[ForkaB]

Philip

"Shabby genteel" is a look (course-wise and sartorially) which is (or at least used to be) not unknown at some of the more famous (and best) courses in the USA too, and, no, I am not naming any names, at least for now.....

[Philip Gawith]

Rich - from what I could see at Littlestone you are paid up "shabby genteel" (how old are those Macgregors?!) which would account for your detailed knowledge of great golf clubs on both sides of the water.

[TEPaul]

"Philip
"Shabby genteel" is a look (course-wise and sartorially) which is (or at least used to be) not unknown at some of the more famous (and best) courses in the USA too, and, no, I am not naming any names, at least for now....."

"Shabby genteel" may be a term apropos of some of those British Isles course but over here Rich "shabby genteel" was not that apropos a term. Over here it may've been the same basic effect in dress and on the courses but over here it's called "calculated nonchalance".  

Not just that but the extent of "calculated nonchalance" over here sort of worked inversely. In other words, after a while, the richer they were the stingier they got about some of these things.

The reasons are pretty obvious too. Basically, they had nothing whatsoever to prove to anyone, they knew that and acted accordingly. Not just that but they also developed a very strong "Greta Garbo" complex over time---eg in their social lives they pretty much just wanted to be left alone!  

[T_MacWood]

Rich
The majority of the courses I listed did host amateur and professional competitions...therefore I would consider them championship caliber golf courses. The fact that the major British championships are traditionally held on seaside links does not mean their top inland courses were not of championship quality

"It's interesting that while Crump and Townes set out to build the greatest and/or toughest courses in the world, Low/Paton and Hotchkin seemed content to "tinker." "

I'm not sure I understand the distinction you are trying to make. Fownes did tinker as far as I can tell. Crump never had a chance to tinker. From what I gather Hotchkin had similar goals to Crump and Fownes.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

As far as Woodhall Spa was concerned, Hotchkin came to their aid when they were bankrupt (he had already been very generous) and he bought the place.  Largely he took what Colt had left him and expanded on that, so he was certainly not constructing the course from scratch.

Mention of British architects working after WWI - much of that was abroad.  There were very few new courses in England between the wars.  They were not needed.  There were plenty.

As for the magazine articles - VERY FEW people read them.  They may have been of high quality but a lot of those buying Country Life ignored those articles as much as they ignored the classical music page, which also died about the time they stopped writing about golf.  This was a time when magazine and newspaper proprietors and editors were not driven by sales/reader figures but by what they felt ought to be there - just as dear old Radio 3 did when I joined, but certainly did not when I left.

WH Fowler's very detailed description of Alwoodley in May 1908 was published in the Sheffield Telegraph of all places.  Few readers of the Sheffield Telegraph would have had any interest in this at all, apart from two or three members of Lindrick.  

Some idea of the downplaying of the era may be gained from two Alwoodley examples.  First, it turned down the Ryder Cup and several other big tournaments.  Secondly, a past Hon Secretary told me that he was at one stage good enough to play in the County Championship and mentioned that he was entering.  'We don't do that sort of thing, here,' he was told very firmly by a Committee member.

Alwoodley is largely as MacKenzie left it because no one would have thought of making alterations.  This was not because of MacKenzie's reputation (for he was disowned by Alwoodley members when he divorced in Reno and married again).  But lots of other courses were tinkered with, very often by the members themselves or by the greenkeeper in association with the resident professional, and many of these alterations were occasioned by leases expiring, new bits of land becoming available, erosion, selling of land for housing or even the extraction of minerals.  

I wish I could find the post I made some time ago about why there were so few decent courses built in England after WWI but search as I may, I've failed.  Basically it had to do with the fact that our male population was severely reduced by WWI and the professional classes (who were the golfers) settled into a state of inertia - they had their courses, played them (very often idifferently), and saw no need to stretch themselves.  Of course there were new courses built and some of them were very good, but the bulk of the important work done by MacKenzie, Alison and Simpson after WWI was overseas.  And remember that MacKenzie was only invited to Australia because Royal Melbourne enquired of the R&A and it was they who recommended him.  

[TEPaul]

“Your argument just does not fit the facts this time.  Sorry!”

Rich:

Then one wonders why you said this a few post previous.

“Just speculating, but it also makes me wonder why there was not (that I know of) any developer/designer/owner in the UK (particularly England) in any way comparable to Crump or Fownes or even the founders of Winged "Give us a man-sized Course!" Foot.  The emphasis (or at least the effect) seems to have been largely aimed at creating sporty tracks, rather than world-beaters.”

Perhaps it’s simply because there weren’t the imaginative “Field of Dreams” type golf and architecture visionaries in the UK back then the likes of the Crumps and Fowneses in America!  

