[Jim_Kennedy]

There's some evidence that Emmet worked on the St. Alban's golf course, but that one was up in the Adirondacks.

This one was in the St. Alban's section of Queens, NY. Here's a diagram of the course:
 

and here's the article from which it came, with a lot more info:
http://tinyurl.com/bxy26kj

The course looked like this in 1924:


And its first clubhouse was fairly modest:



The course was a John Duncan Dunn design and Frank Meehan oversaw the project. St. Albans had a much richer history than its neighbor, Laurelton Links, as it lasted for some 23 years. Alas, it too was lost in the building boom of the late 1920s. It abutted the local rail station and its land was seen as too valuable to remain a golf course. The club sold out to developers in 1938 for a whopping $1,050,000.00, about the same as $17,150,000.00 in 2013 dollars.    

[Joe Bausch]

Ah, Frank Meehan. A Philly guy.   

[Jim_Kennedy]

Joe,
It took me a while to hunt down the diagram, another of your finds that disappeared from Ed Oden's routing thread. I was just about ready to email you (once again) when I happened upon it.  


p.s He must have been a popular guy, his name pops up a lot.

[Joe Bausch]

Jim, the following was passed along to me by Phil Young, this from the Nov 4, 1918 edition of the NY Tribune:

[Jim_Kennedy]

Joe,
I love coincidence. This morning I've been going through some articles on Fox Hills and finding out that Tom Bendelow was the architect, that the club had an arrangement w/NYAC, that Ross remodeled it in '28, and that it closed in '35.

Here's the '24 version:



A few posts back I posted a link to an article which said Dunn was the architect. In the 20 or 30 others I read there was no mention of AWT, or any further mention of Dunn. If Phill believes it to be an AWT course then he probably has more info.

Here's a direct link to the aerial photo of St. Albans. A closer inspection of the greens by Phil might reveal more.
 
http://gis.nyc.gov/doitt/nycitymap/?z=8&p=1048275,190389&c=GIS1924

Also, ask him what AWT was thinking when he built the 3rd at Fresh Meadow. 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Joe,
I found another article saying AWT designed the course. It came form The Evening Post and is dated Wed. March 6, 1918.



The mention of the double dogleg (#17) appears in the article, as it did in the one you posted. The hole shows up in the 1924 aerial:
 


I'd say that's pretty good proof that AWT designed the course as shown in the aerial photo, but there are some questions.

The article mentioning Dunn as the architect appears about 2 1/2 years before AWT is mentioned.
The "Dunn" course was expected to open in the spring of 1916.
There are several differences between the diagrammed course and the 1924 aerial.
Peter Lees comes into into the picture 2 years after the projected spring 1916 opening of the "Dunn" course for the purpose of superintending improvement of the fairways and greens. Why?

Nowhere in the 1915 article does it state that the "Dunn" course was under construction, only that it would be ready for play by next    spring, about 8 or 9 months after the article was written. Perhaps the expected progress wasn't made under Dunn, and the club changed their plans, brought in Tillie, and Lees followed.

The course that got built appears to be AWT's, but I'm not so sure that there isn't a prequel to the story.

[Jim_Kennedy]

I was just reminded (thanks Phil) of an article written by AWT which explains his reasoning behind a hole like the third at St. Albans, so I'm posting it. Not long, a 2 or 3 minute read.    

http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/GolfIllustrated/1920/gi124q.pdf

[David Harshbarger]

A big chunk of land like that would not go to waste, and so is now a Medical Center and the Roy Wilkins park.  From the 40's to the 70's it served as a Navy Medical Center.  It would be interesting to see if any of the golf course features remain as the much of the property has not been overly developed.

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