[TEPaul]

"I guess it's possible that Behr and MacK got it all wrong."

Well, Bobzee, that is precisely one of the points we all may want to discuss and debate, don't you think? But first we probably need to get on here what they actually said to each other in print so those participating on here might understand the subject and obviously their concerns too.

But that won't happen if we have to plow through a pointless debate about whether they liked the guy or not or that someone thinks we think Crane was some type of Antichrist. That is just not the point here. What Crane's theories made Behr and Mackenzie et al think and worry about is what we need to concentrate on.

Maybe eventually we may come to some conclusion that they were all wrong or over-reacting or some such thing, and then again maybe we won't. Maybe we might even find that there was a whole lot more here to the future of golf as they saw it at that time then any of us realized.

Maybe this really was some kind of philosophical crossroads for architecture and golf too.

Let's find out.

Tom MacWood:

Although some may be interested that Crane stayed in some cottage at Sunningdale what does that really have to do with this subject? The only reason you could've mentioned that is to once again show that dabbling in minutae proves your some kind of expert on something to do with golf architecture.
Or did Horace Hutchinson and his fellow Arts and Crafts travelers teach Crane his mathematical formula for determing the quality of golf course architecture during his stay in that cottage at Sunningdale that lay in that hotbed of English Arts and Crafts power and influence that eventually came to influence the Golden Age to such an extent that that era deserves to legitimately be relabeled "Arts and Crafts Golf"?  

 

[T_MacWood]

Bob
I have to disagree with your characterization of Joshua Crane dominating the popular press. He wrote one article in 1924 in Golf Illustrated – where he first introduced the formula for his rating system (which incidentally did not draw any criticism at the time). He wrote one article in GI in 1925 (non-architectural). He wrote five articles in 1926, following up his article in late ’25 in Field where he first rated top British courses. The first three of ’26 were continuations of that Field article and ensuing debate; the next two on rules not architecture. He wrote four articles in 1927 – profiles on National, Lido and Pine Valley, along with an analysis of an ideal American 18-hole course that Dr. Piper came up with.

After that no more mention of the rating system and he averaged one article a year – one analyzing who might win at Sandwich (1928), one profiling Chiberta (1929), and one on the crows at St. Germain (1930). That is fourteen articles in a seven year period, six of which were not architecturally related. His output and influence does not even come close to the likes of Tillinghast, George Greenwood, WD Richardson, Grantland Rice, or even Behr or Flynn during the same period, not to mention Darwin and Charles Ambrose the most influential and prolific of that time.

The debate created by Crane heated up for a few months and then it was over…it was very short lived. You're both making too much of it.

The intensity and animosity can be attributed to one thing – his rating of St. Andrews. No one complained when he first came out with the formula, it was only when began rating courses and St.A got the shaft that the shit hit the fan. It was a stupid rating system, but to portrait Crane as the prince of penal (as Behr did) or to compare him to Tom Dunn (as MacKenzie did) was over the line. It was bad rating system but he was not some a dominant force promoting penal architecture to the world...far from it.

Frankly I don’t think anyone took him seriously (I know Darwin didn’t) and when they got to know him, my impression is they all liked him – illustrated in the different tone MacKenzie takes in 1930 as compared to 1926. The same with Darwin who referred to him as his venerable friend.  

And who wouldn’t love him, he must have been a wonderful character. He was one of the great sportsmen in American history. Multiple US tennis champion in the 1900s. He invented the bamboo pole for pole vaulting and won numerous events in college. World class polo player. He designed and built a yacht, winning many regatta. Head football coach at Harvard in 1907.

He only began playing golf in 1916 (age 46). Chairman of the green committee at Brookline in the 20s (I wonder if he was involved in hiring Flynn). Was on three Leslie cup teams. Competed in the British Am from 1926 to 1933 (age 56 to 63). Won numerous senior events.  Putted one-handed with a putter 18 inches long (no wonder he didn’t like big greens). There’s more, but I’ll stop.

Ironically he retired to California in the 30s, Montecito to be precise…where he played his golf at MacKenzie’s Valley Club. He died in 1964.

