Pine Valley and Topos

[JESII]

Third, in CBM's and HJW's article on the Redan, CBM not only mentioned NGLA's Redan, he also mentioned a few others, including Piping Rock's, Sleepy Hollow's, and Merion's . 

[JESII]

but he didn't tak credit for it...

He didn't take credit for Sleepy Hollow or Piping Rock in that article either, so I guess he didn't design those?

[Tom MacWood]

Tom,

Why didn't you quote what CBM wrote about SH?

He called it "an almost impossible task to carry through".

CBM also said he was "almost inclined to throw up the task".

I guess he exaggerated.   We know his son-in-law was so inclined, claiming in 1939 that the National "was the inspiration of every great course in this country..".

There are also no holes at either PR or SH that were Alps holes anyway, so there goes that theory.

Also, I can see why you didn't post what Whigham wrote about CBM's intent to reproduce 18 holes like I asked yesterday.

They simultaneously prove that he did change his mind from his original intent, and they also strongly suggest that CBM routed the course AFTER selecting the property, largely using natural features instead of slavish copies.

Off to play golf...you guys have fun parsing CBM and Whigham....and trying to find Alps holes at SH and PR.   

He was originally told he could not cut down trees, which would have made the task nearly impossible, he met with the leadership and they gave him permission. That is a serious conflict? You deliberately exaggerate on a regular basis.

[Patrick_Mucci]

The serious conflicts with Sleepy Hollow and Piping Rock are in SG? What pages?

Tom,

Pages 205-206.

Mike, I thnk you need to read those pages more carefully, and without your rose colored glasses.

Strangely, although he had worked with Raynor by his side for "3 or 4 years" at NGLA, and after NGLA was built and his friends started asking him to build courses for them he immediately hired Raynor for the job.  Yet, he never saw fit to do that at Merion.

That's because they were totally different projects.
Piping and Sleepy Hollow were brand new courses, brand new clubs.
Merion was an established club, they had administrative infrastructure.
CMB's role at PR and SH was a soup to nuts role.
His role at Merion was limited to planning/designing/advising on the golf course.
Surely you understand the distinction in his responsibilities at those clubs.

He also lists sequentially those jobs yet Merion is strangely missing.

Because it was a different type of project.
Reread my paragraph above

At first I thought perhaps it was a distance thing, yet he mentions St. Louis and White Sulphur Springs as coming right after Piping Rock and Sleepy Hollow.

All of which differ in the type of project and the type of club.

Perhaps CBM had a thing against Philadelphians?   It seems not uncommon in some circles.

I thought Mike Sweeney described it best, I thought Mike stated that it was a systemic inferiority complex

David,

Good picture.   I believe the back mound, which can be seen in the far right of the picture was around 15 feet high.   Just eyeballing it it seems the fronting mound was perhaps close to half that, which could certainly hide a good view of the green and possibly the flagstick in the front hole locations.

However, judging from the picture below, it seems as though the flagsticks were also about 7-8 feet high, which would have been generally visible from mid-to-back hole locations.

So now you're telling us that you know how tall the kid caddying was ?
If you can gleen that from the photo, please tell us his age as well.
How tall are Merion's Wicker Baskets today ?
I'd imagine they were the same height then, but, I couldn't state that as a fact.

We can also get a good sense of what Wilson meant when he said that his Alps "would take a lot of making", because it was certainly a construction job.

I don't think so, I think he was refering to the lack of pronounced terrain at that location.
Had he had an intervening hill, it would have been duck soup, but, without that pronounced feature, he knew that nature wasn't going to provide the primary features necessary to design/build an Alps

However, CBM and Whigham seemed to indicate in their article that the huge fronting  landform that made the hole completely blind was an integral part of an Alps hole.   I'm not sure CBM would have been very proud of this one, frankly.

That would depend on whether or not it functioned like an Alps
If you've played Yale and Piping Rock you certainly can't compare their Alps hole favorably with the Alps at NGLA which is the best Alps in the world.  Your mindset is that if it isn't as good as NGLA's it must be dysfunctional, and that's erroneous.
The only thing that counts is its ability to function as an Alps and EVERY contemporaneous report by reliable sources indicate that that was the case.

I guess Merion just took some of the principles of the Alps...a full carry over a cross bunker that Lesley mentioned, and did their best based on what challenge they wanted to provide without being a stickler for details.  

