[Peter Pallotta]

On one of the TPC threads, I started thinking that Pete Dye at TPC created the first uniquely American golf course.

My thinking is that no architect more completely transmuted the principles of golf course design (from the great British links course) through the medium of a modern American spirit than did Pete Dye, in general and especially at TPC. 

I mean American spirit as a compliment, i.e. optimistic, bold and even brash, respectful of traditions but not rule-bound, full of natural showmanship and self-confidence, inventive and willing to re-invent, and a friend of the entrepreneur, of technology, and of the big-time.

I知 not saying that Mr. Dye was the first to study the great British courses and bring their principles to his work. I知 not saying that Mr. Dye was the first to construct a golf course out of nothing, or out of virtually nothing, using technology. I知 not saying that Mr. Dye was the first to embody the American spirit in his work, or that he was the first self-confident showman. I知 not saying that Mr. Dye was the first to be knowledgeable about and respectful of the great traditions while still staying free to re-interpret those traditions and even to turn them upside down. And I知 not saying that Mr. Dye was the first to turn his attention to the big-money world of professional golf, and to tailor his work specifically to challenging the best players in the world.  But, it seems to me, Pete Dye WAS the first to be and do ALL OF THESE things AT ONCE, and all together and at the same time -- especially at TPC.  And in that sense, TPC seems to me to be the first uniquely AMERICAN course ever built. 

What do you gents think? Any validity to that line of thinking? Other candidates for the title of first uniquely American golf course? Or, is the title itself kooky and not worth applying?

Peter 

[BCrosby]

Peter -

Interesting.

If someone had asked me your question out of the blue, I would have said Robert Trent Jones. He seems to meet all of your qualifications. No?

Couldn't one argue that Dye represents a return to UK traditions after Jones's architecture had swept the field with his (Jones's) emphasis on quintessential American values like toughness, length, risk taking and heroism?

Bob

[Peter Pallotta]

Bob -- you could say that, and you might well be right, and RTJ came to mind for me as well. But I concluded that he was the exception that proved the rule (or at least that suggested my theory was plausible).

That is, whatever Mr. Jones was doing in bringing a certain kind of American spirit to golf design, that was at odds with much that had come before him and that would come after him. It seems to me that BEFORE him you had designers valuing the principles of great British architects and AFTER him (i.e. including today) you have designers valuing the principles of great British design -- so that valuing seems an essential ingredient in the AMERICAN design world.

And right in between those two waves of valuing you have Pete Dye, honouriong the pattern like the pre-Jones designers, but willing and able and bold and brash enough to stand the design principles on their heads and proudly build a uniquely American course -- one that underneath the wow factor is as old as the hills/links (with big wide fairways) but one that wouldn't and couldn't have been built anywhere but America.

Peter

[TEPaul]

I agree with Bob. Like it or not the style of RTJ was definitely "uniquely Amercican." 

As for Pete Dye's style I'd just call it flat-ass "UNIQUE", period. 

Some may not like the look of Pete's style but for the tour pro caliber that TPC Sawgrass has some of the most fascinating "shot values"/"Strategic ramifications" there are in golf.

[wsmorrison]

I'm not sure about the first UNIQUELY American Golf Course, but the concept of a new American style may have been born earlier than you have so far considered. 

I think it may have came out of the "Philadelphia School" of golf architecture, particularly at Merion and Pine Valley.  Both Merion and Pine Valley developed a sense of naturalism (in Merion's case, from the second phase of golf design and onward) that was rarely, if at all expressed in American golf at the time.  Merion's flashed bunkers are considered iconic.  While Crump's Pine Valley may have more of a direct lineage to UK designers including Colt and Fowler, both these courses, Oakmont and later courses by Flynn, Thomas and Tillinghast took architecture into an American direction with specific shot testing and a forward leaning design trend towards a mixture of aerial demands and ground/aerial options.  What was called a modern or scientific design plan. 

Turf and maintenance practices were integrated with the architecture in ways that led America in an important and new direction, especially inland.

