Donald Ross's Breakthrough

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Which golf course put Ross on the map and provided a springboard for his career? What his first important design?

[Patrick_Mucci]

I would think that Pinehurst, as a resort attraction, with its steady stream of substantial numbers of tourists and guests would have allowed word of his work to have spread across the country.

But, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

[ian]

I would say Essex Country Club was his breakthrough, it was his first important design. He showed that he could route and create a great golf course through some difficult terrain. Oakley sound like it was more a small scale renovation than a rebuild. Essex was close to a completely new course after he was done. The success must have had a great impact on his confidence

Pinehurst made his career and created the demand for his future services, but Essex started his career.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

I have another golf course in mind. Pinehurst was certainly good for exposure, and although the courses were solid, I don't think early on they were drawing great attention as outstanding designs. No.3 probably got the most attention. Essex County was well known before Ross got there and although he did redesign the course, I believe his work was completed in 1917 and his career was already off and running.

[ForkaB]

Donald Grant's book on Ross quotes a letter from the Tufts family which says, in part:

"....James Tufts employed Mr. Ross in 1900 as a pro for the winter at Pinehurst.  He was pro for a number of years and in this capacity also worked with the greenkeeper to change and develop additional golf courses.  The courses were enjoyed by Pinehurst guests who were connected with clubs who were building new golf courses, and he was asked to build them."

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

The first decade Ross was in the US he was famous as professional - a very good golfer and a teacher. I reckon he was not unlike the pros back in Scotland, being also in charge of greenskeeping and course improvements. He improved Oakley and he improved Pinehurst (and maybe one other course in Boston), but he was not a golf architect until around 1910. It appears to me that Pinehurst was more or less a lobratory for his early architectural ideas, with Pinehurst #3 getting the most attention early on. It was after 1910, when made conscious decision to become a designer, that he began to get a few design jobs (no doubt his exposure Pinehurst helped). But there was one job that really got him a lot of publicity. It took two or three years to complete with an extremely large budget. At one time it was considered one of the top 5 courses in the world.

[ian]

I'm going to take a flier and say the Havana Country Club in Cuba, because after reading for the last 20 minutes none of the American courses would make as much sense.

Brae Burn, Wannamoisett, Lu Lu

Curiosity is killing me Tom.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Ian
You are correct - CC of Havana. Completed in 1912, it took 18 months to 2 years to build and cost $150,000, a huge sum in those days. Evidently it sat on bluff overlooking the sea, a very rolling property with a river that came into play on a number of holes, and a luxurious clubhouse. The course was praised not only in American magazines, but also in the UK. In 1932 there was an article in the NY Times in which Ralph Kennedy an authority on golf courses (he played over 4000 golf courses worldwide) rated CC of Havana at the top of the world's courses, along with Yale, Pine Valley and Timber Point. I'm curious how Ross got this assignment.

[Jonathan Cummings]

Calling Brad....Calling Brad.....

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

Have you read Brad Klein's Ross book carefully? It seems your question isn't a simple one to answer at all.

Looks to me as if there was a good deal of self-promotion on Ross's part and probably sort of in the Pinehurst context that may have made him appear to have had a "breakthrough" earlier than he really did.

Afterall, according to Brad, it really looks as if Ross wasn't even a full time designer until meeting a Mr. Wycoff in 1914 at a Mt Tom G.C who very well may have financially assisted Ross's architectural career to a degree.

If you ask me the breakthrough for Ross like a few other architects over the years came when bigtime tournaments started being played on his courses. That apparently started with Brae Burn and for the next 13 years 8 Opens were played on Ross courses. That kind of thing can't help but put an architect on the map bigtime.

And then of course there always was Pinehurst and Pinehurst #2 although it was a very gradually process of coming into its own.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

TE
I've read the book, I enjoyed very mcuh and it was very informative. To be honest I don't recall what he said about Havana.

I've also have found an article regarding the construction of Mt.Tom from late 1911, there was an interesting photo of the course being built. Ironically the article on the completed Havana was in that same issue.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

TE
Brae Burn hosted the Open in 1919, Ross was in full flight by then with a very large and impressive resume.

[Tyler Kearns]

Tom,
      At first I thought Donald Ross may have gotten the assignment in Cuba due to the country's history as a casino mecca for American gamblers. However, this was not until the 1930's. But, the United States in the arrogant pursuance of Manifest Destiny, occupied Cuba from 1906-1909. This was most likely accompanied by an influx of American investment and business openings. Would it be a stretch to say some of the business and financial elite frequented both Pinehurst resort and those in Cuba? Potentially a connection can be found here?

Tyler Kearns  

[Tyler Kearns]

Just leafing through Brad Klein's book, it states in regards to CC of Havana, "The year before his work at Brae Burn, Ross had gone to Cuba for several weeks and laid out the Country Club of Havana. The par-73 course (6,073 yards) quickly became the focal point of the island republic's life, and continued to host prominent tournaments for both wealthy tourists and professional golfers until its demise after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, when it was allowed to go fallow and ultimately plowed under to make room for industrial development". (Klein, 114)

I was under the impression that the land occupied by the course gave way to a five building complex housing various cultural & fine arts. I saw slides of the property in Architecture school, and from what I remember, the description provided by Tom earlier seems about right, though I don't seem to recall being in close proximity to the sea. (I could be confusing it with Ross' other golf course in Cuba, at the Havana Biltmore). Although saddened by the loss of his great courses, the architecture employed at the fine arts institutes is impressive, and most likely, a work that an artist like Donald Ross would have admired.    

