Why aren't there any Donald Ross Golf courses on Long Island ?

[Doug Braunsdorf]

Pat-

  Yes, I asked this question a few years ago.  If you do a search, it would have been around Spring 2004. 
  TE Paul is probably right; he didn't travel in the same circles as, say CBM or Emmett.  My thoughts are, people stay with what is familiar. 
Maybe the opportunity never really presented itself to build a course there, similar to how I've read (I think it was here) Ross tried to do a very special job on Aronimink after losing out on another Philadelphia club (was it Philadelphia CC or Huntingdon Valley?).  Has Brad Klein or Michael Fay, for example, ever come forward with any ideas? 

[John Moore II]

Pat--Prove, using facts, not suppositions, that my answer is wrong. I admitted I can't prove it, however, using facts, I bet you can't prove it wrong. So there, prove me wrong.

[Jim Nugent]

Mark Chalfant is right.  The Donald Ross Society says North Fork County Club, in Cutchogue Long Island, is a DR course. 

[Thomas MacWood]

The Tufts Archives divides Ross courses into three catagories. Courses with documentation and his plans. Courses with some documentation but no plans. Courses with no documentation and no plans. North Fork falls into the latter catagory. That doesn't necessarily mean the course its not Ross's but there is some doubt.

Either way, the design of a fairly obscure 9-hole course in 1912 IMO really doesn't alter the premise of the question being asked.

[Jim Nugent]

How did Ross get along with other architects who designed courses on LI, like CBM, Raynor and Tillie? 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jim Nugent,

Many courses have claimed to be the product of a particular architect only to discover that their assumed geneology is incorrect.

I don't believe that the Donald Ross Society determines the author.
I believe they accept the designation without performing detailed due diligence.

JKM,

Where to begin.

Your theory, that Donald Ross didn't build any golf courses on Long Island because his personality came into conflict with the personalities of over 100 developers seeking to build a golf course on Long Island fails by the process of numerical sampling and probability.

Some claim that Donald Ross was involved with 600-900 golf courses.

If we take either of those numbers, or a lower number, say 400, then, by your standards, Ross's personality must have blended sufficiently, with 900, 600 or 400 individuals for him to have been awarded those commissions.

With 100+ golf courses on Long Island, the probability that Ross's  personality clashed with every one of those developers fails by comparison to the numerical sampling and the fact that his personality obviously blended with 900, 600 or 400 personalities.

But, in the final analysis, your theory fails on the basis of common sense.
It's just plain dumb.

I've committed to wasting my time on your hairbrained theory, just for the fun of it.  Your theory is so absurd that I wouldn't have addressed it if had come from almost any other author.

Ross was instrumental in forming the ASGCA and his services during his active years were in great demand.  Not only were his services in great demand, but, he produced an enormous volume of golf courses for his clients, to meet that demand, building a huge business in order to do so.

You don't achieve those results with a repulsive personality.

Unless, it's also your theory that the personalities of those developers in Long Island were unique, totally different than the personalities of all other developers throughout the U.S., Canada and Cuba.

Regarding your "personality" theory, how would you equate the volume of courses produced by Jack Nicklaus, to his personality ?

How would you equate Jack Nicklaus's personality to those of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw ?



 

[Thomas MacWood]

If someone could list all of Ross's project in the greater NYC area (and the dates), including Westchester and N. Jersey, perhaps we may learn the situation was more widespread than LI, or wasn't.

Does anyone know which design associate assisted Ross in NY?

[Jim Nugent]

Either the developers didn't want Ross, or Ross didn't want to work with/for them.  Which is it? 

[Rich Goodale]

I've been in Boston for the past few days and am astonished to observe that there seem to be no Macdonald/Raynor courses in the area.  Wasn't CB the "go to" guy in the late 19th/early 20th century?  Were the rubes in Massachusetts biased or just ignorant?

[wsmorrison]

Rich,

It is surprising that those Puritan Boston Brahmans demonstrated the same good taste as those wise Quaker Philadelphia Main Liners when they eventually got going with naturalism and avoided the redundant geometric features and designs of those MacRayBanks guys.    Of course, those wise Philadelphians went further with shot testing, a greater use of offset fairways and greens, perception deception and a combination of aerial demands and ground/aerial option holes.  We may take pot shots from Ohio, California and Northern Jersey, however we are not disturbed by the din of those dimwits.   

While Ross did not get many commissions in Philadelphia, despite having an office in suburban Wynnewood, what he did do was quite good with Gulph Mills, in my opinion, the best of the bunch. 

According to his own account, the only time Travis openly entreated a club for a job was at Phila Country Club in the mid 1920s.  He felt his legacy was not sufficient without a course in Philadelphia.  As with Ross on many occasions, Travis lost to the better architect--William S. Flynn 

[Mike Sweeney]

As mentioned earlier, in Boston there is the Raynor Dedham Country and Polo and their greenskeeper ocasionally post here.


http://newenglandgreenkeeper.com/Biarritz.aspx

[Patrick_Mucci]

Wayno,

What, no love for Aronomink ?

