Peter,
You commented and aske, "Anyway, my point being that, while Patrick calls it seminal and David calls it a turning point, I'm still left wondering about the nature... of NGLA's influence... But this influence, how did it manifest on the courses built after NGLA? Were Ross and Tillinghast and Mackenzie and Flynn and Behr and Colt and Fownes and Leeds and Crump "descendants" of Macdonald, and "adherents" of the fundamental principles of good golf architecture as manifested at NGLA?"
In the case of Tillinghast, he was not influenced by CBM or his work at NGLA.
I have quoted Tilly's own words in the past where he spoke strongly against the design principles of Macdonald; this despite their being friends and his liking a number of his courses.
Who inspired Tilly to want to design golf courses? The answer is Old Tom Morris. After tilly came back from the 2nd of his trips to the UK (St. Andrews was but one of his stops) he wrote about the close relationship that he developed with Old Tom. He published this in the earliest known, and what may actually be his first, published articles in his writing career in 1898. Yet it was what happened when he came back that summer before he wrote his article in GOLF magazine that also contains photographs of Old Tom, St. Andrews and other players and places that speaks to this influence. For when he came back, Tilly designed and built his first golf course.
In 1908, about the time he was being asked by Worthington to design and build his golf course at Shawnee, Tilly wrote, "I was invited to run out to Frankford, a suburb of Philadelphia where at that time golf had yet to be introduced. Selecting the most available ground [which, by the way, is almost on the links of the present Frankford Country Club], I laid out a rather crude course, using for holes, tin cans which had once contained French peas. With a group of curious, skeptical citizens around me I next proceeded to demonstrate the various strokes to the best of my ability until one of the spectators expressed a desire to try his hand at it…”
It was while Tilly designed and was building his first "real" course, the Shawnee CC, Macdonald was hard at work on the very unfinished NGLA. The question then is, was the design of Shawnee influenced by Macdonald and NGLA?
Besides the obvious answer being that it would have been pretty near impossible for it to have for the simple fact that it was designed and built at the same time and officially opened some 4 months before the NGLA, consider Tilly's own words on the matter.
Shawnee contained an "Alpinization" based upon "mid-surrey style" of moundings. Surely then this must be CBM's influence as he was importing the great architectural design principles from across the sea to America. In Tilly's case, one has nothing to do with the other.
Tilly had been to the UK to play golf a number of times (three that we know for certain and there may have actually been 2 or 3 other times that are still being researched) and started going there in 1895. for that purpose. Tilly befriended the finest players, played the greatest courses and spent a great deal of time talking golf, architecture, course design and maintenance with all of them.
So it wasn't CBM who influenced him; rather it was the players and grand old men of the game that were spoken of with great reverence world-wide that did. But that "influence" only went a very short distance.
During this same time period of 1910-1915 a number of UK writers criticized both the players from America and many of the courses that they played on. Tilly was among the most vociferous of the defenders and, in fact, wrote extensively saying that both the American game and the courses that had been built here were the equal or superior to any all across the sea.
He took great pride in himself and other American architects in the courses that they designed and created and how DIFFERENT they were from those in the UK. If the design and building of the NGLA was the impetus and the "seminal moment" for the great works of architecture in America, why would so many courses here, and Tilly's were among them, so different in style and design philosophy? That is, after all, what Tilly himself believed.
Tilly's philosophy was a simple one and can be summed up in 6 words.
What does the ground give me?
Tilly believed that the ground upon which a course would be built should dictate the design and cahracter of both the course and also the individual holes which make it up.
All architects see certain "styles" and features that they believe to offer the most enjoyably challenging of golf holes. Macdonald was a major proponent of this and certainly believed that the hole types found across the water were the most superior and should be imitated.
Tilly disagreed with him.
Tilly travelled everywhere with sketch pads and even paints so that in his spare time he would try to conceive of NEW hole TYPES that might be found to challenge all players, skilled or poor alike. A number of his written articles are simply based upon this very idea. That is why there are so many conceptual sketches of Tilly's preserved to this day because they can be found in the journals of the leading golf journals of the day. In fact he first included conceptual hole sketches in his advertising booklet first published in 1916 and titled, "Planning a Golf Course."
Can anyone seriously think that the following was written by a man who was influenced by CBM and the importing of ideas from across the sea as being the best way to design a golf course?
"The creation of a thoroughly modern course cannot be accomplished by the haphazard methods of the past..."
"It costs no more to follow nature than to ignore her..."
"When the famous British authority, Reginald Beale, saw this Aronomink hole in the making, he declared that it was one of the most daring conceptions he had ever studied..."
Regarding the 15th hole at Shawnee he wrote, "A unique feature is the diagonal teeing-ground, one hundred feet in length, which not only permits of lengthening the carry, but also makes it possible to change the angle entirely..."
"The shape and size of any green should be regulated by the type and length of stroke which is to find it..."
"I insist that rough country should be a prominent feature on every course but I am no believer in the matted rank grass variety..."
Tilly had great respect for the courses and players, and most importantly of all, the history of the game found in the UK. He was not afraid to use features that he saw there but would not do it simply because a template design called for something to be included.
Almost from the very first hole that he designed, tilly was an individualist and designed his courses to meet the characteristics that he saw in the ground and not to meet with a pre-conceived design philosophy or hole type.
In fact, when he did create holes that were similar in nature or "type" to others, the only person he imitated was himself and the hole types that he created for himself...
Do I believe that the design and building of the NGLA was a seminal moment in American golf? Yes and no. I think it was a PART, a major one yes, but a part only of a time frame where the American golf course designs and architects were given birth and allowed to explore their individualities, even if some of these were actually convinced that designing through pre-conceived templates was the proper format.
Oakmont, Shawnee, Pine Valley, Pinehurst #2... all were designed and built during this time period. None of these courses show themselves as having been influenced by either template-style designing or CBM's philosophy or person.
NGLA certainly deserves to stand alongside all of these courses in this seminal TIME PERIOD when American golf architecture truly was born, for since that day many of the world's greatest golf creations came to be...