Speaker 1: The East Course at Marion Golf Club is kind of
Speaker 1: a contradiction. This Hugh Wilson William Flynn design is one
Speaker 1: of the oldest great American golf courses, so it's not
Speaker 1: surprising that by modern standards it's pretty small, yet it's
Speaker 1: still capable of testing the best golfers in the world.
Speaker 1: And today we're going to find out why. I'm Garrett
Speaker 1: Morrison and this is designing golf. All right, Before I
Speaker 1: bring on my guest today, Wayne Morrison, let's do some Marion.
Speaker 1: One oh one. What are the big things that you
Speaker 1: need to know about the East Course at Marion Golf Club.
Speaker 1: First little bit of history. Marian started way back in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five as predominantly a cricket club, but in
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties golf became suddenly popular in the US
Speaker 1: and members at Marion started playing golf on a kind
Speaker 1: of rudimentary course. These were the origins of Marion Golf Club,
Speaker 1: but the cricket and golf clubs actually didn't officially separate
Speaker 1: until the early nineteen forties. So the East Course at
Speaker 1: Marion opened in nineteen twelve. It was in Ardmore, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: basically a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia. The architect of record
Speaker 1: was a member named Hugh Wilson, who was the head
Speaker 1: of the club's green committee. Wilson also designed the West
Speaker 1: Course at Marion, about a mile down the road, but
Speaker 1: the East Course as it stands today is I think
Speaker 1: best understood as a collaborative design effort. Hugh Wilson was
Speaker 1: the driving force and the initial architect, but he had
Speaker 1: critical assistance from the club's greenkeeper, William Flynn. Flynn's name
Speaker 1: you might recognize. He went on to become one of
Speaker 1: America's greatest golf architects, designing Shinnakawk Hills as well as
Speaker 1: bunch of other excellent courses, but he got his start
Speaker 1: at Marion, and I think he learned his craft under
Speaker 1: the influence of Hugh Wilson and in the context of Marion.
Speaker 1: So between nineteen twelve and the nineteen thirties, William Flynn
Speaker 1: and Hugh Wilson made a number of important updates to
Speaker 1: the East Course, molding it into essentially the course that
Speaker 1: we know today, which is one of our top championship venues.
Speaker 1: It's hosted five US opens and is on the schedule
Speaker 1: for twenty thirty twenty forty and twenty fifty. It's also
Speaker 1: hosted six US Amateurs, with the seventh coming up next week.
Speaker 1: All right, that brings us to the East Course itself.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about land design and routing. The first thing
Speaker 1: to know is that the property is very small. It's
Speaker 1: only about one hundred and fifteen acres that's taken up
Speaker 1: by the golf course. By comparison to Oakmont Country Club
Speaker 1: is around two hundred acres. Pinehurst Number two in Shinnakawk
Speaker 1: Hills around the same Marion is much smaller. But the
Speaker 1: routing of the East Course is so good that you
Speaker 1: really don't notice that the property is limited. For example,
Speaker 1: if you look at holes two through nine, they all
Speaker 1: sit in a valley that's about three hundred yards wide
Speaker 1: and nine hundred and fifty yards long, so pretty narrow,
Speaker 1: and there are eight holes packed into this one rectangle.
Speaker 1: The danger here would be ending up with a bunch
Speaker 1: of parallel holes kind of running up and down the valley.
Speaker 1: That's when golfers would notice, you know this, this property
Speaker 1: is pretty small. We're kind of hemmed in here going
Speaker 1: back and forth. But the East Course avoids this in
Speaker 1: a really clever way. Basically, holes two through nine form
Speaker 1: two big overlap loops, so you're always changing direction and
Speaker 1: swirling around the property instead of just bouncing back and forth.
Speaker 1: Another brilliant aspect of Marian's routing is its pacing. Famously,
Speaker 1: the writer Jerry Tardy compared the East Course to a
Speaker 1: three act play, quote the drama of the first six
Speaker 1: demanding holes, the comedy of the next seven, and the
Speaker 1: tragedy of the last five. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: With the exception of the first hole. That opening stretch
Speaker 1: is pretty long and tough. Pulls two and four are
Speaker 1: the only par fives on the course. That's your drama.
Speaker 1: Then you get to the comedy of seven through thirteen,
Speaker 1: lots of short par fours along with the tiny par
Speaker 1: three thirteenth. Then you arrive at the final act fourteen
Speaker 1: through eighteen, just one tough, treacherous hole after another, with
Speaker 1: the last three playing through Marion's iconic quarry. That's your tragedy.
Speaker 1: So every round at the East Course has this structure.
Speaker 1: There's a sense of rising and falling action across the
Speaker 1: eighteen holes, and I think that's a big part of
Speaker 1: what generates this feeling of grandeur insignificance at Marion, even
Speaker 1: though again the property is pretty small. All right. The
Speaker 1: last topic I want to cover in this Marion one
Speaker 1: oh one rundown is why the East Course is still
Speaker 1: a relevant championship venue. At the US Amitter next week,
Speaker 1: the longest that the course is going to play will
Speaker 1: be around six nine and thirty yards, not even seven thousand.
Speaker 1: So how does that even work for a modern championship
Speaker 1: golf course. Well, for one, the East Course repeatedly takes
Speaker 1: driver out of the hands of longer players. There are
Speaker 1: only a few spots where you can go bombs way,
Speaker 1: mostly in the first six holes. Otherwise it's a lot
Speaker 1: of long irons and hybrids to certain landing zones. So
Speaker 1: Marian definitely plays longer than the scorecard indicates, and it's
Speaker 1: pretty hard to overwhelm. Two. The hazards are real hazards.
Speaker 1: The bunkers are shockingly deep and out of bounds, comes
Speaker 1: into play on several holes. This is another factor that
Speaker 1: prevents power hitters from just overwhelming the course with raw strength. Three,
Speaker 1: the greens are tough targets. They're mostly pretty small, many
Speaker 1: of them severely tilted, and the hardest pin positions are
Speaker 1: very very difficult to access. For the fourth and final
Speaker 1: reason why Marion still works as a championship course, we
Speaker 1: have to talk about narrow fair ways and thick rough.
Speaker 1: Even after Gil Hans's renovation works several years ago, the
Speaker 1: ways at Marion East remained quite narrow, much narrower than
Speaker 1: they were in Hugh Wilson and William Flynn's time, and
Speaker 1: the rough is lush, overseeded and dense now. On the
Speaker 1: one hand, I understand why the club does this. It
Speaker 1: keeps scoring in check and it's a deterrent to just
Speaker 1: hitting driver everywhere. On the other hand, it does reduce
Speaker 1: the complexity of the golf course. It shuts down what
Speaker 1: should be what used to be valid strategic angles, and
Speaker 1: it forces play down the middle. Plus I think it
Speaker 1: hurts the course esthetically. The moulling lines just don't really
Speaker 1: match the landforms anymore. But you know, when the governing
Speaker 1: bodies don't regulate equipment effectively, this is what you get.
Speaker 1: It's sad but inevitable. All that said, the East Course
Speaker 1: at Marion is a unique and brilliant golf course, a
Speaker 1: precision golf course, a great test of playing ability, and
Speaker 1: it offers a lot of lessons for anyone interested in
Speaker 1: golf architecture. Okay, so those are the basics. Let's go
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper. And for that there's really no
Speaker 1: one else to bring on than Wayne Morrison. Wayne is
Speaker 1: the author of the definitive William Flynn biography, The Nature Faker,
Speaker 1: and he also happens to be a member of Marian
Speaker 1: Golf Club, so his knowledge of the East Course is
Speaker 1: really second to none. All right, let's bring him on.
Speaker 1: All right, Wayne Morrison is here. Wayne, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming on, Welcome back to the podcast. You're welcome.
Speaker 2: Good to be with you.
Speaker 1: Indeed, welcome back to the podcast. Well, you have been
Speaker 1: on the Friday Golf Podcast a couple of times, including
Speaker 1: one time with me, and you've also been on various
Speaker 1: videos of ours. So you've been very generous with your
Speaker 1: time and your expertise.
Speaker 2: I'll let people know right the bat that that you
Speaker 2: are you know pretty much undoubtedly the world's leading William
Speaker 2: Flynn expert. Your book, The Nature Faker is a great
Speaker 2: resource for anybody looking into William Flynn designed courses and
Speaker 2: courses that have elements of William Flynn design, which is
Speaker 2: the category that the East Course at Marion Golf Club
Speaker 2: falls into. So, Wayne, you're going to help me dig
Speaker 2: a little deeper into the architecture and history of the
Speaker 2: East Course. First, we'll talk about the elements of the
Speaker 2: course itself, so land routing, hazards, grains, design philosophy, and
Speaker 2: the you know, some of the renovations that have been
Speaker 2: done in the past and recently. Then in the latter
Speaker 2: part of our conversation, well, we'll dig a bit more
Speaker 2: into the history, but I do want to start with
Speaker 2: discussing the golf course from an architectural perspective, from a
Speaker 2: design perspective, essentially as it stands today, starting with its
Speaker 2: land with its So, Wayne, could you just describe in
Speaker 2: a basic way the property that the East Course at
Speaker 2: Marion currently occupies. Yeah, so the club itself sits on
Speaker 2: about one hundred and twenty acres, but that includes the clubhouse,
Speaker 2: the parking lot, and a driving range which we purchased
Speaker 2: from the land we purchased from harf for College in
Speaker 2: the sixties, So that's about fifteen or so acres. So
Speaker 2: the whole thing being on one hundred and twenty five acres,
Speaker 2: only about one hundred and one hundred and ten acres
Speaker 2: or the golf course, which is very small footprint for
Speaker 2: what's considered a championship golf course and remains a championship
Speaker 2: golf course. It's L shaped, which is kind of it
Speaker 2: sort of dictates, you know, what the routing can possibly be.
