[DMoriarty]

David,

Thanks for making my point and clearing up the timing of the subsequent hotel construction, which clearly was sometime after the course opened in 1979 and more importantly to this discussion, after Golf Digest compiled their initial list of the Best Fifty public courses I listed above.

My God, Mike, are you really this dense?  Or are you pulling my leg?  

"Subsequent" means after.  The hotel construction wasn't finished when the course opened, but the hotel construction was ongoing, not subsequent.  More importantly, the hotel was part and parcel of the same development, per the same development plan.  This would be obvious if you bothered to actually look into it rather than just guessing.   Is their any point, no matter how minor or insignificant, that you will not try to disingenuously manipulate to try and make your argument?

If the construction on the Inn at Pebble Beach had been ongoing when the course opened, would you pretend that Pebble Beach was not a hotel/resort course either?  

[Mike Cirba]

David,

Perhaps the "public course" distinction was made by Golf Digest simply because the course(s) were built using public monies in the form of $60 million of tax-free revenue bonds issued by the City of Industry?

Conversely, the hotel that was built and opened in 1982 was privately owned and funded.   I would think for legal reasons there would be some separation needed.

But my larger point remains.   If I went to Industry Hills in 1979 or 1980, or 1981 and played the golf course (the timeframe Golf Digest came up with their list), there was no lodging accommodations yet available on the property.

What if that private funding dried up?   What if they backed out or went under?   Golf Digest was supposed to make their determination by some future private plans??

In any case, I don't see why you find my contention about Industry Hills so alarming and shocking?   Sheesh...

There are a million reasons why Golf Digest probably made their decision to include it among public courses, differentiating it from Pebble, Pinehurst, Greenbrier, and the like.

I've also identified Edgewood Tahoe as being questionable...are there other courses among the Top 50 they picked that you wouldn't classify as public courses in 1980?

With those very few exceptions, I certainly don't see a lot in there I'd call either resort or resort community courses, which was my overall point.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I'd mistakenly thought this was a hotel, but actually it is large home in a resort community. How much do these places go for?

TMac,

The label says it an INN. I stayed there last year and it is part of the Bandon property. It has no restaurant, but it does have a cocktail area, staffed part time.  For dinner, you walk across to the clubhouse.

David,

As to the debate at Industry Hills, I note that the hotel was being built with private funds while the golf course was built with tax free bonds, sold by a private investor from San Berdoo, but obviously city backed if they are tax free.  So, in this case, I agree with Mike C based on my experience in the biz.

I suppose you guys could argue about anything, but that IMHO makes IH a public course with an adjacent hotel trying to take advantage.  Of course, the hotel sits on leased city land making the distinction even more difficult.  I think we have to accept that then as now, public golf comes in a few different forms, some of which are hybrids of public-resort, public-private and even resort-private.  

TMac has produced a nice and probably imperfect list.  He hijacked the thread from Mike for other reasons, but diligently works to make the list the best he can.  Its not beyond criticism, but in that he can join the club of Golf Digest, Golf Week and others who have also tried and failed, so there is no shame in that.  

Oh well, what did I expect.

Have you guys taken my suggestion and taken some personal measurements of sensitive areas so we can declare a winner once and for all?

[Mike Cirba]

Jeff,

Since this thread was hijacked, I tried to sit this one out for some time, but finally decided that I might as well come back to help because there were a lot of things that were simply inaccurate.

We've gone so far afield from my original contention to be absurd, but I do think we've also uncovered a fair amount of early public course history, so I guess that's ok, and I'm happy to help in any productive endeavor related to golf course history.

I wanted to talk about courses prior to the Depression; these guys wanted to include them all.   I wanted to talk about strictly public courses; again they wanted to include places that were clearly simply second-home resort communities for the very wealthiest.

In either case, these are courses well beyond the scope of anything I'd ever contended, so I'm not sure why they persist, but oh well...

At least in recent weeks I hope this thread (although I had asked Ran to kill it some weeks back to put it out of its misery, but that's his call) has shed slightly more light than heat, but that's up to others to determine.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

You and TMac seem to be playing nicely, and are more civil when discussing facts and less civil when there is the occaisional tweak of the nose, which come more from the left coast now. 

