Ocean Links- Digital Restoration

[Peter Flory]

With the Lido completed and Overhills on track, I'm starting to set up the Ocean Links excavation.  Once I get everything lined up, I'm going to hand off the sculpting to a partner and we'll work as a team to get it done.  Anthony Pioppi inspired this project and has been giving me information that will be critical to getting it accurate. 

Will just share the proof of concept hole that I roughed in over the last 2 hours.  I started with the hole that was notorious and polarizing because it was actually the most in tact- Hill to Carry.  Also, I was really curious as to how ridiculous the hole was.  The lidar cuts through all the brush and I could see the big hill and Eden green (this green was like a combination of the Alps/ Himalayas and then the Eden).  The green on this one is especially well preserved.

In these renderings, all I did was boost the hill from 12 feet back up to it's original 30 feet and added the little aiming knobs.  I didn't do any sculpting in the fairway, the cross bunker, or the green site, just painted on the surfaces.  This is an extremely rough draft and the final will look a lot better, especially with bushes, and other touches in the background. Also, in my model, Newport CC will be fully visible next door for visual accuracy. 









Here is how massive the cross bunker is/was:


And here is what the Short green looks like before I paint on the surfaces:  Notice Newport in the background.  I also need to bring the Ocean up to the shoreline to the right. 


Hopefully we can complete this course within a few months. 

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:  very cool.


My only question is, do you have good photo evidence that the hill was really that big?  It seems weird to assume that everything in the brush is unchanged but the original hill was cut from thirty feet to twelve.


If Seth Raynor said the hill was thirty feet, I'd believe him.  But most golfers grossly overestimate topo features.  I must have had ten people tell me the drop on the 12th at Shoreacres is 100 feet, when it's not even half that.  So if someone early on said the hill was thirty feet, others would have parroted them, even if it was half that.

[Will Lozier]

Peter,


Fascinating! Can you orient us on a map as to the layout, or at least where Hill to Carry sat? I can identify the location of Short.


Cheers

[Peter Flory]

Peter:  very cool.

My only question is, do you have good photo evidence that the hill was really that big?  It seems weird to assume that everything in the brush is unchanged but the original hill was cut from thirty feet to twelve.

If Seth Raynor said the hill was thirty feet, I'd believe him.  But most golfers grossly overestimate topo features.  I must have had ten people tell me the drop on the 12th at Shoreacres is 100 feet, when it's not even half that.  So if someone early on said the hill was thirty feet, others would have parroted them, even if it was half that.

I wondered that same thing.  Here is my rationale and what I have/ don't have:
- I haven't seen a ground level photo of the hill
- An American Golfer article said "The architects have not been satisfied with what nature did in this case, and by way of helping out have dumped in no less than six thousand loads of earth to form a veritable little mountain to be carried from the tee."  It's tough to calculate, because it probably wasn't a perfect mound, but V=1/3*3.1416*R^2*H.  I could estimate with this formula, but I don't know how many cubic yards a "load" would have been back then. 
- There is a diagram of the course that references the hill as being 30'.  This was why I specifically pinned it to that value.
- When I measure the area of the hill from the 1939 aerial overlaid in Google Earth, I show that it was about 20,000 s.f. at its base.
- This is a much larger base than what shows up in the lidar, so it seems clear that it was deconstructed at some point. 
- I can see from an oblique aerial that the hill blocked the view of the cross bunker from the tee.  The current lidar of the hill shows that what is left is way too small to block the view. 
- There are paintings of each hole that seem very accurate and I'll attach the painting of the hill here.  Keep in mind that it was taken from the vantage point of looking backwards from the green toward the tee. 

*  Scroll right to see the full images:

Here is the reference to 30' Hill.  I'm actually not sure what the source of this is- I'm sure that Anthony would know. 


This is a great image and really gives the clearest indication that the current hill has been altered.  What I see in the lidar seems like a pathetic little mound really. 

