The Good Dr. Speaks...

[Phil_the_Author]

One of the interesting things on Geoff Shackleford's blog is his daily quotes from one of the Old Dead Guys. Today's was by Alister Mackenzie:

"One can readily imagine what would be the ultimate result of a course laid out by an average committee composed of scratch, three, four and eight handicap men. They are most of them, probably subconsciously, prejudiced against a hazard being constructed into which they are likely to get themselves. But they are all unanimous in thinking that the poor devil with a twenty-four handicap should be left out of consideration altogether. The end result is neither fish, flesh, fowl nor even good red herring."
ALISTER MACKENZIE

I immediately thought of Merion and wondered how the good doctor could have written that if he had ever spent even a short period of time on Merion East. I only walked 5 of the holes and that alone convinced me that it is truly one of the great courses of the world, yet it was designed, laid out and built by a committee of good to average golfers. Why isn't it a "Red Herring" then?

Really, is merion the exception to what Mackenzie wrote or are there many other examples, especially from his day?

[Tom Naccarato]

Phil, yes, he did visit Merion East...

[BVince]

I can't speak for this quotes application to Merion, but it is a great quote to spend some time in thought about.  The hazards must be challenging and applicable for all handicaps.

[Sean Leary]

When did he write this?

[TEPaul]

Of the five man Merion committee, including committee chairman Hugh Wilson, I believe at least four of them by the standards of their day were considered very good golfers. I'm not sure about Horatio Gates Lloyd. Toulmin was good as was Wilson and Rodman Griscom won either the Philadelphia Amateur or the Patterson Cup (GAP's other major championship) or both and he was a strong competitor on the Lesley Cup (which had some of the best amateurs in the country). He was obviously from a good golfing family as his sister won the 1900 US Amateur.

To me the interesting guy was Richard Francis, a professional engineer and one of the greatest Rules expert of his day. We'll never know what-all Macdonald's advice to MCC was specifically about but something tells me he must have told MCC to put a professional engineer on their committee for obvious reasons, not to mention he'd put one on his NGLA project who he said turned out to be extremely helpful.  The only difference between Francis and Raynor as project engineers was Francis was a member of Merion and Raynor was not a member of NGLA, even though I found a most interesting letter from Macdonald in 1912 where he asked the club (NGLA) to make Raynor an honorary house member. 

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom/Phil,

H.G. Lloyd was quite an accomplished player, and was a 7 in 1912 when the absolute best players in the Philadelphia district were 4's, and included George Crump, WP Smith, Wirt Thompson and Howard Perrin.

Francis, Griscom, and Wilson were 6 handicaps.

Only 14 players in the Philly district were better than 6 handicap.

Interestingly, Tillinghast, who was quite the accomplished player prior to 1910 was no longer in those listed as 7 or better by 1912.   His focus seemingly was elsewhere.

[Mike_Cirba]

In 1911, which is probably more applicable given that's the year the Merion Committee designed the course, in the Philly district the best players had a 5 handicap and totaled 8 players which included Dr. Simon Carr, Howard Perrin, & WP Smith.

Those at 6 included 18 players, among them George Crump, Rodman Griscom, Ab Smith, AW Tillinghast, and Hugh Wilson.

R.S Francis was a 7, and Dr. Toulmin and HG Lloyd were 9's.

[TEPaul]

"H.G. Lloyd was quite an accomplished player, and was a 7 in 1912 when the absolute best players in the Philadelphia district were 4's, and included George Crump, WP Smith, Wirt Thompson and Howard Perrin.

Francis, Griscom, and Wilson were 6 handicaps.

Only 14 players in the Philly district were better than 6 handicap."



MikeC:

There you go. Compared to today they would've been like 1 or scratch, and they were probably about the best players in their club.

[TEPaul]

"Those at 6 included 18 players, among them George Crump, Rodman Griscom, Ab Smith, AW Tillinghast, and Hugh Wilson."


MikeC:

I Know how good Tilly was because he was playing in the US Open in Philadelphia in June 1910 when the MCC Search Committee was picking H.H. Barker's brain at Ardmore.

I can see Tilly as good as he was trying to hustle a bunch of KKKers with about a 20 handicap. That's probaby why they burned a bunch of crosses on his front lawn!   

Wouldn't you just love to hear a tape recording of Macdonald, Tillinghast and Mackenzie, three distinctly opinionated SOBs having dinner and a lot of drinks together and arguing about various aspects of golf and golf course architecture?