I could see your logic of talking about public course developement in the roaring 20's in a mostly private club development era.  I could see a discussion on public courses in just the teens to get the ball rolling.  For some reason (which I think he articulated, but which I have forgot) TMac insisted that it ONLY made sense to take it up to Bethpage.  I could also see that logic, but on the other hand, what if somone wanted to discuss the differences of public courses built in the 1990's, 2000's and 2010's based on economic factors?  The conditions surrounding those are entirely different, and different enough to warrant a distinction. 

Sometimes, I think we all sort of compress the old days into one big era, when in fact, there were many little sub eras.  Certainly the depression was different than the Golden Age in gca public or private.  If he wanted to break it up differently, then maybe he should have started his own thread. I guess this one was useful enough for his purposes and it has provided some value, IMHO>

Cheers to all. I am hibernating again.

[Tom MacWood]

I don't believe there should be a distinction between a hotel (Carolina or Rancho), manor (Pocono or Montauk), inn (Ojai Valley or Ponte Vedra) or lodge (Del Monte or Keltic), they are all resorts. Its not that complicated. By the way I always play nice.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TMac,

You generally do play remarkably nice given the abuse you take!

My point was that some would differentiate between hotels or other lodging by others on publicly owned courses and hotels by the same owner on privately owned courses.  Fine distinctions can complicate it for some.

On the other hand, if it only matters to the walk up golfer how much he pays, what restrictions there are to play, then ownership doesn't matter.  Mike points out that GD used to have resort and public, but now its over $50 and under $50, since they got frustrated trying to decide, too.

Hey, its your list on Mike's Thread so knock yourself out. I do enjoy the list.

[TEPaul]

"TEP
I've read the Hollins biography (I wouldn't recommend it by the way), and the Pasatiempo club history, and neither book details when the club became a daily-fee. What is your point?"



Tom MacWood:


My point was only that as I understand it from the Hollins biography Pasatiempo was an upscale resort of a pretty large scale by Marion Hollins and the golf course was not created just as some "pay as you play" golf course (municipal and public) which I thought was supposed to be the criteria of this thread before 1936 or whatever.

But I do admit I have no real idea what you three are arguing about now nor do I care. It all seems pretty pointless. I mean just look at Moriarty's two posts today (#622 and 625). It's the same old insulting crap with Cirba he's been doing for years now. It seems the only thing you two guys are capable of on here is arguing with Cirba for reasons that are almost impossible to understand except just to argue with him.

Other than that, why would you not recommend Marion Hollins's biography?  

[Mike Cirba]

Mike
I have no idea what point you are trying to make. First of all I have excluded all resort courses just as this list has done. Second there are plenty of high end courses on this list. So much for the idea that the list should be tailored only to the lower classes. Third, this list has courses in the resort communities of Lake Tahoe, Kauai and Pompano Beach, so I guess it is OK to have a daily fee course in a resort area. Daily-fee courses in vacation/resort areas are on an equal footing with municipal golf courses. Lastly my list is more selective and less inclusive than this one. This list includes a number of courses that were formerly private clubs. Your claim would look even more ridiculous had I opened it up to those courses.


Tom MacWood,

I somehow missed this post earlier, but I think it is an interesting one to draw distinctions, and I'd like to address each of your points if I might.

First, let me again try to define what I see as a "public course" for purposes of discussion.   I would classify a public course as one that is open to the public on a pay-as-you-go basis that is not a resort or resort community, both of which have on-site lodging accommodations, often with a perm or time-share real-estate component.   Ofttimes, in a resort setting, one has to stay to play, but not always.

To your first point, I don't agree that you removed all resort courses from your list.   When a course like Pasadena requires funding from the adjacent hotels to even open for the year, there is a clear economic dependency.    When a course like Beaver Tail is built for simply vacationing ultra-rich with places to park their yachts, or Belvedere as a mostly private club allowing play for golfer's staying at hotels in the resort town of Charlevoix, I definitely see them as falling more into the resort or resort community side of the equation.

