Willie Campbell & Myopia

[DMoriarty]

You are correct Phil,  I pay very little attention to what you write, and I have no idea of who you think designed Myopia.  I am sorry if I have mischaracterized your position, if you have one.  Frankly, every time I read your posts you seem to be scolding me, Tom MacWood, or someone else for some perceived slight, no matter how irrelevant or unrelated to the topic at hand, and so I generally tune you out.   But then that is probably some shortcoming or failure on my part, perhaps some inability to understand you.

Meanwhile, back to the topic at hand.  

[Mike Cirba]

Phil,

Don't feel badly.

The only one David seems to understand here is Tom MacWood and visa versa, so perhaps it's best that we just all leave and let them have at it.

[DMoriarty]

Mike,

I am not surprised that you would run and hide at this point.  I cannot think of any justification you could offer for your continued reliance on TEPaul's representations about the supposed "minutes" either.   

But perhaps before you go you should take pause to consider your latest swipe in the post above.   It is true that while Tom MacWood and I often disagree, we generally understand each other.  Why do you suppose that is?  Given your track record in these matters, it might help if you could figure that out.

[Phil_the_Author]

David,

Thank you for the apology.

What I am wondering about is the part that Robert White might have played. That is why I am interested in exactly when he started doing design work over here and if he may have already done some in Scotland before coming. If he had, and I have no information one way or the other at this point, I am wondering if that may have been the reason that he was originally hired by Myopia.

From everything presented so far by all on here, I think that the following questions are valid and MIGHT be involved in the story of what occurred to create Myopia:

1- Who was hired first, Campbell or White? If White, was it expected that he would be involved in the creation of the course, either in design aspects or building? If that is the case, why hire Campbell for anything? If Campbell was hired first, was White hired based upon his recommendation?
2- Was White Myopia’s first hired professional? Again, I have no proof of that as of yet just non-contemporaneous reports that state it.
3- What was the “SOD” that was used for the greens and “WHERE” did it come from?
   I ask this question because I believe that the problem in understanding this aspect lay in our view of “sod” in today’s world. The use of sod for numerous applications in America goes back to before any Europeans came here. It has been used in everything from plantings for crops to use as roofs on homes in America. In the 1890s it was not uncommon for someone to purchase sod directly from a farmer for use in whatever form they wanted to. It has been presented that the case for using sod at Myopia was something new and so the need for an extended growing period would be required. While the use of it on a golf course may have been something new, its use wasn't. There would have been many places on any nearby farm where grasses could be cut into transportable sod and that had been growing for numbers of years already. Again, this wasn’t a specialty item, but rather a specialty application. And so the sod used may have been cut out of the ground any time or it may have been specifically grown for the job. There is more than enough evidence though to suggest that this was normal sod harvested in a normal fashion and was possibly already available.
   Since there is debate on who did what and when based upon the sod used, I think a proper understanding of its use at that time is of utmost importance. I also think that it might show a possible early involvement with White who has always been appreciated for his expertise in turf management issues. It might be the prime reason for his being hired by Myopia.
   That is all conjecture, but based upon what has been presented they are reasonable areas of conjecture for further research if only to eliminate or define any or no involvement that he might have had.

[Tom MacWood]

1- Who was hired first, Campbell or White? If White, was it expected that he would be involved in the creation of the course, either in design aspects or building? If that is the case, why hire Campbell for anything? If Campbell was hired first, was White hired based upon his recommendation?
2- Was White Myopia’s first hired professional? Again, I have no proof of that as of yet just non-contemporaneous reports that state it.
3- What was the “SOD” that was used for the greens and “WHERE” did it come from?
 

Phil
White came to the USA September 1894. He was 18 years old. So obviously he wasn't involved in the creation of the course. The only contemporaneous mention of him being associated with Myopia, that I have seen, was the 1896 article you posted. I have found no mention of him in any of the Boston papers. If he was working at Myopia I suspect it was as a club-maker; that was his speciality early on. When his father came over in 1896 he listed his profession as club-maker. I have no idea if they used sod or not at Myopia, there is no mention of sod being used in any of the early reports of Brookline, Essex County or Myopia's creation. I don't put a lot of stock in Weeks story based on its inconsistencies with published reports at the time.

