefront of his mind on this European odyssey the task he would undertake when he got home, a task he was eager to tackle:  "Please buy for me a large map of Camden Co. of most recent date."

Finegan does not share the source of his information, but he certainly did have access to the club's archival material in writing the history.  I'm also certain that Finegan wouldn't have made up either the date, Crump's brother in law's name and address, or the content of the message on the postcard out of whole cloth.

A simple no I don't know when those men met at the Collonade would have sufficed. Contemplating the idea for years and actually meeting one day to put the thing in motion are two different things. They often discussed the need for better courses in Philadelphia in the press, and that started prior to 1910, as I pointed out in my essay. When did the men meet at the Collonade?

What is the source of the postcard? When and where was it found? Does it reside in the PV archive?

Again, you said "Shelley apparently did not have, or misinterpreted, a number of documents based on what you and Patrick have provided."

What documents didn't he have?

[Tom MacWood]

 


Don't think there is a definitive answer here boys. But I can tell you that I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Warner Shelley, or Mr Shelley. He was quite a guy and a deep thinker, prone to introspection about lots of things, Pine Valley being an obvious favorite.  I have seen the "famous" picture of Mr Crump sitting Indian style in the woods, and another of him with his hunting dogs.  He could surely have been in Clementon, or anywhere else for that matter.

Back to Mr Shelley, he was quite serious about the history. He was a man prone to factual statements, yet quite willing to postulate why ?  So, can we really ascertain the genesis of Crump's interest in the property from Shelley's book?   I tend to doubt it

Quite willing to postulate? Why do you say that, and about what?

[archie_struthers]

   

Mr Shelly often talked of Crump , particularly when queried in private re: the genesis of PVGC .  He was quite kind to me , and we would often talk of the history prior to release of "Pine Valley, a Chronicle"

Before I was an assistant there, I caddied for Mr Shelley a lot. He was very proper but quite inquisitive about players , golf strategy and the like. Quite an anachronism he was....stern and proper yet quite able to laugh at himself and us too!

[Tom MacWood]

Archie
He sounds like an interesting guy. So you got a good idea of what was documented and what was speculation?

[archie_struthers]

  >:i


No, I didn't say anything like that. Lol

[Tom MacWood]

Archie
You said the photo of Crump sitting cross-legged could have been taken anywhere; Shelley said it was taken in 1909 at the present site. You seem to be implying Shelley speculated about the photo.

[archie_struthers]

 


No , I implied that a reasonable argument could be made given the lack of distinguishing features.  Mr Shelley certainly had more insight into the photo.  While I enjoy a chess game as much as the next guy, my position on this whole subject has not been revealed. My knowledge of Pine Valley may extend to some of the players in this tete a tete, but is centered on how the golf course has evolved over the last forty years.

[Mike Cirba]

"It could be that, in tramping through the grounds, he saw more of the trees and shrubs than the forest and perhaps only realized the rolling nature and its possibilities when he saw it at a greater distance from the train.  In any case, he found a great location for the building of a golf course, no matter how." - Omitted from Patrick Mucci's account of Warner Shelly

Patrick,

Didn't they teach you in Catholic school that a lie of omission, no matter how much you try to obfuscate and backtrack and divert, is still a lie?

Why deny it?   Why rationalize it?  Be a man and fess up to the fact that you thought nobody else here would have the Shelley book so you could get away with failing to tell us that Shelley wrote that he wasn't sure about when Crump discovered the land as ideal for golf, but instead conceded that it could have been by train.  But you didn't trust your reader enough to tell us that, did you?   No, instead you hid that information knowingly, willingly, and purposefully.

You lied and you got caught with your pants down.   You didn't want people to know that Shelley tells us himself that he's speculating.   You portrayed it to everyone as some smoking gun when you KNEW differently and you got burned instead.   Get over it and improve your behavior here.

I've also asked what evidence Shelley provides that the picture was taken at the Pine Valley location?   I've seen two different pictures of Crump hunting in the woods and they aren't definitive by any stretch.     As others have pointed out, they could be from anywhere.

Pine Valley is 12.5 miles from Crump's home as the crow flies.   Even today, there is no quick and easy way to get there as there, as MapQuest estimates a 27 minute ride by car.   Yet, you'd have everyone believe that the land for the course was virtually in his backyard.

And, if you don't even know at this point when Harry Colt first came to Pine Valley, then you haven't even been intellectually curious enough on this topic to read Tillinghast's direct accounts.   Other than fabricating history and floating a lot of misinformation and ungrounded assertions around, what exactly is your purpose in participating on these historical threads...especially since you don't seem to have the intellectual curiosity to bother even reading the materials that have been presented?

Tom MacWood,

Jim Finegan is still alive.   If you want to know the source of the postcard, why don't you ask him?

As far as Shelley, his supposed proof is a photo of George Crump in 1909 hunting in the woods.   If Crump had known about the land from hunting back then, why did he wait until the fall of 1912 to tell his friends that he had "landed on something pretty fine"?

