Most HIghly Regarded Public Golf Courses 1895 - 1930

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Mike,

Bayside opened after 1930:

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,44238.0/

[Tom MacWood]

However,Tom...whether you acknowledge the fact or not, at the time it was built until the 1930s with the creation of Bethpage, Cobbs was the best and most challenging public golf course in the country.

Mike
So I take it you are backing down from this statement?

[Tom MacWood]

Phil,

How highly regarded were Brackenridge Park and Cedar Crest during this period?   I've played both of them, and although both were somewhat compromised from their original routings, I'm not quite sure they were ever top tier, even in their heyday?

Thoiughts?-

Brackenridge Park hosted the Texas Open from 1922 to 1959. Cedar Crest was a private club and really shouldn't be considered IMO.

[Mike Cirba]

Brack is in then, Tom.

Thanks


The Top Ten

Brackenridge Park, San Antonio, TX - 1916
Brown Deer Park - Milwaukee, WI - 1929
Cobb's Creek - Philadelphia, PA - 1916
Community GC - Dayton, OH - 1909
Eastmoreland - Portland, OR - 1917
Griffith Park (Wilson) - Los Angeles, CA - 1924
Harding Park - San Francisco, CA - 1925
Keller GC - Minneapolis, MN - 1929
Rackham GC - Detroit, MI - 1924
Wilmington - Wilmington, NC - 1926

Other contenders?   Here's some that come to mind.

East Potomac - Washington DC
Shawnee - Louisville, KY
Coffin GC - Indianapolis, IN
Rancho Park  - Los Angeles, CA
Waveland - Des Moines, IA
Franklin Park - Boston, MA
Forest Park - St. Louis, MO

[Tom MacWood]

Other courses built between Cobb's and Bethpage Black:

Sharp Park, Indian Canyon, Bethpage-Red, Lawsonia, and Memorial Park.

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom,

I thought only course before 1930 were being considered and so Bethpage Black & Red shouldn't be. If the Bethpage courses are being considerd, the Blue course was considered a btter course than the Red. This canm be seen through comments made by the players during the 1936 U.S. Publick links Championship held on the Blue & Red courses and the fact that the major exhibition matches put on in the 1930's & 40's were held on either the Black or Blue courses. The Red was not used for any during these years.

Mike,

Salisbury 1,2 & 5 were public courses with 3&4 maintained as a private club. Course #5 was a very good course.

[Tom MacWood]

A few days ago Mike made the statement that Cobbs Creek was the best most challenging public golf course in the country up until the creation of Bethpage-Black. I assume this exercise is designed to prove (or disprove) that statement.

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom,

That's true, he did, but wasn't that on a different thread? Mike clearly stated in his opening comment that, "What follows is a modest attempt to name the best of the public golf courses prior to the Great Depression..." (Bold, Italics, Underline mine) so why change the direction of this discussion?

I think bringing up that information and point is more properly made in the confines of the other discussion. Otherwise this could devolve quickly into an entirely different one, not that I have any real objection to that, but as Mike was quite specific in what he was hoping to discuss here shouldn't we cooperate and stay within those bounds?

[Phil McDade]

Other courses built between Cobb's and Bethpage Black:

Sharp Park, Indian Canyon, Bethpage-Red, Lawsonia, and Memorial Park.

Tom:

I'm not sure Lawsonia belongs in this group. It's always been privately owned, and although more or less open for public play since it came out of dormancy post-WW II, I'm not sure it's in the realm of the truly public course list that Mike is compiling.

[BCrosby]

The term "public" might not be the right filter here. "Public" courses include resort or privately-owned courses open to the public and municipal or govt owned courses. My sense is that Mike is looking for highly regarded municipal courses.

Bob

[Tom MacWood]

I'm sure Cirba would be glad to discuss Cobb's forever, but whether Mike is capable of understanding this or not, his comment wasn't just about Cobb's so much as it was about how Cobb's compared to all of the other public courses that existed in he country prior to 1936!      But the rest of the courses are apparently nothing but stepping stones from on top of which he can phoist Cobb's ever higher.  

While I don't think this is the place for this conversation or Mike a worthy participant, such a discussion would have to start with identifying the better public courses that existed prior to 1936.    I am not qualified to offer such list in any completeness, and I doubt anyone here is except possibly for Tom MacWood.   Might be a good question to throw open in a different thread, but surely Mike will find a way into turning that into his 932nd thread about the greatness of the usual suspects.  

Phil-the-Author
This thread is a bi-product of the other thread...a common occurence on GCA. Mike has decided to back it down to 1930 for the purposes of this thread, for whatever reason, I suspect he realized his original statement was DOA. He should either admit that or change the date to 1936.

[Jason Topp]

I'm pretty familiar with Waveland in Des Moines because it was my course as a kid.  I know the original version (around 1901) differed greatly from the current version but I do not know the specifics of changes over time.  I recall they put together a fair amount of historical information in connection with their centennial, including maps of the original course (actually 36 holes with 18 being used by Des Moines Country Club) but do not know the specifics. 

The current version is probably a better course than Keller in St. Paul but I have no idea whether it was highly regarded back in the day.

Contact the Waveland Golf Association if you want to find a decent source. 
http://wavelandga.com/index.shtml

[Mike Cirba]

Phil Young,

I think Tom is just a little perturbed today since I proved that Seth Raynor did solo designs (at Mountain Lake) prior to 1917.   He'll come around. 