[David Stamm]

Peter, there are some reasons that we haven't come to fully understand until recently in regards to why CBM has traditionally been thought of in this light. The notion that NGLA was a manifestation of everything he saw in the UK and is merely a "copy" of these things is erroneous. I'm not saying you are stating this by citing Dye as the first, but it's easy to overlook that aside from the Alps, Redan etc. that there were some very original holes that CBM had created that drew inspiration from the UK, much like Dye and his love of Prestwick and Cruden Bay. I would have to agree with Bob with his nomination of RTJ. Very American with little to remind someone of the quirks and nuances of the courses in Britain and Ireland. Thus, he would be more "original" than Dye since he also was before him.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, gents - all good posts. But if you'll indulge me a little longer:

America is the old world re-invented, and sometimes re-invigorated. So, the obvious examples: the necessity of stacked sod wall bunkers becomes with Dye the formalized aesthetic of railway ties; the slowly evolving confusion that confronts the first-time player at the Old Course becomes with Dye the visual bombardment of meaningless features at Whistling Straits; the naturally-occuring (or naturally-accepted) quirk of British links golf becomes the in-your-face divisiveness of an island green on the 17th hole of the most lucrative tournament in golf; and the subtle challenges for a wide range of British amateurs become the glaring but baffling options for the best professionals in the world. In short, no other architect seems to me to simulatenously know his "British stuff" so well AND give his "American moxie" such a free hand as did Dye.  He made the old world new again -- and in that sense created the first uniquely American golf course at TPC.

Peter     

[BCrosby]

Another reason to think RTJ was the first truly American architect was the way in which he saw what he was doing. He revolutionized the business of golf architecture in a uniquely American way.

First, he was the first architect to also be a great self-advertiser. RTJ was an incredible self promoter. To the extent of stepping on Dick Wilson's neck whenever he could. He took no prisoners, showed no mercy. No one has come close since. Think the Willy Loman of golf design.

Second, RTJ was selling (and plenty of folks bought) easy to build and maintain golf courses. He came damn close to selling himself as a mass producer of golf courses. Reliable, solid, user friendly courses. Americans loved it, he sold thousands of designs. Think the Henry Ford of golf design.

Third, RTJ sold himself as a modern designer. He explicitly sold the notion that he represented a break with the mamby-pamby past. He was selling new, improved versions of golf courses that benefited from high tech building technologies.  Think the Robert Moses of golf design.

Bob

P.S. BTW, the foregoing is not meant as a put-down. Not totally. RTJ did some excellent courses. I recently played one in St Croix (Carambola) built in 1962. It is largely unchanged and is very interesting - in a RTJ hard ass kind of way.   

[Adam Clayman]

Peter,
 Bob's caveat only confirms that being uniquely American may not be a good thing. Therefore, perhaps any distinction is moot? Other than to identify the subject of an individuals subjectivity.

Would there be a first uniquely Canadian course? 

 Golf's a global game, it's early influences are likely felt everywhere.

[Peter Pallotta]

Adam - thanks for chiming in. You're probably right. And it probably is an unaswerable and/or purely subjective question. And the game is indeed global. And yet, I'm still not sure that there's not something of interest to be dug out from this flimsy premise....but what I've posted is all I've got.

Peter   

[Sean_A]

The question was first uniquely American golf course.  If folks are saying that it wasn't built until RTJ came along then I strongly disagree.  I don't know if it was the first, but imo Merion is unique and it is American.  Some may want to quibble about its uniqueness, but in a way all this trash talk on other Merion threads boils down to if Merion was uniquely American or some sort of UK throwback design.  I can't see how anybody with a minimal experience of some turn of the century UK courses and Merion could think the two are not very different in their presentation. 

Ciao   

[Patrick_Mucci]

TPC was created for a specific purpose, to test the PGA Tour Professionals.

Pete's earlier creation at Harbour Town incorporated architectural concepts from the UK.