[Niall C]

Niall:

I do understand what you mean with Troon and Mackenzie and the club not recognizing that or not recognizing it well enough. Something that substantial from an architect, and particularly one of Mackenzie's stature, that is so much of the course today sure is a significant historical oversight. But the circumstances of Campbell and Myopia are entirely different and not recognizing him back then or now is not historically significant, in my opinion or apparently in Myopia's. Campbell probably didn't spend more than a day or two working with Myopia's original nine (that is some ways did not last long) in 1894 but Leeds spent over twenty years working with the course, first the Long Nine and later and much longer, the eighteen hole course.

Tom

With respect, and I do mean that, you are missing the point I'm making about Troon. They simply do not know that MacKenzie largely designed the Portland course. Its not that they choose to ignore it or think it not worthy of mention, they simply don't know he was there. Basically club records and their histories are not infallible and therefore I personally think that for Mike to assume that because Willie didn't get a mention in a club history or is not mentioned in the administrative records that either his contribution wasn't significant or didn't happen. Maybe a small point in relation to Myopia, I don't know as I haven't been following the minutia of the argument but I thought it worth making in a general sense.

Niall

[Mike Cirba]

Mike,

I am not surprised that you would run and hide at this point.  I cannot think of any justification you could offer for your continued reliance on TEPaul's representations about the supposed "minutes" either.  



David,

Here's the thing...I've never relied or not relied on what Tom Paul saw or not at Myopia or what he wrote on this thread to come to any determinations or conclusions.

Frankly, before you resuscitated this thread a few weeks ago I would have said that it seems likely that Willie Campbell designed the course on his own based on those articles that were produced here.  

I didn't know much about the origins of Myopia, never pretended to, never had been at the club until October of this year, wasn't familiar with the course, and had only peripherally and periodically followed the thread prior and grew bored and distracted each time as it turned into a sideshow like most of these threads.

However, once you brought it up again I decided to do some of my own searching to see what my news archive sources had to say on the matter, and having been there and actually seen the course, thought I could possibly add more relevant personal perspective.

First, the only thing I new about the members role is that the Weeks book said they staked out the course in the spring after the snow melt and that Tom MacWood was deriding them as buffoons, with his repeated putdown "Keeper of the Hounds".  

So, it was with a great deal of surprise that I found articles that 1) Said that at least two of the three members in question had been tasked sometime before 4/15 with bringing golf to Myopia that season, that 2) Another article mentioned them as "experts" before the course even opened, and 3) The other member credited in Weeks book was in Hamilton at the same time (early spring) as their supposed activities, and 4) the article you produced (and one I found that was similar) stated that they could see the whole course from a high vantage point in May and that it hadn't been "laid out" yet  (but which indicated to me that it had at least been located) and that sheep would be fielded where the course was to be located.

All of that suggested to me that the story was probably more complex than just a simple Campbell/No Campbell, as most of these things are.

We also learned that Campbell wasn't here until the beginning of April, that he was housed at Brookline  33 miles away from Myopia until early June when he went to Essex for their golf year.   To me, it's clear he was involved in getting the golf course up and running at Myopia and was credited as such, but for the life of me I don't see how you can just summarily preclude the members having staked out a course prior to his arrival, or sometime in April??  

I mean, why would they not?   Wouldn't that be the first order of business if you were tasked with bringing golf to a club?   Where are we going to play?   Where can we locate our holes so as to not piss off the polo players and hunters or to not have horse hoof tracks all over our greens?  

These guys had all played golf prior and were avid.   Appleton seemingly had a course on his own property, and the fact they were known locally as experts before Myopia even opened tells me that they were known to have knowledge of the game.  

That you and TM are not open to even discuss this possibility/probability is to me indicative of having a different agenda than truth-seeking.   Did Campbell follow their initial routing, or change it entirely?   We don't know, do we, but to suggest that these members absolutely didn't do it when it's what Weeks reported, and apparently S. Dacre Bush remembered at the very least (and Bush was right alongside these guys in hunts and polo matches ALL through that period) is to me simply either intellectual dishonesty or just another attempt to prove Tom Paul wrong, the first of which makes rational discussion with anyone else here impossible and the latter of which grows absolutely boring and really...who gives a fu*k at this point, David?

Then, to have the audacity to suggest that my theory that says the members probably staked out a course and then it was built and/or modified by Campbell before opening as "embarrassing", or "ludicrous", or any number of other insults just tells me that you want to argue for arguments sake, and I don't have time to do that anymore.   It seems to me that most likely scenario that encompasses all the evidence we know, or that has been presented to date.   I'm sorry that you and Tom don't agree but I really don't think I need to defend it further and really think that becomes redundant and boring to anyone reading at home.