Second, there are very few high-end courses on the Golf Digest list, even if you tried to make it appear so.

In the case of Edgewood Tahoe, I believe I was the first one to call that course into question, and speculated that it must have been because of hosting the 1980 US Public Links tournament, but that course to me is clearly in the resort mode.

However, the others you listed are not high-end at all, as they are all simply municipal golf courses in resort towns, all offering very affordable golf for the local populace as well as visitors.

Here's some websites to compare pricing, access, and most importantly, the lack of ties to either real estate development and/or lodging accommodations.

First in Hawaii;

http://www.kauai.gov/default.aspx?tabid=66

Then, Pompano Beach;

http://www.mypompanobeach.org/parksrec/golf/index.html

Or, even West Palm Beach, which is a very fine Dick Wilson design I played just by walking up and paying a very modest fee;

http://jcdsportsgroup.com/west_palm_beach/


So, I'm not sure exactly what point you're trying to make about the list being "high-end", or what other courses you think fall into that category, as virtually every course on the list is a stand-alone golf course facility, mostly municipals, without either real-estate components and/or lodging accommodations.

Finally, you say that a number of these courses are public's that had formerly been private, and some of them are.   But you also say that you purposefully omitted such courses from your list and that adding such would make my contention "even more ridiculous".

To that, Tom, I'd say let's list them.   Please tell me the courses that were formerly private but became public before 1930 that would have been competition for my claim about Cobb's Creek, because perhaps I'm having a brain freeze but can't think of any off the top of my head.    There have to be some, but right now I'm thinking there are more early public's like Salisbury Links that became private, often after the initial real-estate offerings were sold.   

Jeff,

The fact that you agree that these things don't fit neatly into some broad categorization called "the Golden Age", but instead were made up of different periods, such as the earliest days, the WWI years, the roaring 20s, the crash, the depression years, etc., gives me reason to continue the discussion because I think those distinctions are fundamentally important to a true understanding of what transpired during that time.   Thanks for chiming in.

Tom Paul,

I don't know...I think Tom MacWood and I are generally having a nice discussion at this point, even when we don't agree.   The rest of the periodic insults flying in from left-coast-field are just the usual stuff you can find starting back on page 1 of this thread, so perhaps I've gotten used to it.

Besides, if Sir Jeffrey sees some value here, then I don't mind adding some clarifying points and detail around the courses in question.

[TEPaul]

"Tom Paul,

I don't know...I think Tom MacWood and I are generally having a nice discussion at this point, even when we don't agree.   The rest of the periodic insults flying in from left-coast-field are just the usual stuff you can find starting back on page 1 of this thread, so perhaps I've gotten used to it."


Mike:

That is just so nice to hear you think you and Tom MacWood are now generally having a nice discussion.  

For your edification, I suppose some to most on here think we lump MacWood and Moriarty into the very same boat. While I have, and I know you do too, have some pretty fundamental problems with both of them, I most assuredly do not put them into the very same boat and it seems you don't either. MacWood is a strange one for sure with a sort of passive/aggressive approach most always cloaked in a passive tone and approach on his posts while Moriarty seems just aggressive/defensive and insulting just about all the time, particularly to you and me and anyone else from Philadelphia or anyone who agrees with us.  

I don't see Moriarty as even half the raw researcher that MacWood is even though he may be a better historical analyst than MacWood which frankly wouldn't be hard for anyone to be.

As for what this particular seemingly public course thread is actually accomplishing after almost 20 pages, I'm sure I haven't a clue other than to offer the opportunity for some to make irrelevent points and offer irrelevant material.

But I do fully admit, public golf architecture is definitely not my bailiwick, but I do recognize it is yours and always has been and to see a couple of petty arguers like MacWood and Moriarty accuse you of the things they have on here seem pretty obnoxious to me. Frankly the latter is the only reason I ever make posts on threads like this one.

By the way, Tom MacWood's commentary on Post #609 is totally hilarious. I'd challenge even an experienced NSA aerial spy to be able to pick up on that particular aerial what MacWood seems to claim he can! 
 

