When was the Golden Age?

[T_MacWood]

There is a lot of discusion about the golden age...what years were the golden age?

Are we going through another golden age today?

[Kyle Harris]

Golden age implies that our best years are behind us. To me at least.

I don't like that.

[Forrest Richardson]

April 1992 — May 24th, 2000. However, there were the dark ages...September through November of 1995.

[Peter Pallotta]

Greetings, folks. My first post.

Tom, I couldn't venture a guess about when, historically speaking, the golden age occurred; but when I hear the term what I think of is a group of Scots who had romantic hearts but practical minds: their hearts wanted to play a wonderful game, but their heads knew that they should play that game only on land that wasn't much good for anything else (like growing food, for example); and then in their hearts they knew that a game that was good for one was probably good for all, so their heads figured out how to make the game afforable to as many people as possible: they kept maintenance costs low and offered inexpensive memberships to the local community while charging more to outsiders (who were clearly able and willing to pay more.)  And then to top it off, they opened up the playing field on Sundays so people could walk their dogs and fly their kites. And so there was/is a St. Andrews.

There are many fine architects working today, and many fine course being built; but in general I think that the past 30 years will be looked back on not as a Golden Age but as the Republican Age.

Peter      

[James Bennett]

Peter Pallotta

I look forward to your future posts.
James B

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

While it probably isn't all that crucial to fix an exact date for the so-called "Golden Age of Golf Architecture" I can certainly live with your fixing of its date in your essay "A/C Golf" from around 1900 (the creation of Sunningdale and Huntercombe by WPjr) to the crash of the stock market at the end of 1929 when for all intents and purposes the burgeoning architectural market dried up due to the economic depression that followed it. Numerous other chroniclers of the history and evolution of golf course architecture have fixed basically the same dates and for obvoiusly reasons. It seems pointless to even ask the question as there seems little reason today to revise the dates of the original "Golden Age of Golf Architecture".

A new Golden Age today? I don't know about that but there's little question a few architects today are into a true renaissance of many of the priniciples and many of the same looks and features and even many of the same playabilities of the so-called "Golden Age" from around 1900 to the crash of '29.

The so-called "Modern Era" of architecture may be as interesting to consider even if time seems to be showing at this point that it may not be as enduringly popular as the era 1900-1929. But who knows what the future will hold and what the cycles of popularity will bring at some point?

[Forrest Richardson]

I have always defined it as beginning (about) with the opening of National Golf Links (1911). The momentum from there — through to the stock market collapse — seems to capture what has become thought of as The Golden Age.

[Brad Klein]

The Age of the Renaissance wasn't coined for 300 years, until Jakob Burckhardt's two-volume study of that phase of Italian history named it as such. Likewise, the Industrial Revolution was only called that 100 years after it supposedly took place. So it's common for historians to label retroactively. I've long thought of golf course architecture's Golden Age as simply 1919-1939, i.e. the period between the two world wars, though it might be better to strart it with the opening of National GLA in 1911 as Forrest suggests - makes sense thematically. Whenever it's said to have begun, it certainly ended by the late 1930s.  

[T_MacWood]

Forrest
There was a lot of good work being done in Britain prior to 1911. I'm also wondering if the outstanding designs in Japan, S.Africa and Canada (and the British Isles) after the crash should not be included.

[Paul_Turner]

"Golden Age" isn't limited to only the USA, so before WW1 has to count

1900 to the Depression?

[TEPaul]

I completely agree with Paul Turner. To say the "Golden Age" began with the creation of NGLA is to only consider America in the definition of the "Golden Age". It's impossible to deny that the inspiration for Macdonald's revolutionary NGLA was primarily drawn from the Scottish linksland (that's where most all his template holes came from by his own very detailed admission) but it's impossible to deny that the break-through in quality inland architecture first began in the Englsh Heathlands around 1900.

To me this is all so evident and obvious and so well chronicled for years. Are we now going to have another fifteen page thread debating the historical validity of this?

I certainly hope not.

[wsmorrison]

I agree with Brad that there was some work being done in the 1930s that would represent a conclusion of the era.  So I would also extend the Golden Age beyond the onset of the Crash until the onset of WWII.  

There was a transition period however between the classic era and the modern era.  I think it began with revolutionary designs early in the golden age at Merion and Pine Valley where even in the earliest version of Merion nearly half of the holes required aerial approaches and half offer ground and aerial approaches depending upon conditions and golfer ability.  The later stages of the golden age show a continuation of this principle.  Flynn was a transition architect between the ground game and the aerial game.  Were there others prior to WWII?

What followed in the modern era, certainly in the US, was that the pendulum swung too far to a reliance on the aerial game with maintenance practices that allowed point to point golf and an overwhelming reliance on the aerial game.

Like Brad, I would consider the Golden Age in the US starting with NGLA (and Myopia Hunt as its precursor) and ending with the onset of WWII because what followed the onset of golf architecture after the war was a large departure.  In world golf, the Golden Age began in the Heathlands.  (Thanks for the reminder Paul).

[Paul_Turner]

But does the Golden Age have to start when golf migrated from the links, inland, or was it earlier?  How about courses like Rye which was first built in the early 1890s i.e. didn't have an extended evolution like the ancient links, and was definitely constructed/built, to a degree.  I'm sure there were others.