Truthfully David, I enjoy the benefits of this site too much to get aggravated and irritated here when I come to discuss topics that interest me.   I'm not looking to engage in courtroom theatrics, or deadly serious invective about a light and fun topic.

So, given the tone and direction of this thread, I'm leaving it, but wish you and Tom MacWood a healthy and happy holiday season.

[Mike Cirba]

David,

Just to be sure I wasn't losing my mind, I went back and re-read the earliest pages on this thread.  

For crying out loud, I was the guy who produced Willie Campbell's ships manifest here.

Please re-read it yourself, as you'll see I was perfectly willing to accept that Campbell designed the first nine holes and conceded it based on what I knew at that time on page one.  

My thinking only changed based on my doing my own research since seeing/playing the course in October once you resuscitated this thread.  

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

[Tom MacWood]

My thinking only changed based on my doing my own research since seeing/playing the course in October once you resuscitated this thread.  

Sure it did. Thanks for the holiday greetings. I wish you and everyone on GCA, and around the world, a happy holiday too. God bless us, every one!

[DMoriarty]

Phillip,

I don't think Robert White was involved in the initial creation of Myopia.   We have three contemporaneous reports that Willie Campbell laid out the course sometime in the late spring or early summer of 1894, and I have never seen anything indicating that White was there then.  And according to Tom MacWood he was not in the country yet. 

1- Who was hired first, Campbell or White? If White, was it expected that he would be involved in the creation of the course, either in design aspects or building? If that is the case, why hire Campbell for anything? If Campbell was hired first, was White hired based upon his recommendation?

    Hired for what?  Reportedly Campbell laid out the course in late spring or early summer of 1894, so someone at Myopia must have retained him for this purpose.   But Campbell was not the professional at Myopia that summer, he was the professional at nearby Essex County.  Give the clubs' cross-over membership, Campbell was probably giving lessons to Myopia players but the reports indicate he was the professional at Essex. 
    White was apparently hired as the professional at Myopia sometime before mid-June 1895.  I have seen one report of him being the professional at Myopia (and available for lessons) from around then.  As of mid or late April (I don't have the article in front of me) he was reportedly away for business in Cincinnati, but was still referred to as the Myopia professional in the that blurb.
-- Campbell was apparently hired by Myopia before the USOpen in mid-July of 1896, but possibly after he sent in his entry.   

So in sum, it appears that Campbell was brought in to lay out the course first, then about a year later White was the professional, then a year later or a bit over,  Campbell was a professional at Myopia. 

2- Was White Myopia’s first hired professional? Again, I have no proof of that as of yet just non-contemporaneous reports that state it.

It is possible.  The first mention I have seen as White as the professional there was from June 1895.  I am not aware of whether Myopia had their own professional before that.

3- What was the “SOD” that was used for the greens and “WHERE” did it come from?

The report on the use of sod apparenlty comes from Weeks' book, particularly a quote from S. Dacre Bush.   While TEPaul told us this was an entry into the club minutes, it doesn't appear to be.  Perhaps it is from some later report or remembrance by S. Dacre Bush (Bush was on the golf committee in 1895) but it is not a recording of contemporaneous events as they occurred, and so we ought not to give it the deference we usually give such records.   I am not sure how much we can make of the quote until we know more about its origins.  When did Bush write this (if he did) and what was the context?  Did it come from the writing Tom MacWood mentioned, which was also apparently quoted in the Weeks book?   Without knowing more it is difficult to know how much weight to give it.

Also, assuming the information in the quote is accurate, I am not sure that the understanding the normal requirements for using sod at the time will help us much.   First, the quote itself indicated that a number of members were not happy about the decision to begin play, because of rough conditions. So it is not clear that they were following any sort of best practices when it comes to sod. Second, while sod had been around for quite some time, it had to be relatively new to golf, at least in the U.S., so I am not sure that best practices would yet exist the application to golf. 

___________________________________________________

Mike,

Thanks for taking the time to try and explain your position.   While I understand why you would want to distance yourself from TEPaul's claims about the "minutes" I think your past posts indicate much more reliance than you are currently letting on.  At least that is the impression I get looking back through your posts.  If you look back you might see what I mean. 

I think most of the details have been covered so I will try to stick to a few general points.
 