I believe the departure from those concepts at TPC was due to the end user and not a philosophical change in his design principles

[mark chalfant]

Peter,

As the first  uniquely American Golf architect ( not course)  I might suggest William Langford for a few reasons,

1.  Overcame adversity of childhood illness
2.  Educated at American colleges, where he was a highly competitive golfer
3.  Born in the heartland
4.  Bold  and inventive designs
5.  Business acumen, as he carried out 200 projects in US that reached well  beyond his home state of Illinois  (not a regionalist)
6. Concern for the "common man" per his long involvement with public golf

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark, Patrick - thanks, I appreciate you keeping this going. I know it's maybe too subjective, e.g. Mark, your sense of the reasons/factors for Langford being the first uniquely American designer make perfect sense, but they're not ones that had or would've occured to me.

But it's interesting to see a CB Macdonald mentioned next to RT Jones next to William Flynn (twice) and William Langford. Maybe if a dozen more posters joined in there'd be a dozen more architects mentioned; but, on the other hand, maybe for all its subjectivity, there is some subtle sense of what makes for a uniquely American course/designer that would preclude other names. Donald Ross, for example, doesn't strike me as having designed uniquely American courses; neither do Tillinghast or Mackenzie. But I can't explain why.

Patrick - I must not have been very clear. I think TPC DOES incorporate architectural concepts from the UK, and better than many more 'linksy' type courses. It's just that Mr. Dye had those principles standing on their head as it were, and used them to SPECIFICALLY test professional golfers - both of which seem to me to be firsts, and unique to American design

And, as I've already mentioned, I think that design of Mr. Dye's somehow gave 'permission' to the designers that followed him to find their own way to craft uniquely American courses - courses that re-invented or re-interpreted the old world in the new. Is it crazy to think that maybe a Sand Hills owes a debt to TPC? (Yeah, probably silly to suggest so...but...)

Peter 

[RJ_Daley]

Mark Chalfant, great call.  I agree you are on to something there.  Or, to expand it a wee bit, American Park Builders under first Langford's then ironically Bendelow's direction, being that Bende was older and started way sooner in "laying out" golf courses here.  Of course Bende was from the old sod, and had the old courses and ways primed into him.  But through both his Spaulding and APB's affiliations, he sort of became the American entreprenuer and mass production model.  And, to see Bende's best (not most rudimentary designs) they had to adapt to the new terrains that weren't his homeland traditional grounds to "lay-out"golf. 

PS:  Maybe we could throw a little love Perry Maxwell's way also.

[Dan Moore]

Lido!!!

And I don't think it needs an explanation.

[RJ_Daley]

Dan, the heck you say! 

Are you saying Lido as the mega construction project, with all the low land dredging and fill and pounding it into the land by the engineer Raynor?  Is that the Uniquely American mindset?  Or the proximity to the resort hotel and part of an overall multi-use project?  I admit it, I'm dense, so please do explain! 

Still Lido had the origins in the old templates of CB-Raynor, modified but taken from the themes of the old sod.  How is that aspect, uniquely American? 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Shadow Creek - Tom Fazio

[BCrosby]

Every time someone mentions Langford at GCA it reminds me that I gotta see more of his stuff. His courses are an embarrassing gap in my knowledge.

I do think he was too much under the sway of UK courses to be called the first uniquely American designer. But that has zero bearing on the quality of his work.

Bob

 

[Kirk Gill]

Peter, here's a quote from Mr. H.J. Whigham regarding American golf courses, from May 1909:

"It is certainly a great proof of the adaptability of the American character that in less than twenty years the youth of the country has taken up golf, learned the game, produced one world-wide champion and a new generation of golfers who could hold their own in Scotland where the game has been played for centuries. And nothing could prevent golf from becoming by far the most popular game among the grown men of the country if it were not for one drawback. Whereas in Scotland and England seaside golf courses existed before the early Britons wore clothes and require little or no preparation, an American course can only be made and kept up at considerable expense. There is no such thing as a natural golf course in America; and if there were very few people would benefit, since the vast majority of the population live so far from the sea. Thirty years ago the number of golf courses abroad which were not on the sandy dunes by the sea was a negligible quantity. I believe that the first really good inland courses were made in America. England learned from America that while you could never make a ST. Andrews or a Prestwick away from the sea, you could produce something which was almost as good a test of golf. But it takes money to do it, and consequently golf can never be as inexpensive a game here as it is in Great Britain."

