[Adam_F_Collins]

To aid my study of Golf Course Architecture as it relates to garden history, I'm wondering if anyone can offer insight into golden age clients.

• Who were some of the people behind the great courses of the early days?
• Who were the architects they chose?
• What else do we know about the people behind the scenes?
• Where'd they make their money?
• Where were they educated?
• Are they known to history for other reasons?
• Were there other people of note who worked on these projects? (for example building architects for the club houses.)

Any leads would be greatly appreciated.

[TEPaul]

Adam:

That's frankly a fascinating subject. You can find a lot more of that than you may've at first thought in Dan Wexler's two books, "Missing Links" and "Lost Links".

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Adam

The Golf Ass'n of Philadelphia's website has a history of member clubs section. Just click on Merion, Huntingdon Valley, Philmont, Aronimink, Philadelphia Country, Philadelphia Cricket, etc and you'll get a lot of info:

www.gapgolf.org/detail.asp?id=44&pid=7


The Manufacturers' history is very illuminating on the membership. I believe at that time it was one of the earliest, if not the first, non-restricted club in the area.

Steve

[Tyler Kearns]

Adam,

Stanley Thompson has the luxury of having very wealthy clients for his "BIG 5" designs in Canada, enabling him to tackle some rather difficult sites and produce a series of masterpieces.

Capilano - British Pacific Properties (Guiness Brewing Co.)
Banff - Candian Pacific Railway
St. George's - Canadian Pacific Railway
Jasper - Canadian National Railway
Highlands Links - Parks Canada

TK
 

[Brad Klein]

There's an interesting connection between classical landscape gardening theory - Humphrey Repton, Capability Brown - and the aesthetic ideals of the early course designers. Also, Frederick Law Olmsted and more so, his son, did quite a number of land plans for parks that were part of golf course and real estate properties.

Not incidentally, Donald Ross was a very skilled rose gardener, and George C. Thomas Jr. wrote a book about roses after he stopped designing courses.

.

[Andy Levett]

MacKenzie's client for Sitwell Park, Sir George Sitwell, was keen on gardens too and had an Italianate garden laid out to his own design at Renishaw Hall, the family home.
Sir George wasn't impressed with MacK's work at Sitwell Park (see Spirit of St Andrews and the Doak/Scott bio for detail on this) and apparently thought he could do better.
Sir George  is listed as the designer of Renishaw Park http://www.renishawparkgolf.co.uk/renishawparkgolfclub/index.html According to website it was very 'minimalist' - "In the construction of the original course little or no resculpturing took place except for the levelling of tees and greens"
If the 1911 date on the website is correct Sir George's Renishaw Park course pre-dates Sitwell Park (1913).
Another person of note who worked on both projects was the leading architect of the day, Sir Edwin Lutyens, responsible for the clubhouses.

[BCrosby]

It has always bothered me that Cornish's course at the Harvard Design School stresses connections between landscaping and golf design. He believes (I think) that making the connection gives credibiltity to teaching golf design as an academic subject. It is also one of the reasons his text book sings the praises of Fazio so often. Golf design as landscaping is theme Fazio exploited early and often. Heck, he's quite explicit about it in his book.

I think the connection can be overdone. In fact, I think it can do real harm, especially in shaping public opinion of what good golf design is supposed to be.

There are more great courses that violate every principle of good landscape design than there are great courses that embody those principles.

Pretty is not a goal of gca. It can be incidental to good design. But it shouldn't be the point.

Bob

[wsmorrison]

William Flynn's clients at the following courses represented a significant cross-section of American aristocracy:

Shinnecock Hills:  Juan Trippe, chairman of Pan American Airways helped to convince the president of the club, Lucien Tyng, to hire Flynn to completely redesign the golf course after Tyng bought an additional 108 acres north and east of the clubhouse.

Pocantico Hills:  After a long search, the contract to redesign the golf course at the Rockefeller estate in Tarrytown, NY came down to 2 men; Donald Ross and William Flynn.  Mr. Rockefeller, Jr chose William Flynn in part due to the success of the redesign of Shinnecock Hills.  We have a large amount of correspondence between JDR, Jr and Flynn.  Rockefeller was intimately involved in the smallest details of the course being built for his father.  After completion, Flynn was involved in landscape design for the estate.

Addison Mizner:  Donald Ross was building the Cloister Inn golf course for Mizner's new city of Boca Raton.  Part of this large land plan was a Ritz Carlton resort hotel.  Wm. Flynn was chosen to design 2 courses for the Ritz.  The land bust, 1926 hurricane, and the subsequent stock market crash ensured that the project would not be completed.  Mizner lost his fortune and several others in this venture.

