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Ran Morrissett

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Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« on: July 08, 2014, 10:33:22 AM »
We first interviewed Phil Young back in 2004 when he released his book, Tillinghast: Creator of Courses and a decade later we’re checking back in. Coincidentally, his club history of the San Francisco Golf Club has just become available to members.

Tilly's life in golf - from the mid-1890s ‘til his death in 1942 - more or less bookends the Golden Age of Golf Architecture. Coincidence? Perhaps but after several telephone conversations with Phil (as well as Gib Papazian) and piecing together this Feature Interview, I am beginning to believe that Tilly as much as any single person helped drive that Golden Age. His numerous visits to the UK around the turn of the last century gave him a perspective for what golf should be back home in the USA.

Phil speaks of St. Andrews in 1901 when Old Tom Morris was still going strong and MacKenzie and Tillinghast were both visiting. What a gathering of TITANS!  :o If I could ever be magically present for one event, that would be it –  St. Andrews to boot.

Frank Hannigan's 1974 article in the USGA Golf Journal placed a spotlight squarely on Tilly when it focused on the extraordinary number of his courses that were hosting championships that year. However, to truly understand Tilly, you must examine the full range of his work. Phil estimates that Tilly may well have visited and offered advice (and sometimes worked) on nearly 1,000 courses – back then! That’s a crazy high % of the total courses that existed at that time.


Great to see gems like Sands Point and Southward Ho (pictured above) get shout-outs from Phil.

Phil shares an unusual take on Tilly and that is what a campaigner he was for work. Tilly seriously busted his hump zig-zagging across the country seeking projects. Listen to this from Phil on one of Tilly's Texas ventures:

Take what he did in 1916 as an example. He arrived in San Antonio the last week of September to design Brackenridge Park. By the time he left 6 weeks later he talked himself into the commissions for the 36-hole design at Fort Sam Houston (18 holes only built due to WW I with an additional 9 built after) and the redesign of the San Antonio CC. While there he drew the plans for each course, staked them out and oversaw the beginnings of the construction and left them with plasticene models which he made himself for each hole. During this stay he also managed to write a daily column in the San Antonio Light newspaper about the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team. That was typical Tilly.

Tilly seems almost tireless, especially during the age when transportation was more helter-skelter. He clearly enjoyed a zest for life. While many architects were sidelined by the Great Depression, he was busy working for the PGA (he toured 400+ courses for them!) and the Bethpage complex.

He passed away before the ASGCA was formed in 1947 but like Ross served as a connection from Old Tom to the modern game. As a writer, drawer, thinker, and architect that touched a vast number of courses, it is impossible to overstate what Tilly meant to American golf. And no one conveys that better than Phil Young.

Switching gears, we speak with Phil about one of his great discoveries, that Bloomfield Hills was actually designed by Colt and not Ross as had long been supposed. Hopefully, the club will carry through with a Keith Foster restoration plan when the timing is right. Such a find creates great circumstance. Obviously, the debunking of misattribution at a club might bruise the feelings of those who had chronicled the events differently.  We talk about this and how a researcher can only present the facts and accept the consequences. The better the information unearthed, the more authentic a potential action plan becomes for the club - that's Phil’s ultimate goal.

Mr. Young is making a difference in the busy world of restoration during this period when new course construction is moribund. If only we were all so lucky that our daily work mattered and had meaning!  :-\ Yet, that’s emphatically the exciting place where Phil finds himself thanks to his diligence and research.

Stay tuned - It won’t be another ten years before we hear back from him either!

Best,
« Last Edit: July 08, 2014, 02:44:43 PM by Ran Morrissett »

Steve_ Shaffer

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2014, 11:15:34 AM »
Phil Young was the moving force behind the discovery of the Harmonie Club's records at the NY Historical Society leading to the revelation that Raynor and perhaps MacDonald designed the course that was long thought to be a Tillinghast design. During the infamous North Shore thread here, Phil mentioned to me that those records existed and gave the exact location in the library but couldn't get to NY to see them. I volunteered to go and report my discovery to him. I did. The rest is history.


http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704207504575129910042526320
"Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses ... "  Adlai Stevenson
Hyman Roth to Michael Corleone: "We're bigger than US Steel."
Ben Hogan “The most important shot in golf is the next one”

JMEvensky

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #2 on: July 08, 2014, 11:38:21 AM »
Phil Young no longer posting here is a huge loss.PY could always be counted on to bring good info.