He goes on to mention a few existing courses, including Garden City ("Here conditions are most favorable and no one can doubt that with the Long Island soil and climate a really interesting course might be constructed. As it is, nearly everything is either wrong about the course or else not quite right where it could easily be right.") and Shinnecock ("At the present moment I would rather play on the old course at Shinnecock, which has nearly all the faults that ingenuity could invent, than any other course in the country simply for the sake of the wide sweep of ocean and down, and the sunset over Peconic bay..."). Ultimately, he talks about NGLA as the ideal golf course, "...the main achievement is that a course has been produced where every hole is a good one and presents a new problem. That is something which has never yet been accomplished, even in Scotland; and in accomplishing it here, Mr. Macdonald has inaugurated a new era in golf. In future every golf club will have to conform to the new idea by making its course as good as nature will allow, and the benefit to the game will be incalculable."

Of course, I don't know if that kind of talk is uniquely American or not. Whigham was, I believe, born in Scotland..........

[Peter Pallotta]

Kirk - thanks (haven't had a chance to read the essays yet, but thanks again for those)

See, the way I figure it, "an ideal course" is un-American. Too prescribed, too regimented. Too much like the gods coming down from Olympus to enlighten the mortals. Plus, if "ideal" means taking the best holes from Britain and copying them (or to be fair, using them as a reference point) I'm not sure that's uniquely American either. I'd put Mr. Crump and his vision and ingenuity ahead of that one...

But like I say, I'm tossing this out there just to grapple with it...

Peter

[TEPaul]

"See, the way I figure it, "an ideal course" is un-American. Too prescribed, too regimented. Too much like the gods coming down from Olympus to enlighten the mortals. Plus, if "ideal" means taking the best holes from Britain and copying them (or to be fair, using them as a reference point) I'm not sure that's uniquely American either. I'd put Mr. Crump and his vision and ingenuity ahead of that one..."


PeterP:

I think I might have to disagree with that. I think the idea of "an ideal course" might be the very thing that was the sort of break-through architectural idea that was uniquely American. If anyone promoted that idea anywhere in the world as forcefully as C.B. Macdonald did BEFORE he did I'm completely unaware of it.

I guess the irony of that "ideal course" (all 18 holes are very good ones) as basically visualized and promoted by Macdonald is that to do that in America (NGLA) he actually borrowed the best holes from abroad or else he applied the best golf architectural "principles" from abroad in his NGLA holes that were not actual hole copies.

If we look carefully at what he was promoting I think we can see that he wanted America to make more courses that basically didn't have any real weak holes which even some of the greatest courses abroad had that also had some of the world's greatest holes!

On most of those old Scottish linksland courses that were generally of the narrow and out and back variety (the essential shape of true "links" sites), the problem as some saw it (like Macdonald and others) was that those courses had some really great holes and sometimes wholly natural ones but that since golf was such a walking game some of the connecting holes with those great ones were pretty weak links and consequently most of those great old links courses never could have a full 18 great holes.

I think this is exactly what Macdonald was out to overcome with his NGLA model or even that "ideal course" card layout he mentioned and disseminated which was an entire card of the greatest holes from abroad that no one really could put on some piece of land for obvious reasons. Essentially that "ideal course" card he mentioned was a full course on paper (card) that had what he considered just about ideal "balance and variety". I think this was the beginnings of what became known as "shot testing" in a whole round sense, or later referred to as "using every club in your bag" which was also considered to be an "ideal" for golf. The idea was to create a total layout that would maximally test a golfer's full game in all aspects of shot making. I think this is when some first became somewhat fixated by bringing the playing field of golf really into line with the actual game of the golfer in a more ideal or even demanding way (forcing them with the entire 18 hole layout to use every club in the bag as an over-all "shot testing" requirement).

