[Steve Curry]

Just curious, in the pursuit of information for the history of Shuttle Meadow CC I am wondering if there is a society, association or an authority dedicated to the life and work of Willie Park Jnr.?

Cheers,
Steve

[Melvyn Morrow]

Steve

Check out the book WILLIE PARK JUNIOR THE MAN WHO TOOK GOLF TO THE WORLD  the following link will give you a little detail    http://www.pickabook.com/bookdetails.aspx?ISBN=1905222211&source=aw&awid=65970.

I do not know of society, but there may be one,

Thats all I have

Melvyn

There is also a very short overview of him on http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/people/famousfirst1969.html

[Ronald Montesano]

Junior is abbreviated jnr, not jrn, said the anal grammarian.

[TEPaul]

In the 2005 book linked above is the following in the synopsis:

"Willie Park was the epitome of Scottish Victorian enterprise."


How do you suppose one would accurately define "Scottish Victorian enterprise?"


The golf architects I would like to know a whole lot more about next would include:

1. Willie Park Jr
2. Herbert Fowler
3. Devereux Emmet
4. Herbert Stong
5. Max Behr
6. Tommy Birdsong (the architect of the world class hidden gem, Fernandina Beach Municipal)   

[TEPaul]

And then next year the architects I truly want to know more about are:

1. Merion East's HH Barker
2. Myopia's Willie Campbell
3. Seaview's William Robinson

[Mike Cirba]

These earlier threads on Park might be of interest.

Sadly, some of the links to pictures are broken;

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,30303.0/

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,38306.0/

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Just curious, in the pursuit of information for the history of Shuttle Meadow CC I am wondering if there is a society, association or an authority dedicated to the life and work of Willie Park Jnr.?

Cheers,
Steve

Steve:

Here's a link to his 1896 book "The Game of Golf", which you can download (16 MB pdf file).

http://www.archive.org/details/gameofgolf00parkiala

Dónal.

[Tom MacWood]

Steve
I have quite a bit of information on Park, is there anything in particular you are looking for?

[Mike Cirba]

How many times did Park come to the states and for what durations?

Thanks

[Steve Curry]

Hi Tom,

Everything I can find, but am most interested in anything directly associated with Shuttle Meadow CC.

Thanks for all of the great stuff to date.

Thanks,
Steve

[TEPaul]

"Steve
I have quite a bit of information on Park, is there anything in particular you are looking for?"


Tom MacWood:

If you have quite a bit of information on Park is there any particular reason you don't just put it all on this thread so we can all enjoy and consider it? I'm quite sure Ran Morrissett won't charge you for the bandwidth or space and such.  

[Mike Cirba]

Tom MacWood/Others,

Just to get refine my question a little bit, my sense is that Perk visited the US around 1896, 1915, and 1922.

What I don't know is whether he came any other times, or the durations of each of those trips.

It would be really neat to chronicie an intinerary of his work here.


EDIT***  What I think would be very useful here is for alll of us to collaborate our collective findings and understandings about courses Willie Park Jr. was involved with during each visit.

Certainly, the stuff that Joe Bausch found detailing his involvement with Philmont, Ashbourne, and Schuylkill were never known prior and I have some documentation of his involvement at Misquimacut in 1896, etc....

I think that is something useful we could do together, and collaboratively.

[TEPaul]

I've always assumed Willie Park Jr high-tailed it out of GB at the beginning of the war in Europe (1914), after not having been over here for about fifteen years and didn't much return abroad during its duration (to 1919). I think he cited the lack of business over there at that time but for a few other reasons if that's what he did it would seem to have been a smart move.

One of Tillinghast's cogent observations was that American architecture got a decided jump in architecture in the mid-teens because of what was going on abroad in the first three years of the war in Europe as America did not get involved in the war until 1917.

I realize some Americans of this generation tend to assume that the USA was the nation that essentially won those world wars but in WW1 we were actually formally in it for something like 18 months while they were in it abroad for about 4-5 years. To some extent the same was true with WW2 even though we were certainly in that longer but nowhere near as long as Europe was. (For a truly poignant and detailed explanation of GB's and Churchill's desperation in the early years of WW2 and Churchill's constant attempts to get Roosevelt's help (to liittle avail) I strongly suggest the excellent book "Franklin and Winston." From that book my impression of the kind of man Churchill really was did not change much but my impression of the kind of man Roosevelt really was sure did).

[TEPaul]

"...and I have some documentation of his involvement at Misquimacut in 1896, etc...."


So does the club. They have a most interesting early stick routing of Misquamicut. It is pretty simple and unsigned and undated but they assume it is from Willie Park Jr.

[TEPaul]

"EDIT***  What I think would be very useful here is for alll of us to collaborate our collective findings and understandings about courses Willie Park Jr. was involved with during each visit.

Certainly, the stuff that Joe Bausch found detailing his involvement with Philmont, Ashbourne, and Schuylkill were never known prior and I have some documentation of his involvement at Misquimacut in 1896, etc....

I think that is something useful we could do together, and collaboratively."



My suggestion would be that all you great researchers who have dedicatedly collected interesting inventories of information on architects and such to get in touch with us and offer to put your information inventories on the new USGA Architecture Archive. In that way any of us on here could access it, bring whatever we want of it on here and discuss it on here. Who has problems with that and what would your problems be? If there are some problems you have with this could you at least contact us so we could talk about how to work any problems out with you?

For starters, if credit or recognition might be something you're looking for or concerned about not getting we could certainly talk about idenitifying you and your personal collection items in the "Province" metadata section that is actually necessary for each and every item.