The hill that is there now is slightly over 2x as high as the Short green pad, which is on the left.  But one mystery to me is that is has the same shape as the original with sort of a diamond shape and fingers reaching out.  I believe that the course was revived briefly in 1940, right after those aerials, so maybe they scalped it at that point and still kept a remnant as a feature?  It was a bit ridiculous in its original shape and probably had no bearing in play by 1940 with steel shafts, etc.  But I have no evidence- just a theory.  If they would have scalped it after that, my theory is that they would have scraped it completely and/or not bothered to keep the original shape of it. 


View from short of the green looking back across the cross bunker and toward the Hill and tee.  In my draft rendering, I made the aiming knobs too small.  maybe if I make them in this proportion and make the tip of them 30 feet, it will seem more realistic.  In that case, the hill itself would only be, say 25 feet. 




There are a few semi blind spots on this course that will be much more challenging.  I would say that this hole is the easist to get right because the green and the cross bunker are so perfectly preserved (under the brush in a State park).  The Short will be very easy too.  And I think that I see the Road Bunker green in the lidar in somebody's yard.  Luckily, it seems as if they didn't build their house right upon it. 

[Peter Flory]

The really interesting thing to me about this hole is that Raynor used the Eden template on a par 4 and essentially combined it with an Alps/ Himalayas concept.  Did he ever incorporate a par 3 template into a non par 3 hole anywhere else? 

Keep in mind that they were severely constrained on land because the course was in separate rectangular parcels.  So they had to get very creative to make short par 4s that had some sort of challenge.  And since the land was essentially flat with no water features, maybe you push the envelope a bit and get gimmicky. 

With a hickory driver, this hole would have been pretty fun really.  A 258 yard shot is not easy and especially when blind and with a 30' hill in the way.  Also, the Eden green makes this strategically interesting with many options.  Driving the green would have been very tough and would likely end up with a ball in the bunkers or in the rough from an awkward angle.  Laying up to the right would have been easy, but then leaves a shot over the Strath bunker.  The ideal layup would have been over the hill, and over the cross bunker to the left side of the fairway.  Say a 190 yard shot.  From there, you could bump a pitch in. 

[Tom_Doak]

The really interesting thing to me about this hole is that Raynor used the Eden template on a par 4 and essentially combined it with an Alps/ Himalayas concept.  Did he ever incorporate a par 3 template into a non par 3 hole anywhere else? 

Yes, he built several par-4 holes with Redan type greens.  He described the opening hole at The Creek just as such, and it is.

[Tom_Doak]

As to your calculations on the hill, the painting speaks volumes.


If it were today, a dump truck load would be 15 cubic yards.  I'm guessing back in 1920 a load was a trailer pulled by horses, and a load was only 1-3 cubic yards.


Since you've already provided the area of the mound [pi r squared] at 20,000 square feet, we only need to convert that to 2,222 square yards, and then the formula reduces to V = 740 * H (in yards).


If a "load" equals one yard, 6000 cubic yards over that area would produce a mound a bit over 8 yards high [24 feet].  And if it was built on top of a slight rise, that would get you to thirty feet pretty easily.


P.S.  If the mound was a perfect cone, your 20,000 square feet translates to a base of about 27 yards [80 feet] in radius, which would make the mound about a 3:1 slope.  Any steeper and they wouldn't have been able to mow it, so I think you're in the right ballpark.

[Peter Flory]

I need to reload the file again anyway to lower it down so that Sea level is perfectly against the shore, so I'll take a more careful stab raising the hill again on the new version.  I was just so excited to see the 7th green sitting there in the ground that I had to flesh out that hole to satisfy my curiosity.


I expected this hole to be really weak and I'm pleasantly surprised at everything that appears over the hill.


On my model, when I look at the 7th hole from the perspective of the ground on the Newport course, the hill is extremely prominent.  So I wonder if the hill appears in any of the pictures in Newport's archives.  Maybe Ron Forse would know.

[Sven Nilsen]

Peter:


Assuming you've seen this photo.


