The Beginnings of Golf Course Architecture

[TEPaul]

PRE-construction topographical contour survey maps and when they were first used and by whom was only the idea I offered to this thread that J.C. Jones started almost immediately after speaking with him on the telephone about this general subject of the beginnings of golf course architecture.

There are obviously all kinds of little milestones along the evolution of golf course architecture but there is no doubt at all Macdonald had something in mind when he wrote;

"I believe this was the first effort at establishing golfing architecture----at least there is no record I can find preceding it."


He was of course speaking about the idea of copying classical ("time-tested") golf holes and architectural principles with what would become NGLA.

And the fact that he very well may've been the first to engage an engineer/surveyor full-time to do it and via the first use of PRE-construction contour maps and models is very noteworthy, at least to me.

[TEPaul]

Jim Kennedy:

The whole idea of who was the first in golf architecture to use PRE-construction contour maps to route and design a golf course on (obviously before construction) interests me because it apparently will begin to shed some light on other really interesting questions such as----Who was the first to route and design golf holes or a golf course on a site he had perhaps never seen before?

I'm sure you can see what the significance of this might be when things get into a subject like architectural attribution (or not)?  

And this was not just some hypothetical thought on my part. It appears Macdonald may've actually done this with one of his attributed courses. Or on the flipside one might conclude that if he didn't do it that way he may not have routed and designed one of his attributed courses because it just may be true to say he was never there before it actually opened for play, even though the one he referred to as "his man" definitely was!

[Steve Lang]

  TEP,

from the reference cited in my Reply #68

In Micheli du Crest's terrain recording,
the observer can direct his view from different stations "en tout sens" onto the landscape, until he is sure
of having correctly recognized its form. In doing this, he makes use of a technical system of recording that
allows him to verify the surveyed lines and points of intersection on the survey table from virtually any
other position, "de façon que divisant l'ouvrage par planchette, chaque planchette avait ainsi sept ou huit
points de marque désignés par des petits ronds rouges et des chiffres, qui sur mes tablettes marquaient le
lieu et qui me servaient de point de visée sur ma planchette."18 In this way, the topographer could
emancipate himself from the constraints that the landscape imposed on him and move freely within it, or
rather within its depiction.19 The statement is clear: Once a perspective that is quasi-independent from the
observer is introduced, anyone in the possession of his rational faculties can be an observer, re-enact and
verify the work of the cartographer. Cartography was to cease to be an opaque science of decree

I suspect the first golf course surveyors and perhaps the first application to gca planning/development may not be in the usa .. the use of analytical methods to copy hole designs would certainly have included measurements, if not rote use of "formulas" and its origin may be the best path to discerning the beginnings of planning gca.   not unlike town and country planning of old or new.. as gis is now the technology of choice in the digital age, but still based upon surveyor boundary lines.

[TEPaul]

Steve Lang:

Thanks very much for that even though Mssr. Micheli du Crest's paragraph and descriptions just may be the single most confusing thing I have ever seen in the eleven years of GOLFCLUBATLAS.com!! 

But I just chalk that up to The French!! Nobody can really understand The French, and not even Charles De Gaulle. Well, I should amend that---he probably understood them, it was just he hated most of them and thought most of the rest were idiots.

However, on the subject of surveying, topography mapping et al, you are right that it does go way back in time and long before the beginning of man-made golf architecture.

For that history one of the very best on this website is probably Lester George because of his background in military mapping.

Actually to be a really good surveyor in the beginning of this country was something very much prized and admired. I think George Washington actually may've been one of the best of the early ones and that may've been why he was so good at running the British all over the damn countryside trying to catch him, certainly considering for him to actually stand and fight and engage them militarily would invaribaly have been a disaster for the Colonials.

But Washington's finest hour of all was to just shitcan the age old military etiquette of not fighting at night when he decided to take some boats across the Delaware and sneak up on the British at Trenton and whack them upside the head at midnight as they were either sleeping or too drunk to do anything about it.

