The Newest US Open Controversy?(Non-USGA related)

[Tommy_Naccarato]

I was given this by a friend who is from Hutchinson, Kansas, which was taken from the Hutchnews website, in the Western Front section of Saturday's issue. (Mind you that this is a letter to the editor. Could this have been one of the reasons why Roosevelt ended the WPA?

Dunes story evokes more historical info

I read the story about the making of Prairie Dunes Golf Course in the Sunday, June 30, Hutch News ("Dunes fruit of his labor") with interest. Buried in the details of the story was the statement that this private golf course was built by Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers. In fact, a crew of 43 WPA workers built the greens and a different, sizable crew of WPA workers built the fairways.

Of all of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, the WPA is the most famous, because it affected so many people's lives. Roosevelt's vision of a work-relief program employed more than 8.5 million people during the Great Depression. For an average salary of $41.57 a month, WPA employees built bridges, roads, public buildings, public parks and airports. These were all public-works projects.

A number of municipal (public) golf courses were built by the WPA, including the George Wright Golf Club in Hyde Park, a working-class area of Boston. The site of the 2002 U.S. Men's Open was the public Bethpage State Park, also created as a WPA project. There, the Open was played on a truly public golf course for the first time. That course is Bethpage Black, one of five golf courses at Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, New York. Here, anyone who pays the greens fee of $31 can play the Long Island course that played host to the greatest golfers in the world. The five courses at Bethpage State Park were created as a WPA project.

Prairie Dunes Country Club is a private club, organized for the benefit of it's members. The WPA was organized for the benefit of the public; it worked on public works projects. The federal employees of the WPA worked on public projects, for the benefit of the general public. Building the private golf course at Prairie Dunes seems inconsistent with the public service mission and other public works projects of the WPA.

I ask the newspaper readers this question: Was fraud involved in the construction of the golf course playing host to the 2002 U.S. Women's Open? The answer may lie in WPA documents, almost all of which were microfilmed and preserved. They are housed in the national and some state archives. There may be a better story here than "Dunes Fruit of His Labor" if anyone investigates.

RAND PARTRIDGE

Hutchinson

[Brad Klein]

Let's be clear, here. Only the original nine would have been WPA. Maybe the Feds did get something right back then. In any case, there's still time to reorganize tee times and play the fourth round on the uncorrupted Press Maxwell holes of 1955. Big debate is whether to move hole placements after the field has played nine holes once this morning.

I'll bet you the employees who worked on PD back then got paid a whole lot better by the Feds than many migrant laborers who built hundreds of other golf courses in the US>

By the way, Bethpage was not a WPA project - it was built with local (LOng Island) parks administration funding.

[TEPaul]

Rand Partridge appears to be completely missing the point of what was going on during the depression with the WPA programs and other "government work programs".

Rand appears to be looking at the 1930s (the depression and government work programs) through the eyes of someone from 2002 who's initial reaction to this kind of government program is to look for some kind of corruption!

Nothing of the kind! Roosevelt's primary purpose with the government work programs of the depression was to put people who were unemployed (the economic ravages of the depression--remember??) to work so they could earn some money in an otherwise desperate economic environment!

Of course one should logically ask if the US Goverment actually payed the WPA workers to build a private course or contracted them out to a private entity (Prarie Dunes) who hired and payed them.

But in the broad scheme of things during the dire atmosphere during the depression it probably didn't really matter. These government work programs were essentially to put money in the pockets of the otherwise unemployed and if that meant paying them to carry rocks from one side of a road to the other--then so be it!

Roosevelt's government work programs were an interesting innovation for America--it was an idea Roosevelt got from British economist John Meynard Keynes known as "deficit spending" and in the case of the depression the idea was for the government to step in as an employer and to spend (governement work programs) the country (as an addendum--since we have Bruceski, a stickler for national historic truth--not the entire country but all those that worked for government relief programs) back into some kind of prosperity! You know what? It worked!

So it's interesting that Prarie Dunes may have had WPA workers working on it but not from the perspective of some of the realities of today (corruption) but from the realities of the depression (economic desperation)!

This is a good example of how all of us should attempt to view things in golf architecture from a vastly different era as well--not through our own 2002 eyes but through the eyes of those that lived and worked in that particular era! Often it can be vastly different and can drastically effect our own understanding of things!

[Bruceski]

TePaul,

I think you're overstating the impact of the WPA. It's hard to argue that the WPA alone brought the country out of depression. In fact, World War II had a far greater role in rescuing the sunken economy of the 30's.

[TEPaul]

Did I say the government work programs brought the country out of the depression? What I said was the programs as a way of employing people back to some kind of prosperity worked as they were conceived! Just because I mentioned something that worked doesn't mean the exclusion of many other things that worked too!