Sven


May 1923 Golf Illustrated -

[Nigel Islam]

The really interesting thing to me about this hole is that Raynor used the Eden template on a par 4 and essentially combined it with an Alps/ Himalayas concept.  Did he ever incorporate a par 3 template into a non par 3 hole anywhere else? 

Keep in mind that they were severely constrained on land because the course was in separate rectangular parcels.  So they had to get very creative to make short par 4s that had some sort of challenge.  And since the land was essentially flat with no water features, maybe you push the envelope a bit and get gimmicky. 

With a hickory driver, this hole would have been pretty fun really.  A 258 yard shot is not easy and especially when blind and with a 30' hill in the way.  Also, the Eden green makes this strategically interesting with many options.  Driving the green would have been very tough and would likely end up with a ball in the bunkers or in the rough from an awkward angle.  Laying up to the right would have been easy, but then leaves a shot over the Strath bunker.  The ideal layup would have been over the hill, and over the cross bunker to the left side of the fairway.  Say a 190 yard shot.  From there, you could bump a pitch in.

I believe the “Eden” at Sleepy Hollow was a par 4. It was one of the holes abandoned when Winton added his holes in the mid 1920s.

[Craig Disher]

Peter,What is the date of the aerial with the baseball diamond. The holes look a little more finished than they appear in the 1939 aerial. Assuming the aerial covers the other holes as well, have they been reconstructed to any extent?

[Peter Flory]

Peter:


Assuming you've seen this photo.


Sven


May 1923 Golf Illustrated -

Sven- I did not have that image, so thank you so much for posting it. 

However, I'm more confused than ever now.

The hill in that photo looks like what I see in the ground now in the lidar (and about 12' high).  It's not something that anyone would call a "mountain" or something that would have taken 6,000 loads of dirt to construct.  But if this photo was 1923, that doesn't leave much of a window for a 30' high hill to have been there and then de-constructed.

- If the hole was really so maligned, then maybe Tailer found it embarrassing and quickly removed it after the first season? 
- The paintings of the course were shown in the July 1921 Golf Illustrated and the painter (Paul Maschcowitz) died in 1942.  So, maybe he accurately painted the big hill and then they neutered it soon after? 
- And if it was reduced in size out of embarrassment, I could see why they may not have put out a press release about it. 
- I don't know the date of that oblique aerial, but maybe it does show the smaller version of the hill and it's width had just been preserved and the height chopped down.  It's possible that further erosion makes the base look smaller in the lidar evidence.

One thing that seems perfectly clear to me is that for the majority of the course's life, the hill was what is shown in the Golf Illustrated photo.  That makes my life a bit easier, because I can just just go with what the lidar gives me for it if I want to re-construct the course that they played in most of the Golden Mashies.  If the original version wasn't satisfactory to even the owner, then I don't need to preserve that.

[Bryan Izatt]

I came across a blueprint of the course online.  I'm not sure if it's an original or one that Anthony created.  It is a bit different than the layout you posted.  For instance, on your layout the 9th green curls back on the hole and the 3rd tee is north of the road.




I thought at first that it might have been drawn to scale but it does not overlay exactly to the roads.  With a little skewing I made it fit on to the current Google Earth image.








Using the measuring tool on Google Earth many of the yardages are 20 to 30 yards less than what is recorded as the yardage on the blueprint.  For the 1st and 9th for instance the paddock containing those two holes is just not big enough to allow holes of the yardages claimed.

I also overlaid the aerial of the 7th area that you marked up.  It's hard to overlay because it's a little oblique.  Where you have the tee, the mound and the bunker don't align at all with the locations on the blueprint.  The blueprint suggests that the mound is an amoeba shape that is approximately 90x100 yards.  The cross bunker is shown as hard against the back of the mound.  I'm not sure how the hole could be played back then, or even today - a layup of 100 yards leaving a second shot of 160 yards over the mound and bunker to the green.  Or, a drive of 200+ yards to carry the hill and cross bunker?