Contrary to your claims, I don't treat this as a zero sum game and I have not summarily dismissed the possibility of membership involvement in the design.   But while it is possible that the membership played some role in the design process, such a determination cannot be reached by wishful thinking, compromise, to save face, or to salvage the current working legend.  Such a determination must be based on facts.  Thus far you have not presented anything factual that suggests that anyone but Willie Campbell created the original course.   

I obviously touched a nerve when I referred to your attempt to parley the "expert golfers" blurb into evidence of design experience and even evidence of who designed the course as "embarrassing."   While I probably should have come up with a better description,  I firmly believe that your logic completely fails you here.   Your conclusions just don't logically follow from these articles.   You seem to be starting at your conclusions, then working your way backward.  It would be as if I reasoned:

If Campbell designed Myopia, it must have been after April 1, 1894.   Therefore, since Myopia was designed after April 1, 1894, Campbell must have designed it.

Obviously that logic does not follow.  Obviously, if Myopia's course had been created before Campbell was in the US, he couldn't have laid it out.  But this logic is not commutative.  It would make no sense to conclude that Campbell designed the course just because he happened to be in the United States.

I think the above example is analogous to your logic here.  Something like:

If Myopia was designed by members, then those members were probably relatively decent golfers as compared to those who had never played.  Appleton, Merrill, and Gardner were called "expert golfers" therefore they probably designed the course.   
or
If Myopia was designed by members, then those members were probably on the sub committee.  Appleton, Merrill, and Burnham were on the subcommittee, therefore they probably designed the course.
or
Whoever designed Myopia must have been at Hamilton in early March.  Gardner was in Hamilton in March (was he?), therefore he designed Myopia.

Surely you can see that these just don't follow.  Yet as near as I can tell, this is precisely what you are trying to claim here;  that AMG must have designed the course because a blurb in a gossip column called them "expert players" and because two of them were on a sub committee.   If not, then can you explain to me how do these articles indicate that AMG designed the course in early March?

And please do not again tell me that it is everything taken together, because everything taken together adds up to very little or nothing, especially when one discounts TEPaul's suspect claim that the Board Minutes definitely indicated that AMG  staked out the course in March 1894.    Without this claim what is their that actually points to AMG?  We have Weeks' account, but Weeks is obviously speculating, otherwise he wouldn't have to say the "probably" marked out the greens with pegs.   

So what is there but Weeks' narrative which on its face is speculative? 

[Phil_the_Author]

David,

Thank you for those answers. The reason for the first question were the non-contemporaneous reports (some of which I posted on here a number of pages back) that indicated that White was hired as Myopia's professional in 1894. As these are all non-contemporaneous I was unsure of how much weight to attach to them and yet what has also been posted appears to indicate that White was the first professional hired by Myopia, which would seem to corroborate that date. I trust Tom's information that he didn't arrive until after the course was built and open for play so that eliminates that line of research.

The reason for the "Sod" information has to do with how Weeks' writings on it is interpreted. It has beensuggested that the use of sod on the greens requires a longer time period from initial design to laying out and building the course. Because it was most l;ikely readily available, a special growing of it wouldn't have been required. It would have been available for harvesting and transplanting from local sources immediately after the spring thaw and so it would not have impacted on the time frame from design to laying out and building the course and when it would open.

What is actually quite historically important about their use of sod for the greens is this is the earliest mention of sod use on a golf course in America that I know of. That alone, if it happened as Weeks wrote, makes it significant and important. It also brings up the question of whether or not it grew in well over time and so, if it did, would it or did it influence other courses to go that route in building their new courses. Likewise, if it didn't, did it prevent others from doing so?

[Mike Cirba]

David,

I'll try to respond later today to your questions.

In the meantime, I came upon two facts last night that I'm not sure I read here previously.

First, it qppears that the second nine holes were under development during the 1898 US Open but didn't open until the last tournament that year, most likely in November.

Secondly, there has been some question about S.Dacre Bush whose remembrances have been quoted here, as well as what role James Parker played.  

James P. Lee's book, "Golf in America", published in 1895 list for Myopia Hunt Club;

Golf Committee

James Parker; S.D Bush, Secretary


***EDIT*** So, it appears that even though Bush was not the "Club Secretary", he was in fact Secretary of the Golf Committee, so it's not possible at this point to know what meeting records Weeks was referring to.   What is quite clear, however, is that Bush was there in a responsible role from the very beginning of golf at Myopia and would have certainly been aware of everything going on at the time, which I believe makes him the only first-person observer we have as a witness to events which should lend much greater credence to the details he related in his "rememberances".