PS:  A&C being interjected into this discussion is pretty pathetic IMO. The reason I brought his home at Sunningdale was to illustrate that we were not dealing with just anyone here. This is a man who was fully immersed into his subject…moving to St. Andrews, the same place that the source of all the strong criticism, moving to London where golf architecture was flourishing, traveling throughout Europe playing, competing and analyzing the best courses.

No doubt his time abroad, playing all these courses and discussing them with these heavy weights altered his thinking...which may explain why he gave up on the formula.

[wsmorrison]

Wasn't Crane one of the outstanding court tennis players in America?  That might not mean much to the rest of the world, but I think he was very accomplished on this side of the Atlantic.

[T_MacWood]

Wayne
Yes. He was US champion in 1901, 02, 03 and 04. He and Jay Gould, Jr. were the two top player in the US for about twenty years. Crane faired pretty well at Wimbledon too, although he never won it.

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

He probably was. It sort of fits a guy of his over-all description. He was obviously a good all around athlete. I noticed that MacKenzie mentioned that Crane was a better golfer than he or Behr. He was obviously better than MacKenzie but Behr was a finalist a couple of times in the US Amateur I believe. Max Behr apparently was a helluva tennis player at some point and I sort of remember his brother was really good. But when it comes to court tennis some of my old court tennis friends used to say the game is so esoteric (there are only seven court tennis courts in America) that one could get nationally ranked by just buying a racket.

And another note on what kind of guy Crane was, Bobzee was telling me today that Crane was such a hard ass or pain in the ass that when he offered to coach a Harvard football team after a time the entire damn team quit.  

I was telling Bob that I believe I actually remember Joshua Crane in Dark Harbor Me (although it may've been his son or nephew or something). When I was a little kid up there I believe it was him who had a bunch of really odd and really cool boats (he had specially built). The one I remember was about 60-70 feet long and ultra narrow. It was miniature exact copy of a DE (Destroyer Escort). It was painted grey and all but it was just a yacht.

Interesting dude.

But still, it isn't Crane himself we should be discussing on here or what Behr and MacKenzie thought of him personally. We should be discussing just how, how much and why they felt his mathematical formula for determining the quality of golf architecture was leading to perhaps a far more penal, standardized or less thought-provoking form of architecture. After all, Behr, at least, seemed to take a potential danger from it ultra seriously in writing.

I think there's a lot more to this than just that too as Bob certainly does, since it's him who has been trying to discover and develop the real significance of this debate and subject. According to him this just could be the time, the place and the issue that the likes of MacKenzie, Behr, Hunter and probably Bob Jones too came together as birds of feather to develop some really ultra cool courses and concepts, and perhaps an architectural philosophy that may've even been somewhat misunderstood in their early time---perhaps the best example being ANGC's original concept itself.

[T_MacWood]

TE
Crane's son died in 1934 in a plane crash right after he'd set a new  air record for mileage on a commercial flight - 940 miles. He was a chip off the old block. Either you are really old or your mind is playing tricks on you...again.

Joshua Crane went from golf to bridge - becoming one of the top bridge players in the world. I believe he wrote a couple of books on the subject...he also came up with a mathematical formula for bidding. Try and try again.  

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

Are you trying to tell me that was not Joshua Crane or one of his relatives in Dark Harbor Me with the boats in the 1950s when I was young? My goodness you really do fancy yourself to be some kind of expert researcher, don't you? How much effort or skill does it really take to do something like a Google search anyway?

[T_MacWood]

TE
Good luck trying to find that information googling.

No what I'm trying to tell you is your mystery man was not his son and unless this fellow was in 80s it wasn't Joshua Crane either. Perhaps it was his third cousin Jimmy Crane.

On a related note Crane did own his own island - No Man's Land - its just below Martha's Vinyard, the most southern point in Massachusetts. You may have read of rocks with strange writing discovered in New England which have led to the theory that Vikings landed in America prior to Columbus...Crane found them on No Man's Land.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

It certainly is OT but interesting stuff nonetheless that Joshua Crane bought Nomans Island and that it was used for ordnance testing by the US Navy. That miniature DE (destroyer escort) I remember around Dark Harbor was Joshua Crane's, and I guess it figures that he must have been really into things navy or military too to have a miniature replica of a DE built as some kind of yacht. He sure was an interesting guy---lots of dedicated interests, that's for sure.

