Hi Dan,
Love the questions and aerials! Let me explain my thought process first which will help in understanding how I derive at my conclusions.
First, I am a big believer that information found in a club's board minutes, both meeting notes and financial information, is private information that only the club may publicize freely. When a club gives access to their records, as BHCC did with me, it becomes akin to a Dr./patient relationship. That doesn't mean that I have a "gag order"; rather it means that in a discussion such as this I may discuss "facts" available to me from these documents in general terms but not necessarily in specifics especially to the extent where I am either quoting directly from them or displaying images of them.
To give you an example of this, and at the same time answer your question regarding if there is any drawing showing the Colt plans and done in a manner “showing a complete re-do of the course,” let me first say that there is not a single drawing with Colt’s name on it nor any with Bendelow’s for that matter. Therefor it is impossible to make any factual statements whatsoever as to how Bendelow may have routed his design, fairway corridors, green locations, hazards, etc…
Why, though can I speak with confidence then that one can do that for Colt and that these photographs are a “pure representation of Colt’s work? Because there is a drawing hanging on the walls of the clubhouse that shows what can only be the original Colt design. In fact, it hangs on the wall of the same 2nd floor corridor hallway on the opposite side from where the Ross drawings are displayed that Ben Cowan related seeing.
So before answering the first question I now must answer a 2nd as yet unasked one, that is, if Colt’s name isn’t on the drawing to which I am now referring then how can I make the statement that it shows Colt’s original design on it?
The plan is titled "Plan of Fairways" and was done by William J. Fisher, a civil engineer from Pontiac, Michigan. One look at this old drawing which is literally in several pieces it is easy to understand how Ben probably gave it no more than a brief (my assumption) look since it is hasn't a course architect's name anywhere on it and has a proposed fairway sprinkler system overlaid in pencil.
The course as shown is far more than a simple “Plan of Fairways” as the title represents for it shows every tee, green, bunker and fairway/rough line as it existed on the ground. By the way, when compared with the photos I originally posted it is neat to see a number of features such as the half-moon bunker in life vs. the drawing.
This drawing then is actually a combination of a second drawing put onto another. There is no date given for the “Plan of Fairways” portion although I believe it to have been drawn specifically for use by the sprinkler companies to give design and pricing. There is, though, a date for the proposed sprinkler system plan overlaid on it, November 1924 with a revision of December 3, 1925. That means that the golf course as depicted was what was on the ground BEFORE the photographs shown in my original post were taken. More importantly, it also means that it is a drawing of the golf course that Harry Colt designed and that was built by the club from his original design. In short, it is at least a close COPY of Colt’s drawing and very well have been taken from it by the engineer who did this one.
How do I make that conclusion? Again, the information in the Board minutes regarding the work done on the golf course from Colt’s design onward is quite specific. They make mention of possible minor work to be done to the course in 1917 as a result of the club’s desire to create a better road system into the club for the members. This most likely reflected moving a few tees lengthening some holes but never mention anything about work on the greens by Connellan or anyone else. According to the Board minutes this is the ONLY work done to the course between the time that Colt designed his course and this drawing was done.
What that means is that between 1913 when Colt designed the course and November 1924 when this was drawn, not a single major change was made to the golf course that the club built from Colt’s drawings.
Since these photographs were taken at least a year after this, and dating these are based on several different features that are seen in them and others that are clearly not, the window for which these photographs were taken can be definitively shown as being between late spring 1925 and mid-summer 1926.
When you next compare this drawing to another one down at the opposite end of the hallway you can see how the course was changed, dramatically in a number of ways, by the time that RTJ Sr. was hired to renovate the course, as well as after his work was done. That drawing actually reflects numerous changes done several decades before he arrived when the club itself worked on every hole and made changes to them during the 1930s. After that, Art Hills made further changes. I bring this up because the google aerial of BHCC that you displayed is from 1999. It is quite helpful from a general perspective but in a discussion comparing the original Bendelow design to Colt’s it really doesn’t provide any substantive information since it shows a very different course and routing from what Colt originally designed.
The next part of your question regards how do we know that Colt’s work was a redesign of the entire course? The answers to that can be found in the club’s Board minutes in that from the day that work began to the day the course was finished a year later they kept a second set of accounts dealing only and specifically with the building of the Colt course. As this is proprietary information I will not provide it other than in the general terms as mentioned before. I will only add that they leave little doubt that Colt’s course was quite different from Bendelow’s.
What of secondary proofs for this? Consider the aerial you presented of LaGrange in comparison. It is easy to see how one can jump to the conclusion that the similarities are striking, yet you base that on the assumption that Bendelow routed his course at BHCC as it basically lays on the ground today not on any specific factual information. Therein lies the problem for me.
Is it reasonable to assume that Bendelow’s course may have been laid out along similar lines as some of the holes depicted in the 1924 drawing? I would agree, yes. Does this mean that they actually were? To that no one can say yes. For example, suppose the 1st & 2nd holes followed Bendelow’s design? The 3rd hole absolutely didn’t as the green site shown on the 1924 drawing is into the area where the 1913 purchase of the 50 acre tract begins.
Now consider the following photograph of the 1924 drawing:
If we accept as fact, and that alone is dangerous as it is only supposition, that Bendelow did as he did at LaGrange running parallel fairways across the wide portion of the tract, it becomes obvious when comparing the plan on the “assumption of how Bendelow routed his course” that these were incredibly different designs with minimal areas of common usage. Look how taking the course up into the added tract changes any similarity of routing after that point as it goes back and forth at either angles or directly up into it rather than a back and forth as Bendelow may have done.
Also, and this is quite important, consider again what the club’s first President, Edwin S. George, who was one of those with direct oversight when the Colt course was built, wrote: “Having a high regard for the ability of Mr. Colt, who so efficiently enabled us to correct the difficulties which existed in the original congested Bloomfield Hills golf course before the acreage was increased and the changes made…” [Bold and Italics mine]
Now look at the drawing again. It shows a golf course that is anything but “congested” with massively wide fairways which would also preclude the vast majority of having been used by Bendelow.
Do I personally believe that at least a few original Bendelow fairway areas/corridors were used by Colt? Yes, but where one is used, because of their width and spacing in relation to the others around them it would preclude any of those from being Bendelow’s. Again, could some green sites of Bendelow’s have been imported into the Colt plan. To that I also yes, but even if this did happen, and the reality is that only a few of them would have been, they would have to have been completely redesigned to allow for shots arriving from different directions than that which Bendelow conceived.
I hope that helps. I would like to add this:
After I did my research I walked away amazed by what Colt designed but also amazed as to what Bendelow must have designed. Consider, a 6,300 yard course in 1909 on barely 95 acres? That was both an accomplishment and understandable when described as being congested…