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

Obviously these are only descriptive terms but personally I feel the crash and the depth and extent of the ecoomic depression (in America) brought on a fairly significant sea-change in the evolution of American archtiecture even if only for the reason that a lot of the activity during the depression (1930-1939) involved a significant amount of both "de-construction" of Golden Age architecture (for economic reasons) as well as the onset of a significant amount of actual redesign.

The fact of the latter (significant redesign) may surprise many and be overlooked by most who seem to assume that all architectural activity ground to a virtual halt during the depression years because there was no money to do anything. History shows otherwise and the reason for that has never been stated better than by restoration architect Ron Prichard, in my opinion. He maintains that the depression years were a period of another type of activity within numerous existing golf courses simply because available labor was willing and able to work for perhaps 10 cents on the dollar rather than not work at all and even if most clubs did not have the money they had before the Crash they did have enough to see the economic efficacy of that and they took advantage of it far more than most seem to realize today. My own golf club is a really excellent example of that historic fact of continuous redesign cycles in the depths of the depression. Thankfully it was almost exclusively done at my course by the great Perry Maxwell.  

[wsmorrison]

Tom Paul and Paul Turner,

Excellent points.  In reflection and in reading these posts it seems clearer that there were no fixed points to consider the onset and close of the Golden Age.  I do not know enough about the period in the UK where the transition from links in Scotland to later links in England and the architecture in the Heathlands to contribute in any way.  This is a fascinating subject and if there isn't a quality book on this period in golf architecture in the UK, I hope it is written someday.

Tom Paul,

The kind of redesign and deconstruction you refer to is very interesting as well.  I guess much of it was economically based after the Crash but some of it had to do with changes in balls and implements prior to the Crash.  There was some significant redesign work going on throughout the 1920s as a result.

Ron's idea of change during the period following the Crash is at first counter-intuitive but makes a lot of sense upon further reflection.

[Scott Witter]

Peter P.

I have to say, that was one of the best first posts ever!...very well spoken.

[Kelly Blake Moran]

Tom,

I would say we are in the midst of a retrospective and that is matters little when the Golden Age was.

[Mike Hendren]

Tom,

IMHO, the current "age" is more platinum than gold - high quality, but much flashier.

Mike

[T_MacWood]

There were a number of very good couses built or re-designed after the crash: ANGC, Bethpage, Prarie Dunes, Southern Hills, Pinehurst #2, Capilano, Cape Breton, Hirono, Kawana, Tokyo, West Sussex, Ashridge, Baltray, Ballybunion, Spa, Humewood, East London, Maccauvlei Turnberry, Haagsche are a few off the top of my head. Should they be considered golden age designs?

Paul
I believe Ran agrees with you, placing the golden age prior to 1900...with courses like Rye, Brancaster and Sandwich.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tom,

Obviously, NGLA to Prairie Dunes is an American perspective on the co-called Golden Age.

From a global perspective, I see it as starting with Willie Park Jr.'s revolutionary work at Sunningdale (circa 1901) and shortly thereafter Huntercombe, to the completion of Stanley Thompson's Highlands Links in 1941.

My .02, for whatever it's worth  

[Brad Tufts]

For my thesis on the Golden Age, I used 1900 (in my mind, golf courses were developing the ideas that existed in Scotland, culminationg with NGLA in 1911) as a start, and the beginning of World War II as the end.  There were courses still being built in the 30s by the great architects of the world that are considered (as far as I know) as Golden Age designs (as Tom points out above), although not with the reckless abandon of the 20s (build now, ask questions later).  World War II certainly pushed the collective efforts of the country in another direction....

[Forrest Richardson]

Tom — My thought on National Golf Links (1911) is that its opening ushered in a wave of courses. Prior to National there was a good work in America, and certainly plenty of solid (and ancient) work elsewhere.

I have always thought of the term primarily American in nature. That is, to me it is associated with activity in America and Canada — defining the period that golf rooted itself in America and there was excitement on all levels about new courses and what was important in design, strategy and aesthetics.

[T_MacWood]

Forrest
What about all the fine courses built prior to 1911 by Park, Fowler, Colt, Abercromby, MacKenzie and others?

[Forrest Richardson]

What about them? In my view they were predecessors to the Golden Age. NGL brought in an era.

And...I do not think we are in a Golden Age today. I think Kelly hits it on the mark: We are in a period of retro-ism. Reliving the past with seldom a new idea or breakthrough. Among the most exciting designs of recent years (15-20) has been the infliction of certain styles in regions where such styles have been absent...

...links courses on coasts which have never seen such courses

...rough edges on parkland courses which had been previously manicured

...purposeful manufacturing of broken ground

...the idea of fewer trees, a throwback to days when courses were constructed on plowed land

[Tony_Muldoon]

It's just a theory but it may be that we are living through the golden age of golf course architecture history and DISCUSSION.  As clubs look to write their history books for their centenaries more information becomes available.  Generally there have been a lot of books, and now this site, in the last 10 years or so and interest in the old courses is now at a peak only excelled at the time of their construction. Once the new facts dry up the kind of debates that thrive on here will too.........?

[Tags:]

Tags: