I asked earlier if we had any reason to believe that the USGA, in choosing sites for the Publinx Championship, did a good job of identifying the best venues of the day. (I really don't know the answer to that - I assume that then, as now, the choice of USGA championship venues is based on many factors, with architectural quality being only one). But, in the absence so far of any other method of whittling down the list of all public courses around at the time, I thought I'd just recap:
The first bunch of courses (1922-36, I think) that the USGA chose to host the Publinx (and the USGA seemed to do a decent job of moving the championship around the country - though I'm surprised there is no course from Chicago there) are:
Ottawa Park, Toledo, Ohio;
E. Potomac Park, Washington, D.C
Community C.C., Dayton, Ohio;
Salisbury C.C., Garden City, N.Y
Grover Cleveland Park, Buffalo, N.Y
Ridgewood G.L., Cleveland, Ohio
Cobb's Creek, Philadephia, Pa
Forest Park, St. Louis, Mo
Municipal Links, Jacksonville, Fla
Keller G.C., St. Paul, Minn
Shawnee G.C., Louisville, Ky
Eastmoreland G.C., Portland, Ore
S. Park Allegheny C.L., Pittsburgh, Pa
Coffin Course, Indianapolis, Ind
Bethpage State Park, Farmingdale, N.Y
Tom M noted that "all the courses that were chosen were good, but not necessarily the best of the best -- for example Bethpage-Black, Bethpage-Red, Memorial Park, Harding Park or Starmount Forest never hosted the event.".
So if we add those to the list, again, the question - Do we think this grouping of courses represents a useful first-step in identifying what public courses were thought of as the best of their era?
Peter