[DMoriarty]

Jeff Brauer,

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I don't think Industry Hills should be considered a public course.   Whether hotel course, municipal daily fee, or whatever, I consider any course public if one can walk up and pay to play. Since I've wasted money to play Industry Hills, I have no objection to you, Mike, Golf Digest, or anyone else calling it public.

But to pretend it is not a golf course (public or otherwise) not associated with a hotel is ludicrous.  The above article was literal when it mentioned that the hotel would rise above the project   The pro shop and starter are and always have been located within the hotel facility, along with the conference rooms, restaurants, and bar.  If I remember correctly, one can walk down a hallway from the pro shop and into the hotel lobby and take a elevator up into the guest tower.  I am not sure how one could more closely incorporate a hotel into a golf course, both physically and functionally.

By the way, the land use (golf course) component was intended to clean up or at least cap what was essentially a giant dump.   It is a very strange place, with the golf courses built in layers down the perimeter of a big round mound and the  hotel sticking up from the highest point like the figurines on a wedding cake.  

____________________________________

Mike Cirba,

I don't find your position on Industry Hills "alarming or shocking."  I find it typical in that it is strongly held despite the lack of support and accuracy.

You must have missed my question, above.   If construction of the Inn at Pebble Beach was still ongoing when the golf course opened, would you pretend that Pebble Beach was not a hotel course?  

______________________________

Tom MacWood,

How many times to you suppose TEPaul has changed his mind about which one of us is the worst of two evils?    Perhaps he dislikes me more when he is drunk or hung over on California wine, and he dislikes you more when he is drunk or hung over on anything else.   Or would it be visa versa?   Oh well, I take his distain as indication that I must be doing something right.  

More seriously I was curious about one course on mostly abysmal Golf Digest list Mike posted.    Wellshire in Denver, 1926 Ross?  Do you know anything about it and should it be on your list?

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that my response was in response to your response, or that I give a damn about your opinion in this! 

I think my understanding of what some might differentiate (and others not) between a resort and public course is completely laid out in my posts, but I won't start the insults by calling one opinion over another ludicrous, etc.  I understand that your opinion of IH is from a golfers perspective, and understand that. 

As I mentioned, others might make finer distinctions for different reasons, not of Industry Hills, but of privately owned golf courses, with hotels directly affiliated under the same ownership.  Hotels with a golf course on property more easily book outings and groups than hotels with "access" to a public course.  So, sometimes, the distinction of a golf course owned and controlled by a hotel rather than adjacent to a hotel but under public or other control truly makes a difference in how it is run and marketed.  (and how easy it is to access by walking up)

Thanks for the backgrounder on IH, which confirms what I already knew, but I appreciate the effort since you wouldn't know what I know about California golf courses.

[Mike Cirba]

David,

I think my answer to your question was very much self-evident in my response about Industry Hills, and the differentiation between public, municipal funds used to build the golf course(s) versus the private funds used to build the subsequent hotel.

I think that's a very real distinction that Golf Digest probably used, and the fact that the hotel wasn't even open the first three years the course was in play (which is when GD did their listing) contributed to their classifying it strictly as a municipal public course, not a resort.

I got the feeling from the intensity of your earlier responses that you didn't like Industry Hills at all as a golf course, and were probably at least partially irritated that GD saw fit back then to honor them.   As such, I couldn't tell if you were just being your usual self in responding because it was "me", or because of some combination of me and the golf course and I must say it's a bit of a relief to at least know you hate the golf course, and at least some of the vehemence of your last few responses has been due to that.

Regarding the "mostly abysmal" list I posted from Golf Digest, what exactly are you using as your measuring stick, if I might ask?

How many of the courses on that list have you seen or played?

p.s. Wellshire was formerly private, but opened to the public some time later, as someone informed me when I had it on my own list of pre-1930 courses.

[DMoriarty]

Jeff,

Your previous comments about IH were addressed to me, so please pardon me for thinking they had anything to to with what I had previously written.  I should have known better around here.