Tom,

Sharp Park, Bethpage Red, Indian Canyon all opened after 1930 and are not valid answers to the question I asked.   As Phil McDade mentioned, I'm not sure Lawsonia qualifies either.

Thanks for Memorial Park...forgot about that Bredemus course.

Any others?

And my contention is that Cobb's Creek was regarded as the best, most demanding public course in the country prior to the Depression, after which Bethpage Black became the clearly best course.   That's not what I'm looking to determine right now.

Thanks.

Bob Crosby,

I'm ok with privately held public courses, but am purposefully skipping resort courses like Greenbrier, Pinehurst, etc., simply because those mainly catered to high-class clientele and not really the average public golfer of the time.   Thanks.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

How about 2 in FL? Not sure if they were "highly regarded"

http://www.jcdsportsgroup.com/delray_beach_golf_club/index.html

http://www.lakeworthgolf.com/

I'm sure there are others in FL.

[Tom MacWood]

Phil Young,

I think Tom is just a little perturbed today since I proved that Seth Raynor did solo designs (at Mountain Lake) prior to 1917.   He'll come around. 

You proved it was a solo design?

I will assume from your avoidance of my question that you still believe Cobbs Creek was the best most challenging public course in the country prior to Bethpage. 

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

I answered your question, rather clearly above.

Until the depression, I believe cobbs was regarded as the finest, most challenging public course in the country.

After the depression, it was clearly bethpage.

Neither contention  is the point of this thread.

[Tom MacWood]

That is not what you said on the other thread...why don't you go over there an edit your post.

[Lester George]

Mike,

How about Rock Manor in Wilmington, DE - opened 1922.  Highly regarded then and now.

Lester

[Mike Cirba]

For all of you Ohioans, how does Ottawa Park in Toledo fare in this discussion?


Probably MacWood's nomination of Memorial Park in Houston deserves to be near the top...what say ye?

The Top Ten

Brackenridge Park, San Antonio, TX - 1916
Brown Deer Park - Milwaukee, WI - 1929
Cobb's Creek - Philadelphia, PA - 1916
Community GC - Dayton, OH - 1909
Eastmoreland - Portland, OR - 1917
Griffith Park (Wilson) - Los Angeles, CA - 1924
Harding Park - San Francisco, CA - 1925
Keller GC - Minneapolis, MN - 1929
Rackham GC - Detroit, MI - 1924
Wilmington - Wilmington, NC - 1926

Other contenders?   Here's some that come to mind.

East Potomac - Washington DC
Shawnee - Louisville, KY
Coffin GC - Indianapolis, IN
Rancho Park  - Los Angeles, CA
Waveland - Des Moines, IA
Franklin Park - Boston, MA
Forest Park - St. Louis, MO
Memorial Park - Houston, TX

[Joe Perches]

Other contenders?   Here's some that come to mind.
Rancho Park  - Los Angeles, CA

Rancho Park wasn't public / municipal before 1930.
It was built as Rancho Country Club.

http://cheviothills.org/Park.htm

[Mike Cirba]

Other contenders?   Here's some that come to mind.
Rancho Park  - Los Angeles, CA

Rancho Park wasn't public / municipal before 1930.
It was built as Rancho Country Club.

http://cheviothills.org/Park.htm

Thanks, Joe...

Rancho is Gonzo.

[Tim_Cronin]

Jackson Park (1897) was the first 18 hole public west of the Aleghenies. Built on the debri field from tearing down the Columbian Exposition. (1893). Some, if not most of the holes have the skelton of architectural interest. Not sure how highly others rehgard it.

Jackson Park (Chicago), as we know it today, dates to 1905 as an 18-hole course. The original 9 opened in 1899, but was changed considerably soon after, and for a time, there were 27 holes. I'm still trying to determine, of the current 18, how many are from the 1905 18 and how many, if any, come from the concurrent 9. Anyway, I don't know that it's ever been considered more than a place to sock it around.

In the Chicago area, Palos Hills Golf Course, the second Cook County Forest Preserve District course, might have been the best public pre-1930 course. It opened 10 holes in 1921 and the full 18 by 1924. A Tom Bendelow design on hilly land, some considered it a gem. As early as 1918 (money for recreation in Cook County government was scarce, hence the delay), Tribune golf writer Joe Davis said, "no golfing ground in this part of the country can compare to it." Others called it the Midwest's Pine Valley.

It closed in 1942, when the U.S. Government took over the area adjacent to it to relocate the University of Chicago's atomic pile to a hastily built Argonne National Laboratory. It never reopened, and the area has since been reforested.

Other candidates: Glencoe (1922, George O'Neil), Indian Wood in Park Forest (1928), Silver Lake (South) (1930), Big Run (1930, C.H. Mulenford / Harry Smead).

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tim,

When I worked there in 1973 and 4, I was told that Glencoe was widely regarded as the best public course in the area for a long time.  Even then, some celebs came out to play when they were in town. I remember getting Johnny Matthis' autograph.  It was a nice site, with not a lot of contour, but tucked in between the forest preserve and the land that became the Botanic Garden.

[Jason Topp]

The term "public" might not be the right filter here. "Public" courses include resort or privately-owned courses open to the public and municipal or govt owned courses. My sense is that Mike is looking for highly regarded municipal courses.

Bob

So Pebble Beach is out?

[Mike Cirba]

Jason,

I would say so.

I don't think many of the average laborers in an around Carmel were going down after work to play there.   Maybe I'm wrong, but if we add PB we'd have to add Greenbrier, Pinehurst, Boca Raton, et.al.

Thanks