Who ACTUALLY Designed National Golf Links of America?

[TEPaul]

JC:

What you need to do is employ Moriarty's legal deception tactic and MO and say stuff like: "It is MY UNDERSTANDING that the wind doesn't blow in Nebraska and Patrick said there were no swamps in Florida."

That way technically Patrick can't call you a liar; he can only claim that you have the UNDERSTANDING of an IDIOT or that you're using a deceptive legal ploy (both of which apply to David Moriarty).   

[JC Jones]

JC:

What you need to do is employ Moriarty's legal deception tactic and MO and say stuff like: "It is MY UNDERSTANDING that the wind doesn't blow in Nebraska and Patrick said there were no swamps in Florida."

That way technically Patrick can't call you a liar; he can only claim that you have the UNDERSTANDING of an IDIOT or that you're using a deceptive legal ploy (both of which apply to David Moriarty).   

Maybe Pat could just answer the questions asked of him.

[JC Jones]

"Your inability to be truthful should alert everyone, when viewing your posts, to employ a good degree of enlightened suspicion."


Patrick, you are my hero, Big Guy! You know that remark of yours just might be the most polite version I have ever seen of accusing someone of lying!   

Tom,

You should read his entire post (I know, its hard to get through the ridiculousness of his failed logic and verbal bashing). 

He does call me a liar, among many other things. 

Rightfully so.

You stated that I said that the wind doesn't blow in Nebraska (sand hills)
And that I stated that there were no swamps in Florida.

Both of those statements are deliberate BLATENT LIES on your part.

Hence, I called you a LIAR.

Your actions speak for themselves.

Try being honest in these discussions, intellectually and otherwise.

Pat,

They used unicorns and leprechauns to build NGLA.  Unless you can prove me wrong with documented evidence and photographs you cannot refute my point.

[TEPaul]

"I wonder if CBM was directly involved in the situation where Francis Ouimet was assigned professional status for working in a sporting goods store.  Tom?"


BillB:

Yes, I believe he was. I think Macdonald remained on the USGA's Rules Committee (the committee that dealt with amateur status back then) until 1917 or 1918. That was the time that Quimet and two others from his club in Boston had their amateur status removed. Again, the USGA did not then and does not now declare a golfer whose amateur status they remove to be a "professional" they merely declare him to be a "non-amateur." So technically it is possible to be declared a "non-amateur" and not actually be considered a professional golfer. The reality of that is that that golfer is sort of in a nether or in-between world status-wise.

The other one who ran afoul of his amateur status at the time was Travis which apparently made him despise Macdonald about doubly because he felt that Macdonald was on the wrong side of that infamous "Schnectedy Putter" issue involving Travis that actually took about six years to resolve and got so heated even the President of the United States weighed in on it.

Personally, I think Macdonald got a bum-rap from Travis on the Schnectedy Putter issue because Macdonald actually did not believe that club should be deemed illegal. The real issue Travis had with him on that one was he did not believe any American should also serve on the R&A's Rule Committee when he served on the USGA's Rule Committee. Apparently Travis felt that was basically UnAmerican! Macdonald was the only one from that era who was on both.

[TEPaul]

"Pat,
They used unicorns and leprechauns to build NGLA.  Unless you can prove me wrong with documented evidence and photographs you cannot refute my point."



Patrick:

My advice to you is do not bite on that one. What you should do is just suggest to David Moriarty that he should write an IMO essay on that one, or perhaps a good "point by point Counterpoint" essay to that one as you suggested to him he should write "The Missing Faces of Merion."    

JC:
You have to understand that those two guys have a certain odd affinity for one another (and you can throw MacWood in there too somewhere) because they LOVE to argue----essentially they just LIVE to argue!  


As for me----actually I don't really like to argue very much at all---but just don't try to outlast me, because you WILL lose!  

[TEPaul]

"Maybe Pat could just answer the questions asked of him."




No, JC, Pat doesn't do that. Either do the two others. They like to just make statements and then defend them to the death. Alternatively if you ask them a question, they very rarely, if ever, answer it but they might ask you another question in response!

