Does anyone have the timeline on Pete and railroad ties? I remember him telling me that everyone associated him with their use, but that he really gave those up pretty early.
If he had started his career in the era where concrete ties replaced the old creosote covered wood ties, his courses would be less photogenic than they were......but the ties would never need replacing as happened on some of his courses (and on many railroads) Besides, I think enviro reggies have probably relegated those creosote covered ties to the dustbin of history for use as landscape walls of any kind.
Jeff:
I am pretty sure the first course where Pete used railroad ties was The Golf Club, the second course he built after coming back from his Scottish tour with Alice, in 1966-67. [He had built the back nine at Crooked Stick in between, but he didn't add the railroad ties until after he'd done it in Columbus.] I heard someone at Crooked Stick say this summer that Pete found out that the largest company that was rebuilding railroad tracks was in Indianapolis, and he convinced the guy to give him "factory seconds" for like $1 each.
He used them though the TPC at Sawgrass and Long Cove, when I was working for the Dyes, but at PGA West they used rock walls instead, as Pete was becoming sick of hearing about the railroad ties instead of the golf holes they were used on. I don't think he used any on The Honors Course [right after Long Cove] either . . . that was 1983.
After that, Pete went a long time without doing any railroad ties, although his sons started doing their own work with lots of them, and other architects had started using them, so no one really noticed that Pete had stopped.[/right]