Speaker 2: You can't have you can't have too many holes going
Speaker 2: in the axis of the you know, the shorter lengths
Speaker 2: of the L. So it just happens to fit. I mean,
Speaker 2: it just happens to work, and a little bit lucky
Speaker 2: in that regard, but there's nothing wrong with luck when
Speaker 2: it comes to golf design. I'm sure there are other
Speaker 2: examples where the boundaries of the site were fixed and
Speaker 2: the golf just happened to fit very well in there.
Speaker 2: So so that land is ideal for golf. There's about
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifteen feet of elevation change overall from
Speaker 2: the low point on the golf course is the eleventh green,
Speaker 2: and not surprising that a lot of balls sort of,
Speaker 2: you know, throughout the golf course tend to have, you know,
Speaker 2: a more of a direct you know, more of a break,
Speaker 2: and more of a speed as they go to the
Speaker 2: eleventh green. And the high point is the fifteenth Green.
Speaker 2: So in between there there's some parallel holes, but you
Speaker 2: don't get any sense of parallelism. There are other courses
Speaker 2: that we're all familiar with where you definitely know there's
Speaker 2: there're parallel holes and you're playing up in back and
Speaker 2: it gets a little bit routine, but not at Marion
Speaker 2: because they're on different elevations, go in different directions. And
Speaker 2: one of the fascinating things, I mean, and superintendents have
Speaker 2: confirmed this with me. For whatever reason, the wind is
Speaker 2: always changing at Marion. You could plays, as you well know,
Speaker 2: the only two par fives on the golf course, or
Speaker 2: the second and the fourth holes, they go in opposite directions.
Speaker 2: But it's uncanny how you could have the same wind.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't get it.
Speaker 3: It's just some some sort of uh, you know, nuance
Speaker 3: and and kind of you know, unusual circumstance that the
Speaker 3: wind shifts so much at Marion.
Speaker 2: It kind of seems like shirl, doesn't it, Like it's
Speaker 2: a you know, yeah, the the biggest part of the property,
Speaker 2: the part of the property that the front nine occupies,
Speaker 2: is effectively a valley, right, and so you know, the
Speaker 2: wind kind of gets down in there and it might
Speaker 2: be bouncing off some things, and it's yeah, it really does.
Speaker 2: I mean the creek along the left side of the
Speaker 2: fifth holes where you know is the low point there,
Speaker 2: that's the valley you're talking about. So what that valley
Speaker 2: does is it creates some different levels and different you know,
Speaker 2: so you don't get a scent, you don't get a
Speaker 2: monotony or a sense of you know, I've played this
Speaker 2: hole before. Things are very different there.
Speaker 1: The topography itself, you know, there are valleys, there is
Speaker 1: a general slope right, the high point, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: is the fifteenth grain. The low point is the eleventh grain,
Speaker 1: so that there is a general push towards certain parts
Speaker 1: of the property. But it's not as though the course
Speaker 1: sits on a hillside, right, It is rolling, which I
Speaker 1: think is is really what suits it to a golf course,
Speaker 1: right that the that the topography isn't doing just one thing,
Speaker 1: It's doing a lot of different things over over the
Speaker 1: course of of the of the site.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's kind of interesting when you think about,
Speaker 2: you know, Marian was in a lot of ways. The
Speaker 2: the the influence on the Shinnacock Shinnecock relies on triangulation
Speaker 2: of wind. Marian doesn't have to rely on that because,
Speaker 2: as you said, the way the wind plays in that valley,
Speaker 2: you know, creates a lot of different kinds of influences
Speaker 2: on on this, on the on the golfer and how
Speaker 2: they play and how they play that it's and they're
Speaker 2: not having you know, not having flags, having baskets. You
Speaker 2: got to really be careful in how you assess what
Speaker 2: the wind is, both the intensity and the and the direction.
Speaker 1: Great. All right, So now that we have kind of
Speaker 1: an idea of of the basic you know, terrain topography,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the routing. You mentioned already that there's
Speaker 1: there's uh, you know, you don't feel as though you're
Speaker 1: playing parallel holes, even though if you look at the
Speaker 1: course from above there there clearly are parallel holes. How
Speaker 1: does the routing at the at the East course basically work.
Speaker 1: What's kind of the tactic of the routing to get
Speaker 1: the golfer through these different sections of the property.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. And really that routing creates a
Speaker 2: rhythm and flow to the golf course which I think
Speaker 2: is unmatched in any other golf course. You've heard the
Speaker 2: story about the three act play at Marion where The
Speaker 2: first hole is sort of a well, it's a not
Speaker 2: so gentle handshake because there's thirteen bunkers, right, But you know,
Speaker 2: it's a short haul that requires a lot of precision.
Speaker 2: The next five holes are long and challenging based on
Speaker 2: length and also topographic changes. And obviously, I mean the
Speaker 2: real challenge is at the greens.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's why a golf course that's only sixty eight hundred
Speaker 2: yards or I guess you can push it out to
Speaker 2: sixty nine ninety six if you have one foot in
Speaker 2: the rough on the back of every tee is still
Speaker 2: a challenge to the best players in the world, and
Speaker 2: yet still enjoyably difficult for you know, a range of golfers.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to if I was a beginning golfer,
Speaker 2: I'm not so sure i'd want to, you know, start
Speaker 2: playing the East course. But we have the West Course,
Speaker 2: which is nice in any case. So I was talking
Speaker 2: about the rhythm and flow. It happens to work, but
Speaker 2: it's it breaks a lot of principles. The only two
Speaker 2: par fives are the second and fourth holes, and and
Speaker 2: they're long and demanding par fives. But in some regard
Speaker 2: that's one of you know, you think about Flynn and
Speaker 2: hit the influences on Flynn's design practices. A lot of
Speaker 2: the best courses are only two par fives par seventies.
Speaker 2: They those courses hold up to championship play a lot
Speaker 2: better than four par fives, because especially in these days,
Speaker 2: you know, if you if you have four par fives,
Speaker 2: the tour pros are going to be starting off ten
Speaker 2: under par for the you know, for the four rounds. Anyway,
Speaker 2: that's not the case when you only have two par fives.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of interesting that the two par fives
Speaker 2: on the are the are in the first four holes.
Speaker 2: But it's not like all of a sudden like where
Speaker 2: as a par fives on the rest of the round.
Speaker 2: The rhythm and flow keeps you really centered and focused.
Speaker 2: So there are three three acts to Marian Again, I
Speaker 2: talked about the first hole being short, but it's kind
Speaker 2: of nerve wracking anyway, because you're hitting in front of
Speaker 2: all these people sitting in the upper terrace having lunch
Speaker 2: ten feet away from it. Yeah, it's kind of a prologue,
Speaker 2: is how I like to put it. Yeah, the first
Speaker 2: hole is a prologue, and it feels that way, not
Speaker 2: only because it's short, but because it's on the clubhouse
Speaker 2: side of the property. After the first green, you cross
Speaker 2: Ardmore Avenue and you get to the second hole, and
Speaker 2: that that that's when the first act in this three
Speaker 2: act structure really begins, and that first act is.
Speaker 1: Tough and dramatic. Jerry Party, who came up with this
Speaker 1: three act concept, said that this was the drama portion
Speaker 1: of the play.
Speaker 2: Brilliant ret Marion, so it really brought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that's a really it's a really good It's
Speaker 1: it's been used a lot to describe Marian so obviously
Speaker 1: it's been sticky. So you get through that first act,
Speaker 1: which is which is the drama section, then you get
Speaker 1: to the seventh te and where does it go from there?
Speaker 1: How does how did the acts play out from there?
Speaker 1: So from between seven and thirteen from the member tees
Speaker 1: the white teas that you know, there's no hole over
Speaker 1: four hundred yards. But to me, I think it starts
Speaker 1: building towards the finishing the back five, because the back
Speaker 1: five to me, I don't I can't think of another one,
Speaker 1: maybe Carnousti, but I think it falls short of the
Speaker 1: hardest finishing golf. So the middle section seven through thirteen.
Speaker 1: That's called comedy because it whereas the original, you know,
Speaker 1: the first six holes requires a lot of length demands
Speaker 1: and controlling your shot shape and.
