What about Myopia Hunt and Eastward Ho?

[Mike Mosely]

The thread on GCGC and Myopia got me to thinking.  I've never seen either one, but are there similarities between Myopia and Eastward?  How about eastward and GCGC?

What other golden age courses from the day are similar to myopia?  To GCGC?  To eastward?

Grovel:  Could we please not turn this into a Merion Fight III in 3-d thread?!  I would have loved to have been able to follow the GCGC/Myopia thread, but it got too off-point to really make it worth the effort to follow for 175 posts   There was too much to sift through!

[Adam_Messix]

Mike--

Good question comparing Eastward Ho and Myopia Hunt.  I'm glad I had the chance to see each for the first time this year.  The sites are so totally different from one another that making a comparison is difficult.  Both courses have their cool little quirks and are very enjoyable, can be tough, but can also be scored on.  The land dicates the play on both courses, but there is alot more internal movement within the holes at Eastward Ho.  Fortunately, the fairways at Eastward Ho are wide enough to handle the roller coaster type terrain that Fowler had to work with.  Both courses have on really unique and hard par 3 hole, the uphill 7th at Eastward Ho and monst.er 3rd at Myopia.  The short 9th at Myopia is really cool with it's tight green.  I guess the biggest difference is that at Eastward Ho, you are totally admiring the land and appreciating how Fowler was able to use it and also enjoying the water vistas throughout the front nine and the middle of the back.  At Myopia, you appreciate the efforts that Leeds made to make that site into an interesting golf course.  In it's heyday, there is little doubt in my mind that Myopia was extremely difficult.  Interesting that despite it being inland, Myopia has the more Scottish linksy style smaller bunkers while Eastward Ho!'s bunkers are bigger and more artistic. 

Both courses are well worth the effort to visit....

[Jay Flemma]

which has the better greens?

Hiya Mike!  How bout our beloved Red Sox?!

[Mike Sweeney]

I am a huge fan of Eastward Ho! I actually think a more relevant comparison is The Ho! vs Sand Hills. Obviously The Ho! is on a smaller scale and the back nine has few too many 350-390 yard holes in comparison to Sand Hills. But the terrain at both are completely unique in that you do have some aerial shots from point to point, combined with a ground game. National has gentler rolls to the terrain. The vistas at all three are unique and great in their own way. I think The Ho! is the most unique course in New England which does not mean that it is the best.

I can't see much similarity to GCGC and while I have not played Myopia, I don't see the comparison. Kittansett would probably have more similarity to GCGC.

[Adam_Messix]

Mike--

Good call comparing Eastward Ho! to Sand Hills.....  You make a good point about comparing MY and EH, they are totally different in many ways.  It's one of the very best in New England...

Jay--

I think which greens you like more of the two depends on preference.  I personally like EH's better because they had more and more interesting internal contouring. 

[Thomas MacWood]

One of the reasons for the natural comparison between GCGC and Myopia was the fact they were built around 1900 and obviously both were considered the cream of the crop at that time. EH came about twenty years later. It does have ties to both Myopia and The Country Club however. The first president of EH was Herbert Windeler from TCC. He is the unsung hero of Brookline, he was largely responsible for redesigning that course, which makes me wonder what role he may have played at EH. The Myopia connection is four legged. Evidently Fowler's preferred method of inspecting a site was on horseback, so they brought him horse from Myopia. EH is fabulous course, a dramtic site with very dramtic terrain, its difficult to compare it to anything.

[Jay Flemma]

Sweeney, nice to see you, buddy.  Umm...might we want to give the branding department a mulligan on that cutesy little name you gave eastward

Adam, you read my mind, I'm a big fan of internal contouring and undulation in greens.

[Mike Mosely]

I'll echo everyone's sentiments about "the more internal contour in the greens - generally - the better."  Can't get too crazy, but straight putts bore me.

Mike S and Tom, thanks for chiming in, those are all interesting observations and nice touches of history.

Jay, if all goes well with the Red Sox, than nothing can be wrong!

[cary lichtenstein]

2 very excellent courses, totally different, jump at the chance of playing

[Brad Tufts]

I think Tom W. has the correct gist here.  Myopia was representative of the best type of inland American golf in 1895-1900, whereas Eastward Ho! was built in the middle of the Golden Age in a "seaside parkland" style.

I think Eastward Ho would be more favorably compared to the other golden age courses on the Cape, or some of the inland Northeastern courses built on glacially-carved land.  MHC and GCGC seem to be laid upon more normal land, where EH has the twists and turns of the ground often found at TCC, Salem, Charles River, etc...

