Joe Dey's role in the history of GCA

[Tom MacWood]

I think Brad is right in identifying Wind. He was enormously important to RTJ's career (although RTJ had been doing a pretty affective job of promoting his career before HWW), and over those many years as a commentator on golf architecture he was a very reluctant critic. I believe later in life he began to realize things didn't exactly progress as he'd hoped. In 1977 ASGCA awarded him the Donald Ross award, and this was his acceptance speech ('A Calling of Correct Proportions'). It is very interesting speech where he balances praise with some criticism, criticism which was pretty rare for him and for the times - better late than never.

[BCrosby]

TEP -

My comment: "Sometimes a brief postscript says more than a book possibly could."

Is in reference to Doak's postscript in the preceding post which reads:

"P.S.  I only met Joe Dey twice, both on the same day.  We were working at Piping Rock at the time, and I wandered over to The Creek to have a look around, and one of the members out playing told me to leave.  That night, I was in the buffet line at Piping Rock for dinner, and Mr. Millen introduced me to the guy behind us in line ... Mr. Dey, who I recognized from earlier in the day."

Doak says a lot with a minimum of words. I thought it was well done.

Bob

[TEPaul]

Bob:

True indeed. If one can point to a particular salient factor of Joe Dey and his personality as well as his pervasive reputation throughout golf it could definitely be described as "authoritarian."  

I can see there is an attempt on this thread to sort of suss out where Dey was coming from on actual golf course architecture. That might be a bit misleading to attempt in my opinion, if one is to try to portray what Dey was really about or meant to golf and his influence on it.

Mr. Dey was unquestionably a pretty dour guy who portrayed a very definite air of authority. That can probably be explained in some of his life history----eg apparently he seriously considered a life in the ministry and if I wanted to describe him it would probably be a man who possessed a large dose of Scottish Calvinism, if you know what I mean.

Tom Doak mentioned that with The Creek Club Dey was a fan of ANGC and removed multiple bunkers on The Creek because of that. I'm not too sure about that---TD may be confusing Dey with another prominent member of The Creek at that time who certainly was a fan (and a member) of ANGC.

I spoke for some time with the man who apparently originally got Dey on The Creek golf or green committee and my recollection from him (and others from the club who knew Dey well) is that Dey was more interested in turning The Creek into something of an American links-style course. Dey was also notoriously frugal----eg some might call him cheap but I'm sticking with the more catholic term "frugal."

I have no idea what the circumstances were all about but I was also told that Joe Dey was not a fan at all of C.B. Macdonald. I got the impression it was not about architecture though----more about Dey's impression of him as a person, perhaps including Dey's opinion of his shoddy morals or life style or something along those lines.

But again, in my opinion, the essence of Dey and his massive influence on golf was all about his authoritarian figure and reputation. In that vein, given his long career as the Executive director of the USGA as well as his influence during that time on the other side (Dey was one of only three Americans who was the Captain of the R&A), Dey arguably may've been the most influential person golf has ever had. In many ways the vehicle he apparently mostly used in that authoritarianism was not architecture or even administration but through the Rules of Golf and all that Dey felt that required and affected.

PS:
Bob, here's another story about Dey's authoritarian reputation that's akin to what Tom Doak just said about his one experience one day with Dey. This was told to me by a man who worked for the USGA under Dey. One day he actually asked Joe Dey if he could come and play The Creek Club, and Dey's response was; "Of course you can't, that is my golf club!" Even I had a similar experience with him once but it wasn't in person, it was in an extended phone call involving a subject about the Rules of Golf. He definitely came down on me like a ton of bricks but interestingly at the end he apparently suspected as much and relented and actually asked me to come to The Creek and meet him for lunch.

[Willie_Dow]

My recollection of Joe was at a dinner before the Open at Merion in 1981.  I was sitting next to Donald Steel, with Joe on the other side of Steel, and a one time member of Merion told an "off-color" joke which got a very laughable answer, but a very stern look from Joe.

[Mac Plumart]

Tom...

You say..."Dey arguably may've been the most influential person golf has ever had".