Speaker 2: How you approach the greens. The middle holes are all
Speaker 2: relatively short, but precision is elevated. You have to be
Speaker 2: really precise. It's you're not gonna there's no way to
Speaker 2: score from the rough, so you really have to play
Speaker 2: for the fair way, and that kind of changes people's minds.
Speaker 2: It was amazing how few drivers people and you know
Speaker 2: use in the in the in you know, the US
Speaker 2: Open or high level amateur play. So that makes the
Speaker 2: courus at sixties eight hundred yards or whatever they're going
Speaker 2: to play at play a lot longer because you're not
Speaker 2: bombing three hundred yard drives on on the bar fours
Speaker 2: and the bar fives. There's nothing it's you know, easy,
Speaker 2: there's nothing that's simplistic about the design. It was sort
Speaker 2: of if you think it's relentless, isn't it. It's every
Speaker 2: shot is is tough, not in the sense that every
Speaker 2: shot is necessarily but there's complexity and discomfort to pretty
Speaker 2: much every shot you hit on this course.
Speaker 1: And I think to bring it back to routing. A
Speaker 1: lot of that is down to the routing of the
Speaker 1: golf course because you're never playing the same type of
Speaker 1: hole twice. The amount of variety that the routing finds
Speaker 1: in this very small property is really impressive. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was I think the only way for Hugh Wilson
Speaker 1: and William Flynn to solve the puzzle of how to
Speaker 1: route eighteen holes on this property in this particular way.
Speaker 1: Each hole is different, each hole gives you some new
Speaker 1: kind of issue to confront, and it all fits in
Speaker 1: really tightly. And that's kind of the magic of the
Speaker 1: routing of the East course at at Marion. I think
Speaker 1: that's probably why people say that it's one of the
Speaker 1: best routings, if not the best routing in the world
Speaker 1: of golf. Don't you think? Is that?
Speaker 2: Is that kind of like, I mean, why why is
Speaker 2: it that you what's your general take on, you know,
Speaker 2: where this routing kind of ranks among the routings of.
Speaker 1: Golf courses that you've seen all of them?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll expand on that a little bit. I think
Speaker 2: William Flynn was the best router of golf courses in America.
Speaker 2: He would take up he was a first of all
Speaker 2: a really quick study. Now he didn't he didn't route
Speaker 2: the golf course, but he learned about routing. Mary. This
Speaker 2: was sort of his his uh school guess yeah right,
Speaker 2: and you and Hugh Wilson was his professor. Souh. If
Speaker 2: you look at so the routing. One of the aspects
Speaker 2: of the routing that's very hard to discern unless you've
Speaker 2: played it a thousand plus times like I have, is
Speaker 2: the elevation changes. They're not that evident. If you're standing
Speaker 2: on the third T and you look at the third
Speaker 2: green and then you look out, you have to cross
Speaker 2: over this from the second green to the third T,
Speaker 2: you have to cross over the sixth hole. But if
Speaker 2: you're standing on the third T, it looks like the
Speaker 2: third green is twenty feet higher in elevation than the
Speaker 2: sixth screen, which is way out there. In actuality, the
Speaker 2: sixth green is ten feet higher in elevation than the
Speaker 2: third green. To me, that's a classic example of what
Speaker 2: Flynn learned it, Marian, and what he practiced later on
Speaker 2: is your eye has a lot of difficulty in judging
Speaker 2: elevation changes over long distance, and a lot of that
Speaker 2: has to do with what he learned there. It's just
Speaker 2: it's incredible how how many times really good golfers are
Speaker 2: short on their approaches to both five and six. Actually
Speaker 2: they're both elevated from the approach shots. The other thing
Speaker 2: at the other aspect that I think is really interesting
Speaker 2: about the routing is how again it hearkens back to
Speaker 2: what the rhythm and flow of the golf course is.
Speaker 2: You have drama, you have comedy, then you have tragedy.
Speaker 2: So what goes on in your head while you're playing
Speaker 2: the short holes the seven through thirteen is geez, I
Speaker 2: better get some good scores in because I know I'm
Speaker 2: going to have trouble at the end, and for whatever
Speaker 2: reason psychologically, that really affects you. So a hole that
Speaker 2: might be if it was somewhere else in the routing
Speaker 2: or the routing progression was a little bit different, it
Speaker 2: has a different effect on you because of where it
Speaker 2: is in the position. You know, the out of bounds
Speaker 2: is on the right hand side on the front nine.
Speaker 2: Out of bounds is on the left hand side on
Speaker 2: the back nine. So you really, you know, singles, if
Speaker 2: you can shape your shot, you're rewarded tremendously.
Speaker 1: So your discussion of out of bounds can bring us
Speaker 1: to Marion's hazards. So, first of all, out of bounds
Speaker 1: is a significant hazard at Maryon. It comes very much
Speaker 1: into play on several holes, and so you know, what
Speaker 1: do you think the impact of that is? How do
Speaker 1: the holes use those boundaries lines? Well, some of it
Speaker 1: are more strategic than others. I mean, the second hole,
Speaker 1: the long part uphill par five, you got to keep
Speaker 1: it left, you know, you got to keep it left
Speaker 1: of the of the street, and that's you know, Ardmore Avenue.
Speaker 2: But there's not that much difference between You're not rewarded
Speaker 2: so much for playing on the you know, close to
Speaker 2: the out of bounds there, but on the on the
Speaker 2: for instance, the next hole that goes in that direction
Speaker 2: would be the sixth hole, and there's out of bounds
Speaker 2: on the right. But the closer you play to the
Speaker 2: out of bounds on the sixth hole, you play over
Speaker 2: the sort of sight line bunker on the right short right.
Speaker 2: I mean, why is that bunker there? It doesn't really
Speaker 2: it shouldn't come into play. It won't come into play
Speaker 2: for the amateurs and touring pros that come here. But
Speaker 2: if you hit it over that bunker, you're rewarded with
Speaker 2: a turbot boost. It hits the backside of a slope
Speaker 2: and it shoots down there, and which is a really long,
Speaker 2: difficult approach, becomes a little bit easier if you play
Speaker 2: close to the out of bounds. That's also true on
Speaker 2: the seventh and eighth holes, which will go in the
Speaker 2: same direction. Really, the ideal line on the seventh hole
Speaker 2: is the right edge of the green. But it's kind
Speaker 2: of funny Ben Hogan played to the left side of
Speaker 2: that green. He hit three wood off the tee every time,
Speaker 2: and there's a little flat area he needs the size
Speaker 2: of a dining room table, maybe maybe smaller than that
Speaker 2: size of a kitchen table. And they supposedly Hogan's five
Speaker 2: divots were all within an eight foot circle there. He
Speaker 2: wanted to come from the left side. There's more visibility
Speaker 2: on the right, and you know, the green basically flows
Speaker 2: front to back, but Hogan had to play over the
Speaker 2: fronting the big gaping bunker that's on the front left
Speaker 2: of that green. I still to this day can't figure
Speaker 2: out why he decided to do that, but obviously it
Speaker 2: worked for him. Then on the eighth hole, you have
Speaker 2: a deep bunker right and a deep bunker left further down,
Speaker 2: so it's short right and farther left. You can't tell,
Speaker 2: I mean, first time playing it, but you really want
Speaker 2: to hit over that right bunker. There's fair way behind it,
Speaker 2: and it's by far the best angle into the green.
Speaker 2: But it brings that bunker into play, and it also
Speaker 2: brings the out of bounds into play. Out of bounds
Speaker 2: then also comes into play on the fifteenth hole. I
Speaker 2: guess it is four fourteen and fifty, yeah, fourteen. It's
Speaker 2: you know, the drive can be essentially a lot of
Speaker 2: longer players hit their ball well over the out of
Speaker 2: bounds and kind of bring it into the fairway, especially
Speaker 2: the left, the lefties for sure. Absolutely. Sergio Garcia in
Speaker 2: the twenty and thirteen Open was sixteen over on fourteen
Speaker 2: and fifteen and finished fifteen over And then you get
Speaker 2: to sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen. That all played through a quarry,
Speaker 2: and it's funny. One of the original guys was on
Speaker 2: the site committee to determine where to put the you know,
Speaker 2: where to locate the golf course. He argued that we
Speaker 2: can't use this site because you know how much money
Speaker 2: it'll cost to fill in the quarry. So yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker 2: It wasn't really, Uh, it wasn't you know, initially imagined
Speaker 2: that that would be such a great golf feature.
Speaker 1: It wasn't obvious that that this should just be incorporated
Speaker 1: into the golf course because obviously it was a you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's not. A quarry is not necessarily considered
Speaker 1: a wonderful natural feature because by definition it is it
Speaker 1: is not natural. But that actually, you know, the quarry
Speaker 1: is one of Marion's major hazards. You know, since we're
Speaker 1: talking about the hazard of out of boundary, the quarry
Speaker 1: is is a significant hazard. Now, the story that I
Speaker 1: heard while I was at Marion, and you can say
Speaker 1: whether this is true or not, is that a lot
Speaker 1: of the rock that was mined from that quarry was
Speaker 1: then used to build the houses Uh in the in
Speaker 1: the suburb around Marion Golf Club. Is there any truth
Speaker 1: to that story?
