Willie Campbell & Myopia

[Jeff_Brauer]

 tePaul,

Had you anticipated this debate, you might have taken better notes!

[TEPaul]

"tePaul,
Had you anticipated this debate, you might have taken better notes!"



Speak for yourself, not for me. Maybe you do, but I definitely do not feel I have anything to prove here to the likes of MacWood and Moriarty. And believe me, if I were to show these threads to all the people I know and have known from the likes of Myopia and Merion, I have no doubt at all that their feelings about this would not be half so accommodating as mine are.

[Tom MacWood]

David,

The exact quote from the Weeks book is:

Appleton and his partners reported to the executive committee that nine holes could be made ready for play in three months, and the speed in which their recommendation was followed is evident in THIS TERSE ENTRY IN THE CLUB RECORDS BY SECRETARY S. DACRE BUSH:

“At a meeting of the Executive Committee about March 1894 it was decided to build a golf links on the Myopia Grounds.  Accordingly, the grounds were examined, and in opposition from a number of members because the ground was so rough, nine greens were sodded and cut and play began about June 1, 1894.”

How do I know?  I read it.  Are you saying Weeks and Bush are both wrong about what happened?  He is quoting club contemporaneous club records by the club secretary. although it does sound like Bush might have been the secretary a bit later, given the "about March" comment.  Are the wrong?  If so, how do you know?  

As to some of your other reasoning about events I can understand it and have done the same in trying to figure out all the meat on the bone.  So, no problem with that here.  I am still wondering about the whole time line in that three month period.  With a lot of different phrases, and no definitive sentences, its still hard to piece together to the degree we want.

BTW, while I am just as guilty as anyone in trying to fit information into an existing pattern, my first thought was that the ground from tee to green was too rough, and hence, by Mid May.....sheep!  IMHO, the greens were a separate issue and were always intended to be sodded to get the best possible surfaces, and the tees and fw were problems.  Again, that is just me and my take.  Who knows?

Tmac,

8 weeks is common time for modern golf courses to be ready from sod, and seed takes longer, perhaps twice.  I have trouble believing that with 100 years of USGA research and other advancements in irrigation, sod growing, etc. that it would be shorter then than it is now to mature a course, even with lower acceptable standards.  Maybe its just me.

I just saw your three weeks on a tennis court reference and I am sorry that I missed that.  Also to factor in are the types of grasses and times of year.  I doubt that sod grows a lot in early spring most years in Boston.  I think it takes nighttime temps of 59 degrees, or what not.  (from memory of northern grasses and maybe the old grasses were a little different in that regard.....) so in April, it could be more,  in summer less. I have seen sod knit in in three weeks in warm weather, but not be anywhere near perfect, but then again, standards were lower, or maybe, as David suggests, they were rushing, perhaps knowing the grass wasn't fully ready.

And something else occurs to me, albeit a bit unlikely, the phrase "lay sod" and "lay out" are similar enough to perhaps be confused, again by a gossip column reporter who may have had no idea that anything was required to put a golf course in play, as opposed to our knowledge today.

Jeff
That is not the exact quote. Bush's 'minutes' don't end there...he goes on to describe the tournament in mid-June. A three month story is not a minute entry, that is a recollection from some time down the road, probably years down the road. I don't believe greens were cut in 1894, they were rolled. If this was written contemporaneously he probably would have remembered that.

As far the sodding is concerned I think you are putting a modern expectation for conditions on a fairly crude early design.

But for the sake of argument lets say the greens at Myopia were sodded eight weeks prior, who would have been qualified to carry out that work? The Squire & Co or Campbell or someone else? If it were the Squire & Co. eight weeks before Campbell, then what you are suggesting is the course was designed and built prior to Campbell's involvement. If that is the case why would they need his involvement in May or June? If you can lay out 9 holes, build and sod greens, you can certainly do anything else required.  

[Tom MacWood]

"tePaul,
Had you anticipated this debate, you might have taken better notes!"