[Robert Emmons]

By 1910 Dev Emmet, I believe was a professional architect . He was hired to design Huntington CC that year...RHE

[JC Jones]

"Tom,
You should read his entire post (I know, its hard to get through the ridiculousness of his failed logic and verbal bashing).  He does call me a liar, among many other things."


JC:

Don't worry about it. Pat's actually a lovable guy and that's the way he and all his friends talk to each other. It's just a North Jersey kinda thing, don't you know? I call it the "Soprano Syntax."

One time during the National Singles Tourney at NGLA I was watching Pat and a number of his friends down in the locker-room just going at each other that way and laughing the whole time. The insults, the verbal bashing and the failed logic (actually some of their logic was pretty good ) were unbelievable but always with a laugh. I just about fell out I was laughing so hard.

At the end Patrick got up and tried to tell some joke and all the rest of them pretty much in unison said: "Sit down and shut up, Patrick, we've heard that one before from you and its a terrible joke, you Dickhead!"

  

I have no doubt Pat is a great guy (he has showed me as such off the board) and believe me when I say this, I am not offended when he calls me a liar and an idiot and all the other things.  Every village needs a hardheaded, amazingly illogical, yet lovable idiot and Pat is ours.  He makes the rest of us look smarter. 

I was just pointing out to you that he wasn't as delicate in calling me a liar as it may have appeared.

[TEPaul]

Robert:

If he was taking money publicly in architecture in 1910 that would be interesting because I do not remember Devereaux Emmet's amateur status being questioned by the USGA. If he was taking money in 1910 and they did not question him or try to remove his amateur status the only possible reason I can think of is they just may not have considered him to be an amateur golfer "of skill" at that point. But that would be pretty strange because Emmet was always a good amateur tournament player and a fairly active one through the years, I think. I think in the 1930s when in his 60s he won the Bermuda Amateur or something like that.

Most people do not realize that the USGA does not remove the amateur status of just any amateur who takes money in golf---you first have to be considered by the USGA to be an amateur golfer "of Skill" and to be using your reputation as an amateur golfer of Skill to take money in golf.

Of course after 1920 the USGA instituted the so-called "Architects Exception" to the Amateur Status Rules and so at that point even an amateur golfer of skill could be paid for architecture and not lose their amateur playing status.

[TEPaul]

"Every village needs a hardheaded, amazingly illogical, yet lovable idiot and Pat is ours."


You've got that right, JC! Pat definitely has a very hard head. You know how those really good gymnasts and such can do a summersalt from a standing position, land on their feet and spring right back with a summersalt and land on their feet again?

I've seen Patrick do that but he doesn't call it a summersalt; he calls it a "late fallsalt" or an "early springsalt." From a standing position he salts right onto his head and then immediately springs off his head and salts right back onto his feet again.  

[Jim Nugent]

Every village needs a hardheaded, amazingly illogical, yet lovable idiot and Pat is ours.  He makes the rest of us look smarter. 

Hardeaded?  Yes.  An illogical idiot who makes you look smarter?  You could not be more wrong about that.   

[JC Jones]

Every village needs a hardheaded, amazingly illogical, yet lovable idiot and Pat is ours.  He makes the rest of us look smarter.  

Hardeaded?  Yes.  An illogical idiot who makes you look smarter?  You could not be more wrong about that.    

You're right and thanks for clarifying.  When you look smarter than everyone already, nobody can make you look any smarter.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

They used unicorns and leprechauns to build NGLA. 

Unless you can prove me wrong with documented evidence and photographs you cannot refute my point.

Yes I can.
I'll do it the same way I proved you wrong about TPC at Ponte Vedre when I contacted and had extended conversations with the man who owned the land for years and years before he sold it to the PGA for $ 1.

TEPaul,

JCJ obviously doesn't know about my monthly visits and conversations with those two fellows permanently residing in Southampton.

[Patrick_Mucci]

I have no doubt Pat is a great guy (he has showed me as such off the board) and believe me when I say this, I am not offended when he calls me a liar and an idiot and all the other things. 

I never called you an idiot.

As to your being called a liar, you deliberately lied about my position on the wind/Nebraska issue and the swamp/Florida issue in an attempt to promote your position and discredit mine.

