Jeff Brauer;
Thank you for a very fine synopsis.
The only point I'd completely disagree with is your mention of Gulph Mills as a course that wasn't bunkered much in the DH range. In fact, Wayne Stiles in 1940 (and others over time) removed much of Donad Ross's original bunkering in those areas.
I'd also say that the analogy between removing bunkers in the DH range and where to turn a dogleg are two different things. If distance the duffer hits the ball is now 180-200 instead of 140 in Tilly's time, I'd expect to see bunkers in that range, but we both know that's rare.
No, generally I think their wholesale removal during that time period stemmed from a belief that fairway bunkering should be placed to only affect the accomplished player.
Sean;
A picture is certainly worth 18 pages of typed words.
It would be interesting to know how many of those bunkers were placed by Tilly, and how many by other architects at Newport who came before him.
All;
Fellows;
I think you know that I have the utmost respect and admiration for all of you and I've tried to keep any disagreements we've had light-hearted and at times, even humorous, while still strongly advocating my opinions.
I'm perplexed that the overall tone of the discussion on that thread couldn't have been a little bit more in that spirit.
Certainly, the historical record is muddy enough for reasonable, well-intentioned people to disagree about our own interpretations and conclusions without us questioning each other's motives in a divisive way. Perhaps my somewhat inflammatory title contributed to that, but it certainly wasn't meant to lead to anything but an exploration of what Tillinghast did during this period, how his architectural "evolved" through his career, what contributory factors within and outside the game contributed to that evolution, and what that meant to the thinking of architects who came after Tilly.
Frankly, I also wanted us to have a discussion where the idolatry of Golden Age architects was tweaked a little bit. We tend to see their genius but they were hardly perfect or infallible. They had interests and motivations beyond the game and those factors affected where they were at creatively at any point in time. If Tom Fazio went on a whirlwind tour of one day trips to courses across the land, recommending the removal of 7,000 bunkers, we'd be apoplectic.
All I was asking for is some objectivity, open-mindedness, historical fact-finding and relativity in our views and common understanding on a topic we are ALL mutually passionate about, the history of the game's courses.
Thanks for participating and I would sincerely apologize to anyone who feels the slightest bit offended by anything I've written here.
And now, for my part, I'm hoping to see this thread fade away...goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.
Mike