If you were a golf architecture historian you might have taken notes.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TMac,

I can reasonably see that the club started it, ran into trouble, and called in Willie C to finish the job with his greenskeeping experience.  Who knows who the club hired first to do the work.  I have no trouble believing Willie finished it.  I really don't see the connection between design ability and growing grass. Case in point is CBM a decade or so later, designing a masterpiece and having trouble growing it in. 

For that matter, having just got off the boat from a place where the grasses grow very naturally, and coming to a new area, I am not sure Willie Campbell could have been an expert in local growing conditions, but they could have very well called him in as the best last resort.  As you say, he had more experience then they did.

But, to stave off any critiques, we are just speculating here as to exaclty how they got from point A to point B which is fascinating stuff.  At this point, for reasons described, I don't care who gets credit for what.

I would love to see those financial records.  From my limited experience in historic research, they often provide what was really going, and its hard to dispute that Willie, locals before him or working under him, etc. would be working if not getting paid.  Things change, but not that part of human nature!

[Tom MacWood]

Jeff
Ran into trouble? You've got a vivid imagination. Why would Myopia attempt to design a golf course on their own with Campbell on call when The Country Club & Essex County (sister clubs with basically the same membership) had turned their golfing operations over to him completely?

[TEPaul]

"If you were a golf architecture historian you might have taken notes."


Gentlemen who are also golf architecture historians do not take notes at dinner parties, social gatherings and such at Myopia or its membership but I'm quite sure you've never known that, and even if you did you would be able to understand why.  
 
 

[Tom MacWood]

Thats good to know, I thought you were actually conducting research. Carry on.

[TEPaul]

Yes indeed, carry on. At a place like Myopia what you consider to be note-taking research to me is basically just osmosis.

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
You must have a mind like a steel trap.

[TEPaul]

I don't know, did Macdonald, Barker, Tweedie, Hutchinson or Campbell invent the steel trap? If you say so I guess it must be "verifiable," right?


I'm going to hit the hay momentaritly, Tom, but I've had a question for you on my mind for some time now which is----who do you think is more intelligent---you or David Moriarty?

[Jeff_Brauer]

TMac,

I don't have a vivid imagination. I have a vivid memory of projects having trouble staying on schedule.  It happens all the time in the real world, something you obviously have no concept of.

As to why they would start designing the course themselves, well Willie didn't leave Scotland until the end of March and they started sometime in March.  While they may have known he was coming to America, since he would be under contract to Brookline, are we sure they knew he would be available?  For that matter, since Appleton somehow got his course built in 1892-3 without the great Willie C, perhaps they figured they could do it without them?  Now, once he got to America, and settled in, and got a break in his early golf lessons that he gave "every afternoon" according to some reports, then yes, I can see them ringing him up (if phones were invented) and bringing him up for a look see.

And when you try to introduce your "logic" into things, it shouldn't be allowed in as "evidence" any more than the speculation of others, because your logic really is speculation, too.  No matter what you call it.

BTW, I typed the quote from Weeks book exactly and word for word. I guess you just get used to saying I am wrong without really double checking it.  You might be right that Bush said more, although Weeks doesn't quote it.

[DMoriarty]

David:

And what's your prerogative? Is it labeling a newspaper article Mike Cirba produced a "gossip column?" How do you know it was a gossip column? Did that newspaper call it a gossip column (not that a number of them back then did not have sections like that, mind you, because they surely did)?

The gossip column in question was a regular feature in the Globe and called "Table Gossip."  
 

And what about those 2-3 newspaper articles you've cited to prove Campbell laid out Myopia? Who were those reporters? What did they know? Where did they get their information? Who did they get it from? Did any of those articles say, and if so why not? Have you any idea at all?  If you do then why don't you produce it? You're the guy who is always demanding "verifiable evidence" for everything aren't you?