I do apologize if using the term "ludicrous" offended you.  It wasn't my intention.  I am just dumbfounded to be arguing about this, because to my mind the connection between the hotel and golf course at Industry Hills is a matter of fact, not opinion.

For all practical purposes this is what you describe as "a hotel with a golf course on property" where the hotel largely controls outings and groups and the ease at which one can walk up and play.   The technicalities have varied slightly as different managers and hoteliers have come and gone, but this was essentially the idea from day one. 

My knowledge of these types of public/private redevelopment projects generally and this one in particular goes beyond just having played there, but a visit to the place would probably be enough for you to understand my frustration that this discussion is even taking place.

__________________________________

Mike Cirba,

See my comments to Jeff about the "Industry Hills at Pacific Palms Resort."

As for your list, I played four of the top ten and a handful of the others.   So "mostly abysmal" was definitely an exaggeration on my part.   My opinion of the list is loosely based on the inclusion of poor courses like Ike and mediocre courses like Ancil Hoffman, Plumas, and Torrey South, and the exclusion of better courses in the area like Santa Anita and Sandpiper, and the general incoherence of comparing semi privates with hotel courses with muni's, etc..  Also, the article on IH reminded me of just how important difficulty was to supposed determinations of quality at the time, and that combined with my general disrespect for magazine ratings probably didn't help matters much.

The reality is that I don't know much the merits of the list outside of a pretty good sampling of the Western courses.  I don't like lists, although I do think Tom M's is one of the better ones I have seen.

Now, are you going to answer my question?

If construction of the Inn at Pebble Beach was still ongoing when the golf course opened, would you pretend that Pebble Beach was not a hotel course? 

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

We can agree to be dumbfounded together. Here is what I wrote you:

David,

As to the debate at Industry Hills, I note that the hotel was being built with private funds while the golf course was built with tax free bonds, sold by a private investor from San Berdoo, but obviously city backed if they are tax free.  So, in this case, I agree with Mike C based on my experience in the biz.

I suppose you guys could argue about anything, but that IMHO makes IH a public course with an adjacent hotel trying to take advantage.  Of course, the hotel sits on leased city land making the distinction even more difficult.  I think we have to accept that then as now, public golf comes in a few different forms, some of which are hybrids of public-resort, public-private and even resort-private.  [/b]

Nowhere did I say I didn't think it was public, nor that you didn't think it was public, did I?  It seemed to me your response sort of flipped my post 180 degrees and then started arguing about it, even though we basically agreed on that, too!    I have a hard time figuring I would draw any ire by saying "its complicated, with shades of gray."

As I said, in my experience it can make a difference in perception, marketing, operations, although I honestly don't know how it affects IH.  Some examples in my portfolio include:

- Cowboys (privately owned and funded, on leased city land, city is a partner, so citizens get discounted fees, but with preferential arrangements with four local hotels for prime tee times, and a membershsip component)  The biggest is the Gaylord Texan who cancelled plans to build their own golf course across the street, and who pointed out the vast marketing difference to having their own and having ability to accomodate (I designed their now flooded out course in Nashville, too)

- Giants Ridge (publicly owned, with a publicly owned hotel on property, leased to a private operator with signifigant tee times advantages in their agreement)

- Fortune Bay Resort (casino owned hotel and golf course, but with lots of public play and only slight advantage to staying at hotel in making tee
times

Numerous public courses that put fliers in all the local hotels and may even.

Anyway, short point is they all vary.  And they may try to play up, hide or conceal, or play down the relationship to any nearby hotel depending on political reasons.  If Golf Digest had trouble distiguising resorts from publics, then it is certainly not ludicrrous to see how others could have trouble making the same distinction, is it?

[DMoriarty]

I don't know Jeff, and it doesnt matter to me to be honest.   You wrote you agreed with Mike about IH, and you wrote "I guess that makes IH a public course with an adjacent hotel trying to take advantage" and maybe I took this to mean that you thought it public and that the hotel wasn't part of the deal, and I thought it was private because the hotel was more closely affiliated that you said.   All I am saying is, private or not, the hotel there was very and is very much connected to the golf course.  Not affiliated, but directly connect, by location and function.