Clarence Geist:  One of the richest men in America through his extensive utility holdings, Clarence Geist hired Hugh Wilson to design the original Bay Course at Seaview near Atlantic City, NJ.  A second 9-hole couse was added known as the Pines.  Today's Flynn holes are the first 2 holes of the Pines 18-hole course along with the current 12-18.  When Geist bought the Boca Raton development project from a bankrupt Addison Mizner, Geist hired Flynn to design the NLE Boca Raton North and South courses.  Geist, in a letter to Lucien Tyng said he would never build another golf course without Flynn as the designer.

Albert Lasker, the pioneer advertising magnate out of Chicago built an estate course, Mill Road Farm, that was considered one of the most challenging golf courses in America.  Originally opened as a 7000 yard par 72 or 71 course in 1926.  Many top professional golfers tried over the years to break par.  It was finally accomplished by the great Tommy Armour.

Flynn designed a private estate course for Robert Cassatt, president of the first billion dollar company in the world, The Pennsylvania Railroad.  Cassatt was the nephew of the famous impressionist painter, Mary Cassatt.

The Brahmins and sporting elite of Boston were well-served by their native son.  Flynn added nine holes and did significant work on the original 18 of The Country Club in Brookline.  Probably as a result of this effort, Flynn got the job to design The Kittansett Club for utility tycoon Frederick Hood.

Princeton University hired Flynn to redesign the college golf course.

Perhaps the most elite founding membership of all time, that of The Creek Club, hired Flynn to propose changes to the Macdonald/Raynor course after having numerous flooding problems on the "water holes."  Thankfully, few changes were implemented thus saving the 10th and 11th (Biarritz) holes.  Flynn may not have desired to obsolete the holes entirely, but he did propose new 16th and 17th holes on land adjacent to the 17th green and 18th fairway.  It could be that these holes were intended to be used and the routing progression altered when the water holes flooded.

[Adam_F_Collins]

...He believes (I think) that making the connection gives credibiltity to teaching golf design as an academic subject...

I think the connection can be overdone. In fact, I think it can do real harm, especially in shaping public opinion of what good golf design is supposed to be.

There are more great courses that violate every principle of good landscape design than there are great courses that embody those principles.

Pretty is not a goal of gca. It can be incidental to good design. But it shouldn't be the point.

Bob,

I think you make some interesting points here which I'd like to respond to. Please don't don't take it as negative argument (not that you would)

First, I'm not sure what Cornish's goals were, but to me the search for connections comes simply from the fact that I believe that nothing develops in isolation. Particularly something which spread in popularity so rapidly among the wealthy and influential - across a number of continents during the golden age. This "level" of society were educated people, often quite aware of of "taste" and fashion in everything from clothing to architecture to philosophy. Gardening was very fashionable and very popular among the middle and upper classes during this time (and really beginning much earlier) Therefore, I find it more telling to see the connections (if one can) rather than thinking that golf course architecture could somehow grow and spread without being affected by the dominant interests of the same people in other areas of their lives.

Which courses violate every principle of landscape design?

And since when is pretty not a goal of golf course architecture? I would argue that it is quite a central goal. The fact is simply that different people see beauty and create it in different ways. Many members of this website just see it most clearly in the minimalist "form follows function" kind of way (myself included).

What course does anyone love which they truly find to be anything less than beautiful?

[BCrosby]

Adam asks:

"What course does anyone love which they truly find to be anything less than beautiful?"

TOC, Royal Dornoch, Prestwick, Pinehurst II, Myopia, Yeamans Hall are all less than beautiful. There are many others.

These are all great courses that are "beautiful" only to the dozen or so wingnuts that frequent this site. Sam Snead once said that TOC looked like an abandoned farm. I understand what he meant.

The thing about golf architecture is this - It is first and foremost about designing playing fields for a game. Some designs enhance the quality of the game played. We call them great courses.

Some designs diminish the quality of the game played. We call them mediocre courses.

Courses in either of those categories might be beautiful. Courses in either of those categories might be ugly.

My point is that the aesthetic qualities of a course have little bearing on the quality of the course. All things being equal, I'll take pretty. But pretty is in no relevant sense necessary to a course being great.

That's where I think people overplay the connection between the study of landscape architecture and golf architecture. When landscaping, one has purely aesthetic goals. Beauty matters. With golf architecture it is the golf that matters. All else is farther down the ladder.

I agree that every age is influenced by contemporary factors. No doubt those influences have shaped the look of holes designed by RTJ v. Colt v. C&C v. Fazio v. Ross. That's worth exploring and I hope you will.

But the beauty of a hole is only incidental to the quality of the hole. To argue  - as Cornish does - that designing golf courses is kissin' cousins with designing landscapes is to miss that vital point.

Bob      

[Adam_F_Collins]

The thing about golf architecture is this - It is first and foremost about designing playing fields for a game. Some designs enhance the quality of the game played...

...When landscaping, one has purely aesthetic goals. Beauty matters. With golf architecture it is the golf that matters. All else is farther down the ladder...

Very true, Bob. This is what leads me to describing GCA in my own circles as the "highest form of landscape architecture". It is truly interactive on so many levels, so the demands on the Architect are, in my opinion much greater.

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