I havent gone back and checked all three articles so I will just focus on the one from the Advertiser.  No author given, but the article contained quite a lot of information that seems to have come from someone who knew what was going on with golf at the club, including:
-- That Willie Campbell, the professional, had recently laid out the course.
-- The day the links were first used (Monday, June 18th)
-- Attendance (crowded with spectators)
-- An opinion of the course (exceptionally good for an inland course, with formidable hazards to prevent monotony)
-- A few of the physical features, including a pond one must drive over.
-- The names of every hole.
-- That local rules were in use.
-- The conditions.  (New and rough, but bound to improve.)
-- The winner and the runner up.

The article is a far cry from an off hand gossip column description of Gardner and Appleton and two others as "expert players."  And there is no requirement that I take a huge leap of logic like Mike must to go from beginner "expert golfers" to design credit.

RE sodding greens, I do know approximately how long it takes for sod to properly set  But I also have read that the course was very rough and that some of the members were upset about play beginning before the course was ready.   So I don't necessarily think that they waited as long as they ideally should have.


Now TEPaul, why won't you answer my questions?  
 
____________________________________________________

Mike Cirba.  You are mistaken when you claim that the articles I have cited were "absolutely" from the same gossip column.  I've gone through and posted articles from at least three different papers..   And I have found corroborating information elsewhere (except for the report about when Gardner returned to Hamilton.)  And I have not made any logical leaps like you have with the "expert golfers" blurb.

One must look at each article to determine what can and cannot be gleaned from them, and one must consider the source when doing so.  One can get terrific information from gossip column, but one must not infer m more than the columnist ever could have intended, yet that is exactly what you do.  

[DMoriarty]

Tmac and David, (I just realized I addressed the first part of this to David, and TMac asked about the club minutes)

Yes, it says club records whatever that may be.

The exact quote from the Weeks book is:

Appleton and his partners reported to the executive committee that nine holes could be made ready for play in three months, and the speed in which their recommendation was followed is evident in THIS TERSE ENTRY IN THE CLUB RECORDS BY SECRETARY S. DACRE BUSH:

“At a meeting of the Executive Committee about March 1894 it was decided to build a golf links on the Myopia Grounds.  Accordingly, the grounds were examined, and in opposition from a number of members because the ground was so rough, nine greens were sodded and cut and play began about June 1, 1894.”

How do I know?  I read it.  Are you saying Weeks and Bush are both wrong about what happened?  He is quoting club contemporaneous club records by the club secretary. although it does sound like Bush might have been the secretary a bit later, given the "about March" comment.  Are the wrong?  If so, how do you know?

1. Whatever Weeks calls them, that quote is NOT from any sort of business or administrative record I have ever seen or even heard of.  Such records are supposed to be contemporaneous recordings of events that occur in the regular course of business, in this case club business.  Such records would not reference an Executive Meeting occurring "about March 1894."  Such records would have been created at the meeting and would record the place, date, participants, etc.  

2.  Reportedly, S. Dacre Bush was NOT the club Secretary in 1894.    According to Abbott's 1897 book, Frederick Warren, Jr. was the Club Secretary from 1892 until C. G. Rice became Secretary in 1895.   Through 1896, Bush had been a "Steward" but never Club Secretary.  

So I don't know what is up with Weeks and these supposed records, but thus far I have seen no reason to believe that Weeks was actually relying on anything we would call a club record such as a minute book or "log book."  Didn't TomM mention that Bush had done an early history of golf at Myopia? 
  
Also, as everyone ignored when I mentioned it earlier, Abbott's book noted that Bush and Parker were responsible for laying out the course.

Golf has been introduced as a Myopia sport. Its development has been principally due to the efforts of Mr. Bush and Mr. Parker, who, in the opinion of many, have laid out one of the best inland courses in the country.

No mention of Appleton, Gardner and Merrill having done it, and no mention of Campbell at all.    And no mention of Leeds, even though TEPaul claims he was creating his long nine by then.

Maybe we need a list of all those club members who supposedly laid out the course.  Let's see, we have Appleton, J.W. Merrill, Gardner, plus we have Burnham who was on the sub committee that Mike thinks designed the course, and then we have Thomas and T.W. Merrill who were called experts so they must have designed it too, and then we have Parker and Bush.   Whoops I forgot Leeds.  Quite a list.   Perhaps we should just say it could be anyone in the membership, so long as it is not Campbell.  


