Groundbreaking/Revolutionary Courses

[Ryan Admussen]

I don't know what the proper definition of a mountain course actually is, but I would consider Banff a mountain course, I do believe Jasper was built a few years before Banff as well

[Mark Kinney]

Adam,

I agree with you regarding Desert Forest... it is not what I would consider desert golf.  Just great golf in a desert setting.

The first course in the desert (Phx area) that led to the proliferation of the desert/target style courses that I think most people view as "desert golf" was the 1983 opening of Desert Highlands (designed by Nicklaus).  The success of this course led to the late 80s and early 90s courses such as Troon CC, Troon North, Desert Mountain and Estancia among others.

[Andy Troeger]

I lost my first attempt to post and I'm not going to re-write the whole thing but here is an abbreviated version.

Alden Pines as a golf course is not significant IMO, although the point made in the thread sounds like an interesting historical note that is of some significance. The course itself is really short and narrow with lots of water. I played it only once in 1997 and the conditioning at the time was not a strength.

Desert Forest in my opinion is very much a desert course even if it has little in common with many of the other courses in the Scottsdale area. The desert is in play at Desert Forest as much or more than any other course I've played, which is enough for me. It belongs on your list in any case especially based on how you have put things together.

[Chuck Brown]

What about St. George's Hill as "The First Great Golf/Residential Combined Development..."?

[Tony_Muldoon]

What about St. George's Hill as "The First Great Golf/Residential Combined Development..."?

Chuck I know you'll find it in many books but I have problems with that defintion, if you add "gated" it makes more sense.   Huntercombe, Sunningfale and Walton Heath were all developed to sell houses.  In an earlier post I ask what was the first? There may be others e.g. I mention the plans at Thurlestone.


Sean mentioned links courses.

I would include
Westward Ho,first in England
Hoylake hugely inflential and important base outside Scotland
Princes first designed with Haskell bal in mind.

(I can add dates tonight)

[DMoriarty]

Tony, In the US, Merion East was meant to be the centerpiece of a housing development.   Other early courses may have been as well. 

Mac, the Lido was expensive, but perhaps more importantly it was a wholesale attempt to create not only a course, but even the land upon which that course would sit.  Groundbreaking for ground building, you could say.

It is a bit misleading to call NGLA the first great "template" course.  For one thing, the term mistakenly minimizes the significance of NGLA to all of American golf.  For another, the description isn't even accurate.  Depending upon how one counts, there are only two to four supposed "copies" of actual holes abroad, and all of these significantly differ from the originals, and intentionally so, and all of these sit in very natural settings.  It was the first World Class golf course in America. 

[Sean_A]

I am not sure who mentioned it, but New Zealand was revolutionary for clearing trees and it was well before Sunningdale.  We have to keep in mind where the heathlands are concerned that Sunny and Huntercombe were equally famous for their strategic design principles as well as the turf side of things, thus marking them out as the exception.  New Zealand and Woking were before these two, but they were not considered in that class of quality.

So far as housing courses, it is probably better to use a successful example such as St Georges Hill.  I don't much see the point in using an example that failed.   

Ciao 

[TEPaul]

"Tony, In the US, Merion East was meant to be the centerpiece of a housing development.   Other early courses may have been as well."


Tony:

At no time was Merion East the centerpiece of a housing development in the sense of a housing development being a part of the club as it was at other clubs of that time, both here and abroad, that either planned and/or executed housing developments as part of their club.  

Clubs that either planned and considered or actually developed residential housing as part of the club itself included Pine Valley, Mountain Lake, Fishers Islands etc. Even NGLA considered it but never executed it.

Merion East was nothing more than the golf course of Merion Cricket Club. Residential housing was never a part of the club even if the real estate developer who sold MCC the land for Merion East mentioned such a thing before the sale and a number of prominent MCC members worked in concert with and even invested in the completely separate residential development company (HDC); but HDC was in no way a part of Merion Cricket Club or Merion East G.C. even if a number of MCC members purchased land within the contiguous HDC residential development, and a number of Merion GC members still live there today.

I believe the first truly planned and dedicated golf and residential club in America may've been Mountain Lake Club in Lake Wales Florida in 1915. At Mountain Lake, as later at Fisher's Island, the clubs used the same combination of Baltimore developer Ruth, Boston Landscape and land planning firm Olmsted Co and golf architect Seth Raynor.

[Tom MacWood]

Oakmont was not a significant course in 1903. I don't believe it hosted a major championship until the late teens or early twenties, and after some major tweaking of that course to get it up to snuff.

Likewise I don't think Pinehurst #2 was the premier resort course in 1907 either. I would think Ekwanok would have been more highly considered at the turn of the century than Pinehurst.

[TEPaul]

"Oakmont was not a significant course in 1903."


