CAVENDISH GC - A Trip Through Time.

[Duncan Cheslett]

We have long been blessed at Cavendish with a set of excellent photographs dating from the late 1920s - very soon after the course was opened in 1925. They show over half of the holes on the course in some detail.

I was delighted when, less than 12 hours after posting the photographs in Sean's course tour, I received by email from Thomas Dai superbly colourised versions of each of the pics. This was completely unsolicited and I had no idea that Dai had such talents in this area.

Suddenly, these old B&W photos come to life, and look as if they were taken last week rather than nearly 100 years ago. Dr MacKenzie's masterpiece can now be seen as he left it!

So enthused was I that at the earliest opportunity I dragged my 18 year-old son up to Cavendish as my assistant and we tramped the course identifying as closely as possible the original vantage points for the pics and taking new ones for comparison.

Allow me to share our (and Dai's) work with you here;


*Original B&W photographs by kind permission of Buxton Museum*

Unfortunately no archive photos exist of the first three holes so we join the course tour at the 4th, a 120 yard drop shot hole over a stream. The photos are taken from beside the stream in what is now deep rough and nettles.


Hole #4 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

04 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

04 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr


The 5th is a long par 4 playing uphill into the prevailing wind. The photos are taken from the far side of the adjacent 6th fairway. It would appear that the original photographer was looking for pretty pictures rather than a realistic representation of the course from a golfing point of view!

Hole #5 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

05 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

05 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

While Cavendish is largely a moorland course, one of its most attractive features is a woodland of Scots Pines which pre-dates the course. It is marked on MacKenzie's original plans as "Horseshoe Plantation". The 6th green is our first visit to the pines.

Hole #6 (2) by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

06a by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

06 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

We then drive out of the woods on the 7th, a short par 4. As can be seen, the majestic pines have unfortunately become obscured to a large degree by silver birch and a rhododendron understory (AKA the Cavendish Azalea!)


 Hole #7 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr


07a by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

07a by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

The 7th green

Hole #7 (3) by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

07c by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

07c by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

The photo of the 8th green is another example of one taken from a place that a golfer would hope never to visit. I'd never seen the green from this angle until I went looking for it!

Hole #8 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

08 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

08 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

The front nine concludes with another drop shot over a stream. This green has been rebuilt several times over the last 95 years and still doesn't look as good as the original.

Hole #9 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

09 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

09 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

I'll post the back nine later...

[Duncan Cheslett]

The 10th is one of the standout holes on the course, a challenging drive to reach the second level of a curved fairway in order to get within reach of the green on the other side of a chasm. There has been some conjecture that the green might have been moved back over the years, but these photos show clearly that it remains in its original position.

The stream has changed course however, and it would appear that the distinctive rock face we see today had yet to be revealed 95 years ago. Some sort of landslip would seem a logical explanation.


Hole #10 (2) by Duncan Cheslett, on Flickr

10 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

10 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

The 11th is almost the equal of the 10th, and another of MacKenzie's finest par 4s in England. The green is treacherous - anything above the pin will more than likely roll off the front of the green if it doesn't hit the hole!

Hole #11 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

11 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

11 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

To be continued...

[Duncan Cheslett]

There are no old photos for 12 and 13, but there is this great one for the green at 14, which is benched into an old railway embankment which once serviced a small quarry. Quarrying - mainly for limestone - is the main industry in the Buxton area.

The colourised photo reveals in clarity a definite step in the green which has been softened in subsequent years to a gradual slope. It is difficult to see from the pic where the green actually starts. The golfer appears to be putting across the photo at fairway level, yet the grass doesn't look short enough to be considered part of the green. There again, the grass on the main part of the green and the bank where his playing partner is stood doesn't look very short either!


Hole #14 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr


14 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr


14 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr



The 17th is an excellent short hole which takes back into Horseshoe Plantation. The green almost abuts the 6th green.


Hole #17 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

17 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

17 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

Finally we come to the stellar 18th. Any suggestion that the green could originally be seen from the tee is dismissed by these photos - the direct line from the tee has always been blocked by pine trees on the immediate right forcing play out to the left onto the fabulously rolling fairway. The first pic showing the clubhouse in the far distance is actually taken from a point some 30 yards left of the tee rather than on the tee itself.  While in the old pics this vantage point was on short grass it is now an overgrown waste area. This is what happens when grazing animals are removed from a golf course.