I searched for other words to describe your deliberate misrepresentation but couldn't come up with a more apt description.
It was you who lied, not me.

Every village needs a hardheaded, amazingly illogical, yet lovable idiot and Pat is ours. 
He makes the rest of us look smarter. 

It's good that you think you look smarter, it's also delusional.

I was just pointing out to you that he wasn't as delicate in calling me a liar as it may have appeared.

If you didn't lie repeatedly, I'd have no grounds to characterize your deliberate and blatant misrepresentations

You chose to lie.
I merely pointed it out and would ask others to be guided accordingly in the future.

[JC Jones]

Sorry Pat, but you make so many ridiculous arguments I can't keep them straight.  Maybe you said something equally as ridiculous as there were no golf courses built on swamps in Florida. 

In any event, are you going to answer any questions or are you just going to hide behind your green inked rants. 

[DMoriarty]

The Rules on Amateur Status as they evolved with the USGA in the teens were fairly complex and technical and nuancy and therefore prompted many to suggest they be made more clear. And I am convinced that the one who actually wrote those complex and nuancy "amateur status" rules resolutions that were adopted by the USGA in the teens was none other than C.B. Macdonald himself!  

This is very interesting.  I wonder if CBM was directly involved in the situation where Francis Ouimet was assigned professional status for working in a sporting goods store.  Tom?

CBM described the incident in Scotland's Gift.  He has three chapters devoted to the creation and evolution of the USGA.

[DMoriarty]

By 1910 Dev Emmet, I believe was a professional architect . He was hired to design Huntington CC that year...RHE

Architects were not impacted by the changes to the amateur rule until January 1917.  In September 1916 the USGA's Executive Board had changed the language of the rules to specifically exclude club sellers and architects, but the change regarding architects was not widely known or put into effect until the changes were ratified at the January 1917 meeting by the member clubs.  (Quimet and his partner and a few others had been declared professional under the old rule in 1915.)

Not sure but Travis may have been one of the reasons for the change.   He had been accused of being a traveling billboard for various resorts, and was alleged to have exchanged his fame for travel expenses, hotel stays, etc.   Earlier, he had also been accused of having solicited free golf clubs in exchange for his implied endorsement which would come with him playing those clubs.

Whether or not Emmet was ever declared a professional, I don't know.  He wasn't a top golfer at that time.  Good enough to win the father-son tournament at Piping Rock, but certainly not national calibre like Travis and perhaps even Tillinghast had been.  Those are the two that were most often mentioned as being directly impacted by the changed in ruling.   

Emmet, however, considered himself to have been impacted by the changes.  After the ban he protested loudly in various letters and articles, declaring that he had been an amateur one day, but declared a professional the next, as if somehow he was an entirely different person.    In one of these letters he also addressed Macdonald as an amateur architect.   Macdonald had been held up as the ideal of an amateur designing courses for free, and Emmet essentially said that while Macdonald was extraordinary, it would be impossible for others to follow in his footsteps as amateurs because the discipline had become extremely time consuming and required a high degree of learning. Emmet also singled out Leeds as an ideal amateur designer.  Here is some of what he wrote about Macdonald in early 1917 and which has some relevance to a number of issues brought up in this thread.

Charles B. Macdonald is an exception. There is only one C.B. Macdonald. As a creator of great and original golf courses he is in a class by himself. As a generous sportsman he is in a class by himself.  His services to the game in this country are very great.  They never could be adequately compensated. He has shown American golfers what a real course is like.  But with all of his generosity and sporting spirit of helpfulness I doubt if he could accomplish what he has done if he had not been a man of large means.  Mr. Whigham says he has to work for a living, and no doubt he works hard, but I know very few men who do that who could have done a fraction of what Macdonald has accomplished.  He has been a prophet--a leader of a crusade.   People like that are different--not found every day.  Mr. Herbert Leeds, who has devoted years of time and unlimited and unselfish effort to create his beloved links at Myopia is in the same category.

. . . It would be interesting to know how many times Macdonald visited the National Links during its construction, and I doubt if any book would hold the written and spoken direction he has given about it. . . .