If it was in the club records or even known in the club that Appleton, Gardner and Merrill laid out the course, then why did this book, written by a member, indicate that Bush and Parker had laid out one of the best inland courses in the country?

BTW, while I am just as guilty as anyone in trying to fit information into an existing pattern, my first thought was that the ground from tee to green was too rough, and hence, by Mid May.....sheep!  IMHO, the greens were a separate issue and were always intended to be sodded to get the best possible surfaces, and the tees and fw were problems.  Again, that is just me and my take.  Who knows?

I don't get this.  Why would it be reported in mid-May that sheep would be added if sheep were already there?  

And something else occurs to me, albeit a bit unlikely, the phrase "lay sod" and "lay out" are similar enough to perhaps be confused, again by a gossip column reporter who may have had no idea that anything was required to put a golf course in play, as opposed to our knowledge today.

The reports of Campbell laying out the course are not from the gossip columnist.  They are from three different papers.

[Mike Cirba]

David,

Aren't you embarrassed to be cobbling articles from the "Table Gossip" column or would you prefer just being grossly hypocritical?

Or, are you prepared to just honestly admit that those columns was the best source in Boston for reporting on the doings of the upper class at the time and by far the best source for golf-related info?

Why don't you admit that your chief article came from a similar Gossip Column titled "Summer Gayeties"? 

Would you like me to reproduce it here in full for everyone??

God, I have no idea how you can misrepresent things here so blatantly and seemingly without conscience.   Are you really looking for the truth of what happened or just taking an advocacy position without any regard for accuracy?

[Tom MacWood]

Mike
I don't remember that article, what was it about?

Jeff
I have my doubts about the Appleton Farm golf course being made in 1892 or 1893. That would have made it one of the first golf courses in New England, and back then no one seemed to know anything about it even though they were aware of other private courses of other members of The Country Club and Myopia.

[Tom MacWood]

And when you try to introduce your "logic" into things, it shouldn't be allowed in as "evidence" any more than the speculation of others, because your logic really is speculation, too.  No matter what you call it.

In order for speculation to be taken seriously it has to be plausible and based on known verifiable facts.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TMac,

No matter what you call what any of us do on this type of thread, its speculation, if nothing else to try to determine which document we believe best reflects the truth.  The documents you argue are signifigant, and the ones you deem should be excluded are really a matter of your speculation.  Again, call it logic, call it research, or call it interpretation for a nicer term, but we are all doing it and that is my point. Nothing more, nothing less.

And now for some more of it!  I started thinking last night that WC was unattached earlier in 1896 and possibly called back to MH later in 1896 coincidentally with Leeds planning the new nine.  That may be a similar pattern to being called in May to finish what the club started in March back in 1894, but this time, with Leeds at the helm in planning.

Does this suggest to anyone that they did value Willie's ability to "get er done?"  Of course, it could be simply an emergency replacement for White who left.

[Mike Cirba]

 
I havent gone back and checked all three articles so I will just focus on the one from the Advertiser.  No author given, but the article contained quite a lot of information that seems to have come from someone who knew what was going on with golf at the club, including:
-- That Willie Campbell, the professional, had recently laid out the course.
-- The day the links were first used (Monday, June 18th)
-- Attendance (crowded with spectators)
-- An opinion of the course (exceptionally good for an inland course, with formidable hazards to prevent monotony)
-- A few of the physical features, including a pond one must drive over.
-- The names of every hole.
-- That local rules were in use.
-- The conditions.  (New and rough, but bound to improve.)
-- The winner and the runner up.

The article is a far cry from an off hand gossip column description of Gardner and Appleton and two others as "expert players."  And there is no requirement that I take a huge leap of logic like Mike must to go from beginner "expert golfers" to design credit.


____________________________________________________



David,

Far be it for a serious researcher like yourself to rely on anything from a "gossip column".

Not sure if Tom MacWood has posted these before or not, but here are two more snippets about the beginning of golf at Myopia, both from the Boston Evening Transcript.