[Peter Sayegh]

Bryan, I was confused by both those drawings as well. The bunker seemed drawn flush with the base of the "mountain." I assumed playing left or right were options.

This aerial from 1939 (if i post the link correctly) helped me envision it a little. The remnants of the hill are the shark-like shadow I guess. If that dark spot above it is that great bunker it does seem distanced-and certainly angled-away from hill.

https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=fde70f5c32284ae18eece3f99beacaa5

You must zoom to the appropriate area of the map.

[Sven Nilsen]

The drawing is George Bahto's latter day interpretation of the course based off of the information he had at his disposal.  It should in no way be used as any kind of indication as to exactly what the course was like.


Sven

[Peter Flory]

Using the measuring tool on Google Earth many of the yardages are 20 to 30 yards less than what is recorded as the yardage on the blueprint.  For the 1st and 9th for instance the paddock containing those two holes is just not big enough to allow holes of the yardages claimed.

I agree and came to the same conclusion when I was laying down the draft of the course.

Here is how they must have been measuring #9 to get it to 460... which is unrealistic.  But also notice that it is a par 4 and a bogey 6.  When Jessie Guilford won the Golden Mashie in 1926, he hit his drive over the trees and supposedly it went 275.  That would have given him about 90 yards into the green when I measure that drive out on google earth.  When I was looking at that hole, I just wondered why a player wouldn't go around the trees to the right.  Maybe it was considered OB by Tailer. 

[Peter Flory]

I went through a bunch of old newspaper articles last night and assembled a timeline of the course.

Here is the timeline that could be helpful for the aerials.

- We know that Tailer died on Christmas of 1928.
- In March of 1929, it was announced that the Golden Mashie invitational would be discontinued. 
- October of 1929- the stock market crash to start the dive into the Great Depression
- In 1931, Mrs Tailer announced that the Ocean Links land would be sold
- 1932-1939... all quiet in the newpapers.  I'm assuming that the land was for sale, but that land purchases froze up. 
- 1940- Young, the former superintendent of the course, arranged to buy an option on the Ocean Links land from Mrs Tailer.  His plan was to make it a public course.  However, it soon became apparent that he would need a zoning change for that.  So, he pivoted and formed a private club and quickly got takers- looks like 100 people.  He brought in sod and restored 5 of the greens.  On 1, 8, and 9, he went with temporary greens (not enough sod).  And on the Shoreacres hole, he had to build a new green.
- Opening day was on 7/27/40.   
- Presumably the course operated all throughout 1941 and was doing well because Young closed on the purchase option for the land on 9/19/41.  He probably completed the restoration in the spring of '41. 

- The next news is of the Army taking over the site on 7/3/42.  They also took over the adjacent property and used it for artillery- you can still see the footings that they installed out in the lawn.  I don't know about the OL site, but the Army returned the adjacent property to its owner in 1946.  I would assume that they did both at the same time.  But after that, it was just boring sell offs at various times for residences. 

How this relates to the aerials- we are very unlucky in that Young restored this golf course right after the 1939 aerial.  So, in 1939, the course had been fallow for 7-11 years (depending on how long Mrs Tailer had it maintained).  But she still owned it in 1939, so that is why there are no baseball fields- which Craig Disher pointed out to me. 

Then in the later oblique aerial, we see the course in slightly better condition than before, but with baseball fields, some additional structures, etc.  This is because the photo was taken after the Young restoration/ reboot of the course and after the Army gave it back.  I don't know the date, but it would have to be some time after 1946.  Maybe '47 or so. 

So what all this means is that we really need an aerial from 1941.  In that year, the course was in its restored state by the guy who knew it the best and was financially motivated to make it great.  And it is highly likely that military aerials exist for it, especially since the Army took the site.  Craig is on it, but we're going to have to wait for access (due to covid). 

I'm going to pause the digital build and hope that by next year, we have a much better image to work from.   