Speaker 2: Uh, It's an often quoted story, but it is just
Speaker 2: that it's a story that that quarry wash was abandoned,
Speaker 2: you know, when the before the golf course was built,
Speaker 2: before the homes were built, So that was a pre
Speaker 2: existing quarry mhm. But the interesting thing about that is,
Speaker 2: you know, the entrance from sixteenth you know, the approach
Speaker 2: from the fairway to the sixteenth green. They had a
Speaker 2: blast the rock that really went. They had to open
Speaker 2: up that green. So they blasted and and chiseled or
Speaker 2: did whatever they did to to uh, to remove the
Speaker 2: that that that that rock wall, so to speak, to
Speaker 2: create the opening, which is a little like what Flynn
Speaker 2: did at Shinnacock on the eleventh hall that he had.
Speaker 2: He had to remove a lot of that sloping you know,
Speaker 2: the left to right slope of that, you know, to
Speaker 2: open up the green right, Yeah, what.
Speaker 1: Completely blind if they had not chopped off some of
Speaker 1: that big ridge that kind of comes now diagonally across
Speaker 1: the green there. So yeah, certainly some earth moving had
Speaker 1: to be done in both cases. Now, as far as
Speaker 1: hazards that Marian are concerned, out of bounds in the
Speaker 1: quarry or certainly the most terrifying ones, I guess. But
Speaker 1: then you have the bunkers, so you know what was
Speaker 1: you know, how do you characterize Wilson's and Flynn's approach
Speaker 1: to bunkering Marion not only positioning the bunkers but shaping
Speaker 1: them as well. Oh, that's a terrific question, because there
Speaker 1: it is. It is so different than what was going
Speaker 1: on at the same time, you know, when the course
Speaker 1: was being built. It really was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you compare it to any contemporary course, just
Speaker 2: the approach to bunkering esthetically and strategically quite different. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I think some of that has to do with
Speaker 2: Wilson going overseas and looking at the bunkering. There's the
Speaker 2: sort of and it's a true story that when Wilson
Speaker 2: went overseas to look at the bunkering after the golf
Speaker 2: course was seated, he was so enthralled with the ideas
Speaker 2: that he was coming up with that he canceled his
Speaker 2: trip back, you know, back home, and that was on
Speaker 2: the Titanic, so he gave up his tickets on the
Speaker 2: Titanic to see golf. But the difference between the bunkering
Speaker 2: of what was going on with McDonald and what was
Speaker 2: going on with some of the itinerants scott, Scottish and
Speaker 2: British architects was was was really revolutionary because on heavy
Speaker 2: clay soil they built some really natural looking bunkers. You know,
Speaker 2: they don't look like bathtubs, they don't they look like
Speaker 2: wind or water erosion created the bunkers. So they took it,
Speaker 2: and that was mostly Flynn because the original bunkering.
Speaker 1: Was not that.
Speaker 2: I did not have that sort of uh naturalized appearance,
Speaker 2: natural appearance exactly, flat bottoms, grass faces. That's that's what
Speaker 2: was going on back then. They were you know, they
Speaker 2: were to do that on heavy clay soil, though, required
Speaker 2: a lot of time and effort, and that that's one
Speaker 2: of the things that if you're if you're a member
Speaker 2: of a club and you're doing it for your club,
Speaker 2: you will spend the time you're there all you know,
Speaker 2: it's not like you're going from one site to another.
Speaker 2: They spent a lot of time on site when Flynn
Speaker 2: was you know, he moved here and stayed here, so there.
Speaker 2: The bunker approach they took had white face, the white
Speaker 2: faces of marine, you know, the the raised sand faces.
Speaker 2: But the other thing that they did, I think and
Speaker 2: remains to this day very demanding, is the contoured bottoms
Speaker 2: of the bunkers. You don't get a level lying on
Speaker 2: just about any any of the bunkers. You're always have
Speaker 2: a dance that's a little bit awkward. And they're deep too,
Speaker 2: so but the one thing in this, and gil Hans
Speaker 2: taught me this. The scale of the bunkering is ideal.
Speaker 2: You don't have a lot of trees, there's not, so
Speaker 2: there's a lot of open ground. And the bunkers are
Speaker 2: huge and if on long hauls, really big bunkers don't
Speaker 2: look that big until you get up near them. They
Speaker 2: sort of have you know, they fit the other sort
Speaker 2: of the design aesthetic that you think of. But there,
Speaker 2: I mean to me, the scale of things, the scale
Speaker 2: of the hazards, and there you are really brilliant, and
Speaker 2: they were ideally located. There's still except for the when
Speaker 2: we moved the second green to where Flynn proposed it,
Speaker 2: excuse me, and they move the bunkers down range a
Speaker 2: little bit. The bunkers that there are today are the
Speaker 2: same bunkering that was used, you know, back in the twenties,
Speaker 2: teens and twenties. I mean, I can't think of a
Speaker 2: better bunker golf course. But you know, I've got informed
Speaker 2: bias that probably shows all more than off more often
Speaker 2: than not.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would agree with you
Speaker 1: on that. Aside, There we go. Let's get to the greens.
Speaker 1: The greens that at Marion are are a big source
Speaker 1: of of it's difficulty, of course for sure, and also
Speaker 1: of its interest. So how would you go about describing
Speaker 1: the design approach the architectural aspect of Marion East's greens.
Speaker 1: They make it makes it very difficult to to read.
Speaker 1: We have some of the best caddies, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a real professional caddy program, and what you think the
Speaker 1: butt should do is often not the opposite of what
Speaker 1: it does. So I said, listen, you know, listen to
Speaker 1: your caddy there. You know there's gonna be times where
Speaker 1: it looks like it's going to break left and it
Speaker 1: breaks right. Even you know, there was so many examples
Speaker 1: of where Phil Mickelson.
Speaker 2: Didn't really well. I wonder if he's going to listen
Speaker 2: to this. I can almost guarantee you that he's not okay,
Speaker 2: that he just misread putts six foot putts. He misread.
Speaker 2: Some of that has to do with the way the
Speaker 2: greens sit in the overall topography, but some of it
Speaker 2: also has to do with grain, and there there is
Speaker 2: there is grain in the greens. The interesting thing is
Speaker 2: if you have an overall down slope to the to
Speaker 2: the hole itself, and you change the downs and you
Speaker 2: change it just a little bit. So if you if
Speaker 2: you raise, you know, if you change the greens, it's
Speaker 2: still a back to it's still a front to back slope,
Speaker 2: but it's slightly softer than the overall topography around it.
Speaker 2: Your eye here, we're going back to perspective again. Your
Speaker 2: eye looks like it's severely back to front. So you
Speaker 2: so the second hole, the fourth hole, the eighth hole
Speaker 2: that it's all like that, you mean, the seventh hole,
Speaker 2: the putts that look like they're really slow or you know,
Speaker 2: go racing past the hole, and holes that look like
Speaker 2: they're you know, screaming fast, you know, stop short of
Speaker 2: the whole. And that's because it's hard to read what
Speaker 2: the slopes of those greens are given the surrounds of
Speaker 2: those greens. Yeah, and if I design, I kind of
Speaker 2: think so because there's so many examples of it and there,
Speaker 2: and there are other examples of it on other golf
Speaker 2: courses that Flynn was associated with. Yeah, Sneacock Hills kind
Speaker 2: of has has some of this characteristic that you're talking
Speaker 2: about of the you know, long, more gradual, intersecting slopes.
Speaker 2: And I want to highlight how important that is. What
Speaker 2: you're saying about the style of Marian's greens, because you know,
Speaker 2: you have other examples of Golden Age green design that
Speaker 2: are not that right. There were designers who much preferred
Speaker 2: to have kind of sharp internal contours, shells and gullies
Speaker 2: and you know, contours that were easy to see because
Speaker 2: they were big and severe. A lot of McDonald and
Speaker 2: Rayner greens had these kinds of contours. A lot of
Speaker 2: mackenzie greens, although they took a more natural approach, generally,
Speaker 2: had had these characteristics as well. Then you get to
Speaker 2: somebody like Perry Maxwell and and he loved these these
Speaker 2: sort of rounded slopes in the middle of greens Maxwell rolls,
Speaker 2: as they're often called. But again, you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: interior contour. What Flynn did at Mayor well, what Wilson
Speaker 2: and Flynn did at Marian Sorry, and what Flynn then
Speaker 2: went on to do at Shannahawk Hills is is kind
Speaker 2: of build greens that that have more gradual slopes, even
Speaker 2: if they're very significant slopes there, they don't announce themselves
Speaker 2: and and so but then they kind of run into
Speaker 2: each other and go in different directions so that they're
Speaker 2: they're very hard to read. And if if you're in
Speaker 2: for a private club that you want a long learning curve?