I would think that GCGC fits in the same category/time frame as Myopia stylistically (regardless of supposed blue-blood connections).

[Jay Flemma]

I like that analysis Brad.  In one sentence you've digested the six pages of the other thread on GCGC and MHC.

[TEPaul]

Jay:

I don't know if it makes you happy or not but this is one I can't contribute on in a comparative sense because I've never been to or seen Eastward Ho! in person (Gee, I wish some others on here would see it the same way ).

If I could pick one course and one architect NEXT I really would like to know a whole lot more about, though, it would definitely be Eastward Ho! and Herbert Fowler. But I've never been there and I can't contribute in a comparative sense to Myopia.

I do know for a fact, though, that Leeds seemingly through his career with Myopia was the type who really did like to pick the brains of those who were good players and such about Myopia when they passed through it (which he definitely encouraged).

I do not recall that Herbert Fowler was one who passed through Myopia but I certainly could be wrong about that. Was Leeds aware of Fowler's stuff on the other side? My opinion would be most likely.

[Jay Flemma]

Tom I take no schadenfreude in your not knowing something or knowing a course, I'm just hoping this thread won't turn into another episode of "As the Merion Saga Turns..."

[Thomas MacWood]

Fowler's EH! opened for play in 1922, but he wasn't the first architect engaged. In 1916 the principles of the new club, led Windeler & Herbert Jaques (another Brookline heavyweight), called in Willie Park II to evaluate the property. His extremely positive report led to the purchase of the land in 1917. Why the project was delayed is unknown to me. War? And why the change from Park to Fowler is also a mystery.

[Gerry B]

i have played myopia many times and have concluded that it is unique. a true museum piece - very quirky holes of all shapes and sizes

3 par 3's -all completely different - 253yds / 135 yds  / 180 yds all phenomenal

relatively short par 5's with great green complexes

a real mix of short  / mediu and long par 4's - 2 are under 300 yds  - great risk reward holes and theother ones ar terific as well

great bunkering and elevation changes in a beutiful setting

one of my favorite places to play

[Jay Flemma]

Gerry, for those unfamiliar ith the routing, I must be guessing right that it's asymmetrical?  (3 par-3s...).  How many par-5s?  out and back?  hat's the par scheeme?

Ho does it feel when you play it?  Do you get that sense of solitude you get out in the Great Hempstead Plain hen you play GCGC?

[Steve Curry]

Haven't been to Myopia Hunt but I consider the E Ho! the best classic in the state of Massachusetts and maybe even New England.

Cheers,
Steve

[Mike Mosely]

Yeah, that's a good observation about how so many great classic courses are asymmetrical...

also that question about how the courses feel when you play them, if you get the same thrill when you're out there, is probative as well.

[Peter Pallotta]

Mike -

Adam mentions the topography of Eastward Ho. Fowler thought the specific site -- and Cape Cod in general -- was ideal for golf.  I think CB Macdonald had also looked at Cape Cod as the ideal place to build NGLA, except that back then it was too remote, i.e. not enough of the men with the money would make the trek.

Here's a link to a 1921 article by Fowler that basically gives a hole-by-hole description of the course. (For those who know Myopia well, it might mean something, comparatively speaking)

www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/GolfIllustrated/1921/gi156p.pdf

Other than that, I don't know how to compare it with Myopia. (I sure like the photos I've seen of Fowler's work there and other places.) But in reading the old articles from the late 20s and early 30s, it's striking that while Eastward Ho gets much acclaim (and in one old ranking is tied with Myopia as the best in the state), Myopia's status as one of the 'foundational' courses of American golf  -- and Leeds' work there -- tends to put it in another class. I cut and paste a snippet that focuses on Leeds:

"The Greater Boston District has another club [i.e. along with Brookline], the Myopia Hunt of Hamilton, Mass., which played a major part in the early history of the sport in this country, venue of four National Open Championships between the years 1898 and 1908 and a golf course which, with undoubtedly fewer major alterations in more than thirty years of any first class course in the land, still measures up with the leaders, because its "father", the late Herbert Leeds, was years ahead of his time in the art of laying out golf holes of character.

It was pure innate love of the game, as an amateur, that sent him abroad to study the most famous holes of the renowned British courses to help mould his ideas of what he wanted at Myopia. And the club was wise enough to give him a free hand in the pursuit of those ideas. He held a place as an amateur golf course architect comparable to that enjoyed in later days by C. B. Macdonald, builder of the National Links at Southampton, L. I. In the early years of golf in this country, visitors by the scores visited Myopia to get advice and ideas for their own clubs."