Then your "GUESS" is wrong.
Contemporaneous accounts from reputable sources contradict your "guess"

Thus, the "redan" with no kicker and a green tilted back to front, and a "Road Hole" with no road, as well.

There's no "road" on the Road Hole at NGLA, Yale or Piping Rock.
Why do you keep making these outlandish, erroneous statements.

And, you argued strenuously that the 11th at LACC North was a redan.
If that's a redan than so is the 3rd at Merion.
And, contemporaneous reports from reliable sources, including Jeff Brauer's own Tillinghast, categorized the hole as a Redan,
Yet you continue to foolishly declare that its not, and you do so for but one reason, to disavow any connection to CBM.



Perhaps they were also inspired by Travis's work at Garden City?

Not at all.
There is NO front mounding, no increase in elevation at the front of that green



As far as speculation about mounding short of the road, this 1916 article would seem to indicate not.

However, we do have proof of fronting mounds.
Here's a picture that you posted.
What are those things in the immediate foreground, to the left.
Are those .......... mounds ?







That article is so inaccurate that it shows the bunker protruding into the road.
I wonder how many golfers were hit by cars when they were trying to extricate their ball from that bunker.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Those who were there and knew described the hole as blind.  
Misrepresenting old photos taken from obtuse angles and from elevation won't change this.  

Which begs the question of why not more of an effort to imitate the original and/or NGLA version of the Alps?

Jim, there could be a number of reasons.
Cost is always one.

A non-cost issue could have been the town prohibiting the creation of a large embankment next to the road.

With multiple, reliable contemporaneous accounts describing the hole as blind, once a hole is blind, how can you make it "more" blind ?

And, is it necessary to incur the cost to make the mound "steroidal"

Surely we all agree that the discomfort of not being able to see the putting surface while playing an approach shot is not insignificant, it pales in comparison to the discomfort caused by not being able to see anything.

David, I understand all of your quotes speaking of the hole being blind...do you think the flag would have been blind?

Jim, at a number of clubs, including NGLA, Old Marsh and others, blind shots often have directional "aids" of the day, indicating where the flag is located.  Is there that big of a difference in seeing a fore or aft directional marker versus the flag ?

When Lelsey says the hole required the exact shot as the 17t at Prestwick, it sounds like he was fed the line...

So you think that Moriarty time travled and planted the seed ?
Jim, Lesley' may have been embellishing, although that large mound to the right of the green puzzles me, but, obviously, the hole was blind.

How much more blind does a hole have to be once it's blind ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

What are the Alps holes at either Piping Rock or Sleepy Hollow?

# 12 at PR has the Alps features.
I don't think there's one on the current 18 at SH

George's book doesn't list any, and I can't think of any at SH that qualify....haven't played PR, sadly.

Sounds like Merion would have been the supposed only one after NGLA, opening in 1912, well in time for the article


Jim,

Alright, five feet.

I was going out of my way to be generous.   That whole "turn the other cheek" thing I learned in Sunday School, you know..

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom,

Why didn't you quote what CBM wrote about SH?

He called it "an almost impossible task to carry through".

Mike,

If you understood the nature of the terrain and prohibition against cutting down trees, you'd understand the comment.
CBM also said he was "almost inclined to throw up the task".

For the reasons cited above.

I guess he exaggerated.  
We know his son-in-law was so inclined, claiming in 1939 that the National "was the inspiration of every great course in this country..".
What's incorrect about that statement ?

There are also no holes at either PR or SH that were Alps holes anyway, so there goes that theory.

Not True.
Play # 12 at PR then try to make that statement.

Also, I can see why you didn't post what Whigham wrote about CBM's intent to reproduce 18 holes like I asked yesterday.

They simultaneously prove that he did change his mind from his original intent, and they also strongly suggest that CBM routed the course AFTER selecting the property, largely using natural features instead of slavish copies.


That's absolutely untrue.


Off to play golf...you guys have fun parsing CBM and Whigham....and trying to find Alps holes at SH and PR.   

I can see how your unskilled and/or biased eye would have trouble locating them

Not to worry though, when you come to Mountain Ridge, I've arranged for a seeing eye dog to guide you around the golf course.

[DMoriarty]

How about the one behind the green?