Speaker 2: You mean, well, I mean I do anyway. Yet you know,
Speaker 2: if things are really overt and easily discerned, you just
Speaker 2: have to make sure you get the right speed because
Speaker 2: you know what the break is going to be. You know,
Speaker 2: it gets to be a little bit. The learning curve
Speaker 2: is not as steep, or sorry it's steep, it's not
Speaker 2: as long. I think there are the greens themselves, I
Speaker 2: think are there are really? Why at sixty eight hundred
Speaker 2: yards sixty nine hundred yards from the very tips? Why
Speaker 2: that golf course still challenges the pros today and the amateurs.
Speaker 2: But the thing that's different about the Greens than the
Speaker 2: last US Open or the last amateur we add is
Speaker 2: that there's a technology system under the greens. It's precision air,
Speaker 2: so it's the air conditioning, heating, vacuuming and blowing, so
Speaker 2: they could you know, our superintendent is as good as
Speaker 2: it gets. He can manipulate the greens to provide whatever
Speaker 2: he whatever he wants. And and these this era of
Speaker 2: where we have really strong brief showers, the golf course
Speaker 2: uh you know is uh can be managed and playable
Speaker 2: whereas you know, for the old push up greens that
Speaker 2: we had, there was, there was they each green responded
Speaker 2: a little bit differently, dried out a little bit differently.
Speaker 2: To me, that adds some challenge and and the adaptability
Speaker 2: of the golfer is is more into play. But I
Speaker 2: do think the greed that Marion, you know, Flynn's learning,
Speaker 2: you know what he did at Marion. I see there's
Speaker 2: three phases of design at Marion. There's Hugh Wilson, there's
Speaker 2: Hugh Wilson and Flynn, and then there's Flynn. But it's
Speaker 2: easy to see the influence that Marion has on all
Speaker 2: these other courses, Shinnacock being a great one right where
Speaker 2: the sixth thall at uh Marion is is similar in
Speaker 2: concept that the fourteenth at Shinnakok, for instance. But as
Speaker 2: you brought up earlier, you know, it's the interplays of slopes,
Speaker 2: it's the it's the angles. We didn't really talk about that.
Speaker 2: The angles you have to play are you know, they're
Speaker 2: really well defined to me. The first doll at Marion
Speaker 2: is a really great example where you really need to
Speaker 2: play on the outside of the dog leg because the
Speaker 2: green is on a diagonal, so it's an offset green.
Speaker 2: The fairway is pretty much straight away. But most architects
Speaker 2: want you to play, you know, reward you for cutting
Speaker 2: the dog leg. In this case, you really you have
Speaker 2: a lack of visibility of the green because of the
Speaker 2: top line of the of the crossbunker, and you're also
Speaker 2: coming into the green from a shallow angle. But if
Speaker 2: you play towards the hazards on the left, the bunkers,
Speaker 2: the really deep demanding bunkers on the left, if you can,
Speaker 2: if you can skirt those and stay really close to those,
Speaker 2: you have you have a better view of the green.
Speaker 2: And you also are playing into the long axis of
Speaker 2: the green. So we talked about you know how marian
Speaker 2: requires a lot of strategic thought and as well as execution.
Speaker 2: There's some counterintuitive designs that I think also for people
Speaker 2: off a little bit too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what you expect to be the ideal position just
Speaker 1: looking at it from the tee, even as somebody may
Speaker 1: be informed about how strategic angles usually work, often turns
Speaker 1: out not to be the case once you get up
Speaker 1: there and actually actually see the shots. So it is
Speaker 1: a it is certainly a tricky golf course. And you
Speaker 1: know the word that keeps coming to mind for me.
Speaker 1: I mentioned it earlier is relentless. It is. It's relentless,
Speaker 1: not only in terms of its difficulty, but in terms
Speaker 1: of the strategic problem solving that you're faced with on
Speaker 1: every single hole. And we sort of transitioned at this
Speaker 1: point to talking about the kind of general design philosophy
Speaker 1: at Marian. There is there is this balance at Marian,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's not a balance. I guess it's two
Speaker 1: goals pursued equally aggressively toward championship golf difficulty challenge for
Speaker 1: for high level players, but also strategic golf. That was
Speaker 1: the intent when when Philadelphia was playing New York and
Speaker 1: Boston in inner city matches, we were getting hammered, and
Speaker 1: because we didn't have great golf courses. Again we were
Speaker 1: a little bit much later than New York and much
Speaker 1: later than Boston and developing them. So really the primary
Speaker 1: motivation between but.
Speaker 2: With Marion and Van pine Valley a couple of years later,
Speaker 2: was we got to start building champion designing and building
Speaker 2: championship golf courses. To build championship golfers, there's difficulty, and
Speaker 2: there's enjoyable difficulty. I think Marian's enjoyably difficult. There are
Speaker 2: some courses which I won't name, there are just long,
Speaker 2: boring slogs, and it's easy to design a difficult golf course.
Speaker 2: It's not easy to design an enjoyably difficult golf course.
Speaker 2: Versus is that most classes of players can play. I'm
Speaker 2: not saying Marian is good for everybody. It's a very
Speaker 2: tough course for for youngsters and for women because the
Speaker 2: rough is always demanding and some of the some of
Speaker 2: the carries you have to make are really demanding. That's
Speaker 2: why they had the ladies aid on sixteen that a
Speaker 2: lot of women can't carry the the one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty five yards uphill, usually into the wind, to uh
Speaker 2: to the green, So they play around and it's a
Speaker 2: part five for them. I have, I have. I just
Speaker 2: think that there was there was a design intent to
Speaker 2: make this a championship golf course, but somewhere underlying that,
Speaker 2: either by hap hazards or by design, they made it
Speaker 2: so it was. It was an interesting and different and
Speaker 2: challenging golf course. One thing that we didn't talk about
Speaker 2: it's in terms of hazards. Are the streams? Yeah, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: the streams come into play, not on a lot of holes.
Speaker 2: There's you know, there's not a lot of water on
Speaker 2: the golf course, but where they come in, they're really
Speaker 2: they're really strategic. You know. Cobbs Creek, it's really interesting.
Speaker 2: Cobbs Creek is is the creek that runs through Marion,
Speaker 2: but it also runs through McCall field Club, and it
Speaker 2: also runs through Cobbs Creek. The golf courses, so those
Speaker 2: are courses that Flynn and Wilson had varying degrees of
Speaker 2: input on, but all of them, you know, all of
Speaker 2: them have Cobbs Creek going through them. So there's some
Speaker 2: halls where the where the streams are parallel to the hole,
Speaker 2: like the fifth hole, there are streams. There are holes
Speaker 2: like the fourth Hall that the stream fronts the greens,
Speaker 2: and then there's holes like the eleventh Hall where the
Speaker 2: stream semi circle you know, covers half the you know,
Speaker 2: covers half of the of the green, of the three
Speaker 2: hundred and sixties one hundred and eighty degrees around the green.
Speaker 2: The fifth hole, the fairway cants pretty hard right to
Speaker 2: left the green. The it's a really long, demanding hole.
Speaker 2: It's five oho nine from the back tee and the
Speaker 2: and the fairway tilts right to left the entire way,
Speaker 2: and the green tilts right to left as well, but
Speaker 2: it levels off a little bit right before the creek.
Speaker 2: So if you know, the best angle into that green
Speaker 2: is from the left, you know, play skirt close to
Speaker 2: the creek, you have a level line. The greens slopes towards,
Speaker 2: you know, is sloping right to left, so you're hitting
Speaker 2: into the to the slope. So I think the streams
Speaker 2: are used brilliantly. I didn't, you know, I kind of
Speaker 2: didn't occur to me right away, but Ramar set want
Speaker 2: the kind of conversation with him, and he thought Flynn
Speaker 2: was the best designer, the best utilizer of streams, especially
Speaker 2: on diagonals, and uh yeah, I think you know, he
Speaker 2: learned a lot of that at at at Marion.
Speaker 1: So one thing that people will notice in the upcoming
Speaker 1: US Amateur is the the course will look different than
Speaker 1: what they remember from the twenty thirteen US Open. So
Speaker 1: I just like to briefly touch on the recent round
Speaker 1: of renovation work that was done at Marion, I think
Speaker 1: primarily in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen by Gill Hants.
Speaker 1: What were just you know, high level view what were
Speaker 1: the basic goals of that work. So I mean we
Speaker 1: could talk about subsurface and above ground work. The subsurface,
Speaker 1: we talked about the precision air and precision air, et cetera,
Speaker 1: managing the firmness and the speed of the greens because
Speaker 1: up until that point, Marion had its original push up
Speaker 1: greens effectively right, but.
Speaker 2: XGD drainage in some of the greens. We have it
Speaker 2: in some of the fairways too, But they were the
Speaker 2: original push up greens and they worked really well. But
Speaker 2: we lose you know, the conditions of the golf course
Speaker 2: in July and August. That's you know, Philadelphia in July
Speaker 2: and August is hot and humid. We we would have
Speaker 2: significant condition of UH concerns during that period of time.
Speaker 2: Now it's it's you know, in championship condition every day.