If there were just name me a single club and course in the UK from that time that was a purposeful championship design founded, bought and built by a single visionary like a Macdonald, Crump or Fownes in America.

[TEPaul]

Mark:

I'm just fascinated by some of your descriptions of the way things were back then and the explanations of why. Thank you for them. At the very least they seem to lance some of the glorified assumptions of some of us over here about the way things were over there back then. There does seem to be threads on here from time to time wondering why such and such wasn't more recognized or written about. The accurate answer seems to be that people probably just didn't care back then anything like some of us do today.  

[T_MacWood]

Mark
Hotchkin owned the land Woodhall Spa was built upon in 1905 and he was actively involved in all aspects of the club since its inception, including the hiring of Colt in 1912. He subsidized the club for years before taking it over officially in 1920.

"As for the magazine articles - VERY FEW people read them. "

How did you determine that? Very few people or very few golfers?

[TEPaul]

"Fownes did tinker as far as I can tell."

Tom MacW:

He certainly did--for about forty years.  

"Crump never had a chance to tinker."

He didn't? What makes you say that? What do you think he was doing down there for the five or more years he worked on PVGC most every day? Do you think he was just constructing the golf course to Harry Colt's design and hole drawings? If he just wanted to do that he probably could've finished the entire course in six months and opened it for play in one year. He most certainly was tinkering, the "Rememberances" of his two closest friends make that pretty clear and they also make pretty clear that had he lived he probably would've continued to tinker for years to come.

A quotation from Simon Carr:

"George, when are you going to finish this golf course?" Crump; "NEVER!"

[T_MacWood]

"He didn't? What makes you say that? "

TE
Its hard to tinker when you're dead. Little did Carr know how accurate his statement would be.

[BCrosby]

Mark -

Interesting about the UK in the 20's. By contrat with the UK, there was an explosion of new courses in the US in the decade. After hundreds went under during the Great Depression and WWII, the number of courses in the US did not rebound to the 1930 levels until the mid-1960's.

Bob

[TEPaul]

"TE
Its hard to tinker when you're dead."

Tom MacW:

What a brilliant statement. Then what do you think he was doing there practically every day for over five years when he was alive if he wasn't tinkering with the course? All that time and he still hadn't finished all the holes or opened the entire course. Hugh Wilson & Co. finished the construction of Merion East in about five months grew it in and opened the entire course to play the following year when it'd grown in. What do you think the difference was with Crump? Are you still under the impression the course was built to Colt's plan and Crump sat there and watched to see if the grass would grow for the next four years?  

"Little did Carr know how accurate his statement would be."

That most certainly is true although obviously no one could imagine then the reason why would be the way it turned out.

[T_MacWood]

There were a hell of a lot of good courses built (and remodeled) in the UK in the 20's and 30's. I would disagree with the assessment that things came to standstill after WWI.

Colt, Alison & Morrison were very active (MacKenzie was active in the early 20's as well), Fowler, Abercromby, Simpson & Croome; Hawtree & Taylor; Braid; Hutchison, Campbell & Hotchkin produced a number of top notch designs:

Sunningdale-New, Birkdale, Wentworth (36), Moor Park (54), Muirfield, Liphook, Ashridge, West Sussex, Berkshire (36), Boat of Garten, Deal, Saunton (36), Knole Park, North Foreland, Baltray, County Sligo, Tadmarton Heath, Trevose, Addington-New, Seaton Carew, Cavendish, Brancepth Castle, Manor House Hotel, Turnberry, Berkhamsted, Fulford Heath, Richmond Park, Addington Park, Longniddry, off the top of my head.

New Zealand, Hoylake, Cruden Bay, Ballybunion, Lytham & St. Annes, Worlington, Brora, Carnoustie, Rye were some of the courses redesigned during that period.

There was great deal of quality architecture taking place in the 20's and 30's.

[Tony_Muldoon]

This thread sent me back to the excellent book published this year to mark the centenary of the Hotchkin course.  The book is much more than a souvenir, setting out in detail the changes to the course and it’s place in golf – recommended.

Hotchkin was involved from day one and worked with Vardon in 1905 setting out the first layout on this piece of land.  In 1912 he worked with Colt in the redesign.  He was away during WW1, and when the Spa town was full of recuperating soldiers it operated at a surplus over income for perhaps the first time. In June 1919 the club minutes thank him for his support without which the club would certainly have faltered (the family owned the land but often waived the rent when there was no money to pay it) and predict a glowing future.  However only six months later the club was is debt again and (the now) Major Hotchkin came to the rescue.

From then on he personally designed and supervised the changes to the course.  He frequently invited good players and asked them for their opinions.  During WW2 he was too old for military service and so he worked on the green staff.  It was his proud boast that no outside contractor had worked on the course since WW1.