George Pazin

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #3 on: July 08, 2014, 01:03:21 PM »
Phil Young no longer posting here is a huge loss.PY could always be counted on to bring good info.

+1

Here's hoping the interview brings him back, he is missed by many.
Big drivers and hot balls are the product of golf course design that rewards the hit one far then hit one high strategy.  Shinny showed everyone how to take care of this whole technology dilemma. - Pat Brockwell, 6/24/04

Phil McDade

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #4 on: July 08, 2014, 05:13:26 PM »
Phil Young no longer posting here is a huge loss.PY could always be counted on to bring good info.

+1

Here's hoping the interview brings him back, he is missed by many.

+1 to the 10th power, or something like that.

Phil Young

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #5 on: July 08, 2014, 09:35:44 PM »
Steve, Jeff, George, Phil and all the others who emailed me... its good to be back. I'd like to thank Ran for that and also for asking me to do the interview.

If anyone has any questions about it or anything else I'm more than happy to answer them...

Mike Policano

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2014, 09:25:57 AM »
Phil and Ran,

Great job! Always great to read or listen to what Phil has to say. A fountain of information.

Cheers, Mike

Joe Bausch

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2014, 05:18:37 PM »
Thanks Ran.  And Phil!

Phil:  any chance that BHCC will restore the Colt course?
@jwbausch (for new photo albums)
The site for the Cobb's Creek project:  https://cobbscreek.org/
Nearly all Delaware Valley golf courses in photo albums: Bausch Collection

Phil Young

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #8 on: July 10, 2014, 05:34:47 PM »
Hi Joe,

Good to be back. Yes, there is a chance but not one in the near future. The Club held a membership vote recently and decided that for the present time not to take this project on. Instead they will be doing a major project for the clubhouse that will deal with needed upgrades.

They will be revisiting this project in the future and hopefully it will be sooner than later...

Bill_McBride

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #9 on: July 10, 2014, 08:33:53 PM »
Phil, did anything ever happen at the Capital City Club in Tallahassee?

Phil Young

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #10 on: July 10, 2014, 09:38:50 PM »
Bill, not yet, but their case is really a success story. Back in the early part of the last decade the lost all of their greens and couldn't afford to re-do them. They brought in several different architects to propose ambitious master plans yet as each month passed without doing anything and now playing only to bad temporary greens the membership became frustrated and started to resign from the club. They went from having more than 300 down to just less than 75. Just when it looked like they'd fold they determinedly began to get the greens back into at least a decent condition and the membership began to grow. It is still below where they were (last I heard) but they are making progress and I have a lot of hope that their turnaround might have worked.

For those that aren't familiar withGapital City, Tilly redesigned the original 9-hole course that still had the original sand greens on 4 holes and designed a new 9-holes in December 1935/January 1936 during his PGA Course Consultation Tour. It is the only course I've ever been on where I was adamant that as few trees, if any, as possible be cut down. It is cut through an old world oak forest with magnificent specimen trees with hanging moss from the lower branches on nearly every hole.

It is a course that were the money invested into a proper restoration/renovation would yield a stunning course that everyone would talk about and become a must play...

Steve_ Shaffer

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #11 on: July 10, 2014, 11:13:08 PM »
Phil,

Have you visited Foster's work at Cricket?

What's the westernmost Tilly course?



"Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses ... "  Adlai Stevenson
Hyman Roth to Michael Corleone: "We're bigger than US Steel."
Ben Hogan “The most important shot in golf is the next one”

Phil Young

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #12 on: July 11, 2014, 12:27:15 AM »
Steve, what Keith Foster, Dan Meersman & Greg Guyer accomplished is truly remarkable. I had the pleasure to see the course before the work started and on a number of occasions during the project including spending a few afternoons with Keith, Dan and Greg out on the course. This was because I had the privilege of providing historical research for the project.

Among the specific questions we endeavored to answer was what was the actual bunker style Tilly used throughout the course? Some had questioned whether the bunkers were his as they were ovoid and without what many think of as classic Tillinghast fingers and capes in their shape. Yet what was forgotten was that Tilly's style was based on each individual location rather than a "template" type of fixed style. His bunkers often greatly differ, not only from course to course but from hole to hole on the same course.

For example, two of his great designs done contemporary to the Wissahickon course which no one would question as being designed and built by Tilly since the documentation for both the design drawings and the building of the course under his direct supervision is available, are also in the same region and/or among other original designs of his with very different bunkering. These two courses, 5 Farms and Fresh Meadows had very similar bunkers in both shape and faciers. At PCC, a major question dealt with whether or not the bunker faces should be grassed or sand-faced. During the project each bunker was done based on how it looked in the mid-1930s.