[DMoriarty]

Mike,

The additional fifty acres used for the expansion to 18 holes was reportedly purchased by a syndicate of members in 1897, and the 18 hole course was to have been used in mid October 1898.

I believe it has been mentioned a number of times that S. Dacre Bush was on the golf committee in 1895, most recently by me above in my comments to Phillip.    I think I said that the quoted passage could have even been from some sort of a report given by Bush after the fact.  

So I don't doubt Bush was in a position to know what happened, at least in 1895 and probably before.  And surely what he wrote is generally correct, but oftentimes after-the-fact reports and memories don't get all the details correct, so it is worth trying to confirm what can be confirmed.

More importantly, even if we take the Bush quote entirely at face value, nothing in the Bush quote indicates who laid out the course.    Nothing about members trudging through the mud or staking out the course.

[TEPaul]

"What is actually quite historically important about their use of sod for the greens is this is the earliest mention of sod use on a golf course in America that I know of. That alone, if it happened as Weeks wrote, makes it significant and important. It also brings up the question of whether or not it grew in well over time and so, if it did, would it or did it influence other courses to go that route in building their new courses. Likewise, if it didn't, did it prevent others from doing so?"



Myopia had grass tennis courts before it had golf in 1894. If you know how to establish and maintain grass tennis courts for "lawn tennis" you certainly have the know-how and wherewithal to sod and maintain putting greens. In 1903 Myopia (with Leeds's help) erected a "court tennis" court, one of about 10-12 in America. Its beautiful brick building is still there. By the way, right around this time, Joshua Crane, neighbor and friend from Boston and the North Shore was the national champion in court tennis.

[Travis Dewire]

If the Myopia membership, pays tribute to their course as a Leeds design, who are you to say otherwise?

I would wager a guess, that the membership at Myopia cares very much about the history of their club, and would want it as exacting as possible. With that said, they would surely include a mention of Campbell's work on the course. Even if he did lay out a full course, doesn't mean tee sites, green sites, and bunkering remained unchanged. If it were unchanged, the course would be credited to Campbell, not Leeds.

Newport CC, was built by Ross, and redesigned by AWT. Now, because AWT made no significant alterations, the course design is still credited to Ross

I'm with the Myopia membership, and I'm with TPaul

[Phil_the_Author]

Travis,

I don't want to hijack this thread, but you are wrong about Newport CC. First of all, Tilly, in his 1925 advertisement defining many of the courses that he worked on and the type of work that was done, listed Newport as an "Original 18-hole Design." Even though he was working on a course that was already existing, the work that was done was so extensive that it went way beyond the scope of an extended and/or redesigned course.

The official club history is quite specific. It mentions how after “several attempts” at redesigning and modernizing the course were made, in 1921 the Board hired Tilly. They purchased 48.78 acres of new property from two different people for a total of $27,900. Tilly designed 7 brand new holes on this land at a cost of approximately $78,000. The project was being managed by the membership according to Tilly’s plans and so in 1924, after the 7 new holes were opened for play and sensitive to the criticism for being well over budget and more than a year late, Henry Havemeyer stepped down as construction manager and the Green Committee took control in finishing the rest of the project. This consisted of a complete redesign of every tee, fairway, bunker and green on the other existing 11 holes. A completely new golf course was the result. What is there today is Tillinghast and the club recognizes it as such.

If you would like I can send you a copy of the original Tillinghast drawing for this new course.

Now back to Myopia…

[DMoriarty]

If the Myopia membership, pays tribute to their course as a Leeds design, who are you to say otherwise?

Myopia can pay tribute to whomever they want and for whatever reasons they want.  But the origins of Myopia's course are of historical interest, and what happened is a question of fact, and not dependent upon to whom Myopia might want to play tribute.  Yet you to suggest that we must accept their version of what happened as truth, and that we have no business looking into the history for ourselves?  Preposterous.

I would wager a guess, that the membership at Myopia cares very much about the history of their club, and would want it as exacting as possible. With that said, they would surely include a mention of Campbell's work on the course. Even if he did lay out a full course, doesn't mean tee sites, green sites, and bunkering remained unchanged. If it were unchanged, the course would be credited to Campbell, not Leeds.