His son continued the tradition and they always turned away the chance of professional tournaments but by the mid 1950’s they started holding the English Amateur.

Something not said often enough on here is the Hotchkin course offers superlative golf and is a fitting tribute to the man.  

[Philip Gawith]

Tony - I agree, it is a great course to visit and play. Probably the best value great golf in England? It is quite fun staying in that hotel where the Dam Buster squadron was based during the war.

My two strongest memories of the course are:

- the awesome, deep bunkers;
- the short 13th (??) which has the plaque where player A holed his tee shot and player B followed him in to halve the hole! What are the odds of that happening!?

[Sean_A]

Tony & Philip

I have been meaning to buy this new history of Woodhall.  You are the third person that has said the book is a winner.  I always love visiting Woodhall.  It is a unique experience.  Perhaps a trip this coming spring should be on the cards.  Woodhall usually offers excellent deals in the shoulder months.

Ciao

Sean

[TEPaul]

Mark Rowlinson said;

“Mention of British architects working after WWI - much of that was abroad.  There were very few new courses in England between the wars.  They were not needed.  There were plenty.”

Tom MacWood said:

“There were a hell of a lot of good courses built (and remodeled) in the UK in the 20's and 30's. I would disagree with the assessment that things came to standstill after WWI.
There was great deal of quality architecture taking place in the 20's and 30's.”

Interesting, indeed. Here we have an Englishman who writes books about English golf courses saying one thing about the lack of popularity of golf writing in England after WW1 and about the paucity of courses built between the wars in the British Isles and an American golf analyst from Ohio saying basically the opposite.  

I’m a big fan of historical accuracy and I guess the one thing we can be sure of is it can’t be both ways.  

[Mark_Rowlinson]

To go back to Tom Mac's point, not all of that list were what you might call top notch courses - Boat of Garten, Fulford Heath, Richmond Park, North Foreland, Cavendish, for instance, fond though I am of Cavendish and North Foreland, while Boat is a wonderful place both for its setting and the mischief of its course, but it's not in the same boat as West Sussex or The Berkshire.  Birkdale was already long in existence, same for Turnberry, Seaton Carew, County Sligo.  Of course they were revamped at that time and made into (Turnberry excepted) something that we might recognise today.  The point is that there were not very many courses built at all in that period compared with 1890-1914, and very few of what you might call international renown.  

As for Hotchkin buying out Woodhall Spa, these are the words from Richard Latham's book:

"The fortunes of the Golf Club must then have taken a severe downturn in the remainder of that year because on the 6th December 1919 an EGM was called 'to consider and confirm an arrangement for the landlord to take over the club as a proprietary one.'  The chairman (Captain Hotchkin) said that the club had not been a financial success and he suggested taking over the links from the committee and making himself responsible for the financial burdens.  The members would remain as they were, paying the same subscriptions and with the same privileges, except with regard to tennis.  They would have the use of the pavilion, and the benefit of elected officers.  However, they would no longer be responsible for the links, and were also relieved of any financial burden.  The committee agreed as 'payment of the rent and arrears being too heavy a burden on the resources of the club, there was no other course open."  If that is not buying out the club I don't know what is.  

[Philip Gawith]

Sean - not a man to lightly pass up on a good deal.

I would enjoy a Spring visit....

[TEPaul]

Mark:

Again, thank you for your historical input on this interesting time in England and on golf, golf architecture and golf and golf architecture writing there then. The discussion of these differing opinions on these subjects are what makes GOLFCLUBATLAS.com so valuable, in my opinion.

There is always a tendency for some of us from our vantage point so many decades later to exaggerate certain things by tending to glorify them somehow in comparison to the way they may have been seen to play out in their own times.

In those differences of opinion is obviously a large part of the overall "history dynamic" of the way we tend to look back on certain times and to characterize them so many decades later. It's just so interesting to get a keyhole look at the way things really were viewed contemporaneously by those who lived and worked in that time compared to the way we today may think it was.

Did some of those men, the early inland architects who so innovatively plied the "heathlands" really understand what their contribution was going to be to the entire evolution of golf architecture to come? And if they did not then what does that say about the way they were looked at back then compared to the way we may look at them now?

Those years both leading up to WW1, during it, and after it are a remarkable time to look back on. And some of the perceptions of the way things were back then are pretty remarkable too---in their divergences.

I hate to admit it but as an American of the later half of the 20th century I had no real idea of what EXACTLY went on and when during WW1 and even WW2 until I got older. For us over here there always was a tendency to learn of the two world wars as basically allied efforts through and through. I was fairly shocked to learn the real truth of it---for instance how long Britain in both wars "went it alone" as we over here looked on from afar for even years!

