"Why is that important to the development of golf? Because I think it made it a much less risky enterprise for a group of people to form a club and commit to development."
Bradley:
Of course I cannot be sure of this without a ton more research, agronomic and otherwise, but it definitely could've also been that the likes of Park and Beale were at the beginning of promising a type of playability and conditioning never before seen or experienced in the 2-3 decades since golf and architecture had first emigrated out of the Scottish linksland to INLAND sites around GB and even in America!
I really do have a certain sense that the English heathlands was a massive "breakthrough" for golf and architecture AND AGRONOMY to come around the world, particularly on INLAND sites.
The interesting thing, however, is almost a decade later when the likes of Macdonald, and Wilson and Crump faced their agronomic problems on their primary projects (NGLA, Merion and Pine Valley) that were frankly of massive proportions they did not exactly look abroad, they looked to their own US Dept of AGRICULTURE!
Another interesting thing is the two guys they turned to (Piper and Oakley) didn't know anything about golf grass in the beginning----they were basically into forage crops and botany.
But over the next two decades they sure did, all together, figure it out!
PS:
Bradley: Hugh Wilson constantly sent soil samples, grass samples etc on the night train from Philly to D.C. and the US Dept of Agriculture to be analyzed. In one letter Piper mentioned to Wilson that he'd just received a cigar box full of soot from Wilson with no instructions, and asked what was he supposed to do with it? Wilson shot back a letter to him the next day that said; "Please analyze it for fertilizer!"