If the membership of Myopia wants to get their history as exact as possible, then surely they are grateful we are looking into it and discussing it.

You insist that Myopia would have mentioned Campbell's work on the course?   Well Campbell was widely reported to have laid out their course, and was reportedly playing as their professional in 1896, so where are these mentions you think must exist?  

Are you really comfortable valuing your wishful thinking over multiple reports of Campbell having laid out the course?  

As for the changes to the course, it is ironic you would bring that up, because this whole conversation got going again because of the insistence by TEPaul and Mike that very little had changed at Myopia.   Can it really be that little has changed if Leeds is responsible, but everything has changed if it was Campbell?

Regardless, we are talking about the origins of the course, later changes are irrelevant to that discussion.

Newport CC, was built by Ross, and redesigned by AWT. Now, because AWT made no significant alterations, the course design is still credited to Ross

The original nine at Newport was designed and built by William Davis.  

I'm with the Myopia membership, and I'm with TPaul

Given that you seem much more interested in preserving popular legend than actually figuring out what happened, then you are surely "with TEPaul."   Fortunately, this isn't a popularity contest or fraternity, so who you are "with" makes no difference as to what really happened.  

Also, I wouldn't be so quick to place Myopia's membership in the same sinking ship as you and TEPaul.  Surely some at Myopia would like to know what really happened, even if that calls into question some of their club legends.  And surely those that wrote the history meant to get it right in the first place, but did not know that Campbell laid out the course.  Honest mistakes happen.  But they ought to be corrected when discovered.

[Joe Bausch]

To the Hatfields and McCoys:

Looking back at page 2 of this thread I noticed an article I unearthed on Mrs. Campbell (from the July 2, 1902 edition of the St. Paul Globe) no longer shows since I used the now functionless posting service of this site.  I thought I would repost it to a more reliable server:

[Tom MacWood]

Myopia had grass tennis courts before it had golf in 1894. If you know how to establish and maintain grass tennis courts for "lawn tennis" you certainly have the know-how and wherewithal to sod and maintain putting greens. In 1903 Myopia (with Leeds's help) erected a "court tennis" court, one of about 10-12 in America. Its beautiful brick building is still there. By the way, right around this time, Joshua Crane, neighbor and friend from Boston and the North Shore was the national champion in court tennis.

TEP
Where did you read Myopia had lawn tennis prior to 1894? I find no mention of tennis at Myopia prior to 1900. I know Brookline and Essex County had lawn tennis prior to golf, and Campbell laid out those courses so I'm not sure what is your point.

[Mike Cirba]

Not sure if this is relevant to the issue of the number of reported courses (including estate courses) in MA during those years.

The following is from December 1897.

MASSACHUSETTS LINKS.
PROVIDING that nothing happens to prevent
pending negotiations there will be two eighteen hole
links in Massachusetts next season. The
clubs now preparing for such courses are the
Myopia Hunt Club and the Cambridge Golf
Club. This a healthy sign for the game in this
vicinity which has been christened the "hot-
bed of golf.   A daily paper of Boston recently
gave a list of two dozen links within twenty-five
miles of that city and this list did not include all.
There are private links enough to swell the
number to two score, all flourishing clubs. Then
to go through the state this number would be
increased to close to one hundred, and the
membership would run well into the thousands.
So much for golf in the State ot Massachusetts.

[TEPaul]

On the subject of the golf professionals in the 116 years of the history of golf at Myopia, it is quite interesting that Edward Weeks (a long time Myopia member and 28 years editor of Atlantic Monthly magazine) in his centennial history book, "Myopia, 1750-1975," actually specifically lists all seven of them and their duration (other than Robert White and John Thoren) as the Myopia pro. And he offers descriptions of most all of them.

Weeks starts with golf at Myopia in 1894 and goes to 1975 when his book was published. He seem to think that Robert White was Myopia's first professional perhaps from 1894 until replaced by John Jones who stayed until 1912. At the other end of his history book he has John Thoren listed as (1948-) which would mean he was still Myopia's pro when the book was published in 1975.

Again, for some reason, the club's history book and the club does not seem to have anything at all in their records about Willie Campbell. Weeks does mention Campbell, however, in his book, but only as one of a few early immigrant professional teachers who were so helpful teaching the game to early Bostonians and presumably Myopians as well at the very beginning of golf in America.