As a result, a careful look at the course will reveal several specific bunkers that are quite different from the othersand also as done originally. We were able to date these quite accurately because we also found a here-to-for unknown aerial photograph of the course taken in 1930. At this time Hell's Half Acre didn't exist, rather a large single cross-bunker across the entire fairway was there with 2 small ones just past it. Also, notice the striking change in the bunkering before the 14th green. Hell's Quarter acre was designed and built in the 30's at the same time as HHA & the church pew bunkers a few years later as they can be clearly seen in the known 1938 aerial photograph that hangs in the clubhouse. There were also contemporary accounts referencing some of the new changes beginning in 1930.


1930 Aerial


1938 aerial

The reason for doing this research is because most mistake the large original 36-hole design drawing hanging on the wall of the Wissahickon clubhouse to have been used in the building of the single course. It wasn't. In fact the actual Wissahickon course design is different from anything on that drawing. And so its goal was fueled by a desire to restore the original Tillinghast design features as accurately as possible.

Originally, when PCC decided to build a new course it was with the intent of relocating their entire facility to the new site. The family that owned the property on which the St. Martins course was built had told the club that they were not going to renew their lease. And so they bought a tract of land large enough to build 36-holes and build a huge clubhouse on it with numerous tennis courts (it was and remains a center for major U.S. tennis tournaments), swimming pool parking lot and even with a new small train stop on the existing train line for use strictly by the members. The plans for the property was to have enough land left over to build another course later on and to sell some of the remainder lots for income.

The design was done in the spring of 1920 (we located versions of the design drawing dating as far back as April with Tilly's name on it). Some time after October 1920 and the spring of 1921 the plan changed as the family now relented and renewed the St. Martins property for another 20 years. As a result, a smaller clubhouse without any tennis courts or pool wa sbuilt. Since the train stop was also no longer needed a new location for the clubhouse was chosen, that being alongside the main road, and a new course was designed by Tilly. That is how this course came into being.

Among the wonderful finds made during the research was the accounting ledger for the project. Tilly was paid $4,712.84 for the design and surveying.   

The westernmost original Tillinghast design, of which we know, is SFGC. There may be others which we know nothing about. For example. In the late 1930s, Tilly & Bell travelled up toward Washington state to design a course. Tilly mentioned this in his writings and that is all that is known of it. Was it built? was it even designed? We simply don't know.

The westernmost Tillinghast renovation/redesign of which I know is the Midwick CC in Los Angeles. In late November 1919 he designed a new set of green complexes for the club to replace the existing sand greens with grass ones. He arranged for George Low to come out from Baltusrol to oversee the building of them.


Jeff Bergeron

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #13 on: July 12, 2014, 05:33:55 PM »
Hi Joe,

Good to be back. Yes, there is a chance but not one in the near future. The Club held a membership vote recently and decided that for the present time not to take this project on. Instead they will be doing a major project for the clubhouse that will deal with needed upgrades.

They will be revisiting this project in the future and hopefully it will be sooner than later...

Ian Scott-Taylor

Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #14 on: July 13, 2014, 02:44:21 PM »
I had the fortunate pleasure to visit the Philly Cricket CC on press day with Phil and we had a blast, after talking with Bob Trebus and The Wolff brothers, I had a wonderful cart ride with Phil round the course. I got the full history tour, it was like a Dr Who time travel programme just  listening to Phil and looking at what Keith did was incredible.  It really is a time warp for all Tilly fans, go see it.  I was lost in time.

On another note for all Country Clubs and Golf courses going to do renovations contact the Cricket Club for their model, it worked,  pick your architect but follow what they did.   It's the way. "The Right Way to Do It"    Get the historian, the architect and leave them to it.  The Magic worked in a phenomenal way, it really must be on your view list for all golf architect buffs.

Gary Sato

Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #15 on: July 13, 2014, 06:40:10 PM »


On another note for all Country Clubs and Golf courses going to do renovations contact the Cricket Club for their model, it worked,  pick your architect but follow what they did.   It's the way. "The Right Way to Do It"   

What is the model and the right way to do it?  Please explain.

Jason Topp

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #16 on: July 15, 2014, 12:10:47 PM »
Glad to have you back Phil!