Speaker 2: It's not it's not cheap to do that, but but
Speaker 2: the but the will and the and the ability to
Speaker 2: do it is there.
Speaker 1: So that's the subsurface aspect of the renovation. What was
Speaker 1: the above ground above ground.
Speaker 2: Was there was very little, you know, change in the bunkering,
Speaker 2: but the but the surrounds of the bunkers, they got
Speaker 2: rid of a lot of the fescue that wasn't original.
Speaker 2: It was kind of I mean, it had a good
Speaker 2: look to it, and and uh, it's there's something to
Speaker 2: be said. And you know, when the sun's going down
Speaker 2: and the textures and colors are you know, varied around
Speaker 2: the golf course, and the way the wind would blow
Speaker 2: the tall rescue, it was just a real serene kind
Speaker 2: of look. Now today it's it's more it's more finished
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. But the bunkering except on
Speaker 2: two is except for the string of pearls bunkering on
Speaker 2: the right and the really big bunker that when one
Speaker 2: you never want to get into. On the left side,
Speaker 2: beyond the trees, they're in the same spot. They might
Speaker 2: be a little bit deeper. They have better billy bunker now,
Speaker 2: so which comes into play because you know, again we
Speaker 2: have more short, shorter time periods of really heavy rains
Speaker 2: and we don't get the washouts that we used to have,
Speaker 2: so the but you know, the white faces are still there.
Speaker 2: Jim Wager did a wonderful job in edging the bunkers,
Speaker 2: you know, the creating the you know, the sort of
Speaker 2: interest in in the sort of ragged shapes to the
Speaker 2: edge of the bunkers. The fairway lines have not really
Speaker 2: have not really been changed at all. They put some
Speaker 2: new back teas in, so there's a new back te
Speaker 2: on four, so it went from six hundred yards to
Speaker 2: six hundred and forty yards. So that that so, and
Speaker 2: then they put the back t in on eighteen. It's
Speaker 2: five twenty one, but you know it plays shorter than
Speaker 2: five twenty one because where the Hogan plaque is right
Speaker 2: after that is a steep down slope and these guys
Speaker 2: were easily hitting you know, from I guess from four
Speaker 2: seventy or four to sixty or something like that. They
Speaker 2: were easily hitting the back of that slope and they'd
Speaker 2: have an eight iron in. So that to me, putting
Speaker 2: that back t in at five twenty one makes you know,
Speaker 2: the average play, the average tour pro or the average
Speaker 2: high you know, high caliber amateur hit from around where
Speaker 2: Bobby or sorry, Ben Hogan hit like it's I think
Speaker 2: it's two to eleven from the plaque to the middle
Speaker 2: of the green and just rose in twenty thirteen from
Speaker 2: around that plaque on Sunday. So again a lot of
Speaker 2: it was you know, you know, things that you don't
Speaker 2: see underground technology and a few added bunkers and a
Speaker 2: few added teas.
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Speaker 1: Great organization and we're very proud to be partnered with them. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that covers the characteristics of the course that I
Speaker 1: wanted to cover. So we've kind of gone through greens
Speaker 1: and bunkers and design and some of the renovation work.
Speaker 1: I think now we can dive into the history, which
Speaker 1: is your specialty. Now there's a lot here, right. We
Speaker 1: could stay here for another four hours, probably talking about
Speaker 1: the history of Marian Golf Club, but I kind of
Speaker 1: want to give people a basic overview and then just
Speaker 1: talk about it's importance historically just as a as a
Speaker 1: new kind of golf design in America. So you know,
Speaker 1: what were the origins of golf at Marion and then
Speaker 1: take me up to the point that Hugh Wilson got involved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I mean, like I said earlier, or golf
Speaker 2: in Philadelphia started a bit late. Philadelphia Country Club in
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety three had their first golf course in the city,
Speaker 2: and in eighteen ninety five Marion had a golf course
Speaker 2: on one of the members' properties, Clement Griscom and by
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety six there was an official nine hole golf
Speaker 2: course that was designed by Willie Campbell, not the Willy
Speaker 2: Campbell from Brookline, Willie W. Campbell from Saint Andrew's. Willy
Speaker 2: Campbell from Brookline was from Musselborough and this is a
Speaker 2: different Willie.
Speaker 1: One of the sea.
Speaker 2: Semingly, thousands of Willie's from Great Britain, from England or
Speaker 2: Scotland and were involved in early golf in America.
Speaker 1: They all those guys are named Willy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Parents weren't very creative and no dolling out names, and
Speaker 2: it makes it hard to follow because you know, they're
Speaker 2: very common names, and you know, doing searches online makes
Speaker 2: it kind of difficult. But Willie Campbell designed the first
Speaker 2: nine hole course in eighteen ninety five. It was expanded
Speaker 2: to eighteen holes in nineteen hundred, but it was it
Speaker 2: was short, and the technology advances in that with the
Speaker 2: Haskell ball and steel shafts instead of hickory shafts were creating, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, the need for longer courses. I think the
Speaker 2: course was fifty six hundred yards and that wasn't going
Speaker 2: to cut it better. Better athletes were playing golf and
Speaker 2: better equipment was was obsoleting a lot of courses. And
Speaker 2: the court and the and the club leased the land
Speaker 2: from the from the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Clement Chriskam don't
Speaker 2: you know, allowed them to be on his property as well.
Speaker 2: So they looked to find a place where they could
Speaker 2: buy land and build a championship golf course that was
Speaker 2: you don't go to stands attested time for the better players.
Speaker 2: As Philadelphia embraced golf and embraced championship golf. The fellow
Speaker 2: that bought the three hundred acres with the idea of
Speaker 2: making the land available to Marion at half price, brought
Speaker 2: in an H. H. Barker to look it over. He
Speaker 2: was an English architect. You probably know him more about
Speaker 2: him than I do. But he submitted a He submitted
Speaker 2: a letter and then a routing map for the club.
Speaker 2: We have the letter. Unfortunately we don't have the routing map,
Speaker 2: so it's hard to understand what he what he was
Speaker 2: looking at. You know, there were no boundaries then the
Speaker 2: house and the location for the housing lots were not
Speaker 2: delineated at that time, so we are don't we don't
Speaker 2: really know what he was looking at a few years
Speaker 2: I guess that was nineteen ten. So the next year
Speaker 2: they brought in the two most celebrated golfers in America
Speaker 2: SEEBE McDonald and H. J. Wigham. They both had US
Speaker 2: Amateur championships. McDonald was in the middle of, you know,
Speaker 2: creating National Golf Links, which is you know, is usually
Speaker 2: considered the first best course in the United States. But
Speaker 2: that was using old World principles in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: and the routing is up and back routing with the
Speaker 2: you know, very little wind variety and things like that.
Speaker 2: But they came in and looked at the and consulted.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they knew each other from the Leslie Cup,
Speaker 2: the Inner Club, inner City competitions, and they suggested a
Speaker 2: six thousand yard golf course. I think McDonald didn't want
Speaker 2: to thing to surpass or or you know, be or
Speaker 2: outshine National Golf Links, so the six thousand yard golf course,
Speaker 2: but that's not really what Mary was looking for. They
Speaker 2: were looking for something a more severe test than that.
Speaker 2: And eventually they you know that Hugh Wilson went to
Speaker 2: it with some of the committee members and went to
Speaker 2: visit McDonald and Wigham at National Golf Links. Came back
Speaker 2: with a whole bunch of ideas and eventually they set
Speaker 2: her on a like several ideas they had McDonald look
Speaker 2: at them, and he helped them choose which of their designs.
Speaker 2: It wasn't the McDonald McDonald design. He helped them select
Speaker 2: which he thought would be the best design turns out
Speaker 2: to be the one that we have now, and it was.
Speaker 2: It was an in house project. Like I said, there
Speaker 2: was only twenty two bunkers to start with. They wanted
Speaker 2: to see how the course played. I mean these guys
Speaker 2: were amateur golf out commissure architects. They didn't really couldn't
Speaker 2: foresee how, you know, how the golf course would play
Speaker 2: in actuality versus you know, theoretical, So they waited to
Speaker 2: see how the course played. It was awarded the nineteen
Speaker 2: sixteen Amateur, which only four years after opening, was probably
Speaker 2: more indicative, how you know. The Philadelphians were you know,
Speaker 2: considered that you know, throw you know, to have a
Speaker 2: major tournament, and the Amateur was the major tournament back then.
Speaker 2: The US opened was sort of second bananas. I think
Speaker 2: it became more prominent and after Bobby Jones retired the
Speaker 2: US opened that is, but for at that time, the
Speaker 2: US Amateur was the premier event in the in the
Speaker 2: United States. And they took a look at the golf
Speaker 2: course and said, well, this isn't going to work because
Speaker 2: there's only twenty two bunkers. And there was some outdated
Speaker 2: design practices, some mounding, you know the quite chocolate drops
Speaker 2: but mid Surrey kind of mounding, and some squared greens
Speaker 2: and kind of geometric looking bunkers. But that's when you know,
Speaker 2: Hugh Wilson and Flynn together decided to take the course
Speaker 2: in a more original direction, and that's you know, really
Speaker 2: one of the earliest examples of American architecture, which they
Speaker 2: called the scientific design that you know, supplanted in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways the Victorian designs and even the template
Speaker 2: designs that McDonald and later mcgrater were doing. But again,
Speaker 2: so they held the nineteen sixteen Amateur was a huge success.