But again, I don't give a damn.   That is what is wrong with these distinctions and why I originally objected to the ever increasing limitations Mike wants to put on his original statement that got all this going.   After a while it is splitting irrelevant hairs, but I guess that is what he has to do to continue to try and make his claim make sense.   

I think we'd be better off if he would just forget about defending Cobbs-- I think Tom and I have long considered that battle long over-- and see where Tom's list takes us without bogging it down by claiming one hotel course is okay while another isn't.

[TEPaul]

"I am just dumbfounded to be arguing about this, because to my mind the connection between the hotel and golf course at Industry Hills is a matter of fact, not opinion."


Then why are you arguing about it, David Moriarty? Why do you continue to argue about it with Cirba and others?  



"I think we'd be better off if he would just forget about defending Cobbs-- I think Tom and I have long considered that battle long over-- and see where Tom's list takes us without bogging it down by claiming one hotel course is okay while another isn't."


Why should Cirba forget about defending Cobbs Creek? And what is this "battle" you're referring to? Did Cirba start some BATTLE? Or was it you and MacWood, AGAIN, because it was Cirba----and Philadelphia, and its courses, architects, blah, blah, blah, ad infinitum with you two and for years now?

Frankly, if you and MacWood in your entire careers with golf architecture had done 1/10th of what Cirba has done in his on-going efforts with Cobbs Creek, the two of you might actually have something concrete to be proud of with GCA!

[Mike Cirba]

I don't know Jeff, and it doesnt matter to me to be honest.  

But again, I don't give a damn.   That is what is wrong with these distinctions and why I originally objected to the ever increasing limitations Mike wants to put on his original statement that got all this going.   After a while it is splitting irrelevant hairs, but I guess that is what he has to do to continue to try and make his claim make sense.  

I think we'd be better off if he would just forget about defending Cobbs-- I think Tom and I have long considered that battle long over-- and see where Tom's list takes us without bogging it down by claiming one hotel course is okay while another isn't.


Now David...I know you're often dour and humorless here, but you have to admit, this one is precious!  

You don't like lists, do you?

Then what the hell have you and MacWood just spent the last 20 pages trying to compile?!?!?  

I start a thread on Hugh Wilson's involvement with public golf all his life based on some new findings that Joe and I had in that regard, specifically about Juniata GC.   Tom MacWood takes the first swipe asking if his involvement in these courses besmirched his reputation.  

You then take a rebuttal statement of mine saying UNTIL the Depression, with the SUBSEQUENT creation of Bethpage, many observers felt that Cobb's Creek was the best public course in the country, and you and Tom MacWood decide to try and rip me a new one.

It didn't matter that I quoted news accounts from competing cities, quotes from former publiniks champions, articles stating that the course was "Famed" in freaking Waterloo, IA, or anything else...no evidence would suit you both.

Fine.

So, instead, and obviously very uncomfortable with your arguments, you and Tom then completely hijack the thread and spend the next several weeks COMPILING A FREAKING LIST!  

The list goes through various iterations, and corrections, simply because it wasn't based on any first-hand, or second-hand knowledge, but because it was being researched and written ON THE FLY, using 1950's travel guides, and other such nonsense.

Despite my clarifying the timelines about 500 times, you and Tom persist on adding courses built in the 1930s, simply because neither of you felt your list pre-Depression had any heft.

Then, Tom finds a bunch of courses built on millionaire housing developments, and onsite lodging, and hotels, and yachting slips at places like Beaver Tail and Pasadena and Gulf Hills and remarkably says those courses were public too, obviously trying to sweeten a losing hand.

Every day for weeks the list evolves.

Courses are added, courses are dropped.

Each day, the thread drops off the first page of GCA faster than a bloated calf dropped off a skyscraper due to zero interest among the participants here, only to be dutifully resurrected each morning by Tom MacWood with some new aerial of some course taken from 10,000 feet that we're supposed to see as relevant because it either has lots of bunkers or some name-dropped architect, along with yet another iteration of the list that's supposed to be actually making some point, but instead is like some Dale Griffith-ish monologue... a GCA version of the Filibuster.