[Will E]

Isn't Seminole part of Long Island? 

actually this is a very interesting question that I have no good answer for

when was Ross doing his best work?
was he thought of as a lesser architect at the time the best courses were being built on LI?

Seminole didn't get going until around 1930, and I understand that Ross got the job because he was the low bid.

[Tom_Doak]

Patrick:

Having been on Long Island for the past two days with one of my interns, my answer would be that Donald Ross wasn't needed out here.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak,

Then again, CBM/SR did a lot of manufacturing on some pretty good land.

Would the Donald have done more ?

[John Moore II]

Pat--I never said that Ross had a repulsive personality. I said that his may not have mixed with those on Long Island. I don't know Ross's personality, I never met him, and neither have you, at least not in a capacity to have a conversation unless you are 75 years old. I've never met Nicklaus, Crenshaw or Coore either. So I can't say anything about their personalities beyond what I have seen on TV.

--By the way--You still have not PROVED me wrong.

[Jim Nugent]

Were any conclusions drawn as to why there are so few if any DR courses on LI? 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat--I never said that Ross had a repulsive personality. I said that his may not have mixed with those on Long Island. I don't know Ross's personality, I never met him, and neither have you, at least not in a capacity to have a conversation unless you are 75 years old. I've never met Nicklaus, Crenshaw or Coore either. So I can't say anything about their personalities beyond what I have seen on TV.

--By the way--You still have not PROVED me wrong.

JKM,

Of course I have.

You continue to fail to understand:
 
A. logic
B. probability

1. How are the personalities of the hundreds of owners/developers on
    Long Island different from the personalities of the hundreds of
    owners/developers throughout the rest of the country that used
    Donald Ross ?

2. How are the personalities of Long Islanders different from the
    personalities of the rest of the country ?

3. How are the personalities of the owners/developers on Long Island
    different from the rest of the population on Long Island ?

If there is NO difference, your argument fails.

Common sense tells you it fails.......... If you possess it.

Jim Nugent,

To date, there doesn't appear to be a predominant reason

[John Moore II]

Pat--I don't know the answers to any of your questions, I didn't live on Long Island in 1935. So I wouldn't know how/if persoanlities on Long Island were different from other places. I can't prove that there are differences in the way people acted, but in the same sense, you can't prove that there are not any differences. Without some hard evidence, which its doubtful there is any, any thing we say about why Ross never built on Long Island is hypothesis. I am sure we will never find a journal from a LI developer saying "Donald Ross is a grumpy SOB" and I doubt there will ever be a Ross letter saying "Mr. X, from Long Island is a prick."

-The actual personality idea is a bit off from where I went to start with. My initial idea was that developers on LI simply didn't WANT to work with him. He may have associated with people who are 'enemies' of those on LI or perhaps he in some other way got blackballed from work on LI.

[Patrick_Mucci]

JKM,

You speak of the delelopers on LI as if they were a confederation, connected by a common cause, the dislike of Ross.

Ross's popularity and reputation were well regarded through out the country.  I don't believe that Long Island was isolated from the rest of the golfing world.

Of the hundreds of courses on LI I don't think you'll find a common thread other than a few architects doing a handful of courses

If I were a developer on Long Island during Ross's lifetime, I'd seek his services as my Donald Ross course would be the only one of its kind on LI.

And that's what puzzles me about his absence.

His absence from LI would seem to be more his choice than that of prudent developers.

[Steve Burrows]

Pat,

So it is illogical that developers and builders would have colluded against Ross, but according to your last post, it is completely logical that Ross himself would simply not want to work there, and that is the reason he built no courses on Long Island?   

[John Moore II]

Steve--there can be no making sense of Mr. Mucci's rantings most of the time. He is convinced that he is correct, and damn anything else, he'll try to prove that he is. I have long since given up on convincing him is is wrong, I simply argue with him because its fun.

--Pat--in this same sense, why is there no Raynor or Tilly in North Carolina, Pinehurst area specifically?
--Another question-why are the only great big name architects with courses in Pinehurst Ross, Fazio and maybe Rees Jones (depending how you categorize Fazio and Jones). Nicklaus, Palmer, Player are all plaer architects known more for their non-architecture achievements and then we have a number of mid-range architects. We have no RTJ in the immediate area (Carolina Trace is about 45 minutes away), no Dye, none of the Golden Age architects, C&C haven't opened one yet, though its under construction, and there is no Doak. So how are we so void of great architects here?

--Its basically the same question as asking about Ross on Long Island. The answer I feel, in dealing with Ross and the other Golden Age guys is that they associated with different people who were part of different social circles and therefore were shunned by the others because of associations with their current circle.

[Wayne Wiggins, Jr.]

Wayno,

What, no love for Aronomink ?

My sentiments exactly!!!!