Hole #18 (4) by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

18a by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

18a by duncan cheslett, on Flickr



Hole #18 by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

18b by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

18b by duncan cheslett, on Flickr

Our new course manager and our greens committee are determined to restore the course as far as possible within tight budgetary contraints  to MacKenzie's original design intents. They have the overwhelming support of a very enthusiastic membership in this who are insanely proud of their course and its MacKenzie heritage.


I would urge all connoisseurs of golf course architecture to visit Cavendish, and also to consider taking advantage of our "Play Cavendish" membership category. For only £275 pa you can play the course whenever you like (including Saturday competitions) up to 15 times in a year. Ideal for an overseas or 2nd club membership!


Only 35 minutes from Manchester International Airport, Cavendish is the perfect first stop on any UK golfing trip!


http://www.cavendishgolfclub.com/flexible-memberships/


Once again, many thanks to Thomas Dai for these fabulous colourised photos. One thing that became very clear to Dan and I as we attempted to recreate the original camera angles was that the 1920s photographer was either extremely tall or he used a stepladder!

[Thomas Dai]

Duncan,
Excellent thread. Well done for putting it together. I’m glad I was able to assist.
Then-and-now comparisons, especially when the ‘then’ is also in colour or has been colourised, can be both historically fascinating and useful when dealing with sometimes forgetful and/or disbelieving club members, committees, green-keepers and the like.

Atb

[Duncan Cheslett]

Duncan,
Excellent thread. Well done for putting it together. I’m glad I was able to assist.
Then-and-now comparisons, especially when the ‘then’ is also in colour or has been colourised, can be both historically fascinating and useful when dealing with sometimes forgetful and/or disbelieving club members, committees, green-keepers and the like.
 
Atb

I agree. I've tried similar exercises in the past but when the old photo is in B&W the differences just do not stand out as obviously to the untrained eye.


Your colourisations capture the abiding atmosphere of the course far better than the B&W originals, which look as though they are from a different and detached age. They reveal that behind a little excess scrub and tree growth, suspect mowing practices, and a lack of investment in bunker maintenance MacKenzie's original vision is there to be seized.

[Jon Wiggett]

Duncan, Thomas,


excellent job. I think you are correct that the course looks to be very much intact though it would be nice to see the green contours sharpened back up to their original glory. It is also nice to see the early Mackenzie bunker style which would be great to see restored. Finally, it seems obvious to me that many of the greens were substantially bigger than they are today.

[Duncan Cheslett]

Jon,


The problem with the early MacKenzie bunker style is that due to its exposed location in the hills Cavendish is often an extremely windy course - as windy as many links courses. Keeping sand in the bunkers becomes a major problem. I suspect that the change in bunker style occurred very early in Cavendish's history.


The softening of some greens was almost certainly the work of one George Henriques, a leading amateur golfer in his day and the dominant force at Cavendish throughout the 30s, 40s and 50s. Apparently he hated  undulating greens and made it his mission to flatten them. Thankfully he never managed to do too much damage.


The greens have indeed reduced in size. The most extreme example is the 4th hole, where the current left hand bunker appears to occupy what was once green!


In the main though, this slippage could be rectified quite easily by mowing alone.

[Duncan Cheslett]

An interesting point has been raised within the club.


Because the old B&W photos came to our attention via Buxton Museum,  the club has always (rightly or wrongly) worked on the basis that the copyright in the photos lay with the museum. Their permission to use them has been sought and granted, which is why a credit is included in this thread.


However, when such images are manipulated to form other images, such as Dai has done with his spectacular colourisations, is a new copyright brought into existence and if so, with whom does it lie?


If only we had an expert in Intellectual Property Law on this forum...


😉

[Mark Pearce]

PM me.

[Duncan Cheslett]

Thank you Mark. Will do.

[Sean_A]

It looks to me that the front of the 18th green can be seen from the tee.

A really big change is the 11th. Dr Mac's weird bunkers have been improved. However, the size of the green has been reduced as it used to spread to the bunkers. The green looks to have been raised on the right, probably to mitigate green flooding. It looked cool, but jeepers.

Ciao

[Duncan Cheslett]

It looks to me that the front of the 18th green can be seen from the tee.

A really big change is the 11th. Dr Mac's weird bunkers have been improved. However, the size of the green has been reduced as it used to spread to the bunkers. The green looks to have been raised on the right, probably to mitigate green flooding. It looked cool, but jeepers.

Ciao

Sean,


The 18th green is just about visible on the photo, but the photo is not taken from the tee. It is taken from a point some 30 yards left of the tee, on the slope running up from the 4th green.