Had Washington not done THAT there may've never been a good old US of A! 

[Steve Lang]

  could you belive a hypothesis of french surveyors brought to the kingdom by Mary, Queen of Scots and making topo's for review and amusement and sereptiously taking copies of holes back to the mainland or elsewhere to the highest bidder to create hidden gems?

reconnaissance work run amok

[Melvyn Morrow]

No matter how much we want to elevate the subject of design, design is just that design.

Over my 50 years of looking at golf I am just shocked at the amount of crap that is thrown about. Design is not underpinned by quotes from ODG, their books or crap about ratings, shot values, etc, etc, its about the game, taking the thrill, the challenge to the golfer over a course on land that’s worthy of the game.

The modern world is praying to false Gods on our Golfing Alters full of carved images, some of pre-construction survey maps, but why as they have not influence on the design or design concept. Their involvement in design is equivalent to the lead in the pencil used to sketch the initial idea, just an aid to convey the final design image but not the design.

Why complicate what was the Game of Golf, is it the need of some individuals to try to impress others, to try and blind them in science in the hope of making their position seem more important. Is it about making money or a combination of both, Whatever we hurt the game by making it confusing to many and ultimately give the impression that the Game can only be understood by University Professors or the Professional Classes.

I am criticized by many for my stance on subjects like  Land fit for Purpose and other modern accessories which are closely related to GCA.  Yet would you build an open air Ice Rink in the desert, is that land or the environment suitable for that activity and can it be maintained at reasonable cost. Once built should we install heated walkways for those not on skates, sounds mad but we build cart tracks on courses, so is there really much of a difference.

Golf is not complicated, it is there to test our resolve, to get our brain working in coordination with our eyes and body to gently exercise us both in mind and body over 9 or 18 holes. We are not expecting the designer to lay out a course like the grand gardens of an old stately home, or build an a massive motorway with tunnels and bridges. Just look what the little island of South Uist did over the last 4 years, they have created a great 18 hole golf course, don’t take my word for it , ask those who have played it and please include the designers from this site. Let’s not forget that they achieved it for circa £50,000 plus the land.

That’s design, real honest design,  a potential great course on beautiful links land offering challenges and thrills of a lifetime but costs next to nothing to build or to play – Ladies & Gentlemen that's how complicated GCA should be – we just do not need this other crap.

Melvyn

[Steve Lang]

  Mel,

if you own the land then bequeath it to some one for design of a golf course.

others will at least need a survey of the meets and bounds of the property they'd buy and use

[TEPaul]

"Why complicate what was the Game of Golf, is it the need of some individuals to try to impress others, to try and blind them in science in the hope of making their position seem more important. Is it about making money or a combination of both, Whatever we hurt the game by making it confusing to many and ultimately give the impression that the Game can only be understood by University Professors or the Professional Classes."


Melvyn:

Probably because it has been complicated and for so long by so many. That is a reality that looks like it goes back well over 100 years and maybe a bit more than that. For anyone to try to deny that is to try to deny reality, in my opinion. Does that mean what has happened with golf and architecture over that time is right or wrong? Perhaps, but that is another and ancillary subject. What golf and architecture has been through over that time is its own historical reality and we as historians need to understand that and deal with it.

This certainly does not mean your sort of Biblical musings about it and its history are not important too but they are definitely not the only sum and substance of it all.

The game as we basically know it started in Scotland and it may've been very pure at that time but Scotland also let golf out into the world or at least the world took it and made it their own too and none of us can deny that history and that reality. So we need to deal with all of it---with Scotland and its golf and with golf all over the world in many different places and cultures because one thing I surely do know is that Scotland never will and never can just take the whole thing back for just their own as it once was some hundreds of years ago when golf virtually belonged only to Scotland and only in Scotland.

But by all means go on ranting----we all tend to do that with the things we really do love!