[BCrosby]

Frankly I don’t think anyone took him seriously...

Tom MacW -

I don't know how they could have taken Crane more seriously.

Where to begin. Behr wrote the eight essays in his "Permanent Architecture" as a long argument against Crane. Crane is mentioned throughout. In the 6th essay Behr sets up a Socratic dialogue with Crane, feeling the need to refute him point by point. Crane's rating of TOC was mentioned but was not the real issue. The issues were fundamental golf design questions, as in penal v. strategic desing.

MacK felt it important to respond to Crane in an essay in GI. The first chapter of his The Spirit of SA was directed at Crane and the rest of the book is - in essence - setting up Crane's arguments and then shooting them down. Again, TOC issues were the icing on a much bigger cake.

The books published from '26 through '29 by Hunter, MacD, Thomas, Simpson etc have the same structure. Some mention Crane by name, some don't, but they were all books whose central theme was making the case against penal architecture and for strategic architecture. These were not even-handed textbooks that surveyed the design field. They had an axe to grind and they ground it. The tone of the books makes the conclusion inescapable that they were composed in the context of a pretty intense on-going debate. We also need to remember that the people that bought and read those books in the '20's would have been quite familiar with that debate. (Otherwise, they would have found their tone quite odd.)

There was only one person I know of in the mid 20's who was making case those architects were trying to rebut. That's Crane. Do you have another candidate in mind? Because somebody had clearly gotten under their skin.

Of course his rating system was ridiculed. It was an easy way to discredit his other views. It's an old debate trick. Used it myself. But Crane couldn't be simply dismissed as a kook. Otherwise, people wouldn't have felt the need to devote so much time and effort to rebut him.

Writing books is very hard work. It simply makes no sense to undertake that work for an issue that "no one took seriously". To the contrary, all the evidence points to the issues Crane raised as being a very, very big deal for architects of the era. It was not a neutral issue for them. We've got the great gca books of the Golden Age as Exhibit 1.

We can quibble until the cows come home about Crane being in the spotlight. He was. There is no doubt that from '25 to '27 he made regular appearances in the big golf mags. No one else appeared as frequently on gca and course reviews during those two years, which are the years that matter. He was a very well-known figure.

I don't see whether he was liked or not has a bearing on anything. (BTW, I'm not at all sure he was liked. The evidence is sketchy. I don't think B. Jones liked him, but my evidence is indirect. I do know that he was fired as the Harvard football coach after a single season because, as far as I can tell, he was hated by the team and they quit playing for him, losing the last three games of the season after winning all six of their prvious games. Which suggests, at a minimum, a strong personality. Or worse.)  

Bob  

 

[TEPaul]

"In the 6th essay Behr has a Scoratic dialogue with Crane, feeling the need to refute him point by point. Crane's rating of TOC was mentioned but was not the real issue. The issues were fundamental golf design questions, as in penal v. strategic desing."

Bob:

Tom MacWood has never seen that particular article of Behr's. I feel if he had, even he might have a very different impression and opinion of this particular debate and the entire essence of it with Crane.

The fact that Tom MacWood sees no real issue here is just not that surrpising. This is what happens when people don't do very complete research on a particular subject before forming an opinion on it.  

Behr's article "Golf Architecture (An Intersting Reply to the Penal School of Golf)" is without question one of the most incisive articles on golf architecture ever written, despite Behr's usual labryinthine writing style.

[T_MacWood]

Bob
MacKenizie does include an amusing anecdote on Crane in his book...ending it by saying "Some of the old stalwarts at St. Andrews, not knowing what a good fellow he was, resented Joshua Crane criticisms and were inclined to take him too seriously." Darwin said similar things about JC.

What did Hunter, MacD, Thomas and Simpson say about Crane?

[TEPaul]

Bob:

Having just gone over those articles a few more time and some of the opinions of the others apparently supporting Behr, mostly including the remarks of Bob Jones, there truly is a secondary issue here, and perhaps an incredibly important one to them which is pretty hard to miss if you read closely enough or read between the lines some.