Ian Scott-Taylor

Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #17 on: July 15, 2014, 06:24:40 PM »
The model I was referring to is how the country club went about their renovation. The meticulous research with Phil on the Tilly design, letting Keith Foster alone to renovate the golf course to its golden age look and having the trust in the golf course superintendent to produce an absolutely fabulous renovation. 

Every detail was looked at and it showed. The committee listened to the professionals and the country club got a super result. The secret to a great renovation is to have the researcher in this case Phil young and the golf architect work together to come up with the master plan. From there the Golf Club can then plan their programme of renovation with ease.


Bill Brightly

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #18 on: July 15, 2014, 09:26:30 PM »
Great to have you back Phil! I think Tilly was the best of the ODG's (and the YAG's, for that matter) when it comes to designing really strong par fives. Would you agree?
« Last Edit: July 15, 2014, 09:29:25 PM by Bill Brightly »

Phil Young

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #19 on: July 15, 2014, 10:54:15 PM »
Jason & Bill,

Thanks, great to be back...

Bill you asked a question, "I think Tilly was the best of the ODG's (and the YAG's, for that matter) when it comes to designing really strong par fives. Would you agree?"

I think you'll be quite surprised with my answer, no, I don't think he was. But let me expand the question and therefor my answer and maybe you'll understand why I say that.

I think the question really should be, Is Tillinghast the greatest of all architects? To that my answer would be a resounding No! The reason for it is because I don't believe that one person can be singled out as the greatest or even as the best at designing a specific hole type such as a par-5.

If I was asked to name the greatest architect of all time I would answer it this way. First, that one can't give a fair accounting to the work done in the last 20+ years in the stream of time comparison as their bodies of work have yet to be completed. Sort of like saying that a baseball player who has had a .391 career batting average must be the gretest who ever lived yet has only played 4 seasonjs of ball. Those who watch him contemporaneous to his achievements are not in a position to make that historical judgement, and so we need to go back at least that far in making a judgment of greatest architect.

Because we all judge courses differently based on our own unique experiences, we must acknowledge that any judgement of this type must be a subjective one and always open to argument & debate. That is why my answer to my question & yours is that I would place 5 architects as equals above all others, each one deserving to be placed on the top pedestal standing together as one group. These 5, in particular order, are:

Harry Colt
Alister MacKenzie
CB Macdonald/Seth Raynor - I put them as one because Raynor's work in building the courses as much as allowed the greatness of the design show forth as did CBM's vision which he built. That is why I already expand this list to 6 names as Raynor proved himself every bit the equal to CBM in the work that he did one his own.
Donald Ross
AW Tillinghast
 

Phil Young

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #20 on: July 16, 2014, 07:10:08 AM »
In my essay I wrote, “Tilly would remain a friend of MacKenzie’s through the years. Last year I saw shown a drawing of St. Andrews done for the tourist trade. On it was a note addressed to “My good Friend Tilly” and it was signed by Alister MacKenzie. He had sent it to Tilly from St. Andrews. The person who owned it had purchased a book from Tilly’s personal library a few years back at auction. When he received it and began going through it this drawing fell out. Apparently the owner had never known it was there and the auction house had simply included it as it had been in the book.”

I had forgotten that I photographed it. The 1st one is a close-up of what MacKenzie wrote. Notice that this drawing was done by MacKenzie himself:


The 2nd one is the entire display that the owner keeps it in:


Rich Goodale

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #21 on: July 16, 2014, 02:58:55 PM »
Great to see you back, Phil.  I have always believed that Tilly was highly underrated, and your passion and scholarship has confirmed my beliefs.  And thanks, Ran, for bringing Ian S-T to this site.  SFGC is the Tilly I have most played, and his interpretation of the flow of the course through the 8th and 9th is a warm reminder to me of what a golf course should be.

Rich
Life is good.

Any afterlife is unlikely and/or dodgy.

Jean-Paul Parodi

Phil Young

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #22 on: July 16, 2014, 05:56:04 PM »
Rich,

Great to be back. That SFGC is the Tilly course you've played the most often tells us that you've been most fortunate. It also makes us all more than a bit jealous...

Tim Martin

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #23 on: July 16, 2014, 08:53:47 PM »
Phil-Great to have you back on GCA. Imagine the good fortune and reaction of the collector who found the St. Andrews drawing. Wow!

Phil Young

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Re: Feature Interview with Phil Young is posted
« Reply #24 on: July 16, 2014, 09:21:22 PM »
He told me how stunned he was when it arrived at his office. he opened the package and then noticed that there was a paper in the middle that didn't appear to be part of the book. He opened it there and it fell right out...

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