But here is what's interesting to me, including personally. In the last sixty plus years I think Myopia has had just two golf pros----eg John Thoren and Billy Safrin who is still there today. That would mean in 116 years Myopia has only had eight golf pros. If you think about that it's pretty amazing and probably says a whole lot about how Myopia's pros have felt about Myopia and how Myopia has felt about their golf pros.

I don't know how long John Thoren was there but it appears it was around thirty years because Billy Safrin was a young assistant pro at Gulph Mills Golf Club in Philadelphia when I got there in the late 1970s. He went from GMGC to be the head pro at Myopia (I guess he replaced the retiring John Thoren). I spoke to him about it and I think Billy Safrin has been there about thirty years now. He is just a great guy and a wonderful professional who I would have to say is one of the best head pro mentors there is in dedicating himself to seeing that the assistants that come through his club and program get head pro jobs (I know this personally from my club's last pro-search committee when we had two Myopia assistants applying for the job and ironically the committee assigned both of them to me). In this way, he may be somewhat like Oakmont/Seminole's Bob Ford who probably is the best in America as a head pro mentor of assistants (the head pro GMGC has now, Tom Gilbert, came to us through Bob Ford's Seminole program).

I think this is interesting and probably significant, as in a 150 page centennial book that dealt with fox hunting and polo and tennis and court tennis and golf in various sections and chapters of the club's 100 year history (135 year history now), Weeks carved out a section in the book to both list the durations of the golf pros Myopia had and to describe them all to one degree or another. I think both he and the golf club was actually honoring them in that way; at least that's the way Weeks seemed to phrase it.

But yet, there was no mention of Willie Campbell in the club's history book or in its records. I suspect there is a good historical and factual reason for that, and I very much doubt it is the reason given on this thread a number of times by Tom MacWood.  

By the way, as a club for 135 years, Myopia very well may be the oldest on-going sporting club in America, or very close to it.

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
Did any of those pros play tennis?

[TEPaul]

I'm not sure. However, these threads do tend to run on and on into endless trivialities and irrelevences but I seem to recall you implied, at some point, that Willie Campbell was a world class lawn tennis and court tennis player, an expert fox hunter, steeplechaser and polo player, as well as the best golfer in the world or at least in America. Or was that HH Barker? And I'm pretty sure you've claimed through your "independent" research that you've found (at least to your interesting qualifier----eg "to my knowledge") that Chubby Checker couldn't hold a candle with the Twist compared to Charles Blair Macdonald. And aren't you the one who broke the earth-shattering news on here that H.J. Tweedie invented and popularized the hula hoop after his family's experiences somewhere in the Far East, India or Indonesia?

[DMoriarty]

TEPaul,

Why the sudden reliance on Weeks?  What happened to those mysterious Board Minutes written by Club Secretary Bush?    

Let me help get you back on track.  Here is what you said about Robert White a couple of years ago:

Mr. MacWood:

Robert White came to Myopia between the years 1895 and 1897 as the club's pro/greenskeeper. This is accroding to the club's own records. If you chose to believe they are lies or hyperbole (even though they are contemporaneous to that time), I guess that's just your good right as an "independent" researcher.

According to the club's records White was followed at Myopia as its pro/greenskeeper by John Jones who remained at Myopia in that capacity for many years.

I do not know where White went following his brief time at Myopia. He may've gone to the midwest.

As to what his qualifications were in 1895, apparently Myopia felt they were as a club professional and greenskeeper, otherwise it's hard to imagine why they hired him to be that for them.

You didn't need Weeks then.  Rather, you claimed this was "according to the club's own records;" records created "contemporaneous to that time."

So what is up?  

Did you really get this information from contemporaneously created club records?  

Or did you just make that up?

[TEPaul]

"Did you really get this information from contemporaneously created club records?"

I did.   

"Or did you just make that up?"

Not at all.


But I should ask what's up with you on this thread? You've never been to Myopia, you know nothing about it; you do not have nor  have you ever read Weeks's history book and all it seems you know about Myopia and its history is what's said in a couple of newspaper articles in 1894 which could mean and probably does mean that Campbell did some manual labor on Myopia just after he got off the ship after the golf course was routed with tees and fairways and greens sited and sodded by those three members Weeks specifically mentioned from the records of the club at the time----a time before Campbell even got to America. Why would anyone want to discuss any of this with you? You don't know anything about any of it.

You still don't know much of anything first-hand about Merion either, so what's up with YOU?