I believe that is this entire burgeoning issue and concern back then of the prospect and fact of the so-called "championship" course or some club's apparent fixation with that type of design model.

That may've been the thing that scared those guys MacKenzie/Jones and particularly Behr as much as anything.

Crane was a good player, a very good player, and they obviously saw him trying to overlay a good player's "shot testing" (penal) mentality on all golfers and all golf architecture, if for no other reason at least as a sign of quality or perfection determined by his odd mathematical formula and its philosophy.

Do you notice how much Behr talked about a particular form of architecture just clobbering the little guy---disheartening him in fact, providing him with no real choice to play his own way around a course?

Do you notice how much and how often Bob Jones talked about the extreme difference between tournament golf and recreational golf?

Do you notice what Jones said at that time about the remarkable design accomodation of TOC to both test champion golfers and provide fun for the rest?

The entire issue of the putter being able to play TOC's #11 was a real issue there and directly mentioned by a lot of those guys back then. That alone was a real example used by them to make their "strategic" vs "penal" point. I was just reading about that specific issue in the old book "Hazards". Practically an entire article was devoted to TOC's #11, and how some new minds were calling it "weak" because a putter could be used even if no quality golfer would ever think to do that. This obviously upset the likes of Behr/MacKenzie and they mentioned it specifically.

I think you are right on here. This issue with Crane and his basic philosophy inspired these few guys to really go to town and confront this issue they saw as potentially dangerous for golf and architecture's future for the everyday golfer. Crane, to them was a real written representation of a dangerous way to go for the future of golf architecture that accomodated the little guy and provided him with enjoyment to do his own thing strategically which they felt he was wholly incapable of doing on those "shot-testing" championship designs.

And then there's almost direct proof of what they arrived at. It was the remarkably novel design of ANGC and what it was supposed to do----eg basicaly accomodate both somehow in a truly novel design model. The fact that you suspected some time ago it may've been so misunderstood back then in what it was attempting to accomplish in architecture is impressive of you.

I think you've really latched onto something here Bobzee. It's important, perhaps a real crossroads that went semi-unnoticed for various reasons.

Good for you Bobzee Wobzee.  

[BCrosby]

Tommy-wommy (Sheesh. Let's stick to real Anglo Saxon names. Deal?)

It has crossed my mind that ANGC was both an attempt to push strategic design theories to their limit and a refutation of Crane. But that is probably going too far. On both counts.

Tom MacW -

Simpson mentions Crane twice. I believe Thomas mentions him once. I'll have to check. I can't find a reference to Crane by name in Hunter or MacD. None get into any direct hand to hand combat with Crane by name. (OTOH, virtually everything Behr wrote is directed at Crane. We talked about Mack above.)

All wrote their books as attacks on a penal straw man, however. It's hard to miss the fact that the views they ascribe to their straw man sound an awful lot like Crane. Sometimes its almsot verbatim from Crane. (BTW, I don't mean to say that Crane must be the model for that straw man. We can never know that for sure. I'm basing my view on what I believe is a reasonable historical inference. I can't think who it would be other than Crane.)

Bob

[TEPaul]

"Tommy-wommy (Sheesh. Let's stick to real Anglo Saxon names. Deal?)"

I would have if you'd just asked but not anymore. I love Tommy Wommy.  

[Tommy Williamsen]

One of the coolest things at Royal North Devon where JHT grew up and died is his locker with his name still on it.

[TEPaul]

Bob Crosby Esq:

I'm not to sure why Tom MacWood keeps asking if numerous architects mentioned Crane by name or even if they liked him. That seems sort of unnecessary or even petty to need to establish that to take this seriously. The point is Behr, at least, launched into perhaps one of the most comprehensive and in-depth treatises ever known in the literature of golf course architecture seemingly because of Crane and his formula and ideas. Shouldn't that alone be enough to consider this philosophical debate very seriously?