You'd have to ask them.  Perhaps, as some have suggested, the mound behind was serving a dual purpose of providing a safety barrier from the 1st hole.  It looks to me like they tried to build a build a big hill, higher in back and hollow in the middle, and put the hole in the hollow.

Is your argument is that unless the mound in front was higher than the mound in back then it wasn't a real Alps?   No use discussing it, if it is.

I'm curious if you're going to latch on to Cirba's guess that the front mound was 8 feet tall...Mike, if the freaking front mound were 8 feet tall what in gods name have you been arguing about? Nothing I've seen so far justifies close to an 8 foot mound there...maybe up from the 5 foot sunken road...

Not at all.  I am not interested in what Cirba makes up, even when it supports my argument.  But your "maybe up 5 feet from the sunken road" is pretty fantastic in and of itself.  What mounds are you looking at exactly? How many steps do you suppose there were up from the road?   And what "sunken" road?  I see no reason to think the road was lower than the ground opposite the green side.

Does he get credit for all the courses mentioned in that article? Let's post the article so we can all see all the courses CBM designed by proxy...

I think you misunderstood my initial post.  I was probably not clear enough in my intention.  Cirba tried to imply that CBM didn't design the Alps because he doesn't mention it in his article.  I pointed out he didn't mention any others, and noted that Cirba would not likely apply the corollary of his logic to Merion's Redan.  I was more questioning Cirba's reasoning than anything else.  

That said, I do find the mention of Merion's Redan interesting and relevant, but of course it is far from dispositive.  And I agree that the Pine Valley mention throws a wrench into any sort of hard conclusions from the article.  But at the very least it shows awareness on the part of CBM/HJW that it was meant as a Redan hole and was one (although reversed.)  

As for the mention of Pine Valley, interesting also. Of course CBM did not design Pine Valley. While HJW credited CBM for Merion, he explicitly credited Pine Valley to Crump.  HJW also mentioned that a only few of CBM's suggestions about Pine Valley were followed, and the article leaves me wondering whether those suggestions might have had something to do with this hole in particular.  Just speculation and curiosity on my part.  

The other holes mentioned in the article are Piping Rock (a simplified redan,) Merion (reverse redan,) Sleepy Hollow (reverse with tee much higher,) and Pine Valley (a short hole with redan principle, the tee is also much higher.)
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You didn't answer my question Jim.  Looking at the mounds in those photos, do you think the hole could have been totally blind?   Can you say for certain it wasn't?  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Can we extract ourselves from this mire and get back to the swamp at Pine Valley ?

[DMoriarty]

This photo cuts off the fairway, which contains a grouping of very artificial looking mounds.  This is what the enlightened Philadelphia School came up with all on their own?

[JESII]

You didn't answer my question Jim.  Looking at the mounds in those photos, do you think the hole could have been totally blind?   Can you say for certain it wasn't?  

From what I have seen posted, including the picture from the hillsdie next to the 9th green, I don't think it's possible that the flag on the 10th green would have been in any way blind for any player on or near the top of the hill in the 10th fairway and it was not 250 to get to that point, maybe 170 or 180...it's only about 220 or 230 today from way up top by the fence. I do think it's almost certain that the green surface would have been blind but for a 6 foot tall player at 130 yards the front "ramparts" would only have to be a couple feet high. It's simple geometry.


Are there really articles that called it blind? I'm going to look now, but if anyone has it to post, please do.



Also...David,

That last post about the Philadelphia School is interesting. Are you denying its ultimate influence? Is the whole thing a myth?

[Mike Cirba]

Why is it an Alps and not a punchbowl?  Because they called it that?

There's no way you couldn't see the flag from the fairway, unless perhaps the hole was cut right behind the m mounds.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Why is it an Alps and not a punchbowl?  Because they called it that?

There's no way you couldn't see the flag from the fairway, unless perhaps the hole was cut right behind the m mounds.

Mike & Jim,

Do you think that Findlay, Lesley and the others were lying ?

How can you state, with any degree of certainty, how the hole played when you don't even know the lay of the land near the road ?

You don't know if there were berms, ala # 8 and # 11 at NGLA, you don't know if there were fronting mounds, you know nothing.
Yet, you've made definitive claims based on ZERO first hand knowledge.
Numerous, reliable, contemporaneous sources stated/wrote that it was blind, so I guess you're calling these independent sources and their evaluation, a conspiracy of lies.