In the days when this rule against golf links architects was formerly in force circumstances were quite different.  It was supposed to be as simple a matter to lay out a golf course as it is to lay out a tennis course.  Holes were made rectangular--a certain width and height--bunkers with high banks which were as identical in height and shape as pickets in a fence were run across at angles to the line of play--that is all there was to it. . . .  It was all very simple before "Alps Holes" and "Redan Holes" came along to upset people's minds and set them thinking.  Nowadays a golf architect is expected to create a minature Switzerland on a piece of real estate as flat as Shbeepshead Bay Race Course--with the Finance Committee hailing from Missouri.  Nothing is considered impossible anymore on a golf course. People expect new and original holes that call for the exercise of judgement as well as playing skill.  The standard of excellence in putting greens and tees and fairways and bunkers has been immeasurably raised.  There must be nothing artificial looking about bunkers, greens or undulations. 

Emmet mentions nothing about his own involvement in creating NGLA, but it sounds like he things CBM's involvement was pretty significant. 

[TEPaul]

Bill McBride:

Macdonald's roll with the USGA (and the R&A) has long been a subject that's realy fascinated me. Believe it or not it seems a bit hard to even find out from the USGA how exactly he was involved after getting off the Board (Executive Committee) after serving for four years and being the Association's Second Vice President initially.

After 1899 it seems he continued to serve on some of the USGA's committees----initially on the Nominating Committee in 1900-? and apparently on the Rules Committee for over twenty years. But he was only on the Executive Committee for four years and it seems odd to me that he didn't ascend to the Presidency via the so-called "Ladder" when he should have----in 1900-01.

i don't know whether it's coincidental but he was quite critical of some of the thinking and philosophies of USGA President R.L Roberston who became the USGA president in the year that Macdonald should have had he simply climbed the ladder the two needed steps from being the association's initial Second Vice President.

But Macdonald's stand on various issue are truly interesting and sometimes pretty unpredicatable (regarding the way one might suspect he would feel).

But it seems to me if Macdonald had one burning and unwavering principle that transcended everything he ever did in golf it was unification with the R&A at all costs and particularly on the Rules of Golf----UNIFICATION and UNIFORMITY at all costs!!!

And through those early roiling years when the American association was finding its way, that particular stance and postion very well may've really pissed off some of the important men with which Macdonald had to do in golf, golf administration and even golf architecture!

[Bill_McBride]

Bill McBride:

Macdonald's roll with the USGA (and the R&A) has long been a subject that's realy fascinated me. Believe it or not it seems a bit hard to even find out from the USGA how exactly he was involved after getting off the Board (Executive Committee) after serving for four years and being the Association's Second Vice President initially.

After 1899 it seems he continued to serve on some of the USGA's committees----initially on the Nominating Committee in 1900-? and apparently on the Rules Committee for over twenty years. But he was only on the Executive Committee for four years and it seems odd to me that he didn't ascent to the Presidency via the so-called "Ladder" when he should have----in 1900-01.

i don't know whether it's coincidental but he was quite critical of some of the thinking and philosophies of USGA President R.L Roberston who became the USGA president in the year that Macdonald should have had he simply climbed the ladder the two needed steps from being the association's initial Second Vice President.

But Macdonald's stand on various issue are truly interesting and sometimes pretty unpredicatable (regarding the way one might suspect he would feel).

But it seems to me if Macdonald had one burning and unwavering principle that transcended everything he ever did in golf it was unification with the R&A at all costs and particularly on the Rules of Golf----UNIFICATION and UNIFORMITY at all costs!!!

And through those early roiling years when the American association was finding its way, that particular stance and postion very well may've really pissed off some of the important men with which Macdonald had to do in golf, golf administration and even golf architecture!

Thanks, Tom, that's fascinating stuff.  If I weren't really absorbed in a great novel set in the siege of Leningrad by the Nazis, I would get out my Scotland's Gift tonight!

[Phil_the_Author]

Let's see if we can bring a bit of sanity back into this discussion.