Tyler Kearns

[ian]

Tom, I'm not sure if I agree (or disagee) with your answer. I'm not sure which course or couple of courses would have been the key, but I have read nothing that tells me this one catapulted his career.

As for whether this was his first important design, do we know enough about the course to say it was influential in his success. The description sounds good, but hell I can find you a few discriptions written in the 30's of courses that were never good. Think about current travel writing for golf, it generally gushes about each and every course since the writers stay and play for free; and don't want to loose that wonderful opportunity.

You may be completely right, but I could use some more information to convince me that Havana was the course.

[Brad Klein]

Tom McWood, I think pinning Ross' career on CC of Havana is a mistake. There were no photographs of golf courses in magazines in those days to spread the word, and scarely anyone who hired him would have seen it.

You seem to want to pin his career on one course breakthrough. That's also a mistake, because in those days that's not how business developed. Ross was shrewd, lucky, and centrally located - at Pinehurst. Everyone in the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest knew him from that association. Beyond the Pinehurst courses, his first major work of national significance was a total redesign and reconstruction of Essex County Club (1910-1917), but along the way he did highly regarded work at Rhode Island CC and soon thereafter, was active in St. Paul (White Bear Yacht Club) and Chicago (1913-on). But remember, he was also well connected as a golfer - playing in half a dozen US Opens, finishing tied for 8th in the 1910 British Open, and winning the Mass Open twice - all before he left his club pro job at Essex to become a fulltime designer. So his breakthrough was slower than you think - and more widespread as a result.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Brad
I wasn't looking for a Ross breakthrough, in fact I wasn't even looking for info on Ross, I was researching another subject. I more or less stumbled upon the info on Havana, noticing that it was getting a lot of attention. 'American Golf' had a big article on the course after it opened - late 1911 - and it included photos. Golf Illustrated also covered made note of the course. One of the reasons may have been the course spent a lot of money on advertisement. Every month CC of Havana had a full page spread with photograph which also noted the architect Donald Ross - very nice free publicity. The British magazine 'Country Life', which was well read in the US, had a column written by Bernard Darwin on Havana shortly after its opening - with photo.

Essex County was no doubt significant, but it was project that occured over a number of years, culminating in 1917. Also the fact that Essex was already well known as a great course prior to Ross becoming the professional might lessen its impact.

What I'd like know is who was behind the project and how Ross got the job.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

Tyler
I definitely got the impression that American money was behind CC of Havana. From what I understand the land was transformed into public housing.

Ian
What is interesting about this time period when Havana was publicizing their magnificient new Ross course in each issue, Ross had his own ads advertizing his professional talents at Essex County, but not a word about his golf design efforts.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW;

Not too sure that Essex was looked at even in that very early era as a great golf course before Ross redesigned it. It was probably considered a great CLUB though (there was apparenly a lot going on there). Like the original Merion is was very short even before general use of the Haskell (and clearly had to be expanded as did Merion Cricket of that same era). It did seem to have a number of fairly significant tournaments before and during Ross's lengthy redesign period and it certainly had a significant and powerful membership not the least of which was probably Margaret Curtis who had already won three US amateurs before Ross's redesign. But Ross's Essex redesign was a good 600 yards longer than the original 18 hole course.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

TE
Essex County was considered in the upper echelon of American championship courses early on. The original course was designed by Leeds, who may be one of the more under-appreciated American golf architects, and it was remodeled by JD Dunn and Travis. When the Oxford & Cambridge group toured the US (1903) they played at EC and when Horace Hutchinson made his tour of N.America (1910) golf courses he was taken to EC by Macdonald. There weren't a lot of significant courses in the US in those early days, but Essex County was one of them.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

In that case it appears there's some signifcant differences in your research of Essex preceding Ross's redesign and Brad Klein's research of Essex preceding Ross's design.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

TE
I don't think so. I have no information that contradicts that Ross totally redesigned the course. I was simply making the point that the original course was well known when Ross came on board.

[Tom Macwood (Guest)]

I found a little more information on CC of Havana. The mastermind behind its development was a man named Frederick Snare. He headed a large Engineering/construction firm, I believe based in NYC. The company more or less built Cuba's infrastructure--roads, bridges, schools, the National baseball stadium and eventually the military base on Guantanamo Bay (as well as a number of large projects in the US, including the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge). The club was made up of both American and British residents.

He was an avid golfer and evidently a very fine golfer. Still don't know how he found Ross, I suspect it was at Pinehurst, although he also had a home on Martha's Vinyard, so he may have had some Boston ties.

The club house is still there and it is a School for the Arts. There was a portrait of Snare that hung over a prominant mantel--after the revolution it was taken to an Art Museum in Havana. The golf course looks very impressive.