Are you so driven by your agenda/s that rational thought is no longer possible ?

[DMoriarty]

Jim,

I don't think you can distinguish between which mounds are in front of the green and which mounds are behind from that angle, unless your eyes are much better than mine.  And you certainly cannot tell how far the green sits below the front mounds in that picture.  Do you sincerely think you can?  

Locate the LEFT fairway bunker, which is in the center of the photo. The line of play is from the right of that, so it is largely right to left in this photo, so I don't see how seeing the bunker tells us whether a fronting mounding would block visibility on the approach.  But even from this angle, we are not seeing the bottom of the bunker in that photo.   Look at the shape of the bottom of the bunker in the photo and compare it to the shape in the photos from closer up.  Even from this angle something short of the green (actually left and short) is blocking visibility the bottom of the bunker.

It looks to me like a large mound might be visible just right of the back bunker in this photo, but unlike you and Mike and your super-vision, I can't say for sure.  

As for the distance to the top of the hill, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I think those at Merion would have disagreed. They listed this hole as 380+.  It wasn't anywhere near that, but based on AWilson's description of their strange measuring ideas, they apparently thought it played 380+ because of the upslope from the creek. If so, then the approach would have been much longer than you are estimating.  While I disagree with the methodology, the hole certainly plays longer with hickories, from a lower tee.  While I don't quite understand how they could be so far off the actual distance, I do know that for me those fairway bunkers were very much in play with hickories from one of the lower tees.
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As for my comment about the Philadelphia School, I was just being snide. Sorry.  Beyond that it was an off the cuff response to a general attitude often expressed here and elsewhere by the usual suspects.  

Since you asked, it has been suggested by some that CBM represented the old, dark ages style, and that while he had no influence at Merion if he had any influence at Merion it was just the crappy dark ages stuff, and that stuff was immediately replaced with a more natural looking, enlightened architecture.  This is of course B.S.  We have also been told repeatedly that the "Philadelphia School" made a clean break from the CBM approach and blazed their own trail, and that in doing so they wiped the vestiges of the dark ages off the map and defined American design.   This is also B.S.  

And here we have what might have been an attempt at something like an Alps hole from Hugh Wilson and some of his "Philadelphia School" buddies, unaided by CBM and HJW.  What do you think?  I don't know how the hole played, and the strategic concept might very well have worked great.   But it sure as hell doesn't exemplify any of for what we are told the Philadelphia School stood, does it?   If they thought Merion's Alps hole was as bad as some here have indicated, then why the hell would the same men built something like this?  In comparison, It seems Merion's hole would have looked relatively natural, at least from the front.  

Anyway, you asked about the Philadelphia School's  "ultimate influence" but I can't answer the question until you tell me what that "ultimate influence" was.   Some of those commonly associated with the "school" certainly had an big influence of different aspects of golf design, and I have tremendous respect for some of those associated with the supposed "school."  But if we take the group as a whole instead of looking at them individually, the waters

Unless we want Mike to piss himself, maybe we should leave it at that.  Actually, it is probably already too late.
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Reportedly, MacRaynor Alps holes oftentimes had a punchbowl green.
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If you guys are down to arguing the length of the flag, then you might as well give it up.  

[JESII]

Pat,

I haven't found a single article on this thread that says the hole was blind, I'm sure it's out tere but I can't find it...can you post it?

[DMoriarty]

Pat,

I haven't found a single article on this thread that says the hole was blind, I'm sure it's out tere but I can't find it...can you post it?

Look at the NYTimes article.  It may not use word blind, but it describes having to scale the ramparts to see the result of the shot.  See also the articles that compare approach to that of Prestwick.  I recall reading other articles indicating it was blind, but I am not going to reinvent the wheel to try and dig them up right now, because I don't think there is any question the hole was blind --just look at the mounds in the last oblique I posted. The only question seems to be whether any of the flagpole was visible, and I am not even sure why that is a question.  I don't know the answer to whether the flag was totally blind, but if the description of the hole sloping down eight feet from the front bunker to the green is accurate, it was totally blind.

[Mike Cirba]

The philly article called it an easy pitch...

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle preview doesn't mention blind.

I'm still waiting for one too.

