Maidstone's Domed Green

[Brad Klein]

I'm looking at a wonderful painting by American Impressionist Childe Hassam (1859-1935) of "The Domed Green (Maidstone). Hassam, a Maidstone member, painted it in 1923. Anyone know which green that is?

[ChipOat]

Brad:  I don't know it without seeing the painting but:

1) The club did publish a history of the course and I'll check my copy to see if there's a reference.

2) Don't be surprised if the painting is of a green on the club's now-9 hole East Course or is even NLE.  Maidstone had 2 "real" courses pre-WW II.  They sold off 9 holes, turned the remaining 9 into the kiddie/beginner slap-it-around track of today and focused on the main course that has cemented their reputation.

I'll get back if I find anything.

[TEPaul]

Sure don't but as Chip said the golf course has gone through a lot of iterations since it's inception. Some of the old holes are gone that were to the east of the driveway and the beach club but by 1923  I'm fairly sure the present course was in existence. I know that course real well and if I were to guess which green out there may be in some way considered domed, I'd say it may be the 10th. By the way, amongst a lot of the members the 10th hole is their favorite. I can't exactly see that. The green itself is wonderful but the rest of the hole is what I'd call "European amorphous".

Here's a bit of interesting trivia for you about the course. One of my favorite holes in the world is the 9th. A wonderful cut of a fairway through the dunes and a great green and angle to it. The tee shot is from up on the dune down into the funnel fairway through the dunes. Willie Park dropped that entire 9th fairway by about 10 feet and used all that fill to basically make most of the 7th hole that was apparently previously marsh or even under water.

[Brad Klein]

Actually, Hassam painted wonderful golf course images, including scenes from Maidstone, all 1923 or immediately thereafter. He had recently moved to East Hampton (1919) and had joined Maidstone, which suggests that he was working with the "new" Maidstone course, esp. as he painted a series of the holes that currently exist and are easily recognizable as such.

Hassam also did a wonderfully evocative painting of the 18th green at NGLA.

[Gene Greco]

Brad:

    It's got to be the 10th hole which is not only "domed" but also severely angled toward the fairway. When things get a bit dry out there in the summertime it is an easy four putt. Anything hit over the green is dead.


      Gene

[redanman]

From David Goddard's The Maidstone Links

footnote 51 pg. 37:
Childe Hassam, one of the most extrordinary of American Impressionist painters, had been coming to East Hampton since 1898 and later joined Maidstone.  He painted several other studies of the golf course in 1923, all of them before the new course was developed.  In 1926 he painted the fifth and seventh holes of the West Course and the ninth green of the East course.  This green no longer exists.  Hassam executed at least fifteen studies of Maidstone, and several others of the National Golf Links and the course at Ammagansett.  He exhibited eleven of them at the Rehn Galleries in New York in 1924. Several are produced below. (Between ppg 72 and 73 - "The Domed Green" is the third one shown and is dated 1923). "The Water Hazard" was not available, but the club does possess a photograph of it and also a number of others not reproduced here. (Footnote to the statement "A Painting of Childe Hassam's , done in 1923 and called "The Water Hazard", shows the tee (#2 West)  in use to a green not far in the distance.)

tyop corrected 2.28

[redanman]

p.s.  The location shown in the picture reminds me of numbers five and seven, both looking out over hook pond, more or less Northwest. Very hard to tell.  I have no pictures of that part of the course to compare the houses in the background to.

There is also a painting of number seven in the book, so it's likely number five.

All the players in the paintings in the book are women; was Hassam a Ladies' Man?

[Brad Klein]

Redan, it figures - two of the three people shown playing at NGLA are men.

[TEPaul]

redanman:

Thanks for that really good attribution regarding Hassam, his Maidstone paintings and his subjects from the footnotes of Goddard's Maidstone book. That's good stuff.

[Joel_Stewart]

Willie Park dropped that entire 9th fairway by about 10 feet and used all that fill to basically make most of the 7th hole that was apparently previously marsh or even under water.

Good post.

Tom:  How do you know the above fact?  I guess I'm a little naive because I thought the 9th had little work to build it.

[Mike_Cirba]

Joel,

The book being referred to "The Maidstone Links" by David Goddard is the source of that info, as well as the stuff about the artist redanman detailed above.

It's an awesome book that I highly recommend.  Even if it doesn't answer all of the questions about the evolution of the course(s) there, it is more than detailed enough for us architectural geeks and attempts to outline a very educated speculation to fill in the gaps.

[Tony Ristola]

Anywhere we can view his golf paintings online?

[redanman]

Several are owned by The American Academy of Arts and Letters (Including the domed green)  and at least one by the Milwaukee art museum, youb could try gooogling, etc.

[Tony Ristola]

Thanks Bill,
Did a search as suggested and a google images search; got loads of his work but only one of golf. Too bad.

www.p4a.com/itemsummary/158832.htm

I like his style.
The brilliance of his colors.

[Tom Dunne]

Tony,

I fired up "Virtual Janet"--thinking maybe that was where Brad was viewing these image(s), and while I didn't find what he was looking at, I did find a couple of Hassam paintings in the Nov. 1924 issue of Golf Illustrated.

Go to this link and punch in "Maidstone" in the search field. Click on the link to Nov. '24 Golf Illustrated. They're on page 25 and 26.

http://www.usga.org/aboutus/museum/library/segl.html

(I love Virtual Janet... )

[redanman]

Same issue, page 23 is Bob Jones and the Amateur trophy. P25 are the Hassam images.

My first time with Janet.  I think I like her.  

[Sandman]

Hey Brad,

I am not sure which painting you are refering to; Hassam paint one that I am familiar with titled: "Maidstone".  I have tried to figure out which hole was in this painting;  thinking that the blue object to the right side of the painting is water, I have to figure that it is either #5 or #7.  There is an absence of a dune and the terra firma rolls right into the "water" so that eliminated #9.  In the painting that you refer to entitled "The Dome" (?), #10 is the only one that comes to mind.  My experience at Maidstone is somewhat limited but still ranks up there as one of my favorite East End courses to play.  

[Tony Ristola]

Thanks Tom,

Interesting to look at his non-golf work in color and then these older B&W photos.

Had I seen only his B&W prints from Golf Illustrated, I would I thought, Hmmmm, very bold, staccato strokes in the foreground, reminiscent of van Gogh, not Monet.