[Bret Lawrence]

Peter,


For clarification purposes.  Arthur T. Arnold was the superintendent of Ocean Links.  He helped build the course and was the greenkeeper until the course closed. Arthur T. Arnold also built the greens at Yeamans Hall, Country Club of Charleston and Wanumetonomy.  Charles Young was the former superintendent of Bailey’s Beach, which to my knowledge did not have a golf course. 


The hill in the ground photo looks pretty formidable to me.  I’m not sure if it’s 30 feet high, but it appears higher than 12 feet to my eyes.  The ground photo also makes the hill appear much wider than it is high.  I feel like in the painting, the hill is equally high as it is wide.  The four legs that stick out of the mound make it seem harder to go around the hill than over it.


In the aerial photo with the baseball diamond, the hill looks like it has been excavated from the green side with most of the middle section of the hill missing. The cross bunker appears to be filled back up.  Maybe they used the loam from the hill to fill the cross bunker so no one would break their ankle on a fly ball to center field?


Bret

[Bret Lawrence]

Hotchkiss has a mound with a similar shape, but built on a much smaller scale.  It’s almost like a tabletop jump you’d find on a BMX course, but with four legs extending out. In Hotchkiss’ case, one of these legs fades into the green and creates a spine through the green.

[Bret Lawrence]

There seems to be a strong resemblance between the original Maiden hole at Sandwich and this “Hill to Carry” hole at Ocean Links.  The Maiden hole was sort of a maligned hole as well. The Maiden hole was not thought of as a great hole, but it certainly was famous and it spurred a lot of discussion and even some poetry.  The original Maiden was a Par 3, whereas Ocean Links hole was a short Par 4. Perhaps the extra stroke and a little length was all that they needed to make it a better golf hole? All speculation on my part, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Macdonald was at least a little bit inspired by the famous Maiden hole.


Here are some pictures for comparison.  Royal St. George’s obviously had a more natural, wild look to it, but the general theme of the hole appears similar to me.

[Peter Flory]

Bret- you are correct regarding Young.  I saw "former superintendent" in an article and glossed over the "... of Bailey's Beach" part I guess. 

Regarding the Hill to Carry and the cross bunker, the bunker still seems appropriately deep in the lidar.  In the images that I posted, I didn't deepen it at all, just painted sand on the bottom of it.  But you raise a point that I glossed over before- the pit was the obvious place for them to get the material to build the hill.  If you're going to need that much material, why not get it from a few yards away?  And as you mentioned, if you are going to get rid of the Hill, where better to dispose of it than in the pit that you dug out.  One other clue that the hill isn't that big is the shadow that it casts compared to the shadow from the short green. 

Update- Craig Disher has some impeccable record keeping (and is the man). 
Here is what he dug out of his archives for us: from September of 1942: scroll right to see entire image


- This was only about 2 months after the Army took over the property.  You can see their artillery positions on the Budlong property in the top left corner.  On a side note, I saw that Tailer was trying to buy that property to expand Ocean Links, but Budlong's wife wouldn't sign.  It sounded like they had a very rocky relationship and the gossipy papers liked to write about it. 
- My conclusion in looking at this is that Young didn't do as complete of a restoration as I was hoping.  He probably focused on the greens primarily and selected certain bunkers only.  He may have had a long-range plan, who knows. 

I think that this is the best that we're going to get.  I can see a lot of information in this aerial that I couldn't in the others, but it will still be tough in spots.  Some of the mow lines seem to be apparent here... although there is no telling whether they correspond to the original mow lines. 

[Bret Lawrence]

Peter:


Assuming you've seen this photo.


Sven


May 1923 Golf Illustrated -

Here is another photograph from the same page.  This one appears to show a portion of the hill in the foreground and the Short green in the background.  I think if you switch these two captions, they make more sense. Golf Illustrated, May 1923. 

[Bret Lawrence]

Bret- you are correct regarding Young.  I saw "former superintendent" in an article and glossed over the "... of Bailey's Beach" part I guess. 