[T_MacWood]

Bob
Wethered & Simpson barely mention Crane. "Still, according to Mr. Joshua Crane's somewhat remarkable system of reckoning the merits of individual courses, St.Andrews suffers the indiginity of many bad marks set against her credit on account of the tightness of her 'margins.' These margins, however, have withstood the test of time and mark the limits within which the interior holes are played in either direction alternatively." That doesn't sound like a penal straw man to me, in fact the opposite. Again, St. Andrews is the rub.

Macdonald, Hunter and Thomas don't mention him at all. If he was such dominant voice for penal architecture wouldn't they mention him by name?

Personally I think you are exagerating his importance as an architectural commentator - eight articles in five years in Golf Illustrated. Compare that to the primary columnists in Golf Illustrated (UK), American Golfer, The Times and Country Life - which were weeklys.

No doubt Behr, MacKenzie and Ambrose took exception to his rating system (IMO mostly because of the low ranking of St. Andrews) and rightfully so, but to attribute some shift in architecture to the reaction to Crane seems like a stretch to me. Those articles Behr wrote, half or more were written before the Crane controversey. He was discussing his theories on strategic and penal architecture long before Crane.

You also appear to be painting Crane as some kind of villain (being disliked by the Harvard team in 1907 and Jones)...I don't think that is a fair representation. The Harvard situation was complicated (and interesting) and I've not read anything Jones said negative about him, but what I have read gives me the impression he was well liked, intellegent and quite a character.  

It was a stupid formula, which sparked a brief but fascinating exchange, but I don't see him as the penal straw man or someone who sparked a radical change.

[T_MacWood]

I find it interesting that Crane retired to Monticeto. If I'm not mistaken that is where Behr retired to as well, and was the home of Robert Hunter. Do you think those three might produce some good discusions...perhaps on MacKenzie & Hunter's beautiful design?

[T_MacWood]

One of the coolest things at Royal North Devon where JHT grew up and died is his locker with his name still on it.

Tommy
Thanks for that info on Taylor, unfortunately for him this thread got sidetracked early on.

[TEPaul]

"Wethered & Simpson barely mention Crane. "Still, according to Mr. Joshua Crane's somewhat remarkable system of reckoning the merits of individual courses, St.Andrews suffers the indiginity of many bad marks set against her credit on account of the tightness of her 'margins.' These margins, however, have withstood the test of time and mark the limits within which the interior holes are played in either direction alternatively." That doesn't sound like a penal straw man to me, in fact the opposite. Again, St. Andrews is the rub."

Tom MacWood:

How do you know that Crane, when he spoke about the "margins" of TOC, was not complaining about TOC because of the lack of overall width of the entire golf course that probably isn't more than 250 yards wide at any point?  

Maybe Crane wasn't thinking or complaining about the width or "margins" of the individual golf holes which frankly can often be played into parallel holes or fairways and are and were at that time not effectively narrow.

That this may've been what Crane was complaining about (not the narrowness of individual holes but the entire golf course) and what Wethered and Simpson were speaking of is another example of what perhaps you apparently haven't fathomed, and is just another reason why you may do good raw research but perhaps sometimes pretty poor deduction of what that research means.

[T_MacWood]

TE
Have you read Crane's articles?

[TEPaul]

Yes I have but I don't know how much I've read of what he wrote about his mathematical formula for the quality of holes and courses. What I read of his formula and theory was from an old magazine or so at Pine Valley. I think it was Golf Illustrated but I'm not certain.

Frankly, I'm more interested in what Behr and Mackenzie thought of Crane's articles, formula and theory of mathematically ranking courses and holes.

[T_MacWood]

TE
He did not like the fact there was no separation between outgoing and ingoing nines and he was opposed to OB as a hazard, especially so close to play.

[TEPaul]

"TE
He did not like the fact there was no separation between outgoing and ingoing nines...."

Tom MacWood:

Oh, I see. Well, that doesn't exactly sound like individual hole narrowness to me. Does it sound like individual hole narrowness to you? It sounds pretty wide and strategic to me. Does it sound that way to you?

If so, how do you explain that Crane didn't like that effective strategic width? Could it have been because he preferred far more defined hole narrowness (read penal)?  

It appears when Wethered and Simpson were questioning Crane's complaints about the "margins" of TOC that both they and Crane were speaking of the width or "margins" of the entire course, don't you suppose?  

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