And then, at the end of weeks of this, with absolutely no arrows left in your quiver and a list that's really just a plethora of different kind of courses across a meaningless extended timeframe for comparison that's much ado about nothing, you state that this would never have happened if I had simply stopped defending Cobb's Creek, and that you hate lists!  

Priceless.  You couldn't make this stuff up.  

[Tom MacWood]

Here are three Florida courses on the list - Jacksonville (Donald Ross), Pasadena (Stiles & Van Kleek) and Mt.Plymouth (William Clark).

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood,

How many times to you suppose TEPaul has changed his mind about which one of us is the worst of two evils?    Perhaps he dislikes me more when he is drunk or hung over on California wine, and he dislikes you more when he is drunk or hung over on anything else.   Or would it be visa versa?   Oh well, I take his distain as indication that I must be doing something right.  

More seriously I was curious about one course on mostly abysmal Golf Digest list Mike posted.    Wellshire in Denver, 1926 Ross?  Do you know anything about it and should it be on your list?

Over the long haul he dislikes me worse, over the short haul he hates you more. But on the positive side I can't think of anyone I'd rather be disliked by.

Wellshire was a private club that went public.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

Although the picture isn't very appealing, you seem so excited that I almost hesitate to inform you that just like we earlier saw with Pasadena, a course that couldn't even open for play without funding directly from the adjacent hotels that supported it, Mt. Plymouth was also a resort course with a hotel.

If you're going to include those type of courses, you need to stop your prejudicial omission of the original Montauk Downs course at the tip of Long Island, because I'm quite sure the good folks in the Hamptons are getting pretty pissed at this point!    

Or is it because the architect, Capt. H.C. Tippetts, doesn't carry enough name recognition among those here with only a passing interest and therefore has little political capital for your purposes?  

On the plus side, Jacksonville Muni looks pretty good in that picture, and it seems like it was probably a good choice to host the US Public Links tournament there two years after Cobb's Creek hosted at the height of the Golden Age of Design in 1928.

[Tom MacWood]

What is the date on the article?

[Mike Cirba]

Fitchburg (MA) Sentinel, December 6th, 1926.

[Tom MacWood]

I've removed Mt. Plymouth.