In a real way some of those early great American courses like Merion, Pine Valley, Lido, NGLA were examples of a somewhat fixated attempt to make 18 really good holes and that was exactly what the "ideal course" model was supposed to be. To do that they also really got into this aspect of ideal "balance" and ideal "variety" and even at particular and prescibed places in a round! I suppose it is also appropriate to mention that this construct was also beginning to get into some of the realms of "standardization" and "formulaics" in golf and architecture. The actual playing of the game was beginning to really drift away from its old roots of walking and playing with sticks and a ball in nature and heading towards more of a standardized "game" construct, and probably to better test and determine the element of player against player COMPETITION! Ironically, this very well may've been the first real evidence in golf of what Behr called 'the "game mind" of man'.

But as far as what some back then thought was "uniquely American", I think there was something else altogether. I'll get into that later. Much of it is reflected in some of what Tillinghast and others began to write in the teens that they referred to as "Modern" architecture that I think was almost totally synonymous with what others began to refer to as "scientifc" architecture!

This too seems to have been "uniquely" American but on the other hand it may've actually first emanated out of the Heathland model and those great heathland architects such as Park, Colt and Fowler and later Alison and Mackenzie et al.

[Adam Clayman]

While born Canadian CBM's efforts to build American golf in the early 1890's has all the components to call it uniquely american. Ridiculed, he couldn't raise the money to build CGC until the more sophisticated international crowd, who knew golf, came to Chicago for the Columbian exposition.
 The first eighteen hole course should also count towards the honor of first uniquely American.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom - thanks much for that.

I can't disagree with any of it.  It strikes me though that the approach by Macdonald et al was one of attempting to "perfect" the British links courses/holes/principles in an American setting, and/or to modify them for American topographies and related agronomic demands. All of that is uniquely American in one very real sense, and the people you mention are the fathers of american golf course architecture. But what I find interesting about Mr. Dye, especially at TPC, is something I noticed while watchinbg quite a bit of The Players, and it's something that you put better than I could in another thread:

"TPC Sawgrass and Stone Harbor have real similarity in that both have a lot of super sharp margins for error all over the place but it seems to me Dye's style sticks a lot closer to some real solid golf architectural principles like his angles of obliques and diagonals with his sharp margins for error (artifical looking bulkheads etc)."

What I saw in TPC is a golf course that no one would ever confuse with an old British links course (even a "perfected" or "modified" one); a golf course that was specifically designed to challenge the greatest players in the world; and a golf course that could not have and would not have been built anywhere else in the world but America -- but one that still manifested the traditional and solid golf architectural principles of the past as found in the British courses, albeit in a startling new and inventive way.

Peter

Adam - thanks. I can't disagree with that either...but what/how I'm thinking is above

[TEPaul]

"While born Canadian CBM's efforts to build American golf in the early 1890's has all the components to call it uniquely american. "


Adam:

I don't believe I'd agree with that either. Macdonald's attempt in Chicago in the early 1890s to actually do a golf course when some of those golfing Brits came to the Chicago Exposition was more about the game and the clubs and balls to play it getting over here than about golf architecture. This was up to a couple of decades AFTER golf first began to emigrate out of Scotland and into the rest of the British Isles in any quantitative way.

I think that early 1890s experience with Macdonald and his first attempts at golf architecture was more about just playing the game than it was about golf architecture in any qualitative way and I think that's why Macdonald's first course or two in Chicago were about as shockingly different as they could be from what NGLA would become about 15 years later. To even begin to think that Macdonald was some great golf architect when he did those first few Chicago courses is to completely misunderstand where golf and architecture was in those very early times as well as to completely misunderstand where Macdonald was at that time in his career in golf architecture in which he would eventually become famous.

In other words, in the 1890s Macdonald's own learning curve in golf architecture was almost entirely still ahead of him and to do it he would have to return himself abroad a number of times and do some serious architectural studying himself!

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