[Bruceski]

Read what you wrote:

"...the government to step in as an employer and to spend (governement work programs) the country back into some kind of prosperity! You know what? It worked!"

You clearly stated that the WPA brought "the country", not "people" back into "prosperity". I think that's an overstatement.

[TEPaul]

Oh for Christ sakes! Did I not make it pretty damn clear in the next post what I meant by mentioning the WPA and Prarie Dunes? This isn't some history lesson in how the entire country came out of the depression it's about the WPA work programs and how they related to unemployment in the depression and specifically in how that might have pertained to what went on during the construction of Prarie Dunes.

The author of that letter seems to smell governement corruption in the Roosevelt era in this instance--that to me is not only missing the point it's BS!

[A_Clay_Man]

I would be interested to know exactly when those workers were there. 32',34', 35'? And the later the more plausible Tepauls reality rings true.

I also woonder what other WPA projects where completed or even needed in that state. \

Realitively little, would be my guest.

[Chris_Clouser]

The WPA labor was involved with the entire construction of the course which began in 1936.  WPA labor was also used on Maxwell's other well known course at Southern Hills.  At times there were almost 500 people working on the course at Southern Hills according to some reports.  

As for Mr. Partridge asking the question, I feel sorry that he has to be so cynical to ask a question like that some 65 years after the fact.

[BCrosby]

I think Mr. Partridge deserves an answer.

The fruit of WPA projects was not intended to inure to the benefit of private entities.

Personally, I would like to hear how Prairie Dunes, Southern Hills and others obtained the benefits of federally subsidized workers for their private clubs. Either Partridge got the story wrong or something else was going on. Perhaps the clubs reimbursed the WPA. Don't know.

But whatever the truth of the matter (and I would like to hear more), it had nothing to do with the USGA.

Bob

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tommy Naccarato,

"Prairie Dunes, The First Fifty Years, 1937-1987"

May provide some of the answers.

[TEPaul]

Bob;

It would certainly be interesting to know who actually did pay the WPA workers for the work done by them on PD or Southern Hills. If the government paid them and was not reimbursed by either club even 65 years later that would be unsupportable in every way. Certainly a blatant misuse of public funds for private purposes despite the "make work" nature of the WPA concept!

However, if the clubs did pay them or reimbursed the government for their labor I sure wouldn't have the slightest problem with that--would you?

Afterall if you look at those programs and that era it seems they were more government programs to simply employ people (no matter who paid them or what they worked on) and not so much what the projects were. The overall idea was that these poor souls wouldn't be standing in soup lines, on some kind of dole or even worse starving!

Chris Clouser:

Having done a lot of reserch on Maxwell, do you feel he was solidly tapped into the oil and Tabacco money in America at that time--maybe even dominated those interests as clients? It certainly seems Maxwell did much more work in the depression than most of his contemporaries and competitors!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tommy Naccarato, et. al.,

I'm not so sure that I agree with some conclusions.

If the only work to be done in the AREA was for a private concern, and if the primary purpose of the WPA was to put people to work for a wage, then I think a reasonable objective was achieved.

Would it have been better to have no project, employing and paying noone ?  Who would have suffered ?  The private club, or all of the workers who got jobs and a weekly pay check, and their families ?

Some have to go to a drive-in to see the bigger picture  

[BCrosby]

We all would prefer that people have jobs rather than be unemployed.

The issue is whether it is permissable constitutionally for the US government pay people to work for it if the work they do is not for "public" purposes.

Certainly the feds can create various kinds of incentives for private companies to hire more people. They do it all the time. There are tax incentives, rebates, credits, etc. But in those cases the US govt. is not the employer.

WPA projects were supposed to be for public purposes and public purposes only. Purposes like, highways, bridges, parks, dams, ball parks, theaters, etc.,  - even public golf courses.

How Southern Hills and Prairie Dunes got the benefit of federal employees (that is, employees paid with my grandfather's tax dollars) for the construction of their golf courses is an interesting question.  A very interesting question.

Bob

  

[Patrick_Mucci]

BCrosby,

How did the Fed Gov fund the early stages of the Manhattan Project ?

It is not the purpose of private citizens to fund federal government projects, but sometimes circumstances and necessity may call for such action.

[JakaB]

Pat,

Considering MacWood's Father/Grandfather worked on the Manhattan Project you are playing with fire....a most natural feature.

[BCrosby]

Pat -

I'm not sure I understand your question.  The Manhattan Project was by definition a project with a public purpose, i.e., beating the Nazis to the atomic bomb at a time when we were at war with them.  

People may quibble about whether building a municipal golf course with public monies is a proper public purpose.  Personally, I think it is. Some may not think so.