No one knows when this was first discussed, but we do know that Crump took Howard Perrin out on the property for the first time in the summer of 1912.   We know Tillinghast told us in early 1913 that he was one of the first people Crump took out on the property and that he'd known of Crump's plans for over a year.   We know that Crump bought the property in October 1912 after considering it and studying it for some time.   So, there is no way that the initial meeting to discuss this idea of building an Uber course happened in the fall of 1912, as Shelley misinterpreted.

If he didn't know that, he was either missing important contemporaneous information, or he misinterpreted what he had, probably based on his reading of Father Carr's 1915 report.

Archie,

About how old would Shelley have been in 1918 when Mr. Crump passed away?   I know he wrote his book in 1982.   Thanks!
 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Archie,

Is it fair to say that you think Shelley's statement in the book is typical of him, sort of like Pat said?  He states the "fact" that the train story was not accepted back in the old days, but then "speculates" as to why it may have some legitimacy anyway, or at least as to how it got started?

Not specific to Mr. Shelley, but on this site, many have argued that at least for restorations (but also history) the memories of long time members has been found to be occaisionally to often suspect, and in need of double checking.  That said, I have no reason to think Mr. Shelley would not remember that the train story was at least suspect, even if some details are wrong.  

At the same time, by the standards set on other historical threads, Mr. Shelley would have heard the PV Creation story second hand and ten years after Mr. Crump's death, so it wouldn't be viewed exactly as contemporayr history. At the same time, its probably a valuble opinion to factor into the mix.

Short version - we are playing a parlor game, we don't really know, never will, and its all fascinating to those interested in the minutiae of club histories.

[Mike Cirba]

Patrick,

As far as topos versus walking the grounds, you're forgetting one important fact.

Crump LIVED ON THOSE GROUNDS FOR FIVE YEARS, working and altering the routing and internals of the golf holes virtually the entire time!   Comparing this to Bill Coore taking a walk around the flat land of Hidden Creek looking for anything that looked like a golf feature before agreeing to design a course there is an absurd and pointless exercise.

Besides, the process of what happened at Pine Valley is well documented, and is almost exact to what happened at NGLA.  

First, the land is examined either on foot or horseback for overall suitability of contour, of natural features, of soils, etc.

Once it passes that sniff test, more acreage than what is thought to be needed for the course (in the case of NGLA the specific boundaries were undetermined but total acreage was "secured" prior to a later purchase) and which encapsulates the best natural features is purchased.

Then, topos are created if none are available, and the underbrush is cleared.   As Tillinghast points out below, as did Carr, there was a lot of underbrush, and "bushes and scrub trees" on the property.

Then, from those efforts, along with MUCH ONSITE time, a routing is developed, modified, and worked.   It's not magic and it's all very well documented.

[archie_struthers]

 

Mike ,don't know Mr Shelley's age at the time ,but my guess was he was born around 1900 .    Will find out. 

Jeff as to your question, Mr Shelley was quite an intellectual. It doesn't surprise me that he would ponder the origins of life , or Pine Valley, or Crump's inspiration. But, as stated, I have only my friendship revolving with our golf to go by, and nothing else.  For me to postulate on this subject as to his real intent is just that, an intuitive exercise. So I must pass.

If you want to go into detail on how he played the 5th hole ,and why, I have the answer. Also his opinion on how I should have played it at 24 year s of age.  All else regarding the train is conjecture on my part.

[Mike Cirba]

Patrick,

Here, again, is Tillinghast's accounting of the Colt visit;






If you also never read about how much of the routing had taken place before that time, here it is, again;





If you want to know how much of the routing was altered after Colt's visits and initial plan, you might want to call Tom Paul, or better yet, do some actual research yourself.

[Mike Cirba]

Archie,

Thanks...I did a bit more digging and found a few things about Mr. Warner Shelly.  (only one "e" in the last name)

He passed away in late November, 1999, at the ripe old age of 98.   It was likely that he was born in 1901.

It is also likely that he would have been 16 or 17 years old when George Crump passed away in February 1918.

At first I thought perhaps he had been a caddy during that time, but ran across the following snippet which makes that seem less likely;

His father was Oswin Shelly, whose work as an architect and contractor involved frequent moves to new cities. As a result, Mr. Shelly received his education is several schools, including one in Paterson, N.J., West Philadelphia High School, Stuyvesant High School in New York City, and, finally, Stevens Technical School in Hoboken, N.J.


As you know, only West Philadelphia high school was reasonably close to Pine Valley, although certainly not close enough to caddy.   Perhaps Shelly met Crump while Crump worked on Cobb's Creek?     More likely is that he perhaps caddied for Crump at the old Philly CC in Bala? (although from 1913 on Crump was virtually living on the grounds of PV)

Does Shelly mention in his book where he made Crump's acquaintance?

[JESII]

Is there any evidence that they actually did ever meet?

[Mike Cirba]

Jim,

As an aside, I can't help but ask you...why would Crump purchase 184 acres if he hadn't routed the course yet?    