Regarding the Hill to Carry and the cross bunker, the bunker still seems appropriately deep in the lidar.  In the images that I posted, I didn't deepen it at all, just painted sand on the bottom of it.  But you raise a point that I glossed over before- the pit was the obvious place for them to get the material to build the hill.  If you're going to need that much material, why not get it from a few yards away?  And as you mentioned, if you are going to get rid of the Hill, where better to dispose of it than in the pit that you dug out.  One other clue that the hill isn't that big is the shadow that it casts compared to the shadow from the short green. 

Update- Craig Disher has some impeccable record keeping (and is the man). 
Here is what he dug out of his archives for us: from September of 1942: scroll right to see entire image


- This was only about 2 months after the Army took over the property.  You can see their artillery positions on the Budlong property in the top left corner.  On a side note, I saw that Tailer was trying to buy that property to expand Ocean Links, but Budlong's wife wouldn't sign.  It sounded like they had a very rocky relationship and the gossipy papers liked to write about it. 
- My conclusion in looking at this is that Young didn't do as complete of a restoration as I was hoping.  He probably focused on the greens primarily and selected certain bunkers only.  He may have had a long-range plan, who knows. 

I think that this is the best that we're going to get.  I can see a lot of information in this aerial that I couldn't in the others, but it will still be tough in spots.  Some of the mow lines seem to be apparent here... although there is no telling whether they correspond to the original mow lines.

Nice find Craig.  There appears to be an older rudimentary baseball field between the green and the cross bunker.  You could see this in the other baseball diamond aerial, but it was very faint.  The top of the hill looks sandy in this aerial, almost like there is a bunker in there at this point?  Or is that a sandy mound?

[Peter Flory]

Craig was surmising to me that maybe the Army guys were playing some baseball out there.  2 months of games may lead to the erosion that you can see there.  They were probably also playing some golf on the holes in this section as well. 

[Peter Flory]

I went deep down the rabbit hole on the Southern portion of the course. 

- First I unskewed all of the aerials and locked them in perfectly over Google Earth as overalays. 
- then I exaggerated the elevations on the site 3x. 
- then I tried to trace the outlines of the greens, fairways, and bunkers.  The greens and bunkers are relatively easy, but the fairways are very subtle. 

Here is what I am showing for these 3 holes:  In this image, the elevations are not exaggerated.


The traps are white or gray depending on whether the main aerial that I have underlayed had the trap at that point in time.

Theories/ realizations:
#5: The 2nd set of bunkers had massive raised faces on them.  You can see them in the background in the photo of the players on the short hole tee.  In the image above, I drew in the shape of the lips and colored them brown.  There was fairway to hit over those bunkers, which would give you a very short approach, but an awkward angle.  Maybe the bell was to signal to players behind those bunker faces that you left the green?


I believe that CBM/ Raynor used the Short hole bunkers to act as fairway bunkers on this hole, just as they did at Lido on the 13th hole and in some other places.  You need all that fairway to the left on 5 year to get the best angle to the green and also to make the hole the yardage that was on the card.  There is subtle shaping and banking where I drew the lines, until you get close to the road, where the elevation got cut off.  I just stopped the fairway there for this visualization, but it probably went out a little closer to the road. 

On the 7th hole, there are 2 fairway bunkers way right and then some mounding.  In between the main cross bunker and those 2 fairway bunkers, there is a perfect ramp that goes between them.  My theory is that initially the hole was angled way to the right like I have it and the big Hill route was the gamble option.  And then they soon chopped down the big hill and made it more of a straight hole- maybe because of criticism or maybe because nobody used the right route.  The bushes crept in from the right over time and I think they abandoned those traps. 

Here is a better version of the right traps and the ramp/ bridge between the cross bunker and those.  The shading splotches are bushes from the photo under it.  There is a sort of trench that runs short of the green all the way across and I'm not sure if the fairway cut off short of it or if a connector when across it.