Thanks

[Tom MacWood]

Steve
I'll see what I have on Shuttle Meadow. I have a good article on Park's work in New England written by Bob Labbance that I can send you. Send me an IM with your email address.

Mike
Park made two exhibition tours in 1895 and 1896, then came over perminently in 1916 and stayed unitl he got sick in 1924 or 1925. At that time his brother took him home to Scotland, where he died not long after.

[TEPaul]

Steve:

The Park bio in C&W states that Park became very ill in the fall of 1923 and returned home at that point never to return to the USA. He died in Edinburgh in May, 1925. It also says he made a trip over here for six months in 1895 and then another shorter one in 1896. So, if the first he returned here again was in 1916 he was not in this country for about twenty years. That bio says between 1916 and 1923 he only made a few visits home. Perhaps one of the reasons for that is some of his family came over here too to help him and work with him. He had an office in New York and one in Toronto.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom & Tom,

Thanks for the information.

Would it have been possible for him to have done any design work in the states in 1915?   

We know he did design work at Schuylkill in 1916 that got postponed by the war and wasn't done until the early 20's but I'm trying to track down another similar course that seems to have started in 1915, then got delayed, and again wasn't re-started til the 20s, that time with a Park design...not sure about the first.

[Tom MacWood]

No. Not in 1915. Its possible it was one of his brothers, Mungo or John. Both were in and out of the States in the 1910s. Is there a specific course you were wondering about.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

Yes, one started in Ocean City, NJ that Joe found that started building with construction being led by Willie Robinson in 1915.   He may have also done the design.

In the mid-1920s, the course is mentioned again being built, again with Robinson at the helm, as if it never got off the ground originally.

I'm thinking that course is likely Ocean City CC, which is today Greate Bay, but that course is a Park design and we're trying to understand who did what when and if the course being mentioned having Robinson's involvement is one and the same.

One other mystery course perhaps you can help with is Glen Ridge CC.   It's today attributed to Park, and I believe he likely revamped/redesigned the existing course in 1918 or so, but have no idea who designed the original in 1913 or so.

[TEPaul]

Mike:

There is a very nice and comprehensive article from 2008 by Mungo Park (Willie Park Jr, great nephew) entitled "The Park Family: Transatlantic Connections"

It was just provided to me by Kyle who seems to be in correspondence with Mungo who lives in Scotland. Particularly John Park (Willie's considerably younger brother) was all around America during the first three decades of the 20th century. Mungo (also a considerably younger brother of Willie) was as well but his Argentinian connection was just as strong and enduring.

Obviously throughout the Park family times in America they all worked with each other from time to time at various places and all of them laid out courses so it may be a bit tough to tell who exactly did what amongst them at some of the courses mentioned.

John Park was apparently the pro briefly at Whitemarsh Valley and also at Bedford Springs, among other places. But of the places he was involved with his time at Maidstone was apparently the longest and most enduring over the years.

But what this fine article by Mungo Park shows me most is the lengths some of those early Scottish great playing professionals went to----and most certainly geographically, to look for and make a life for themselves back in those early days when travel was certainly vastly different from what such as us have come to know and expect. They were adventurers for sure! It also appears that the connections they plied for their services, even if incredibly far afield were pretty small and homogenous. I guess that was the remarkable interwoven threads of early golf as it was just beginning to emigrate around the world from its Scottish roots.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

Thanks, I'll have to ask him to share a copy...it sounds very interesting and useful.

As far as the Architectural Archives, is there some information you can disseminate here on how to submit contributions?   Sorry if you've done that prior and I missed it during my absence here, but I agree that would be the ideal repository for our collective findings.

[TEPaul]

"As far as the Architectural Archives, is there some information you can disseminate here on how to submit contributions? "

Definitely! We have another conference call meeting coming up this week and one of us will get back to you on that by the end of this week or so.

Certainly from this website we are aware of various people around the world who do have some pretty interesting personal information inventories on various things in their homes of offices and we sure would like to speak with them about possibly making what they have available as complete collections to the USGA Architecture Archives. It is certainly capable of storing a good deal of digitally accessible info (which this site may not be able to). We think it would be a wonderful central information entity to both store and access info, including for consideration and discussion on this site.

The USGA Architecture Archive does not have a DG component as obviously this site does, but it is and certainly will be a wonderful central archive for us and many others.

[Tom MacWood]

Park was involved in a golf course at Ocean City in 1916, but I don't believe construction began on that course until June 1916. It was one of his first projects during his later stint. I can't imagine there were two projects in Ocean City, but who knows.

I suspect it was Willie Norton in 1912 at Glen Ridge. He was very active in that part of the country.

[Mike Cirba]

Park was involved in a golf course at Ocean City in 1916, but I don't believe construction began on that course until June 1916. It was one of his first projects during his later stint. I can't imagine there were two projects in Ocean City, but who knows.

I suspect it was Willie Norton in 1912 at Glen Ridge. He was very active in that part of the country.

Tom,

I'm uncertain about Park at Ocean City in 1916 but did see where he was supposed to do work there on a new development in May 1923.

If it's the course I'm thinking it is, that course didn't open until 1926/27, and by then Will Robinson was in charge.


EDIT***  Just found positive attribution for Willie Park as original architect and Willie Robinson making some revisions and overseeing construction prior to opening in Late Summer 1926.   This course was originally known as Ocean City Harbors and the club that played there was Ocean City Golf Club.   Today, that course (which Archie Struthers is most familiar with) is known as Greate Bay GC, and for years hosted the LPGA ShopRite Invitational.

Sounds a bit like what happened at Philmont North

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