I had dinner last night down in Philly at Cuba Libre with California's super superintendent Pete Galea and his son. We had a great time but at one point we did get on a contentious subject and I had to take him outside and punch him out. Or did he punch me out? I forget. What I do know is he bribed the waiter into giving me back his Amex card and he swiped mine!

[David Stamm]

Wouldn't you just love to hear a tape recording of Macdonald, Tillinghast and Mackenzie, three distinctly opinionated SOBs having dinner and a lot of drinks together and arguing about various aspects of golf and golf course architecture?

Indeed, Tom. Those 3 in the same room would've been quite entertaining.

[TEPaul]

"Indeed, Tom. Those 3 in the same room would've been quite entertaining."

David:

On that note we have a letter around here somewhere from Hugh Wilson to Piper telling him he (Wilson) got a letter from Behr telling him (Wilson) Merion was so good that he (Behr) felt that Wilson had somehow saved mankind. Wilson (who apparently enclosed Behr's letter) said to Piper something to the effect of----see if you can figure out what the hell this guy is talking about!

Then we have another letter from Oakley to Wilson telling him he had just visited NGLA (around 1920) and met with Macdonald. Wilson wrote Oakley asking him if Macdonald tried to bite his head off. And then the reply from Oakley to Wilson telling him that no, MacD didn't bite his head off but he did liberally allow as everybody was a total idiot!!

And to think we have a number of people on here who constantly lobby that we all try to be ultra polite to each other on here. Bullshit----I want to honor the old days and my idols are Macdonald, Tilly and Mackenzie! 

[Peter Pallotta]

TE -
that's one funny image, of Max Behr praising Wilson extravagently, and Wilson thinking 'huh?' In fact, I can imagine Wilson thinking the whole lot of them a bunch of nut-bars, Macdonald, MacKenzie et al. See him at home with his wife: "I don't know, dearest - they just asked me to build a golf course, and so I did. It wasn't even that hard to do."



Peter     

[TEPaul]

"See him at home with his wife: "I don't know, dearest - they just asked me to build a golf course, and so I did. It wasn't even that hard to do."


That's right Peter. The poor guy didn't live long enough to hear the likes of some of the people on here tell him he was too much the novice to be able to do it. Ignorance really is bliss I guess, huh? 

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

Here's a vote for getting the Max Behr "Hugh Wilson saved the world" letter on here somewhere.

That novice has taken such a beating here over the years that the proposed "Fairness Doctrine" certainly merits equal time, lest an FCC ruling befall GCA. 

[Neil_Crafter]

Oh my god, now the Doctor is being dragged into a Merion thread! Poor bugger.
I bet he now regrets visiting Merion East and having lunch with Alan Wilson.......

[Mike_Cirba]

Neil,

Do you know the general timeframe that Mackenzie made that quote about committees?

I'm guessing that it was probably early on when that general model of "do it yourself" was still in vogue among clubs, and his point likely had a bit to do with righteous self-promotion of his career.   

In general, I would agree with his comment.   I think the differentiator in the case of Merion and a few other "do it yourself" architectural triumphs is that most of those did careful study of what made golf courses great and also spent a LOT of time getting the desired finished product.

[Bill Brightly]

Frankly, I think Mackenzie's quote is BS. Low handicaps want to be challenged, and they want other low handicaps to be equally challenged. It is absurd to think they would design a course that wouldn't separate the truly good golfers from the pretenders...especially on a course that they would play over and over again.

[Chip Gaskins]

Cutting from Joe Bausch's post a few weeks ago here is actually what the Doctor had to say about Merion

"a remarkable bit of work on land offering little inspiration."

[Bradley Anderson]

Neil,

Do you know the general timeframe that Mackenzie made that quote about committees?

Mike that was a quote from a lecture that he gave to the North Section of the Golf Greenkeepers Association entitled: Some Common Fallacies Of Golf Course Construction and Greenkeeping. The date of the article was June 26, 1913.

It seems to bare testimony to the fact that there was some push-back to the kind of bunkering that he and others were building.

I think it has was common for bunkers to arouse controversy among the beginning players, but maybe not so for the better players. Whigham wrote in 1899: "there was a lot of talk about driving away the poor players when the new bunkers were put in at Garden City; some bad players became quite fierce about it. I have yet to hear of a single player who has left Garden City now that the bunkers are there."

