Thanks, Bryan. Before I posted my research at the end of the previous page, I went back and read through all of the previous Discussion Group threads on this issue. As I note, what was missing from them based on what I found in my research yesterday are the following three facts:
1. The same August 28, 1925 article in the
Yale Alumni Weekly in which Banks's hole-by-hole descriptions appear contains another, separate description of the ninth hole immediately before Banks's descriptions begin. Again, to the best of my ability to make it out (the resolution of the images of the article available in Yale's online digital archives isn't great:
http://images.library.yale.edu/madid/showthumb.aspx?q1=Yh10%20+A12&qc1=contains&qf1=subject2&qx=1004.3), that separate description from page 4 of the article provides as follows: "The ninth hole presents a water hazard calculated to daunt any but steady golfing nerves. The play is directly across Greist Pond. . . . The water carry is 163 yards, and across it the ground rises from the shore of the pond to a fair elevation on which the green is set. No pity for misplay was exhibited in laying out this hole, unless one excepts the fact that the approach to the hole is smoother and longer than usual."
I obviously agree with Bryan that the final sentence provides as much resolution of this issue as we're probably going to get, especially as it describes actual playing conditions as opposed to what could be dismissed as pre-construction architectural intent. As I note in my last post, the language at the end of that sentence fits best with what we see in the pictures--a front tier that looks an awful lot like green, but might just be, as the author notes, an "approach to the hole [that] is smoother and longer than usual." I take "smoother" to mean "cut shorter" than normal approach-length grass, which, by definition, must have already been cut shorter than fairway-length grass.
2. The original Banks description from the same article includes a sentence at the end comparing Yale's Biarritz to the one at the Creek Club. That sentence was also omitted from the previous threads (as well as the "Golf at Yale" book) reproducing Banks's description. It provides as follows: "This type of hole is well set up on the Creek Course where the tide plays a part in the hazard." Again, that sentence/comparison is significant to me because, as Tom Paul noted in the 2009 "Biarritz Conundrum" thread, the Creek did not begin mowing the front tier of its Biarritz as green until late in the 20th century. At the Creek's Biarritz, that is, the architect's intent and the initial maintenance were, for a long time, one and the same, with the front tier being cut as approach, not green.
3. The August 28, 1925 date of the Banks description, together with the picture of the fully built ninth hole in the August 16, 1925 version of the
Hartford Courant (as well as the other picture of the fully built ninth hole from the September 30, 1925 "Pictorial Supplement" of the
Yale Daily News--the second of the three pictures Bryan just reposted), makes clear that Banks's description was NOT made before the hole's construction, but instead after, or, at worst, as the finishing touches were being added. Again, I'm open to someone pointing out that Banks's description actually predates the August 28, 1925 article in which it appears, but no one has done so. In any event, the separate description in that same article (see point 1 above) proves, to me at least, that the actual initial maintenance of the hole--post-construction, even if not post-formal opening--was in keeping with Banks's description by having an "approach to the hole [that] is smoother and longer than usual."
By the way, Bryan, what is the date of the third picture ("The Famous Water Hole") you posted? It doesn't matter for the analysis--we're all in agreement that, very early on, both tiers were maintained as green--but I'm curious. I've seen the picture before, but can't remember where. Thanks again.