From May 19, 1894, suggesting that the course had not yet been laid out.



From June 23, 1894, indicating that Willie Campbell laid out the course and also providing a number of details, thus suggesting that the information came from someone involved with the course. (This almost always seems to have been the case with these newspaper blurbs.)



Note also that the article lists the names of the holes.  Three of the names (kennels, bulbrushes, and pond) were still in use in 1898.  Two other of the names (and their relative order) somewhat correspond to names from 1898 (hills-alps and dale-valley.)  Four of the names were different in 1898 (Miles River, shooting box, track, and school vs. the orient, high, home, and prairie.)  

I also recall one blurb indicating that the course was changed for the 1895 golfing season.  If so, is it possible that changes these changes created the "long nine" before Leeds even joined the club?

Hmmm...let's see where that second article came from?   Just click on the following link and see the article to the right of the "Oriental Cream and Magical Beautifier".    

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=DQo0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=eCMIAAAAIBAJ&pg=5886,4800784&dq=myopia+golf&hl=en

Serious-minded researchers using gossip columns??

I'm shocked...Shocking...SHOCKING I'd say!  

[TEPaul]

"-- The day the links were first used (Monday, June 18th)"



According to the secretary and board member of the club, the links were first used about June 1, 1894 but for a crack Boston Advertiser reporter on golf in 1894 being off by over two weeks probably isn't so bad really. 

[TEPaul]

"And now for some more of it!  I started thinking last night that WC was unattached earlier in 1896 and possibly called back to MH later in 1896 coincidentally with Leeds planning the new nine.  That may be a similar pattern to being called in May to finish what the club started in March back in 1894, but this time, with Leeds at the helm in planning.

Does this suggest to anyone that they did value Willie's ability to "get er done?"  Of course, it could be simply an emergency replacement for White who left."


Jeffrey:

Apparently not enough for the club to actually mention Willie Campbell's name at the time, or ever actually. Perhaps they secretly realized that they had the greatest golfer in the world in their sway at the time and they felt they shouldn't mention it for fear that some other club may steal him away.  

I mean, come on, if you were a club and you had Ben Hogan or Bryon Nelson as your pro would you actually want to tell anyone?   

[TEPaul]

"If it was in the club records or even known in the club that Appleton, Gardner and Merrill laid out the course, then why did this book, written by a member, indicate that Bush and Parker had laid out one of the best inland courses in the country?"


David:

We need to be quite careful of the terms we use here such as "laid out" (verb: to lay out) and particularly after we all understand from a crack researcher on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com on the subject of Merion East that "laid out" according to the Oxford English dictionary can only mean the building or constructing of something to someone else's "plan."

I don't know that the club records indicate that Bush and Parker were technically involved in any "laying out" of the Myopia course (if they actually touched or picked up a shovel or some such, unfortunately posterity neglected to record that important act).

What Weeks said was:

"A golf committee consisting of Appleton, Merrill, Bush and Parker was responsible for the maintenance of the course that first summer and while the club voted to bear the modest expense, a subscription was started for seeding and developing the holes on the ridge."

Or, alternatively, I suppose Edward Weeks could've just made all that up. That would certainly square with Tom MacWood's logic that these clubs and their history book writers essentially just engage in fantasy and the iconization of someone. For some odd reason that iconization from and within Myopia never seemed to include the greatest and most famous person in golf and architecture at that time, Willie Campbell.

[Mike Cirba]

Or, alternatively, I suppose Edward Weeks could've just made all that up. That would certainly square with Tom MacWood's logic that these clubs and their history book writers essentially just engage in fantasy and the iconization of someone. For some odd reason that iconization from and within Myopia never seemed to include the greatest and most famous person in golf and architecture at that time, Willie Campbell.





"It was Weeks from the beginning.   He knew that if he foisted this tale on the unsuspecting public he'd confuse future generations about the origins of Myopia long enough to get through the second Golden Age of architecture undetected and unscathed.  We've been on to him for some time, but thankfully that Tom Paul inadvertently led us right to his hidden lair.....Master of the Hounds, indeed!"

