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Tilly on TOC...

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T_MacWood:
Phil
When did Tilly last visit St.Andrews?

What was the title and/or theme of the article your quote came from?

Phil_the_Author:
Tom,

His last visit was in 1901.

This is part of the editor's opening comments from the June, 1934 issue of Golf Illustrated. Note how he wrote, "Harking back over 40 years." That would probably be in reference to his first visit in the spring of 1895, which would be just less than 40 years before.

Peter Pallotta:
Philip
it's interesting to me that this thread has developed in the way it has. When I read your original question, my take on it was quite different.

You asked: "Accepting the validity of that statement, how do we account for TOC to be viewed by many as being among the finest courses in the world today?"

While I'm not sure I would accept the validity of the statement wholeheartedly, I can safely assume that Tillinghast knew a great deal about golf course architecture. So the question remains: why did he view TOC so very differently than most of us (including me) do today?

I think it may be because we have accepted as gospel the idea that "the Scots invented the game of golf on land, i.e. TOC, ideally suited to the game". What we fail to recognize, however, is that this is a gospel that has come to the fore and won over the majority of its adherents only in the last 75 years or so. It is not, evidently, a gospel that Tillinghast believed in; nor one, I think, that we should EXPECT him to have believed in.

I would phrase the alternative [edit:that is, the true] gospel of TOC this way: "The Scots, practical people that they are, started playing a game on the ONLY land that was available to them, i.e. on land that was of no use for anything more important, like the growing of food, for example. It wasn't that the LAND was particularly suited to the game of golf; it's that the GAME OF GOLF (its strategies, its skill-sets etc) conformed itself in the early days to what that original land allowed for/dictated".

Not a particularly pithy gospel I know, but my point is that Tillinghast was at least AWARE of the distinction between the two gospels, whereas we - for all good reasons, like romance and the love of tradition - have made the one canonical and the other heretical [edit: that is, we've rejected the old 1901 canon, and embraced the c. 1930 and onwards heresy].  

That's fine; let's celebrate the heresy - and one day I hope to do so on the most magnificent course in the world. But let's not blame Tillinghast if he stuck to the canon and argued, in essence, that the game might be played more 'fully' on lands/new courses that WERE designed purely and specifically for the game, at least as it was being played in Tillinghast's day.  

Does this make any sense?

Peter    
 
 

Phil_the_Author:
Peter,

It makes a lot of sense to me. One of the things that I got out of that article was how different the competitve aspect the world of golf enjoyed during those years.

It seems, at least to me, that there was a bit of an inferiority complex felt by those in America toward their brothers across the pond. The desire to compete as a team seems to have been much greater. Going through old issues of golf magazines of the day contain numerous articles about the matches contested, professional and amateur, men and women, and the perceived growing superiority of the American game.

Today, how many golfers could tell you what the Curtis and Walker Cup competitions are?

mike_beene:
Technology has helped TOC as a championship venue as 7,9,10,arguably 11,12,14,18 and 5 are in calm conditions half par holes.Makes it interesting.Really can't argue with the champions it has produced either.

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