Harding Park (1925) - W.Watson & S.Whiting  (San Francisco, Ca)
Haggins Oak (1932) - A.Mackenzie   (Sacramento, Ca)
Sharp Park (1931) - A.Mackenzie   (Pacifica, Ca)
Griffith Park-Wilson (1915/1923) - T.Bendelow & G.Thomas   (Los Angeles, Ca)
Griffith Park-Harding (1915/1925) - T. Bendelow & G.Thomas  (Los Angeles, Ca)
Lake Chabot (1923) - W.Locke   (Oakland, Ca)
Brookside Muni (1928) - B.Bell  (Pasadena, Ca)
Sunset Fields-South (1927) - B.Bell  (Los Angeles, Ca)
Sunset Fields-North (1928) - B.Bell  (Los Angeles, Ca)
Montebello Park (1928) - M.Behr  (Montebello, Ca.)
Patty Jewett (1898/1917) - W.Campbell & W.Watson  (Colorado Springs, Co)
Cleveland Heights (1925) - W.Flynn  (Lakeland, Fl)
Hollywood (1923) - H.Tippett  (Hollywood, Fl)
Jacksonville Muni (1923) - D.Ross  (Jacksonville, Fl)
Opa Locka (1927) - W.Flynn  (Miami, Fl)
Pasadena (1925) - W.Stiles, J.VanKleek & W.Hagen  (St. Petersburg, Fl)
Savannah Muni (1926) - D.Ross  (Savannah, Ga)
Big Run (1930) - H.Smead  (Lockport, Il)
Glencoe (1921) - G.O'Neil  (Glencoe, Il)
Palos Park (1919) - T.Bendelow  (Palos Park, Il)
Pickwick (1927) - J.Roseman  (Glenview, Il)
St. Andrews (1926) - E.Dearie  (W.Chicago, Il)
Sandy Hollow (1930) - C.Wagstaff  (Rockford, Il)
Duck Creek (1920) - W.Langford  (Davenport, Ia)
Waveland (1901) - W.Dickinson  (Des Moines, Ia)
Beechwood (1931) - W.Diddell  (LaPorte, In)
Coffin (1920) - W.Diddell  (Indianapolis, In)
Erskine Park (1925) - G.O'Neil  (South Bend, In)
Seneca (1935) - A.McKay  (Louisville, Ky)
Riverside Muni (1931) - W.Stiles  (Portland, Me)
Mount Pleasant (1933) - G.Hook  (Baltimore, Md)
Belvedere (1925) - W.Watson  (Charlevoix, Mi)
Rackham (1924) - D.Ross  (Detroit, Mi)
Armour Park (1925) - W.Clark  (Minneapolis, Mn)
Keller (1929) - P.Coates  (St. Paul, Mn)
Meadowbrook (1926) - J.Foulis  (Minneapolis, Mn)
Gulf Hills (1927) - J.Daray  (Biloxi, Ms)
Swope Park (1915/1934) - J.Dagleish & A.Tillinghast  (Kansas City, Mo)
Forest Park (1912) - R.Foulis  (St. Louis, Mo)
Bayside (1930) - A. Mackernzie  (Bayside, NY)
Salisbury Links (1908) - D.Emmet  (Garden City, NY)
La Tourette (1929/1934) - D.Rees & J.VanKleek  (Staten Island, NY)
Split Rock (1935) - J.VanKleek  (Bronx, NY)
Durand-Eastman (1934) - RT.Jones  (Rochester, NY)
Bethpage-Red (1935) - A.Tillinghast  (Farmingdale, NY)
Bethpage-Blue (1935) - A.Tillinghast  (Farmingdale, NY)
Asheville Muni (1927) - D.Ross  (Asheville, NC)
Starmount Forest (1930) - W.Stiles & J.VanKleek  (Greensboro, NC)
Community (1912) - W.Hoare  (Dayton, Oh)
Mill Creek (1928) - D.Ross  (Youngstown, Oh)
Highland Park-New (1928) - S.Alves  (Cleveland, Oh)
Metropolitan Parks (1926) - S.Thompson  (Cleveland, Oh)
Ridgewood (1924) - S.Alves  (Parma, Oh)
Tam O'Shanter-Dales (1928) - L.Macomber  (Canton, Oh)
Eastmoreland (1918) - H.Egan  (Portland, Or)
Cobbs Creek (1916) - H.Wilson   (Philadelphia, Pa)
Hershey Park (1931) - M.McCarthy  (Hershey, Pa)
North Park (1933) - E.Loeffler & J.McGlynn  (Allison Park, Pa)
Tam O'Shanter, Pa (1929) - E.Loeffler  (Hermitage, Pa)
Beaver Tail (1925) - A.Tillinghast  (Jamestown, RI)
Triggs Memorial (1933) - D.Ross  (Providence, RI)
Stevens Park (1924)                     (Dallas, TX)
Tenison Park (1924) - S.Cooper & J.Burke  (Dallas, Tx)
Brackenridge Park (1916) - A.Tillinghast  (San Antonio, Tx)
Memorial Park (1935) - J.Bredemus  (Houston, Tx)
Indian Canyon (1935) - H.Egan  (Spokane, Wa)
Jackson Park (1930) - W.Tucker & F.James  (Seattle, Wa)
Brown Deer (1929) - G.Hansen  (Milwaukee, Wi)
Janesville Muni (1924) - RB.Harris  (Janesville, Wi)
Lawsonia (1930) - W.Langford  (Green Lake, Wi)

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

What course is that photo you posted labeled Jacksonville (Donald Ross)? I didn't know Ross did a course, public or otherwise, known as Jacksonville. Would that one be Timaquana in Jacksonville? If it's Timaquana I have a lot of personal interest in that one as my father spent a lot of time at that course after the war with the likes of some real characters like the famous Lafune brothers, a couple of great American Indian professionals.

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