First or all, I am NOT, let me say that again, NOT challenging in any way that Charles Blair Macdonald laid out and designed NGLA. There is no question that he did. The proofs are out there so that even a blind man can see them.

I asked the question I did to illustrate how in other threads, and even though I mentioned the Merion and North Shore threads I am not limiting it to them, some latch onto a single source that has nothing to do with a club's accepted history as proof that the history is wrong.

Consider the nature of the now 4 pages of this debate and how a single, non-dated and non-attributed newspaper account that was quoted from and not even shown, has so many actually arguing for and against the proposed question. It amazes me that only one time did someone actually directly ask me if their were other contemporaneous accounts to back it up!

Accounts such as the one I quoted from should give one pause to consider, examine and, yes, research the question. What it should not do is overturn what has been known as truth for many years. Further research might lead it to overturning the accepted truth because it inspired that further research, but on its own it cannot.

Not a single person asked WHO wrote the article. No one asked WHAT was the context that led to it being written. It has been accepted as truthful by one and all yet the reality is that many, many golf writers and reporters have made far too many blatant mistakes over the years for a serious researcher to ascribe complete veracity to what is written. For example, and this should be a bombshell bit of news especially for all those in the Chicago area, but did you know that A.W. Tillinghast designed the courses at Olympia Fields? He did if you want to believe what a columnist in the Atlanta Journal back in 1928 wrote. Heck, I can't even find Tilly having ever even visited the club!

Sometimes, as we discuss these issues, we simply don't realize just how important what we think is a simple discussion is actually viewed by members of the clubs we talk about. I've met and spoken to more than a few people who are members of clubs we discuss and not members of GCA.com yet they can almost quote verbatim what has been written about their club, good or bad, and name the one who wrote it.

It is time we realize that serious discussion deserve serious answers and proofs and that they be conducted by serious people in a respectful manner. That is why I posed the question I did and what this discussion is really about for me...

[Patrick_Mucci]

By 1910 Dev Emmet, I believe was a professional architect . He was hired to design Huntington CC that year...RHE

Robert,

Last night I typed a very lengthy response only to lose it to a power outage.

In summayr, I mentioned the CBM designed Chicago GC circa 1893-1895, long before NGLA. And, in 1897 he wrote about his concept of an ideal golf course in America.  He followed up with visits to the UK in 1902 and 1906.

CBM optioned the land for NGLA in 1906, but began his search for land prior to that time.

When you read "Scotland's Gift" you find redundant references to CBM's efforts, "I did", "I built", "I planned"
CBM also mentions Jim Whigham and Seth Raynor, usually followed by "WE", as in "we" did this and "we" did that.
He's quite specific in his credits for routing, holes and features.

When you look at the entire body CBM's efforts and the flow, from concept origins in the 1890's through the 1900's, culminating in the formation of the club, search for and ultimate purchase of the land, followed by the implementation of HIS ideal holes, it's clear that NGLA is CBM's product and his product alone.

While others, such as Emmett and Travis are mentioned early on, in the committee formation stage, they're not credited with any substantive involvement, subsequently.

If you take into consideration CBM's design of CGC in 1893-5, his publication regarding the ideal golf course in America in 1897, his subsequent references to the ideal golf course, his trips to the UK in 1902 and 1906 and his effort to form NGLA and the process he undertook to acquire the land, lay out the holes and features, you have the answser to the original question.

Charles Blair Macdonald ACTUALLY designed National Golf Links of America.

But, as long as we're on the subject of disputing design credits, who designed Sebonack and Old Macdonald ?
It's clear that the concept for NGLA resided solely with CBM and no one else

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Phil,

I'll bite. WHO wrote the article and WHAT was the context that led to it being written?

[Phil_the_Author]

Steve glad you asked. I have NO IDEA!  Joe Bausch found it and I hope he chimes in and tells us...

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Joe is busy with his chemistry courses and is planning his  final exams as we speak. 

[Phil_the_Author]

Who are you kidding? He gets some brown-nosing gradtudent to proctor thee xams, the pretty girls get A's the basketball players get A+, the football players C-, 95% of the rest B's and the few who sit in the back of the class and annoy him he flunks...