I would tend to take issue with that statement, at least as it has to do solely with golf course architecture. There is a stick routing of Oakmont published in 1903 (perhaps just before of just after it was constructed) that is absolutely remarkable in its similarity of the holes and routing today. It is a stick routing without bunkering or green shapes and dimensions on it (most stick routings were sans bunkering and green shapes) and I think we know that like a number of courses of its age bunkering was something that many of the best of those "amateur/sportsmen" architects who took so many years on their limited special projects took sometimes many years to develop their bunkers and bunker schemes and apparently they did so on purpose and aforethought.

I don't see the quality of Oakmont's architecture being any less or any differen simply because the club may not have held a championship on it until some years later. The architecture just was what it was and that is what we need to know and appreciate if we are discussing groundbreaking/revolutionary courses.

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
I don't think anyone would claim the strength of Oakmont is its routing. It is the bunkering that elevates the course (and the greens), and quite a few of those bunkers were added later than 1903.

Can you point to anyone praising the course in the 1900s as one of Americas best?

[TEPaul]

"Can you point to anyone praising the course in the 1900s as one of Americas best?"


Tom MacWood:

As to the quality of the architecture of Oakmont even very early on I don't think that is the point at all but I recognize apparently you do to make your point that it was not up to snuff for a number of years. Most of the rest of the early American courses that were considered the best, that include the likes of Chicago GC, Myopia, GCGC, Merion East, Pine Valley and even NGLA were all massively tweaked architecturally by their architects for many years, sometimes including a couple of decades. Other than the famous and constant addition of more and more bunkers by the Fownes of Oakmont, it may've been one that was tweaked less rather than more compared to the others mentioned.

Again, the point is what was its architecture like early on and not when it held its first championship. We're talking about groundbreaking/revolutionary courses and golf course architecture here and not when a course became famous, at least I am but maybe you see this thread differently. Is a jewel any less a jewel simply because less people were aware of it early on compared to other jewels?

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

You also said the routing of Oakmont is not one of its strengths? Really? Can I ask you a very simple question? How many times have you ever seen or played Oakmont?  

I suppose it depends somewhat on how anyone chooses to define what a routing is but in my opinion Oakmont's routing (the way I define a routing) is one of the best I've ever seen!

But again, if someone has never even seen it, like any other golf course, famous or otherwise, they may not understand or appreciate that.

[Tom MacWood]

I've seen Oakmont twice and played it once. Why is Oakmont's routing one of the best ever?

If Oakmont was not well known or well thought of in 1903, how could it be considered a 'significant early American design'? I'd replace it with Myopia.

Some other observations: Huntercombe is not heathland - I've made that mistake before myself. What is the first great template design? I don't believe PVGC was the first great collaborative design. NGLA predates it, and Prince's predates NGLA, and there may be others. I think Mid Ocean is closer to 1925; wouldn't courses in Florida & Cuba be considered more tropical than Bermuda? Doesn't Jasper Park predate Banff. In Japan Tokyo GC predates Hirono, and I believe there are others that may predate Toyko.

[TEPaul]

"If Oakmont was not well known or well thought of in 1903, how could it be considered a 'significant early American design'?"

Tom MacWood:

If you look at and analyze the significance of golf course achitecture (groundbreaking or revolutionary?) solely dependant on how well known a course was early on I have no problem with that at all; that is definitely one way to go. I prefer to do it differently though, looking carefully at the architecture itself at any point in time (in this case very early) to determine its excellence compared to the state of architecture at the time. In this way I think Oakmont was very revolutionary and as such it begs the question that is even more interesting and important to me----eg where and how did the Fownses come up with their ideas to design and do it as they did? Given how early Oakmont was in the evolution of American architecture I think that takes on added interest and importance.

[Mac Plumart]

Hey guys...

I am checking in every now and again in between meetings and during breaks at work. 

I like it keep going...there will be points of debate, no doubt.  But I think we've got the ball rolling pretty well.

Tom Macwood...Ryan, I think it was, also state that Jasper pre-dated Banff...good pick-up.

We can review and re-work the list as we go.  It is a work in progress.

One point that is being debated, that has been a bit of a bug-a-boo for me is precisely what some of the current debate is focusing on...and for the record I think the debtate on these things/course is a great learning excercise...at least for me...

And that debate focuses on these older courses.  Oakmont is being discussed currently.  Work with me here...I finished reading Scotlands Gift recently...CB MacDonald comes back from Scotland and has nowhere of quality to play...he tries to fire some people up to build some good courses...Chicago springs up, Myopia, GCGC, Oakmont, etc, etc, etc...but then he talks about NGLA being what appears to be groundbreaking in his book...now given it is  HIS book, so perhaps self-appraisal may not be the best recommendation...but it appears to be at least one of the first great courses in America...but if these others are to this day listed as the Top's in the world, what was wrong with them then...was nothing wroing with them...when did they become great?  Etc.