Speaker 2: They played the Amateur on both the East and West courses,
Speaker 2: and then by the time nineteen twenty four came around,
Speaker 2: we were able to you know, apply the additional seven
Speaker 2: and a half acres Alost ten, twelve, ten and eleven,
Speaker 2: twelve and thirteen were redesigned and I think dramatically improved,
Speaker 2: mostly by Flynn, with Wilson contributing as well. He you know,
Speaker 2: he was on a lot of Wilson was on a
Speaker 2: lot of committees. He had to run his own family
Speaker 2: insurance business, it was maritime insurance, and he was on
Speaker 2: the executive board of the USGA. He's on the Green
Speaker 2: Section board. He was in other local boards and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. So he was really he groomed Flint and
Speaker 2: they were they. I'm sure nothing was done without Hugh
Speaker 2: Wilson's oversight, but also a lot of changes were made
Speaker 2: after Hugh Wilson passed away. The first hall is a
Speaker 2: Flinn Hall that was redesigned for the nineteen thirty amateur
Speaker 2: and really until Gil Hants came in twenty eighteen, the
Speaker 2: golf course was exactly the same for the what eighty
Speaker 2: something years, So this was, you know, a great collaboration
Speaker 2: between Hugh Wilson and William Flinton. Right, the course is
Speaker 2: essentially their work, their baby. I'm fascinated by Hugh Wilson.
Speaker 1: You know. My understanding is that he was he was
Speaker 1: basically just a member of Yeah, I mean he was right,
Speaker 1: I mean he wasn't he wasn't a hired gun. He
Speaker 1: wasn't a professional architect by any means. No, he was
Speaker 1: just I guess they identified him as, hey, this guy's
Speaker 1: smart and maybe maybe he'll maybe he'll be able to
Speaker 1: build us a good course. And he's right here, he's
Speaker 1: in the membership and and let's go with him. So
Speaker 1: who was Hugh Wilson like and how did he come
Speaker 1: to be such a such alliant designer of this course
Speaker 1: the very least.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great question. I think it's really
Speaker 2: good to highlight his contributions because they go well beyond
Speaker 2: Marion in a lot of ways. He was a collegiate golfer.
Speaker 2: He was a captain of the golf team at Princeton,
Speaker 2: graduating in nineteen oh two. While he was at Princeton,
Speaker 2: he was involved in the new design of the Springdale
Speaker 2: course on campus that moved from a couple miles away
Speaker 2: to where it is today. And when Flynn redesigned the course,
Speaker 2: it was in homage to Hugh Wilson. That's the kind
Speaker 2: of relationship they had. It was really like a father
Speaker 2: and son relationship. But Hugh Wilson was you know, he
Speaker 2: was an excellent golfer. He wasn't the best golfer in Philadelphia,
Speaker 2: but he was really beloved people. I mean, he was
Speaker 2: just a guy that you could not help. But like
Speaker 2: he was a soft spoken, sickly kind of guy. You know,
Speaker 2: he was often he's kind of rail thin, and he
Speaker 2: always had ailments. He ended up dying in nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 2: right after the twenty like February. I think it was
Speaker 2: of twenty five, right after the not long after the
Speaker 2: twenty four Amateur. But he was sickly through for many years.
Speaker 2: He used to go up to Massachusetts and convalesced by
Speaker 2: the ocean. Ended up dying young at of nephritis, and
Speaker 2: he had arterial sclerosis as well. But while he was,
Speaker 2: you know, he was a young guy that the big wigs,
Speaker 2: the big potatoes that Marion Deem you know, named him
Speaker 2: as the guy to do the job. He dived in
Speaker 2: head first. He became one of the world's experts on turf,
Speaker 2: grasses construction and all that. Piper and Oakley had a
Speaker 2: book Developed Turf for golf courses and there's a chapter.
Speaker 2: McDonald did a chapter, but Hugh Wilson did a chapter
Speaker 2: on how they designed and turf to Marion and it's
Speaker 2: it's just fascinating how much time he developed. And really
Speaker 2: between Alan Wilson, U's brother, I'm not sure if he
Speaker 2: was older or younger, Hugh Wilson and William Flynn, they
Speaker 2: were very much responsible for the development of the USGA
Speaker 2: Green section. So to me, Hugh Wilson is just, you know,
Speaker 2: he was he had so much energy, so much desire
Speaker 2: to learn, and his goal was to create the best
Speaker 2: of course, and and and create a you know, a
Speaker 2: collaborative community. And and really you think about Pine Valley,
Speaker 2: the collaborative effort there, Cobbs Creek. These were Philadelphians that
Speaker 2: didn't you know that they relished and embraced working together
Speaker 2: to create something. There was no egos or anything like that.
Speaker 2: If you look at some of the writings that that
Speaker 2: Hugh Wilson did, he never.
Speaker 1: Talked about I did this or we did that.
Speaker 2: You know, it was always this is what happened. He
Speaker 2: never you know, tried to take credit. He was a
Speaker 2: I think he was a humble man in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways, kind of yeah, typical Quaker gentleman, although he
Speaker 2: wasn't Quaker, but.
Speaker 1: Right, the influence maybe, but maybe was regionally.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: An aspect of Hugh Wilson's story that I that I
Speaker 1: find very interesting is his visits to National Golf Links
Speaker 1: and then his trip over to see courses in Great Britain.
Speaker 1: What influence do you think those those travels had on
Speaker 1: on what he eventually did it?
Speaker 2: Marion, I'm not so sure that I think with the
Speaker 2: visit with McDonald and Wigum at National gave him a
Speaker 2: perspective he probably didn't have before, right, I don't think
Speaker 2: there was a direct influence, although there was a principal's
Speaker 2: nose on the fourth hole for a while, you know
Speaker 2: that really big cross bunker. Yeah, short of that was
Speaker 2: was a principal's nose feature, so interesting, So there was
Speaker 2: some influence.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean he certainly didn't pick up the templates.
Speaker 1: But I guess you know, if I'm putting myself back
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen teens and I see National Golf
Speaker 1: Links and all I've seen is the other courses that
Speaker 1: existed in the US at the time, I'm not necessarily
Speaker 1: saying to myself I want to do template holes now,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying to myself, oh man, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of potential in golf architecture. Yeah, you know, the grandeur
Speaker 1: of this course, that the scale of this achievement is
Speaker 1: something that, Ohsue, we can think bigger now. I think.
Speaker 1: I think in.
Speaker 2: Creating a knowledge base on turf, grass and maintenance practices
Speaker 2: helped a lot. Oh sure, yeah, National was big in that, right.
Speaker 1: They had trouble.
Speaker 2: National was failing they you know, they they it was
Speaker 2: built on straight sand and they had lots of trouble.
Speaker 2: Pine Valley had tons of trouble, you know, after opening
Speaker 2: because the golf course was built on straight sand and
Speaker 2: they didn't really modify the soil, and they were losing
Speaker 2: the golf course all the time. There was a while
Speaker 2: where Flynn was both the superintendent at Pine Valley and Marion.
Speaker 2: That must have been a pretty tough commute, but back
Speaker 2: in the late nineteenth nineteen nineteen and nineteen twenty. But so,
Speaker 2: I think there was something about the Philadelphians, the George Thomas,
Speaker 2: the George Crump and Wilson w was was in the
Speaker 2: was in that group. Yeah, yeah, that this Philadelphia school
Speaker 2: of golf architecture. They wanted to do things differently. They
Speaker 2: wanted an American style of golf architecture and have a
Speaker 2: much more natural natural look, you know. Uh that that
Speaker 2: wasn't kind of a stark contrast between what's man made
Speaker 2: and what's what's what's what's.
Speaker 1: You know, what is?
Speaker 2: Yeah right yeah, So and then you know, when there
Speaker 2: was architecture, they and this was sort of the the
Speaker 2: way Flynn became the nature fakers. If they if they
Speaker 2: were going to do something that was man made, they
Speaker 2: didn want they didn't want it to look man made.
Speaker 2: They didn't want geometric features or anything like that one
Speaker 2: because they're more expensive to maintain. But also they just
Speaker 2: they just thought that it needs to look like the
Speaker 2: hand of man's not there. And there's something about you know,
Speaker 2: even though you know marrying you know, the teaser built
Speaker 2: and the bunkers are built, and the greens or but
Speaker 2: there's something about it that there's a harmony there with it.