Is that influenced centered on the USGA and their rules of golf with a secondary influence being the support of "Open Doctoring"?

[TEPaul]

Mac:

That statement I made you just quoted is probably misleading. What I said earlier would be far more accurate, in my opinion. On this thread earlier I said I felt Dey may've been the most influential non-player person golf has ever had. I don't think there is much question that Dey essentially created the model for a golf administrator of tremendous world-wide influence on the game. He was obviously at the right place at the right time in his career as a major golf administrator that was also long and highly influential not just in this country but also with his connections abroad.

But even with that there seems to be various complexities that seem sort of contradictory or even counter-intuitive today given some of Dey's feelings about certain aspects of golf----eg commercialism, amateurism etc. I can only imagine it must have been highly surprising to a good number of people when Dey actually resigned as the Executive Director of the USGA after running that organization for 34 years and became the first Executive Director of the Tournament Players Association of the PGA that was the precusor to what we know today as the PGA TOUR.

I have absolutely no idea why a man like Dey would make a move like that that late in his career but if I had to guess I suspect it may've had a lot to do with perhaps a fear he may've had that if the burgeoning professional tour player entity was not structured and organized correctly at its beginning it may've spelled some seriously dangerous rifts with the other organizational and administrative entities of golf (USGA and R&A) that maintained authority over fundamentally important aspects of the game such as its playing Rules and I&B Rules.

But ultimately the man was obviously a very fine administrator albeit a highly conservative one in make-up and mentality. If I were to guess what was in the back of his mind ultimately when it came to golf and its future I might say it was "unity" first, foremost and always-----unity with the USGA and R&A in the Rules, both playing Rules and I&B Rules as well as unity at all times in those veins with the professional side of golf. I don't think many people understand the importance of that or what it even means.

I think Dey sure did though, and perhaps because he had been around early enough to have witnessed some very dangerous potential rifts in that context in golf. And for some of those reasons amongst others he alone really may've been the most influential man golf has ever known or will ever know.

[BCrosby]

TEP -

Dey seems to have been very involved with rules reconciliations with the R&A in the 50's and 60's. He shows up in the rules histories and he attended most of the joint rules summits during those decades.

I gather from Brad's post above that Dey was less involved in architectural matters. He suggests that most of the US Open course set-ups seemed to have been left up to the clubs themselves, though I can't imagine there wasn't USGA input at some level and that it increased over time.

All of which is a reminder of how important the Peachtree and the ANGC commissions were to RTJ's career. Both happened about 1948. P'tree was the first big, well financed golf course to be built after the hiatus of the Depression and WWII. It got lots of publicity. There was even a Life Magazine spread on it. (Given the importance of Life at the time, that's publicity at a scale that is inconceivable today for a new golf course.) The two projects established RTJ's career.

It should be noted that Bob (Tyre) Jones was instrumental in getting RTJ both jobs.

Bob

 

[Tom_Doak]

TD may be confusing Dey with another prominent member of The Creek at that time who certainly was a fan (and a member) of ANGC.

I spoke for some time with the man who apparently originally got Dey on The Creek golf or green committee and my recollection from him (and others from the club who knew Dey well) is that Dey was more interested in turning The Creek into something of an American links-style course. Dey was also notoriously frugal----eg some might call him cheap but I'm sticking with the more catholic term "frugal."

Tom P:  You may be right about Mr. Dey's influence on The Creek.  It was their superintendent Bill Jones who told me the 4-bunker plan was Mr. Dey's, but it's possible I misunderstood him, or perhaps someone else started it and Mr. Dey was just continuing that mission.

[TEPaul]

TomD:

No, I think it is a pretty well known fact that it was Joe Dey who was behind the obsoleting of so many of the original bunkers of The Creek Club. As you know he was apparently so frugal he did not have most of their cavities graded out, thankfully.

As far as I know the only ANGC influence at The Creek was the redesigned 18th green which was apparently some kind of replica of an ANGC green. But I don't believe the inspiration behind that was Mr Dey.