More about Mr. Shelly;

A World War I Army veteran, Mr. Shelly lied about his age and enlisted in 1918. He was released from the military the same year.

He entered the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 1918 to study aeronautical engineering. Shortly after starting college, family financial problems forced him to seek part-time work to pay his own college expenses. Still, he managed to play on the freshman football team and win a varsity lacrosse letter. He also played the role of a lovely blond woman in the university's Mask and Wig show that toured the country, including an appearance at New York's Metropolitan Opera House. Then his interest in engineering waned, and he flunked out.

Next, he tried studying law at Fordham University while working full time at nights strengthening the walls of the Holland Tunnel. While doing that, he decided to accept an offer to join Ayer.

A golfer, Mr. Shelly was a member of Pine Valley Golf Club since 1928. He was honored in 1995 for his contributions, including serving as a mayor and commissioner of Pine Valley Borough in the 1980s and as trustee for 33 years.

Mr. Shelly also authored Pine Valley Golf Club: A Chronicle in 1982.

[JESII]

Easy...because the course only needs about 120...

[Mike Cirba]

Jim,

Yes, about 120 acres was needed for a golf course, or so they all thought back then...or at least that's what CB Macdonald told them.    

More about Mr. Shelly from the Philadelphia Inquirer on November 26, 1999, reporting his death;

Warner Swoyer Shelly, 98, who before retiring had risen from a trainee to chief executive officer and chairman of N.W. Ayer & Son Inc., the nation's oldest advertising agency, died last Friday of pneumonia at Pennsylvania Hospital.

A resident of Pine Valley for the last 42 years, he previously resided in Philadelphia, Beverly, and New York City. He was born in Catskill, N.Y.

Mr. Shelly was the last Ayer CEO to keep the firm's headquarters in Philadelphia, where it had been founded in 1869. Several years after his retirement as president, the firm, now named N.W. Ayer & Partners, with his blessing moved its corporate headquarters to New York City. That was in the early 1970s.

A World War I Army veteran, Mr. Shelly lied about his age and enlisted in 1918. He was released from the military the same year.

He entered the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 1918 to study aeronautical engineering. Shortly after starting college, family financial problems forced him to seek part-time work to pay his own college expenses. Still, he managed to play on the freshman football team and win a varsity lacrosse letter. He also played the role of a lovely blond woman in the university's Mask and Wig show that toured the country, including an appearance at New York's Metropolitan Opera House. Then his interest in engineering waned, and he flunked out.

Next, he tried studying law at Fordham University while working full time at nights strengthening the walls of the Holland Tunnel. While doing that, he decided to accept an offer to join Ayer.

A golfer, Mr. Shelly was a member of Pine Valley Golf Club since 1928. He was honored in 1995 for his contributions, including serving as a mayor and commissioner of Pine Valley Borough in the 1980s and as trustee for 33 years.

Mr. Shelly also authored Pine Valley Golf Club: A Chronicle in 1982.

[JESII]

Is there any evidence that Shelly met Crump?

[Mike Cirba]

Jim,

None that I'm aware of.  

Perhaps Patrick or someone else who has the book, or someone who spoke with Mr. Shelly in person can tell us what Shelly said in that regard?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

Thanks for posting those articles again.  While some don't like it, I tend to re-read them and find out more and more each time.

TMac asked (or stated) a while back that PV was not the first place you would build a winter course.  The Jan 1913 article explains the choice.  First, it says GC spotted it nearly 3 years ago, so sometime in Spring 1910.  It says he noted the hills from the train (which Shelly wondered about - did the longer perpsective give him a different idea?)  Lastly, if seems to fit in the initial idea timeline.

Tillie also says that its not ideal as winter golf, but its a great site.  I would wager, given the cable home from his British Golf Trip that somewhere along the seaside golfing way, Crump realized he could build a winter course along the shore, or a great on on his hunting or train seen land, and decided he wanted more to build a great course than a 12 month one.

Seems like a pretty simple concept to me!  I think I would do the same thing.

[JESII]

....the reason is Crump told them thats how it happened. When you think about it Tilly's story never really made much sense anyway....they made 100+ trips by the site, but for whatever reason that particular trip registered with Tilly, when he saw Crump looking out the train window, as if that is something unusual. Its pretty common for people to be looking out train, plane and automobile windows. Add to it that Crump apparently never mentioned to anyone at the time what he saw or what he was looking at. Add to it that apparently neither man was playing golf in 1910. Add to it that Crump considered two other sites before deciding on the present site in 1912, two years after this tale supposedly took place. Add to it Crump's letter to his AC friends in 1912. Add it that Tilly was a notorious drinker, and as you know hitting the sause is not really conducive to observation faculties....

Tom,

Just last night I stumbled into a paragraph on Tillinghast finishing 25th in the 1910 US Open...turns out he also played in the US Amateur that year.

Wouldn't you agree that it's safe to sat these snippets lamenting Crump, Carr and Tillinhast's absence from golf that year was simply their absence from some number of club tournaments in the sectio as opposed to any hint that they actually played zero golf that year?