[Patrick_Mucci]

How do we know for certain that the BLUE lines are Colts and the RED Lines are Crumps ?

How do we know for certain if and when they adjusted their lines ?

The BLUE routing appears to frustrate itself in terms of completing the course whereas the RED routing, while not finalized has made significant progress over the BLUE routing

Here's the 1898 topo


And, the zoomed in version.


So what do we have and what do we need to acquire.

We have the 1898 Topo.
The stick routing topo is Dated March 1913.
But, do we know the date the stick routing was created.
The Blue/Red Topo is dated March 1913.
But, do we know the date the Blue Lines were Drawn
The dates the Red lines were drawn
The dates either were amended.
The date the dam/pond was created.

[DMoriarty]

Cirba is tying himself in knots again.   Earlier today he declared the mounds in front of the green were eight feet tall, now he is back to wondering whether the approach was even blind.   While about as baseless as everything else, his eight foot estimate was about has honest an interpretation as he has given us on anything, so it is no wonder he is running away from it.

Apparently he missed the NYTimes article and Findlay's description as well.  It is not about the facts for him, just rhetoric.  
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Patrick, I don't know which lines came first.  I know some claim to know, but so far as I know they are just making things up to suit their needs.

[Paul_Turner]

Patrick

1)  We know the blue lines are definitely Colt's because these are 100% his style and match the drawings from his hand drawn and signed 18 hole booklet at PVGC.  Jim Finnegan's book shows the 17th from Colt's booklet...compare it with the blue lines on the plan: it's the same.  The roman numerals are a give away too: "a dead ringer" for Colt's other plans at Hamilton

The blue lines also match the plan that was sold on ebay which has "as suggested by HS Colt" printed on it.  It's interesting that he outlined the major contours with his blue pen/pencil.  His visit was end of May/ Early June.

2)  Re the red lines.  It's probably Crump's hand but it's difficult to know for sure because we don't have other examples of his drawing.  Although I do have a lot of examples of his handwriting so it may be possible to be sure.  That is Crump's hand on the 15th fairway and by the 14th green (in black).

3)  There was obviously some difficulty in deciding what to do with the swamp land where the current 14th green and 15th tee are.  But I think the 15th tee was worked out by about 1915 and 1916:  there's a photo showing its site and the dammed lake in a large photo album that Crump sent to Colt.  There are also drawings by Travis showing the dammed lake I think published in 1915 with the 14th shown as a cape hole across the lake.

4) The stick diagram likely predates Colt's visit because it mostly matches Tillie's descriptions and has the 5th as a short pitch hole.  It's basically signed by Crump at the top. But there looks to be more than one drawing style on it and it needs to be looked at more closely to confirm.  The survey was done on March 1913 so it's likely the stick routing dates from around April/May 1913. Colt got there at the end of May/ early June.

I think the 13th was worked out by about 1914 because the 13th hole length has been extended to its correct length in that Philly Enquirer article (Colt's blue plan and his booklet have a shorter hole).

PS I am peeved that my photo got posted on the internet!

[DMoriarty]

For those still looking for an article about the blindness of Merion's Alps Green, don't forget the description Cirba misquoted as indicating an "eight foot rise" from the front of the bunker up to green.  It indicated an eight foot slope, but the slope was down to the green, not up to it.

Anyone want to explain how the green was visible if it sat eight feet below the fronting mounds?  Were mirrors involved? 

[JESII]

David,

From everything posted the 8 foot reference is either the number of feet at an angle to get down to the green (a couple feet of elevation and 6 or 7 feet forward) or it is in fact a reference to climbing up from the recessed street level up to the green level.


If there were a large mound in front of the green the picture from the 9th green hillside would show it. Following your logic in the line of play versus the line of the picture, a mound short of the green would be to the right of that visible mound behind the green...agreed! Why can we see the right greenside bunker and no interruption against the white of the clubhouse in the area right of the rear mound?

[Mike Cirba]

Really good to see Paul Turner back here with a dose of factual sanity in the midst of all of the agenda-driven, pointless speculation.

[Mike Cirba]

Jim,

Of course you are correct there.

Does anyone know off hand the height of the large fronting mountains behind which sits the cross bunker and green?

This wouldn't be Alps Lite, it would be Alps Zero.

[Mike Cirba]

The height at NGLA and Prestwick,I mean.

Do they slope 8 feet?