Did "the "Allies" win both wars against the German aggression? Well of course they did but that does not even begin to explain what Britain went through, and for years, before that "allied effort" in both wars and the extent of the total devastation to almost an entire generation of British men.

More than anything that should explain the truth of what you're saying about how golf and golf architecture may've been viewed in the UK in that time between the wars.

Were some of those UK architects recognized back then the way they should have been for what they thought and did---their architectural philosophies and innovativeness and such? Probably not but perhaps they will be recognized now when we can see from the ensuing years what they did and how it influenced what was to follow them that they never could've known.

[T_MacWood]

“Mention of British architects working after WWI - much of that was abroad.  There were very few new courses in England between the wars.  They were not needed.  There were plenty…As for the magazine articles - VERY FEW people read them. “

Mark
I’m still wondering how you determined very few were reading the golf architecture articles. The Times had a broad readership….don’t you think many were exposed to golf architecture on its pages or did most skip over golf architecture related material?

You appear to be acknowledging there were courses being built after WW1…they just weren’t top notch?

In 1924 MacKenzie was involved in the construction five new courses (at Buxton, Blackpool, Leeds, Cork and Aberdeen) and the revision of six others (Willingdon, Blairgowrie, Littlestone, Teignmouth, Sutton Cofield and Dulwich & Sydenham). He claimed he was "extremely busy”. Colt had at least as many projects in the works at that time in the UK. Perhaps these projects were not up to snuff (I’ll let you be the judge of that) but the point is they were not sitting around twittling their thumbs.  

Birkdale was completely rebuilt and converted into modern championship test in the 1930’s….it was in essence a new course. The same with Hutchison’s Turnberry, MacKenzie’s Seaton Carew and Colt’s Sligo. Likewise Muirfield. Colt also remodeled Hoylake and Lytham; less drastic renovations, but still both significant redesigns.

“The point is that there were not very many courses built at all in that period compared with 1890-1914, and very few of what you might call international renown. “

Muirfield, Birkdale, Carnoustie, Saunton, Liphook, Moor Park, Berkshire, Ballybunion, Portrush, Sunningdale-New, West Sussex, Wentworth, Addington-New were not, are not international renown?

In his book Golf Between Two Wars Darwin devotes an entire chapter to the golf architecture of this period. It is an interesting read. IMO it was not the barren wasteland you make out to be—both from a design and writing point of view.  In fact far from it.

Who said Hotckin didn’t buy the club? No one that I know of.

[ForkaB]

TEP

Check out the "Foreign Correspondent" (Darwin?) columns from the war years in the link below.  Very poignant stuff.

http://www.aafla.org/5va/americangolfer_frmst.htm

[TEPaul]

Mark:

Somewhat off the subject of golf architecture but I have a CD that I'm keeping in my car's CD player that is the speeches of Winston Churchill leading up to and during WW2.

We over here of my generation have read those words and speeches of Churchill (and Roosevelt too) but to actually hear him speak those words---Oh my God are they something else--I had no idea at all!

Not just that but you should read this book "Franklin and Winston" about their personal relationship leading up to America's entry into WW2 in Europe and during it. To say the least it was not what I'd always thought it was. Churchill was but Roosevelt was not. Obviously Roosevelt had his issues (lack of political committment) but he did play games with Churchill as Churchill did everything within his considerable ability to charm and cajol Roosevelt.

The truth of it all came in the recorded words of both Roosevelt and Churchill on December 7th 1941. Roosevelt's famous "a day that will live in infamy" speech was just dripping with total antipathy in every single way towards Japan and the Japanese. His anger as you actually listeni to his words is really palabable.

But Churchill's reaction in England to news of the Japanese invasion at Pearl Harbor? It was thinly disguised delight---he looked at it as his and Europe's final deliverance!  

[BCrosby]

The devastation of WWI on young men of that generation in the UK is hard to fathom. It was driven home for me recently reading a history of the Normandy campaign during WWII. The American generals were very unhappy with Montgomery's conservative tactics, but he refused to change, sending the Americans into even bigger paroxysms of anger.

It turned out - and could not be revealed at the time for obvious strategic reasons - that Monty had no choice but to use conservative tactics because the UK had, literally, run out of reserves. It had virtually no young men left to replace casualties.

The Americans, on the other hand, had an unlimited gusher of reserves to fill out depleted units. Which had a direct bearing on the kinds of risks they were willing to expose US units to.

WWI eliminated almost an entire generation, a tragedy that was still affecting manpower levels in the UK 25 years later.

Bob

[T_MacWood]

Rich
I agree, it is poignant stuff. I believe the foreign correspondant from American Golfer was Henry Leach. Darwin was writing similar reports for Golf Illustrated (US)...quite moving.

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