The point I am wanted to know regarding them is what courses eere of REAL quality during the time CB MacDonald came back from Scotland up until the time he built NGLA?

Perhaps we can't know as time has passed and things have changed, but I have an idea that a few people on this site can piece together that facts and come up with the answer...

Back to work..and I will get with y'all regarding the other points.

[DMoriarty]

Tony Muldoon,

 Merion East was very much the model of a high end real estate development with a golf course component, where the golf course functioned almost as a "loss leader."  In other words, from the developers' perspective the course was intended to move real estate, and the developer was willing to lose money on the course component to accomplish this goal.  The offer to sell the property was conditioned upon a first class course being built, and quick.

While the names of the ownership entities were ultimately different, the development of the course and the neighborhood were very much intertwined with each benefitting from the other.  By the time the deals were done, Merion members controlled close to half the ownership interest in the development.  Neither the golf course nor the development would havebeen able to proceed without the other. 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mac,
Everything evolves, but when CBM did NGLA it changed the meaning of 'great' in GCA into something more than it had been, and it continues to be seen as the game changer to this day. Post NGLA 'great' courses are great because they couldn't settle for less after CBM gave NGLA to the world, period. It became the benchmark for quality.
Basically, anything in the U.S considered 'great' before NGLA became 'very good', or less, after.

[TEPaul]

"If Oakmont was not well known or well thought of in 1903, how could it be considered a 'significant early American design'?"

Tom MacWood:

If you look at and analyze the significance of golf course achitecture (groundbreaking or revolutionary?) solely dependant on how well known a course was early on I have no problem with that at all; that is definitely one way to go.

That has some interest but I prefer to do it differently, looking carefully at the architecture itself at any point in time (in this case very early) to determine the degree of its excellence compared to the state of architecture at the time. In this way I think Oakmont was very revolutionary and as such it begs the question that is even more interesting and important to me----eg where and how did the course's architects, the Fownses, come up with their ideas on golf course architecture to design and do it as they did? Given how early Oakmont was in the evolution of American architecture I think that takes on added interest and importance, and certainly compared to if it was designed even ten years later.

If you have not read Marina Parascenzo's recent Oakmont history I highly recommend it. I think his sections on the Fownses themselves is fascinating, particularly the parts about what they apparently chose not to record if they recorded much of anything at all. W.C. Fownes' 19 page autobiography certainly ain't much!  

Another thing that may be of real significance is it certainly seems the Fownes' and Oakmont had is a string of very competent greenskeepers throughout the course's history who may've done or overseen a lot of the construction work and for many decades. Obviously W.C's greenkeeper Emil Loeffler was the most important in that vein, and in the broad scheme of the course's architectural evolution and history.

Again that 1903 Oakmont stick routing fascinates me in how similar it is to the way the course is. It is unsigned but it fascinates me to think the Fownes' may've done it themselves (which is apparently why the Fownes' are considered to be Oakmont's architects) unless one wants to consider without any mention or proof that some Willie Campbell or HH Barker type who you seem to think were close to the best architects in America in the early years was taking a train somewhere around Pittsburgh back then and hopped off the train back in 1903 and did it for them. One thing we do know is that 1903 Oakmont routing is a whole lot more similar to the course today than Merion East is to some long lost (and never analyzed) HH Barker mention of a Merion East stick routing about six months before that site was even decided upon and bought and about a year before it was built.

Or perhaps we should consider the sometimes used logic on this website that since neither H.C. nor W.C. had ever designed a golf course before that they were complete novices wholly incapable of routing and designing a course like Oakmont just as Hugh Wilson and his amateur/member committee was wholly incapable of routing and designing Merion East or West.

[TEPaul]

Tony:

Regarding the explanation in post #91 of Merion East being central to a real estate development or vice versa, the same could probably be said for any independent real estate developer (someone who was not a member of a club and had no direct interest in a club) who had more land contiguous to a site than he was willing to sell or could sell for a golf course or golf club. The point is, unlike the likes of say Mountain Lake, Fishers Island, or even initially Pine Valley or NGLA that actually owned the land slated for or initially considered for residential development, Merion (MCC), THE CLUB, did not have any actual interest (as in the sense of a financial or development or ownership interest) in a residential development. The residential real estate developer and development company had nothing to do technically or actually with MCC and Merion East golf course.

On the other hand, MCC's (Merion) site search committee had other options or alternatives of land to purchase in the general area and it seems a large part of the consideration for their choice to go where they did had to do with two primary factors----the proximity of Merion East (Ardmore) to railroad lines and the discounting of the purchase price for the land for a golf course by the independent residential real estate developer.