But there can't be much debate about the right of the feds to fund weapons research during a time of war. Or at any time, for that matter.

What am I missing?

Bob  

[Chris_Clouser]

TEPaul,

In regards to your question with Maxwell and oil and tobacco companies, that is a yes and no answer.  Tobacco, I believe was due solely to his work at Augusta National and him getting referenced to the Reynolds family by Clifford Roberts to do work at Old Town and Reynolds Park.  I believe that is the extent of his involvement with any of the tobacco families.  I'm sure he may have made contact with some others through that association but the work through them was limited.  The oil industry in Oklahoma is another thing all together.  There are a few facets that led to his dominating this client base.  The foremost being that he had made contacts with many of them during his days as a banker in Ardmore so he was at the least a trusted business acquaintance.  Other factors did come into play.  He was the only architect actively going about seeking jobs in the field and the other factor was they still had the money.  He would literally drive up to Philadelphia or Coffeyville, Kansas if he heard they were wanting to do some work to convince them to hire him to do it.  The oil industry for all intents and purposes was almost insulated from the Depression so the money didn't really dry up for those people quite as quickly as it did for many other industries.  But most of Maxwell's work with the oil tycoons actually was pre-Depression with his run through the state in the 1920s.  Southern Hills and possibly 2 other courses were the only ones during the Depression that were financed in any way through oil money.  You have to remember that many of the courses built prior to say 1950 were financed through corporate funds or captains of industry.  The group of investors going together to form their own club wasn't the norm back in that period, at least not in the clubs that Maxwell built courses for.   I believe though that the number of courses he did for oil tycoons in Oklahoma is often overemphasized, but it did allow him to get his foot in the door for a few projects.  Many of the clubs actually hired him because of the impression his work at Dornick Hills and other courses made on them.

[Patrick_Mucci]

BCrosby,

In order to hide the early funding from the public record and foreign interests, I believe the Federal Government turned to a private citizen for capital.   I had understood that Roger Milliken (sp?) footed many of the early costs.

My point was that everything doesn't necessarily fall within rigid boundaries.

[BCrosby]

Pat -

I understand.  Nothing wrong with an individual funding public functions.  In the case of the Manhattan Project I suspect it was done for security reasons.  I also suspect that since he was asked to front the funding, he was reimbursed eventually.

But as to the larger issue, it's not a problem if you or I write a check to the Defense Department or the EPA.  They will gleefully cash it.  They might even send us a thank you note.

It's when public funds are used for private purposes that things get dicey.

Bob

[Patrick_Mucci]

BCrosby,

I guess our discussion hinges on the veracity of the premise.

From a prudent person perspective it would seem that projects of that nature would have undergone reasonable scrutiny from watchdogs and opposition forces.

Perhaps when all the FACTS are in, we'll be better positioned to draw conclusions.

[TEPaul]

Pat Mucci to Bob Crosby:

"I guess our discussion hinges on the veracity of the premise."

Forget about "our discussion" Pat--you hinge on the veracity of the premise!

Forget about both the veracity and the premise--because it doesn't matter who the hell paid those WPA people or who they were working for at Prarie Dunes, the only important thing is someone among them helped Perry build some really good "poofs".

Possible rampant government corruption 65+ years ago is a mere bagatelle--the only enduring thing is really good "poofs"!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I was trying to confine my remarks to the topic of the thread created by the "Great One", regarding government's role in a private project, rather than hijack the thread, or divert it.

Your post suggesting that all is well that ends well, or that the means justified the end at Prairie Dunes is tangential in a splintered sense to the "Great One's" original post.

I always thought that the 8th hole was spectacular and was glad to see Johnny Miller profile the hole in detail during the telecast.

Perhaps you can ask puffy or puff daddy about the poofs.

[David Kelly]

Here is a link to a PDF of the cover story of the Kansas Golfer's Spring 2002 issue.  It is all about the construction of Prairie Dunes and has some information on the WPA workers used in the process. It also has a few construction photographs.

The cover story is excerpted from "Perry Maxwell's Prairie Dunes (copyright by Sleep-ing Bear Press 2002) written by Wichita golf journalist James "Mal" Elliott."

If the link doesn't work email me and I'll send you the PDF file.
http://www.kansasgolf.org/KansasGolfer/ksgolfer.htm

Then click on "read full story" under "Cover Story"

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Pat,
Please don't rush to a quick decision on my take on this. I merely posted something that was given to me, and like Bob Cosby, I too am curious as to what the accurate story is here.

I don't have the Prarie Dunes club history, but "the Ralph" does. However, I do think this is the perfect time for YOU to show some of us your research skills. Show us the REAL story, and make sure you outline all of your references!:)