[Melvyn Morrow]

Steve

I do know of a few links sites that would make ideal golf courses, I know the location of quite a few old closed links courses that could be reused. Would I tell others and get risk someone building a Castle type course, not a chance in hell. Would I be happy to see another Castle Stuart course, well I expect the answer would be yes but not with the fake touches of half rotten railway sleepers in bunkers. No come to think of it No I would not want to pass on info to those designers for that simple fact that they thought fake was acceptable in Scotland.

In all I could list close to 24 sites of which 14 would be inland whilst the remainder would be links courses. Nevertheless I will keep them to myself as now is not the time to build new courses until the R&A have finally resolved the distance problem they say does not exist – yet The Open at St Andrews proved otherwise.

Tom P

I fear you have fallen into the old trap of trying to get history to fit your facts. Quite understandable you want America to have some credit in the design process and in particular Merion. My problem is that you are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

You want to see what design and location can do to a designers and his course, then just look at the multi million pound Links Trust Castle Course and compare that to Askernish. From the start the Links Trust selected the wrong site, Askernish did not make that mistake. The Links Trust had to reform the land to make it appear as a Links type course and failed with a big F even after millions was spent, its still not right. Yet for £50,000 and a lot of help Askernish has produce a great 18 hole course.  Yet who has taken the project at Askernish seriously, how many designers on this site alone have actually gone to see the South Uist course, even with all the publicity it has generated over the last few years.

For no other reason apart from what many good things that people are saying about such a basically constructed course I would have thought that South Uist would be on the list of urgent must see courses. Tom this was the type of course your fellow Americans played when they come over to Scotland in the latter part of the 19th Century, It was this type of course that encouraged them to play and to take the game back home with them – that’s the history, that’s the fact because they copies many of our great and early holes Road Hole, Redan and so on. Those ones that pre date Tom Simpson, CBM, Mac etc, etc,

Are we just trying to be a little too clever, making it overcomplicated and confusing. Perhaps even for the sake of promoting a form of elitism where none does or should exist. The best designs are generally the least complicated.

Melvyn     

[Kyle Harris]

The notion that the relatively late introduction of diagrams, drawings and maps to explain principals of golf architecture is surprising actually surprises me.

Musicians rarely compose by writing out the music on tablature. They play the instrument! It stands to reason that golf architects would do the same and would only think to explain an idea in diagram when consideration was to be given before the idea was carried out in order to save time or money.

The medium drives the art - nobody plays golf on a diagram of a hole.

[Peter Pallotta]

Kyle - That's a terrific point, really good and insightful.  I mean, really.

Peter

[Mac Plumart]

This thread is titled "The Beginnings of Golf Course Architecture".

Therefore, Melvyn I understand why you would want to talk about Scottish design and courses.  As the game started there.

Tom P. mentions CBM.  Why?  CBM called himself and/or his work the first example of golf course architecture.  

Frankly, it makes sense to discuss both of these topics on this thread.

Tom P. wants to talk about pre-construction topo maps.  Although not a subject I am overly keen to discuss at this stage in my learning process, I think it has a lot of bearing and relavance on golf course architecture...some of which Tom has pointed out in the thread very recently.

I think these topo maps have to be vital.  Here is a snippet from Tom Doak's website regarding his process...

"Most of the work of routing a golf course is done from topographic maps in the office, with follow-up visits to the site to ensure we’re making the most of the natural vegetation, vistas and any other unique features that may not show up on a map.  Sometimes we’ll produce up to a dozen preliminary routings to walk in the field, soliciting feedback from the client before we settle on a final solution.  Other times we may have the better part of a complete routing in place before we set foot on the property.

 In either case, and in every one in between, we won’t commit to a routing until we are certain we have found the best use of the property. Once the routing is finalized, we can usually produce a complete set of plans and specifications for bidding the job in sixty days’ time, allowing us to estimate costs accurately.  We stop short of producing detailed plans for bunkers and greens, however. These are sculptural problems better decided on site as the features are shaped."


