Re: Rockrimmon CC - Stamford CT.
Orrin Smith's contribution to Rockrimmon is unique in that he "finished" the RTJ course in 1953, which was operating as a 9 hole layout in its first four seasons from 1949. RTJ
did have a master plan for finishing the "lower holes" (it hangs in the Super's office), but Smith substantially changed those plans in realizing an 18 hole course.
Specifically, Smith is wholly responsible for the (since 1953) iteration of the 4th, 5th, 6th & 7th holes and slighter but evident alterations to RTJ 18-hole plans for the 16th and 17th.
There may also have been sublime changes to Jones' plan for a new (18 hole) routing of the 3rd (which brings the golfer to the post 1953 section of the course in the valley, but when it was a 9-hole course was a boomerang dogleg right that did not go to the valley) as well as subtle changes to the 14th and 18th.
So the lineup goes like this
1, 2, 8* 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 - These are the 8 original Jones holes dating to 1949 inaugural season.
- the other original was an amalgam of the current 3rd and 14th.
- *the 8th's tee was angled into a dogleg by Smith, when new property was made available to the club that Jones did not have to work with
3, 14, 15 and 18 - These are the holes planned by Jones and largely executed without revision by Smith in 1952-3, when it expanded to a full eighteen.
4**, 5, 6, 7 16, and 17 - these are holes substantially altered from RTJ's plan for 18 as conceived/built by Smith.
- (** #4, as built by Smith, was mostly a Jones design, but the realization of the crossing water hazard at 235 off the tee was substantially different as was the precise angle and yardge(s) from the Smith realization of the tee boxes...all of this enough so that I'm assigning him ownership of "revision" on that one).
Having worked and played at Rockrimmon for hundreds and hundreds of rounds, there is little question to me that the Smith holes are by a large margin, the most inferior holes on the course... However, I'm not sure that the Jones plan would have yielded any better results...the problem both architects faced was how to get "back up" from the "valley" section of the 1953 18 hole course, a valley into which a player descends and emerges twice, once on each nine.
And as pleasing as the 3rd and 15th are in descending a 100 foot drop, to a distant par 5 green, with a tree top view for miles, as a golf matter, the holes that must re-ascend that gorgeous drop are going to be a strain on the architecture...for Jones or Smith.
Smith also was compelled to change the original Jones' plans for the 5th, when the club (in an excavation deal that yielded a profit from the soil sold) built "Lake Calmon" (a 125,000 sq foot surface pond of 15 feet in depth) in a place where Jones' 5th hole was to traverse.
So Smith, had some handicaps...still his greens are gorgeous on those holes (excepting the 4th which is plain), greens that pay fealty to the Jones largess and sweep of contour while striking a unique visual approach presentation.
Rockrimmon is an ultra-unique, if imperfect course, of an under-the-radar club that deserves a picture profile/tour, which I'll try to gather for all sometime later in the autumn.
cheers vk