[Mike_Cirba]

Thanks, Bradley...I think that timeframe is pretty close to what I was imagining.

[TEPaul]

Tom,
Here's a vote for getting the Max Behr "Hugh Wilson saved the world" letter on here somewhere."


Mike:

In that case I proclaim Max Behr's "Hugh Wilson and Merion saved mankind" letter to be the next GOLFCLUBATLAS.com class research assignment for the "expert researchers" on here.

I've never seen Behr's letter to Wilson, only Wilson's letter to Piper or Oakley referring to it. I have no idea where it is or even if it survived.

Now that I think about it I don't believe Behr exactly said that Wilson and Merion saved Mankind; that would've been way too simple and mundane for Behr. I think he said that Wilson and Merion had elevated the nature of "morals" in the world to some sublime new plane of "freedom" and "adventure" with Merion East that perhaps or "in the premises" helped in some effort to save Mankind thereby somehow.

You know Max---he got so pissed at the "penal" side of golf and architecture and the people who promoted it he started telling them they were dealing in things like "Mrs. Grundy" bunkers and they were trying to make golfers feel guilty if they missed shots even slightly and went into the rough or a bunker, and they were trying to make golfers feel "moral" and self-righteous if they got in the narrower one dimensional strait-laced and puritanical fairways. It was his architectural analogy to be able to tell the likes of Josh Crane that he thought he and his fellow "penal-school" travelers were all a bunch of self righteous and judgemental, puritanical jerks.

But you know what I really think, Mike?

I think when the libertarian (or should I say libertine?) Behr was passing out of the East Coast on his way to make a new life on the Left Coast that was a haven for freethinkers and pretty much the immoral or amoral in those days, he had a brief but really passionate affair with Mrs Hugh Wilson and his letter to Hugh was just some pathetic attempt on Behr's part to assuage his guilt feelings about that.

[TEPaul]

Mike Cirba:

To tie this whole thing up nicely with some pretty ribbon and bows into what I really believe happened with Wilson and Merion and Behr and his letter as well as the future of some truly sublime "Free and Adventurous" golf architecture to come in the 1920s, particularly in California.....

.....I believe it all emanated after a particularly satisfying matinee in bed with Mrs Wilson when Max was trying to make himself feel better about his guilt over the affair when he told Mrs Wilson that he actually really liked Hugh and he thought he was doing a wonderful job architecturally with Merion East and that their affair was simply the result of extreme sexual passion on his part.

As they were laying there having their post "whatever" smoke, Mrs Wilson, who was generally recognized to be extremely "warm blooded" for a Philadelphian, allowed that if Merion was anything like Hugh was in bed that the course still needed a ton of work if it was going to represent freedom and adventure and passion and all that.

Max asked Mrs Wilson if Hugh was in some way deficient in bed and Mrs Wilson's response was;

"The end result is neither fish, flesh, fowl nor even good red herring."

That particular remark just totally resonated with Max and he took it to the Left Coast and to all his new amoral friends and architects out there. Apparently he told it to his new buddy Alister Mackenzie and that's how it came to be memorialized in print and to get eventually quoted in Geoff Shackelford's blog recently.

In a real and direct way I think the driving force behind the best of American "Strategic" golf course architecture was that remarkably hot blooded, free, adventurous and passionate Philadelphian, MRS Hugh Wilson!

Some even say the well known letch, Charlie Macdonald, tried to get his paws on Mrs Wilson one night in 1910 when she thought Hugh was in GB briefly (the lying scoundrel) but she told C.B. that to her he looked like some kind of engineered, overweight, dissipated, artificial and rusted robot and if she was going to stray at all it would probably be with the erudite, highly strategic and sexual, super-studly Max Behr!

For my last bit of deep golf architectural trivia I will tell you that Max's secret endearment for Mrs Wilson was "My Little Bouncing Biarritz" and her secret endearment for Maxie was "My Stud-Muffin."

If you guys want to know more about the history of golf course architecture you'll need to get off your asses and do some serious "expert research" digging on your own, as my inclination to help is beginning to wear pretty thin these days.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

While all of that is no doubt true and valid, you forgot to implicate the nefarious Dr. Mackenzie in your stunning account.   

Personally, I believe he was the brains behind the whole thing, and that series of events were all part of his nasty plot.

Neil,

I think we've cleared things up here rather tidily.