I also believe Donald Ross used these maps a great deal and, frankly, probably all golf course architects do.  Therefore, why wouldn't we discuss this aspect of GCA?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Mac

As you said the title of this post is The Beginnings of GCA, not many many years after the first design. In the beginning  means the start so I have conducted my self along those lines.  Want to chat about other things thats fine, post a new topic - but The Beginning of GCA as we know it today started in the 1840's in Scotland and not Merion in the 20th Century.

CBM can call himself what he wants but one title - the first GCA, no I fear not.

Melvyn

[Mac Plumart]

CBM can call himself what he wants but one title - the first GCA, no I fear not.

Agreed!

[Jim_Kennedy]

Melyvn and Mac,

I'd like either of you to point out where CBM said he was the first GCA. I think it will be an impossible task.

His often cited quotation, "I believe this was the first effort at establishing golfing architecture----at least there is no record I can find preceding it" isn't him saying he was the first architect. It's made more clear when read in conjunction with another passage from his book:: "This labor (course construction/design) did not pall on me at first, for I was flattered and happy to feel I was attaining the much dreamed of objective, architecturally constructing classical golfing holes that would challenge criticism throughout the golfing world".

The two most important words in that quote are "architecturally constructing", for that was the objective he successfully attained at NGLA, creating 18 ideal and classical golf holes on a single property.

[DMoriarty]

Melvyn I agree with much of what you write about the simplicity of golf and the necessity of land fit for the purpose (at least for truly excellent golf.)  I also agree, as would anyone I hope, that it really all began with the great Scottish links courses.

But looking at the entirety of J.C. Jones' initial post, he doesn't seem to be setting limits on the discussion so that it only addresses when golf began and the very first courses were marked off.   To the contrary, he seems to asking posters to explore the evolution of how golf courses were created.   Or to be even more specific, he seems to be focusing on that moment in the history of golf where golf courses ceased to be found and simply marked off and began to be created by the hand of man.  Now obviously this didn't happen in one day, and it may be that it was ongoing to some degree or another throughout the history of golf, but surely there was an evolution of how golfers approached the act or art of finding, marking off, laying out, planning, creating, and/or building, golf courses.

At least that is the way I understood the questions posed in the opening post.

I'm not all that interested in the semantic argument . . . you say CBM wasn't the first golf course architect and by my understanding of the term I agree.  But I also know that CBM was quite knowledgeable about and respectful of the roots of the game in Scotland, and chances are that if his statement is so incongruent with what seems to be the reality of the situation, then chances are he is using the words differently than we understand them.  (As Jim notes, he did not call himself the first golf course architect, he said that the his plan for an ideal golf course in America was the first attempt at golf architecture.)

Rather than getting bogged down with the terminology, I'd just as soon try to figure out what was going on, whether it be in the US, Scotland, England, Ireland, India, or where ever.   Given I am in the US, that information is much more readily available, and I dare say that given that some of what was happening the the US was apparently a pretty hot topic overseas, it might even have some bearing on what happened over there.  Plus, I think similar things were happening inland and in England and on the continent, although the timing might have been different.  

For example, I have read that like the US, England fell into a period where "dark age" or Victorian architecture was favored, at least where the land was less suited for golf.  This to me suggests that while golf ought to be simple, and courses ought to marked of on land suitable for the purpose, this isn't the way it played out.  And to return to the actual topic, it may sound a bit odd, but I think a strong argument could be made that this wave of Victorian or "dark age" courses was the first attempt at golf course architecture.  And by golf course architecture in this instance I mean golf courses primarily planned and created by the hand of man rather than by the hand of nature.

Like I said, I find this notion odd, and I am not sure I agree with it, but when I read about the formulas they had for building and placing hazards and even for routing the holes, it sure sounds like a system man used to create golf courses, no matter how bad I might think they were.

