Mike Cirba,
I see you edited your insulting, profanity laden post to me over five hours after you originally posted it. You are pure class.
As for the events at NGLA in the summer of 1910, I've told you what the NYSun said about it them, and it was not the only article. Plus, in early May the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that play would begin the next week, with the opening in June. I have no idea why you are so indignant about me going to sources from that time.
The Sun followed up on July 3, 1910 under the headline "National Golf Links Now Open."
It is not to be the scene of a real cut and dried tournament until next June, when golfers of fame abroad are to lend distinction to the play, for the present gathering is only a picnic of the founders and members to get an idea of what has been done toward obtaining the ideal links. Allowing twenty percent off for incompleteness . . . the course is now a grander test of golf than any in this country. In variety and types of holes . . . there is nothing on this side of the Atlantic equal to the new links. The only point on which Myopia, Baltusrol, Garden City, and Ekwanok and some other noted American courses now lead is in texture and wealth of turf.
Note that Baltusrol and Ekwanok are being thrown right in there with Myopia and Garden City as the best of the rest.
The Sun article then went on to describe the course, and from what I can read from a a very bad copy, the course seems to be complete except for the "temporary" eighth green, with the real green growing in and scheduled to be open in the fall. It is very difficult to read but I believe the article closes with:
[NGLA] is a tribute as it stands to the energy of American golfers and may some day be a Mecca for pilgrims from links of other lands.
Why you continue to misrepresent the July 1910 tournament as a "soft opening" for only a limited group of invited top players. According to the press at the time, the course was open for play for the membership.
Given the state of Philadelphia golf at the time, I can understand why you might be overwhelmed by the quality of golfers at this tournament, but so far as I can tell this was a member's gathering. That is what it was billed as, and all of the top golfers - the "First Eight"- were members. While Travis was eventually dropped from the list, he considered himself a Founder at this point. Max Behr, Devereux Emmet, and Joseph Knapp were founders, as were H. J. Whigham, C.B. Macdonald, M.J. O'Brien, C.F. Watson, F. H. Thomas, and J. B. Harriman. Ward and Herreshoff weren't Founders, but they were members, as was Louis Livingston. I don't have the list of associate members to check on the rest.
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Mac, I'd like to explore it as well, but it is tough to understand what was going on right then. Everything was changing. What was considered to be state of the art in the middle of the first decade was outdated five years later. So very likely some of the courses that were the considered the best in the late aughts might have been considered antiquated shortly thereafter. So even courses that had been considered good went through significant changes either in the latter part of the first decade or in the beginning of the second.
As to your broader question as to the evolution of the discipline, I think what you have is NGLA which despite its rough conditions was considered above and beyond all the others in terms of quality design, and then two groups of golf courses somewhere below this:
1) The old established courses that may have started out to be very much in the dark ages, but that were making changes to try and keep with the evolving expectations for the courses; and,
2) The new courses, which were being built from scratch. These were generally based upon what most could consider to be closer to better, more enduring principles of quality design, but were generally young and immature and works-in-project in their own way.
Over time some of the old established courses did adapt through significant modifications, while others had to start over from scratch. And of course many of the new courses eventually matured and were considered quite good. By in 1910 this next wave had begun, but it is perhaps a bit early to see the full impact.
As for the amateur/professional argument it comes down to a bit of a word game. To my mind the most important distinction wasn't between professional golfer or amateur clubman. Rather, during this time period, the most important distinction became the level of expertise of the designer. Fairly suddenly, designing courses became much more complicated and time consuming, and the amount of knowledge and expertise needed to do it well increased. Neither the typical club pro nor the typical club amateur were equipped to deal with this, thus they were both on their way to becoming obsolete.
Here is some of how Devereux Emmett described the transition in 1916.
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 Sheepshead 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.
This meant that, to be successful, designers had to focus on designing pretty much full time, which meant they either had to be rich or get paid. And while a few true amateur designers had produced successful courses (namely Leeds and Macdonald) they were very much the exception to the rule.
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. . . .
What Emmett didn't mention is that CBM learned to golf in St. Andrews in the 1870's, tried to introduce golf to chicago in 1875, spent long periods of time in Scotland playing golf between 1878 in 1892 (using Hoylake as his base,) was a pioneer of early US golf and early US golf course architecture in the mid 1890's, designed a few courses in Chicago including Chicago Golf Club (with the assistance of a professional,) took three separate trips overseas to study the golf courses in preparation for NGLA, had survey maps of some of the holes created, did thirty or forty drawings himself, consulted with perhaps the most renown experts in the world, including Hutchinson, Darwin, and Low, had another expert, H.J. Whigham, there to help him, consulted with the foremost turf experts at the Department of Agriculture, was versed in the landscape gardeners of centuries past, and perhaps most importantly, he had the services of Seth Raynor who, unlike Macdonald, got paid. Plus he was rich, had a lot of rich friends, and could take his time and do it right.
So while he was an amateur, he was by no means your average clubman or even your average club pro. Travis wasn't either. (In fact Travis was a professional designer. I'm not sure when he first got paid.) Leeds was unusal as well, in that his work was done over decades, and he too studied the craft overseas. And then there were designers like Emmett and Tillinghast, who were amateur golfers, but pursued golf course design as an occupation, pretty much full time.On the professional side you similarly had people like Ross who were developing the craft and taking it to a higher level.
In short, while the old club pros and perhaps a few clubmen had produced some very good courses for their time, the bar had been raised, and the discipline becoming more advanced. In the face all of that the debate about club pros and clubmen rather seems to miss the point.