The 18th green has always been obscured from the tee by trees. This is clearly how MacKenzie intended it.


The trees were there many years before the golf course. Dr Mac routed the hole (and the course) around them.

[Bill Crane]

For the most part it appears that there was originally only one cut level other than on the greens.   Some longer cut grass was evident on the 18th.
When did most courses start have multiple cuts for fairway, rough and perhaps an intermediate cut?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Duncan, thanks for putting this together. Mark Rowlinson and I had a great day there, as well as Reddish Vale. The corner of the course around 9-12 is just brilliant and while it has been ten years or so since I played the it is not difficult to remember most of the holes. What a great place to be a member.

[Duncan Cheslett]

A really big change is the 11th. Dr Mac's weird bunkers have been improved. However, the size of the green has been reduced as it used to spread to the bunkers. The green looks to have been raised on the right, probably to mitigate green flooding. It looked cool, but jeepers.

Ciao

As on the 14th, it would appear from the old photos that the putting surface on 11 used to extend down the bank at the front of the green and take in the fairway level area short of the current green.


I do however, have my suspicions...


The only evidence we have of this is the sight in the old photos of golfers appearing to be putting on ground that is no longer part of the green.


Was this though, an accurate depiction of the extent of the putting surfaces at the time? Or a conceit of the photographer anxious for the most pleasing shot?


The man involved, one Joseph Board, was Buxton's leading professional professional photographer in the first half of the 20th century. He will have been well versed in orchestrating extras in his shots to stand in the most advantageous positions to elicit the best photograph. Could the presence of golfers "putting" at the front of the the 11th and 14th greens in these pics be a complete red herring? Could they not have been placed there by Joseph Board simply to help fulfil his artistic vision?


There is certainly little to suggest from looking at the grass in these shots that the greens did indeed extend down to the lower levels.


A cool piece on Joseph Board from 1934...


https://www.wondersofthepeak.org.uk/facts/1444/

[Sean_A]

The 11th looks very clear to me Duncan.  That back bunker shoulder feeds directly into a ridge, a ridge which no longer exists.  The green is now cut off from the mounds with a lip now in place....there is a radical difference.  I take your point that the green most likely did not run straight into the back bunker (as it looks) and therefore probably didn't extend out to the left bunker.  But I think the green went fairly close to these bunkers.


It looks like one tee on 18 could see the green and the further one right couldn't.  Regardless, do you think the hole would be better if the sightline was opened up?

Ciao

[Paul OConnor]

What is it that is written in the bunker sand of the photograph numbered 6?  It looks like "So Mrs Lewis" Is that her putting?

[Sean_A]

What is it that is written in the bunker sand of the photograph numbered 6?  It looks like "So Mrs Lewis" Is that her putting?

Thats what I thought, but the writing continues out of picture!

Ciao

[Duncan Cheslett]

What is it that is written in the bunker sand of the photograph numbered 6?  It looks like "So Mrs Lewis" Is that her putting?

It is a matter of much conjecture at the club, the more so since these coloured photos came along.


The most popular theory is that this is graffiti questioning the honour of a certain Mrs Lewis. 😉


I wonder whether Mrs Lewis might not have paid the bill for the photography at her daughter’s wedding and this is Joseph Board’s revenge!

[Tim Gallant]

Wonderful photos and tour - so excited to see it in a few weeks together!

[Thomas Dai]

With regard to size of putting surfaces have a look at the old photos of the 17th green above.
There appear to be very distinct wide mowing stripes stretching from in front of what is today the putting surface seemingly all the away to the rear of the green.
However, in the old photos of the 4th and 6th greens there are visible narrower, more traditional hand-mower width stripes on the putting surfaces.
Thoughts?
atb

[Peter Flory]

Great presentation. 

[Marty Bonnar]

So I’ve ran the photo through my NASA-supplied photo restoration software, micro-surveyed it with my Dyna-Ray pic-o-rama bokeh lens and double-checked it with Keith Richards.
So here it is in all it’s beautifully enhanced glory:

The wonders of technology.
F.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think this thread should analyse in depth every reason that the old greens look far more beautiful than the new greens.


The ability to build greens that look closer in style to the old rather than the new is - in my opinion - the single biggest calling card of this era’s darlings, especially TD / Renaissance.

[Sean_A]

Hi

I think this thread should analyse in depth every reason that the old greens look far more beautiful than the new greens.

+1

Ciao