[Dan Herrmann]

Of course he does!  But it was fascinating to read through journals from the 1915 era, which dealt with what seemed to be an important discussion of the time.  I guess some in charge felt that a person paid for designing golf courses was a professional.

Remember, too, that the game of that era had a bit of snobbery against a professional.

I'll see if I can find the article - it was buried at usga.com in their historical section.

[Tom_Doak]

Dan:

There was a lot of debate about that subject back then.  It was all about whether a good amateur player ought to have the ability to cash in on his reputation as a player by becoming an architect [as so many golf pros do today].  

Remember, golf pros made very little money back then, so they were anticipating the possibility that someone could make more money as a golf course architect than as a professional.  Sadly, it never worked out that way!

[Kyle Harris]

Tom,

I think you should make the distinction between club pro and touring professional there. Remember, a lot of the "pros" back then had to augment their relatively small club professional salary by doing barnstorming tours. Guys like John Reid and Donald Ross, early on, also laid out golf courses... For Ross, it became a career.

These days, I'd imagine a good number of club professionals make less than a practicing golf architect. Depends on the club, naturally.

[David Druzisky]

So...do tour players get to keep their professioal status if they enter design?
Becuse they are professional golfers do they automatically become professional designers/architects when they want to?  They seem to get that kind of liberty.  Suddenly Tiger is a designer and everyone accepts that?

[AndrewB]

Phil Young's book on Tillinghast has a nice dicussion about this and how Tillinghast and others (including Walter Travis) were declared professionals for their (paid) work desiging courses and writing about golf.  Quotes from Tillinghast make it clear that he didn't feel his work laying out courses made him a professional player, just as designing a clubhouse wouldn't.  Tillinghast never applied to get his amateur status back and remained a professional even after the rule was changed back.

[Wayne_Kozun]

Canadian GCA Graham Cooke was the runnerup in The Seniors Open Amateur Championship last week at Nairn.  I am sure that the R&A is aware that he is a GCA so the answer is yes.

But next time you try playing golf with a GCA tell him that he should be playing off scratch so you get as many strokes as your handicap.  Ian Andrew - are you listening?  

[Dan Herrmann]

Wayne,
I was speaking of a discussion from 85 years ago.  Today, an architect keeps his status - correctly.

I always try to look at history to see if we can find interesting topics.  This one really surprised me - I found it back in a 1915 journal.

[TEPaul]

Dan:

Back around 1920 the USGA decided to EXCEPT professional golf course architects from the amateur status playing rule.

Before that the debate raged on primarily amongst the board of the USGA and others who felt strongly about "amateur status" in that an amateur golfer should in no way at all profit from the game of golf.

Interestingly, the R&A seemed to be more accommodating of the amateur status rules back then than the USGA was.

Perhaps the thing that really got the USGA to reconsider their strict ways back then was the treatment of Francis Ouimet for his participation in a sporting goods store.

Today the question of professional architects maintaining their amateur playing status has come full circle in that the first professional golf course architect to become a member of the USGA board is current USGA board member Steve Smyers.

Personally, it would not concern me at all if the USGA in the future even put a professional golfer such as Davis Love on their board of directors.

Even today some seems to labor under the impression that any involvement in professionalism in golf infects the minds of people to make correct and intelligent decisions in the world of what the USGA does.  

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