[DMoriarty]

David,

Far be it for a serious researcher like yourself to rely on anything from a "gossip column".

As usual Mike, your logic and understanding are rather suspect, as is your willingness and ability to accurately portray the positions of others.  I never claimed I didn't use gossip columns.   I readily admitted I used them and explained . . .

"One must look at each article to determine what can and cannot be gleaned from them, and one must consider the source when doing so.  One can get terrific information from gossip column, but one must not infer more than the columnist ever could have intended, yet that is exactly what you do."

But of course in your mock outrage and indignation you won't let anything like the facts get in your way, will you?

________________________________________________

TEPaul,

-You wrote that according to the "secretary" golf began about June 1, 1894.   To what "secretary" do you refer?   Because so far as I can figure, S. Dacre Bush was not the Club Secretary.  Surely if you have actually seen the records then you should know who was secretary.  What is your basis for saying Bush was secretary?    Is it Weeks?   If so then what was Weeks' basis?

-Also, the Advertiser account is not the only account of play beginning on June 18, 1894.  All the accounts said the same thing.   Perhaps your information is suspect, or "about" is broader than you think.

-You have not addressed why Parker and Bush were given credit for laying out the course by Abbott, and perhaps more importantly why why Appleton Merrill and Gardner were not.

-  You mention that in "that first summer" they had started a subscription for seeds to develop the ridge.   Isn't this yet more evidence that the course was changed from the original nine to what you claim was the "long nine" by 1895, and that the legend about Leeds beginning work on the long nine in 1896 is incorrect?

-  Again, I never once suggested that Weeks made it all up.   Surely he did the best he could with the information he had.  But it is looking more and more like he may not have been relying on anything resembling club minutes when he wrote the history, but rather was relying on some other early account written by S. Dacre Bush.  

- This brings us back to my questions above, that you have yet to answer.   Were you looking at anything resembling club minutes, or were you looking at some early account by Bush?    Or are you just relying on Weeks?

Here again are the unanswered questions:

1. How come you know for certain that they staked out the course, yet Weeks is speculating about the same thing?

2. Have you seen actual administrative records at Myopia, or some sort of recollection written by Dacre Bush?  If the latter when was it written and what was the format?

3. You have repeatedly claimed that the records indicate that Robert White was the professional at Myopia in 1896-97, and maybe 1895.   But it seems that Robert White might have moved on to Cincinnati sometime in 1896.   What exactly do the records say about this, and about Robert White?

4.  You refer to the following statement as a reality:   "The members who decided to introduce golf to Myopia Hunt Club informed the club that they could have a nine hole course ready for play in three months. The nine hole course opened for play around June 1, 1894. You do the math!"  A reality based upon what, exactly?  

[TEPaul]

Cirba, you unspeakable jack-wagon, perhaps I did lead you to Weeks's hidden lair (or is it liar?)-----the Master of the Myopia Fox Hounds (R.M Appleton).

But that photograph above is definitely not RM Appleton, that great fox hunter, golfer, and college athlete and over-all man of action and deeds of the North Shore of Boston and far beyond. That looks to be some actor from central casting in the 1930s who played the part of an ineffectual dandy officer of the British or German Empire in some B-grade movie set in Marrakesh about the Arabians Nights (or is it Knights?) or some such garbage foisted on the gullible American public.

R.M (Bud) Appleton was the true renaissance sportsman of that controversial WASP class of that age and era who was a world class fox hunter, and "expert" golfer and original golf architect, and a great college athlete. He was actually the captain of the 1883 Havard football team----a team, I might add, that H.C. Leeds also played on and starred on in a game against Yale in which he scored the first points.

Both they and a number of their close friends in more or less the next decade went on to revolutionize golf architecture in America or at least in Massachussets. These were men of high intelligence and even higher education;  they were men of ideas and action and the last thing they did was wait around for some working stiff from Scotland who was best known for losing an insurmountable lead in a British Open to show up on their shores to tell THEM what to do about anything!