Who invented the California look?

[T_MacWood]

There is a dictinctive California look, in particular a southern California look, often associated with the work of George Thomas and William Bell.

Who invented this look...Thomas, Bell, O'Neil, Watson or someone else?

[TEPaul]

It's probably true to say there was a "California" look once in architecture, maybe a "Southern California" look.

In my opinion, perhaps the most impressive look of all man-made architecture was the so-called "Monterrey" look (N. California).

I think we know who was responsible for both and it just may've been some of the most innovative minds ever in architecture. Was it actually man-made architecture's high-point?

When talking about the "Monterrey" look I think a huge amount of credit probably needs to go to some of the construction companies, particularly the American Construction Co. They obviously must have been great shapers and hand-work guys.

Sometimes GeoffShac and I speak about this time and style and he says those guys were the envelope pushers who dreamed of the time when construction capabilities could take the art form to new heights in the future.

I ask him if he thinks they actually may not have known they already had taken the art form to perhaps the greatest heights it had ever reached and maybe ever would.

[Adam Clayman]

I lived in cal and I have no idea of the look of which you speak. I just don't see enough of a difference in look.

Could you elaborate and/or describe?

Now there could be a few reasons that I don't make a connection. One, it was so copied, recognizing that it came from Ca. would be difficult. Two, i'm just not observant enough, or they have beem mutilated to the point of mediocre. Three, you made it up, since golf in Ca. didn't really get a foothold until most of the rest of the country already had golf courses.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tom,

I have presumed it was Bell, if you are speaking of the lacy, detailed bunkers that permeate Thomas' work in California.

I have also wondered who gave SFGC their bunker look in 1916?  Is that the earliest example of "the look?"  Is that too early to be Bell?

It is similar, on an early Tillie course.  Moreover, Tillie went on to do simpler bunkers the next year at places like Golden Valley in MN, whereas once I hit on such good looking bunkers, I would never go back to mundane ones.  

It makes me think that a California constructor gave SFGC its look as much as the credited gca, but stayed behind to do other work.  

[Pete Lavallee]

Good question, is the "look" the lacy edged bunkers featured in George Thomas's book and follow on's by Geoff Shackelford? Those photos seem to be grow in shots, I have never seen one from when the course had matured. How on earth would they cut the grass on those lacy edges in the 1920's; I don't think they had fly mowers or string trimmers back then? It would take an army of maintenance workers to cut those irregular shapes with a push style reel mower. I asked Tommy once just how these lacy edges could be maintained; he postulated that were meant to grow long and be minimally maintained. I can't imagine rich people enjoying playing out of that type of cabbage.

[T_MacWood]

I have presumed it was Bell, if you are speaking of the lacy, detailed bunkers that permeate Thomas' work in California.

I have also wondered who gave SFGC their bunker look in 1916?  Is that the earliest example of "the look?"  Is that too early to be Bell?
 

Jeff
Exactly - the Bell-Thomas look. Regarding SFGC Sean Tully recently discovered that those famous bunkers were actually the work of Billy Bell...in the 20s or 30s. Older photos of SFGC show a different style of bunker (simpler), more Tillinghast-like.

I would guess Bell as the inventor too, but after looking at those old pictures of Lake Shore in Chicago one wonders if O'Neil may have been the source. I believe Bell constructed some of O'Neil's courses in California.

Bell also worked with William Watson, I think he may have been first golf architect he worked for, and some of Watson's designs have a similar style.

Its a chicken or the egg riddle.

[Tom_Doak]

I couldn't answer this question with any real conviction, and I doubt that anyone else could, either.  There is evidence that Billy Bell worked on the bunkers at SFGC, and there are pictures of some of the holes from the early 1920's that show the bunkers to be deeper and less lacy-edged, but there is no clear evidence that the work was all Bell's.  Tillinghast wrote several consulting letters to the club over those years and never really mentioned a pronounced change in style to the bunkering.

The important thing to note is that there was indeed a style to the construction work back then that fed from one designer's work to another ... just like the bunkers of many courses in Chicago have all evolved to bigger and blobbier like Medinah's bunkers are.

There is certainly evidence that many new courses are being influenced by a certain style of bunkering.  Some might credit it to Jeff Bradley, and he has certainly helped spread the wealth -- but Sand Hills and Kapalua and Black Forest (and Riviera and Cypress Point) were all around before Jeff got into the business, which is a cautionary tale about assigning all the credit for the California style to Bell or to any one other person.  All work in golf architecture is collaborative in nature, and the next course builds off many which have gone before.

[Jeff_Brauer]

It does seem that, collaborative or not, Bell is the constant for all those courses listed, regardless of the gca of record, no?  It seems to me he may have been the Jeff Bradley of the day - the guy who gets on the excavator (or the 1920 version, the shovel) to do the actual bunker work from a plan that just generally locates it.

[T_MacWood]

Bell does appear to be the constant. Pete asked an interesting question about how Bell's bunkers were maintained...I've wondered the same thing myself. What makes that question even more interesting is the fact that Bell was a former greenskeeper.

[TEPaul]

As to how bunkering in the old days that had that stylistic "lacy" or "jaggedy" edge grass look at the grass sand lines one of the best to explain that was Richie Valentine.

I had that conversation with him once about the evolution of Merion East's bunkers that started out generic, then were grown into lacy and jaggedy edged bunkering and were maintained like that for some decades.

How did they maintain bunkers like that?

Well, one thing we do know is that through the teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and maybe even into the 50s or even the 60s they sure didn't do it with anything mechanized.

For the basic grass surrounds, and even some of the grass/sand lines they were cut by scythes. Think about it---there is no way you can maintain straight clean edged grass lines with a scythe.

Richie also said some of the guys on the crew were just real artists with a scythe. Today that art is a totally lost art.

Richie also said that all those guys were Italians, and they all just had that knack. Richie also said that one time at Merion William Flynn said to his father, Joe Valentine;

"Joe, there's no doubt about it---there's no one who can build and maintain bunkers like you EYEtalians.  

You guys are talking about how incredible a guy like Jeff Bradley actually builds these bunkers and their rugged grass lines.

That's true.

Now just imagine a maintenance crew like Merion East's back in that day with about 10 or so Jeff Bradley's MAINTAINING those bunkers day in and day out the same way Jeff actually builds them.

Do that and you can understand that great old "lacy" or jaggedy edged bunker look in the East, the West or anywhere else.  

Like Jeff Bradley today, back then it was all done by hand. Basically, there is no mechanized alternative to maintaining that "look" and I doubt there ever will be.  

[TEPaul]

The other day, Gil Hanse was out at my course, and among other things, essentially doing the same thing on one bunker (just to show us how) that the old Merion East EYEtalian crew did or Jeff Bradley does.

Gil just jumped into one of the bunkers and ripped out a clump of sod and created a little mini bay up in the grass/sand line, then just shoved some sand from the bunker up into that "bay" and put the clump in another place to create a mini grass "cape". Then we all stood back---and there it was---a jaggedy edge look in that area.  

[Pete Lavallee]

Well that explains why the lacy edged Bell bunkers didn't last very long in California, there weren't enough EYEtaliians around to trim them with a sythe!

Seriously, those lacy edged bunkers look great, but show me just one course in California that was able to maintain that look. Can anybody find pictures of a course that was successfully able to maintain that look for very long? I know every William Park Bell course I've played has had its' bunkers rounded off, ala Augusta, with those nasty edgers and string trimmers.