Speaker 2: If you get a sense of maybe a pastoral feeling
Speaker 2: that you're you know that you know, it's it's all,
Speaker 2: it's right, if you know what I mean this, You're
Speaker 2: not playing against man, you're playing against nature. And to
Speaker 2: me that's that's a great feature with the you know,
Speaker 2: with natural looking golf courses, there's just a different feel
Speaker 2: about it. So I do think well the influence on
Speaker 2: Hugh Wilson and later Flynn from the UK trip that
Speaker 2: Wilson took and Flynn never went over there, so that
Speaker 2: you know, this is a this all flowed through Hugh
Speaker 2: Wilson was the more natural looking, the look of the
Speaker 2: bunkering and the seaside. You know, he went to the
Speaker 2: seaside what be it the Jersey Shore which he talked about,
Speaker 2: or the or the bunkering that he saw on the
Speaker 2: links Lands. Just I think that had a huge impact
Speaker 2: on how he approached the design astatic of the bunkering
Speaker 2: and things.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, you know, throughout this conversation, Wayne, we've sort
Speaker 1: of been developing an argument for Marion's importance that it's
Speaker 1: at the beginning of something in American golf architecture. And
Speaker 1: I'd like to kind of put a cap on that.
Speaker 1: You know, how, how would you talk about Marion's influence
Speaker 1: and importance in the development of golf architecture in the US.
Speaker 2: That's a tough question. That's a good question, but you know,
Speaker 2: not easy. A number of different directions you could take.
Speaker 2: I mean, let me suggest William Flynn went out to
Speaker 2: do a bunch of other things that were influential and
Speaker 2: important in their own right, and really his origin story
Speaker 2: is with the design and development of this golf course
Speaker 2: alongside Hugh Wilson.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's one direction, right. Another direction might be
Speaker 1: this introduction of naturalism to American golf architecture. Aroach, don't
Speaker 1: you answer this question? Well?
Speaker 2: Sorry, no, no, I think I really don't mean.
Speaker 1: To ask a question that I already have an answer
Speaker 1: to because you know, what you've said so far is
Speaker 1: basically what I'm giving back to you right now. But
Speaker 1: you've kind of developed this naturalism idea. There's also perhaps
Speaker 1: the idea of strategic architecture, you know, arranged on a
Speaker 1: championship golf course, or strategic architecture applied to the end
Speaker 1: of challenging really good players that Marian seems to embody.
Speaker 1: So those are kind of three different directions that I've
Speaker 1: seen you take this subject so far in the conversation.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if there's anything.
Speaker 2: Else or whether one of those stands out to you.
Speaker 2: I look at Philadelphia at large, the kind of work
Speaker 2: that was going on with the Philadelphia School of Golf architects,
Speaker 2: Pine Valley and Marion. Again, these were collaborative efforts, less
Speaker 2: so at Marian than it was at Pine Valley, but
Speaker 2: it was all about creating championship golf courses that would
Speaker 2: stand the test of time and develop better players. I
Speaker 2: think they they succeeded very well, not only that, but
Speaker 2: identifies great players. You look at the champions at Marion,
Speaker 2: they're you know, I mean, maybe maybe Olin Dutris kind
Speaker 2: of the exception which you know, there's bound to be
Speaker 2: some exceptions to the rule. But there's a reason why
Speaker 2: Bobby Jones won two amateurs there, there's a reason why
Speaker 2: Ben Hogan won when he won. The course demands a
Speaker 2: full complement of shots and the ability to move the
Speaker 2: ball both ways, which kind of gets lost a little
Speaker 2: bit in the modern game. I guess although you know, Mike,
Speaker 2: as I aged Mike, I'm hitting not hitting it as
Speaker 2: far as I used to, and uh, those demands aren't
Speaker 2: quite there as much anymore. But I'm moving up teas.
Speaker 2: I like playing combo te's now and things like that,
Speaker 2: so you can set marrying up with short teas that
Speaker 2: make it available, you know, make it enjoyable for everybody.
Speaker 2: But I do think that it's the collaborative effort at
Speaker 2: you know that Marion and Pine Valley, and particularly the
Speaker 2: sharing of knowledge and the growth of knowledge that Hugh
Speaker 2: Wilson and William Flynn had together. It transported everywhere. It
Speaker 2: transporting out Thomas, you know, he brought up to California.
Speaker 2: Tilling has brought it all over the country. But there
Speaker 2: were two classrooms where these guys learned their lessons and
Speaker 2: became you know, the exceptional talents that they became, and
Speaker 2: that's Marian and Pine Valley, and the reasons for both
Speaker 2: are the same. You know, developed championship golfers want, you know,
Speaker 2: you need requiring, you know, needing a championship golf course
Speaker 2: to create championship golfers. And I really do think the
Speaker 2: influence is far and wide in the United States today.
Speaker 2: There's been a little bit of a uh, you know,
Speaker 2: things happen in cycles, so there's been a little bit
Speaker 2: of a return to the McDonald rayner stuff that, you know,
Speaker 2: bringing the lido back and you know, some of the
Speaker 2: designs influences of MacDonald or Rayner. But to me, that's
Speaker 2: not America thing, you know, that's that's sort of a
Speaker 2: vestige of the old world. Maybe he had one foot
Speaker 2: in the old world in one foot in the kind
Speaker 2: of new world, but Philadelphia took it in an entirely
Speaker 2: different direction and created an American style of golf architecture.
Speaker 1: There's sort of these twin origin stories, I guess of
Speaker 1: American golf architecture, the yin and the Yang represented by
Speaker 1: National Golf Links on the one hand, which opened in
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven, right was developed for several years before that,
Speaker 1: but it finally became you know, playable by about nineteen eleven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then it was the very next year that the
Speaker 1: initial iteration of Hugh Wilson's design at the East Course
Speaker 1: at Marion opened, And so it's it's within this two
Speaker 1: year period that we have kind of two different paths
Speaker 1: for American golf architecture opening up. Yeah.
Speaker 2: That trunk of the tree, you know, has two really
Speaker 2: big branches separated early on.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting, though, I heard you say earlier that
Speaker 1: that you really think that the East Course came into
Speaker 1: its own and this is just my interpretation of what
Speaker 1: you said, came into its own more in nineteen sixteen.
Speaker 2: Around Yeahsaover was helped. Yeah, so that when you think
Speaker 2: that Marion really became the kind of path breaking golf
Speaker 2: course that we're talking about right now, yeah, I do
Speaker 2: think so. And it was and you know, championship golf
Speaker 2: at Marion's always been a you know, in the DNA
Speaker 2: of the club, and it's really the reason why the club,
Speaker 2: the course improved over time. I mean, if you think
Speaker 2: of nineteen twelve to nineteen thirty four, there were a
Speaker 2: lot of changes that were made and fortunately not all
Speaker 2: changes or improvements, but these were these were all improvements
Speaker 2: in the golf course. And again it was Hugh Wilson,
Speaker 2: then Hugh Wilson and Flynn then Flynn, and I think
Speaker 2: without a doubt the it's sort of a microcosm of
Speaker 2: the evolution of golf architecture, and it followed the evolution
Speaker 2: of golf going from you know, hitting a two hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty yard shot with a with a hickory and
Speaker 2: a gun approch it to you know what they're you know,
Speaker 2: they're they're you know, four hundred and sixty cc drivers
Speaker 2: that they're carrying three sixty hitting three wood over the
Speaker 2: first green. It's still a relevant golf you know, still
Speaker 2: a relevant golf course. And there's not too many sixty
Speaker 2: eight sixty nine hundred yard golf courses that today that
Speaker 2: can you know, withstand the the the improvements in golfers
Speaker 2: and golf equipment. Studying that golf course. I think anybody
Speaker 2: who wants is interested in golf architecture needs to study
Speaker 2: it for what it is. Like you, like you pointed
Speaker 2: out where it is in the in the evolution of
Speaker 2: golf architecture in America, but it's it's It's an example
Speaker 2: of a golf course that you know, considered short, is
Speaker 2: still you know, still uh, still relevant and enjoyable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was important at the time that
Speaker 1: it was built for a variety of reasons, because of
Speaker 1: its newness and because of what it indicated about where
Speaker 1: golf architecture could go. And now it still seems to
Speaker 1: be important, partly because it represents a way to challenge
Speaker 1: elite players without enlarging and lengthening everything, right, And so
Speaker 1: the course's significance has maybe shifted over the years, but
Speaker 1: but it's but it's still there. So, uh, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for for coming on the podcast. Wayne. It's
Speaker 1: always a delight to talk to you. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: your research has been really important in my own understanding
Speaker 1: thing of this course and many of William Flynn's other courses.
Speaker 1: So so thank you for that research. And we'll have
Speaker 1: to talk again soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks Gay. When are we going to play golf together
Speaker 2: any anytime I'm on a plane, I'm outside of Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 2: so I'm always away. I'm always away, but it's I'm
Speaker 2: over one of these one of these days. I look
Speaker 2: forward to that. That's great. I really enjoyed talking to you.
Speaker 2: Your knowledge, your insights, your questioning abilities or are really phenomenal.
Speaker 2: So it's a pleasure to speak to you. It's a
Speaker 2: pleasure to get you know, inspired to uh to you know,
Speaker 2: to to be able to dig in and and be
Speaker 2: able to answer your very insightful question. So much appreciated.
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will. Thank
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