I have the very distinct feeling that if MCC's site search committee had chosen to buy the alternative site they were looking at (which quite likely could be the site Philadelphia Country Club is now on) that MCC's primary "angel" (Horatio Gates Lloyd) may've chosen to buy, or to organize the purchase of, the site of Merion East Ardmore anyway and create another golf course and club on that very site anyway. It just wouldn't have been Merion East, MCC and eventually Merion GC.

That very thing was not uncommon around here back then and is actually what happened with my own course and club, Gulph Mills GC, and the pre-existing (in 1916) St. David's GC. The additional irony of the latter is that most of the principals who founded GMGC in 1916 did not even come from St David's GC, they came from Merion (MCC).  

There is even another interesting reason that that kind of thing happened around here as it did and probably as much as it did back then (and may've happened in more than those two cases) and that is back then this entire area (The Philadelphia Main Line----eg about 40,000 acres) was essentially under the virtual control of the extremely long arms of one of the most remarkable companies in American history----The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR).


Mac:

There is another factor of Merion that can probably be considered groundbreaking or revolutionary in American golf and architecture and that is we believe it was the first 36 hole golf club in America. Intially we thought Merion became the first 36 hole club in America in 1914 when Merion West was added to Merion East but Merion's historian just realized this year that it was actually 1912 because MCC Haverford was not shut down until about a year or so after Merion East opened for play.

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
Are you saying Oakmont was mentioned in the same breath with Chicago, GCGC and Myopia in the early 1900s?

Why is Oakmont's routing one of the best ever?

What does Willie Campbell or HH Barker have to do with a discusion of Oakmont?

[TEPaul]

"TEP
Are you saying Oakmont was mentioned in the same breath with Chicago, GCGC and Myopia in the early 1900s?"

Tom MacWood:

Come on pal, that is not what I said. I already explained that to you above. What I am talking about is its actual architecture early on. Did the concept ever occur to you that it might've been really good before many people became that aware of it and therefore could mention it in the same breath as Chicago, GCGC and Myopia in the first decade of the 20th century. If it was good but not mentioned that much does that somehow mean to you it wasn't good?  

As for the routing of Oakmont, are you really asking me that seriously? Do you think the routing of Oakmont isn't that good and if so why do you think that?  


"What does Willie Campbell or HH Barker have to do with a discusion of Oakmont?"


Nothing whatsoever---nothing in the slightest. I only mentioned them somewhat sardonically because I sort of half expect you to come up with somebody like them from some obscure newspaper source and then claim he actually did Oakmont instead of the Fownes, the way you claimed Campbell not Leeds did Myopia and Barker not Wilson did Merion.  
 
 

[Jeff_Brauer]

TMac,

Do you think the Oakmont routing is weak?  I am reviewing it in my mind over lunch and can't say it is.  Yeah, 9 goes uphill to steep, and the Fazio extensions have necessarily put some tees in odd locations to get length, but the routing is fine, even if I agree no one say much about it, and they do mention the bunkers and difficult greens.

I know I could look this up, but what is Oakmont's tourney history compared to some of the other courses you mentioned?  I know Oakmont didn't host a major until 1919 and never looked back, but what tourneys did some other courses you mention hold?  And, I am under the impression that Oakmont because of its difficulty made a name for itself a lot earlier, but I would have to look that up, as well.

I know that either of our opinions - and mine in particular - are somewhat subjective.  I know there were penal courses before Oakmont, but felt like it was known for taking it to the extreme, even in that era before strategic design took over.  So, relevant to your topic, is "perfecting" a design theory over what went before a groundbreaking course or not?

[Mac Plumart]

Awesome stuff!!

Excuse me for another 30 second look in while at work and the lack of diligence accompanying my post that this entails...

Merion certainly appears worthy of being on the list...dates?  Tom Paul...excellent stuff!!

Tom Macwood...I will dig into Brad Klein's Donald Ross book regarding the dates/significance of Pinehurst is 1907ish...time frame.  If you have more "scoop" feel free to share.  Ekwanok...I am not as educated on...but I will dig into it.

Oakmont...jury still appears to be out.  My gut tells me if certainly was "very good" and therefore should be on the list.  Perhaps knowing who did the original routing and things of that nature might prove to be too opaque (did I spell that right?).  However, why is it consider "great" now?  When was this "greatness" installed?  There is a list of the site of the top courses in 1939...is Oakmont of that list?  Once again, if so...what happend from 1903 to 1939 to propel the course up the list.

These real estate/golf issues are fascinating to me.  I thought this phenomena was a 1990's/2000 fad.  Obviously, not.  Just like the technology debate regarding the golf ball and equipment is not new.  

Interesting!!

[Mac Plumart]

As an FYI and take it for what it is worth (which could be a lot)...

According to the 1939 Top 100 list that Tom MacWood posted on the "In My Opinion" portion of this website...

NGLA was ranked the 6th best course/club in the world
Oakmont 13th
Merion 17th
Garden City 49th
Chicago 89th