Last winter I began a golf course archiving project that originated while I was trying to create a detailed image of the Yale course from the 1934 Connecticut statewide aerial survey. I was able to create a high-res file from images on the Connecticut state library’s website by stitching together 144 images into a .tif file that could print in a large poster size. I did the same for CC of Fairfield, where I spent most of middle to late teens caddying and working in the pro shop when I wasn’t mostly playing the course. (Unfortunately, the present course has lost much of the routing that appears in the 1934 photo.) And then I assembled one of Brooklawn CC where we played our high school matches for Fairfield High…and eventually I put together files for 23 courses from that one aerial survey. That 1934 April snap-shot reflects an impressive collection of work from Golden Age architects: Walter Travis, Donald Ross, Devereux Emmet, A.W. Tillinghast, Seth Raynor, C.B. Macdonald, Charles Banks, Robert White, Willie Park, Tom Bendelow, etc. In most cases, the aerials show these courses in their “as-built” conditions. By then, very few had been modified much from their original designs.

There is a very attractive texture to the black-and-white original images taken by Fairchild Aerial Survey Company. The large film format produced a richness image than any of the subsequent surveys during the next 60/70-plus years. Aside from using these images as archival blue-prints, the aerial perspective renders the delineation of fairways and greens as a form of land art. Some courses do this better than others, but the holes on Blind Brook, Wee Burn and Shennecossett in particular, appear like a school of wales, or paramecium in a petri dish, or sometimes I see submarines. Check them out before you think I’m crazy or hallucinating.

The 1934 images also show a Connecticut prior to a suburban sprawl. Other than Bridgeport, New Haven, Waterbury and Hartford, the state was positively rural, linked by small villages along the Sound and rural farming communities up north. There were no major highways of any kind and the courses along the coast, like Longshore, Shorehaven, Madison, Shennecossett and CC of Fairfield pre-date any development of density.

I was also able to find other aerials of the Yale course over the years from the same perspective: 1951, ‘65, ‘70, ‘86, ‘91, ‘95, ‘04 and ‘08. (Note to viewers, I did not re-label the Yale prints with any titles other than credit to the photographers. There’s also a second image of New Haven CC from 1965 that immediately follows it in the queue. That second one doesn’t have name, city either.)

This past December I downloaded another dozen Macdonald and Raynor courses–the two who designed the Yale course–from the US Geological Survey’s website, where they exist as part of the public domain. I was able to get very clear images of National Golf Links, Fishers Island, Westhampton, Creek, Piping Rock, Shoreacres, Chicago Golf Club, Mountain Lake, Yeamans Hall, CC of Charleston, Camargo, Fox Chapel, etc. About 36 of the 45 have been printed and are being framed in time for an exhibit in a small gallery in Silliman College in New Haven called Maya’s Room. (Silliman is one of the 12 residential colleges at Yale.) It will run for one week beginning this Friday evening. Some of the items have been sold and others have been purchased and donated to the clubhouse at the Yale course (and indoor golf team room on campus) where they will hang permanently. I know it’s unlikely many of you can make it to New Haven next week, so here’s the link to all 45 aerials on Picasa. These proofs have been downsized so they don’t really do the final, high res prints justice. Anyway, they make for an interesting set, and the Yale course through the years helps us track all the changes and recent restoration work by Scott Ramsay.

http://picasaweb.google.com/colinsheehan/GolfCourseAerials?feat=directlink

If you have any interest in purchasing any of these posters please email me at colinsheehan@gmail.com.