Peter

PS - another article -- maybe by the same writer -- also stresses Leeds' foresight and understanding of sound principles, and notes that most of the few changes over the years had to do with adding more bunkers...which strikes me as interesting in and of itself, i.e. the role/function of bunkers back then

[Thomas MacWood]

It was pure innate love of the game, as an amateur, that sent him abroad to study the most famous holes of the renowned British courses to help mould his ideas of what he wanted at Myopia. And the club was wise enough to give him a free hand in the pursuit of those ideas. He held a place as an amateur golf course architect comparable to that enjoyed in later days by C. B. Macdonald, builder of the National Links at Southampton, L. I. In the early years of golf in this country, visitors by the scores visited Myopia to get advice and ideas for their own clubs."

Peter
What do you make of this? Who wrote this, and when?

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom -

that was by A. Linde Fowler, in 1933

Some of it reminded me very much of that 1906 (or 1908) article that 'names' Leeds without naming him -- I'd have to double check, but the wording about the club giving him a free hand and Leeds travelling to the UK etc sounded very familiar...so that seems part of the well-established lore. 

But what struck me more more (partly because I hadn't read it before) was the idea that the course had changed so little in -- what was then -- more than 3 decades...except for the addition of even more bunkers; and also how the writer seems to equate this fact with a sense that the same principles that were being manifested and were highly regarded in the then-new or modern courses (of the late 20s and early 30s) were to be found at Myopia.

I don't know when Leeds died, and maybe this was a bit of extra special praise and attention in memorium, but if that's a true description it's a) one of the first times that I'd read that kind of architectural 'context and analysis', i.e. a conscious awareness of the changing -- and not changing -- aspects of good golf course architecture, and b) very high praise indeed for Leeds.

Re the specific section you highlighted, the "influence" that Myopia is being described as having on the scores of other (designers/architects) is striking...as is the fact that Macdonald -- another amateur -- is the only other architect mentioned. Unfortunately, I've not read enough to know who specifically among the architects of the 1900s and 1910s (and early 20s?) were influenced by it

Peter     

[Bob_Huntley]

I have not played Myopia, I have played Eastwood Ho and it and I consider it an absolute gem and this was before the removal of a great number of trees.

There any number of courses in these United States that adhere to old values of architecture of making the course fit the land, rather than bulldozing the land to make the course. Eastwood Ho is the template for others to follow.

I have had many a delightful day of golf on classic golf courses with a good companion and my one day at Eastwood Ho ,in the company of Mr. Van Sickle,  was a day to remember.

Thank you Gary.

Bob

[Peter Pallotta]

Bob -

that's interesting, the way you put it about the land at EH not being bulldozed. One of the things about Fowler's description of the holes there that's hard to miss is how he comes back again and again to the natural landforms he's used and how those relate to the quality of the shot at hand and the overall design.  Writing style and a few other anachronisms aside, it struck me as a description that sounds a lot like what an architect today working with a great sea-side site would have...

Peter   

[Randy Van Sickle]

Peter -

Thank you so much or posting that link to the 1921 Golf Illustrated article.  I read it with great interest, and found two very interesting references.  One was about the 8th green being a punchbowl, which I don't believe ever happened.  Our photos of the green from 1922 seem to indicate it is today as it is was then - a severely sloping green from back right to front left.  The other was a reference to a pond short and right of the 12th green.  It is not there today and I never before knew of its existence.

Thanks again for posting.

And Bob, thanks for your kind words.  You MUST get back again, as so many wonderful things have happened since you were last in town.

[Thomas MacWood]

Peter
I found the same thing interesting about the lack of change. The club history and the commonly told story has Leeds tinkering with the course during his lifetime, but the truth is the changes he, which were quite comprehensive, were made a relatively short window of time. The other interesting thing in your quote, which you also won't find in the clubhistory, is the comment about Leeds making trips (plural) abroad to study the most famous British holes to mold his ideas at home. You will not find that in the Myopia lore.

Leeds died in 1930.

Randy
I wondered about the punchbowl too.  The man who built the course was a Boston architect by the name of C. Ashley Hardy. Perhaps he made the change. From what I understand Hardy was one of the original members of EH!; his family had been coming to Chatham for years. The story goes Hardy went over to the UK prior to building the course and was given a tour/crash course by Fowler. Fowler did come back to the States in 1922. I'm not sure if EH! was on itenerary or not, perhaps he made the change to #8. Although the course is named after Westward Ho! Fowler originally invisioned the course as a 'glorified Sandwich' - I suspect the dramatic terrain had something to do with that.