So to me what might have happened with NGLA here (and what perhaps had already happened with great heathland courses) was not the creation of golf course architecture, but rather the creation of a better approach to golf course architecture, one more in harmony with the great links courses, and one where the history of the game and its great courses were held in high esteem and emulated.  

[DMoriarty]

CBM clarified his description of his early "attempt at golf architecture" when discussing the status of golf architects under the Amateur rule:

 In discussing the amateur rule the Royal and Ancient stood for "making a profit out of skill in the game is a test of professionalism."  Bona fide golf architects had their amateur standing restored.  I was heartily in favor of this latter ruling, although during my lifetime I never cared to accept any emolument for whatever I had done in the way of golf.   At the same time, the attitude I took was by no means a criticism of my friends who have been architects and honorable devotees of the game; in particular, among others, Devereaux Emmet.
  I do not think the term "golf architect" can be found in golf records previous to 1901, the time I formulated the idea of copying the famous holes, sometimes not in their entirety; at times taking only some famous putting-green or some famous bunker or some famous water hazard or other outstanding feature which might be adapted to particular ground over which one wanted to build a golf course.  I believe this was the birth of golf architecture.  Now golfing architecture has really become an art, and is so recognized, being akin to science.  As artists, architects certainly should not be classified as  golf professionals.   A golf architect must be a student of agriculture, understand nature, have a knowledge of soils, knowledge of implements, drainage, and above all the particular character of the lay-out which tantalizes the lover of the game and holds him spellbound.  

[Melvyn Morrow]

David

As for CBM, I have no problem with him in any way, I was responding to what had been said on this topic and reaffirming that IMO he was not the first GCA.

I am not into CBM in any big way, but my understanding is that after leaving Scotland to return home to the USA as a young lad (in the early 1870’s) he seems to have kept golf either under raps or at best hidden in the background of his life until the mid 1890’s. He then started writing to Scottish golfers who had knowledge of design to invite them over to America to take up positions as Professionals/ Green Keepers. Was it about this time that his interests resurfaced again re golf and in particular design.

On the subject of design when did he actually state his interest in design rather than playing the game. I do not recall any serious interest in design until the mid 1890’s although I may be totally wrong. If my understanding is right what did he do – Golf wise between the 1870 and 1890’s?

I can’t really comment much on CBM but as Jim mentioned “his plan for an ideal golf course in America was the first attempt at golf architecture” – I presume that he is only referring to America and not Scotland. Yet I would again feel CBM is some 10 years or so out of date as The Hunters had designed a course in Darien in the 1880’s, using the Prestwick/OTM principals which I presume again was the basic of CBM knowledge.

As for a Dark Age I am certainly not aware that there ever was one. I see the steady growth of golf throughout GB&I from the mid 1860’s through to the turn of the 20th Century when is accelerated even faster. From less than 30 course circa 1850 to 1,200-1,500 by the 1890’s to 2,500 courses and rising by 1905. Thereafter as I said it bloomed worldwide. No knowledge of any dark age, in fact it was boom time for designers in Scotland. As you know many Scottish designers travelled over not just GB&I at this time but also Europe, mainly following the rich British elite as they travelled to their summer retreats in Europe.

In part inland courses started due to the Earls and Landed Gentry wanting a course on their country estates i.e The Earl of Aberdeen home at Tarland, to the Lord De Saumarez on Guernsey, Sir Donald Currie home Garth House near Loch Tay.

Dark Ages, I call the period from the mid 1850-1899 the real Golden Age of Golf, it was all happening, the game was taking off , expanding, tens of thousands would be there to watch the Great Matches, The Opens and Tournaments. Steamers would take people to the islands to see and play golf. New courses planed, old course expanded  - why because it was The Dark Ages – no it was Golf’s Golden Age.     

Semantics – no far from it, this is the history of Golf, the modern start, the actual birth of Golf on to the world stage – Dark Age, Semantics – no  certainly not.

Melvyn