The Origins of Golf in the Shinnecock Hills, A Confused History

[MCirba]

I see, thanks. 

Was the 12 hole couse simply an addition of 3 new holes to the existing nine or an entirely different course?

[DMoriarty]

Thanks Sven,  I was actually going to pull up this thread myself for a different reason, but I'll get to that later.

Somewhere I have an account of the course from July of 1892 which indicates the course was 9 holes and lists hole yardages as identical to the Davis's original 9 hole course.  In 1892, John Cuthbert was the professional at Shinnecock (more on this later.)

Then Dunn arrived in the spring of 1893, and laid out his 12 hole course. Dunn's course was not just an addition of three holes.  His 12 hole course featured 8 new holes and included only four holes in the same approximate locations as Davis's 9 hole course.

Mike Cirba implies that maybe it was Davis who built the 12 hole course, because "certainly being located in Newport in those years he wasn't all that far away."  There is no contemporaneous evidence indicating that Davis ever returned to Shinnecock to replace his original 9 hole course with a 12 hole course. 

And Davis was not even in Newport in 1892. He was the professional at Royal Montreal.  According to Davis, while he did visit Newport in November in 1892, he did not begin work there until March 1, 1893.  In late 1893, Davis wrote of his early history at Newport and his encounters with Dunn, but he made no mention of returning to Shinnecock to revise the course, and, notably he did not take credit for the design at Shinnecock.

Dunn was hired at Shinnecock in the spring of 1893, and he reportedly lengthened the course that spring. Many years later, Dunn described having built the 12 hole course, "I laid out plans for twelve holes and started work with one hundred and fifty Indians from the reservation . . . ."

If there is any contemporaneous evidence that Davis designed and built the 12 hole course, I've never seen it.

[MCirba]

David,

I'm pretty sure I didn't imply anything other than ask Sven the question of how he determined the author of the 12 hole course from Joe Bausch's Davis obit article.  He answered by indicating the timing of Dunn coming to Shinnecock was early 1893, which was information separate from the obit but I now understand how he came to that conclusion.

Based on your additional information related to the 12 hole course, I find it interesting that perhaps more than any other property in the United States Shinnecock has possibly had more differing, distinct golf courses on that land than any other I can think of.   There was the Davis 9-hole original course, the Dunn 12-hole course with some Davis in there, and then the first 18 hole course (I'm not familiar enough with the evolution but was that just a 6 hole extension of the 12 hole course or another wholesale revamp?)

Then, the Macdonald Raynor course, which again I'm uncertain whether they used any of the Dunn holes on their course.  Finally, the William Flynn almost wholesale revision of the entire course which is what's still there today.   

[MCirba]

I don't have time to examine the routings in detail at this moment, but thought it might be helpful to share the 9 hole 1891 Shinnecock Routing, as well as the 1893 12 hole course and the 1895 expansion to 18.

[MCirba]

**EDIT**  It's been a long time since I looked at this thread and didn't recall that the map of the 9 hole course was produced on the first page.   Hopefully there's some value in looking at the maps together per my previous post.

[Sven Nilsen]

Copied below is the first reference I can find to the course having 12 holes.  The article notes the course was lengthened this year (1893), and it is a bit ambiguous as to whether that means it was lengthened to 12 holes, or if it had 12 holes with additional yardage being added thereto.

Additionally, the article confirms Dunn as the "green keeper and teacher of the game this season." 

New York Times - July 9, 1893

[MCirba]

Sven,

Thanks for the article. 

The earliest 1891 articles I've seen indicate that the 9 hole course was 2.5 miles.  Today I found one from 1892 indicating a 3 mile course.

I'm not sure if that was meaningful but wonder if the early mile long proposed "Ladies Course" designed in 1891 might not somehow factor into this question?

[DMoriarty]

Sven, Thanks for posting. I cited the same article above, in the thread. There is also an earlier NYTimes (May 27) which stated that "Mr. Dum" had been hired, but doesn't mention the changes.

I see what you are saying about the word "lengthened" but given that the course was listed as 9 holes in 1892, and given that Dunn later described planning and building the 12 hole course, and given that we have Dunn's map, dated 1893, I don't think there is much reasonable doubt that Dunn planned and built the 12 hole course in 1893.

[Sven Nilsen]

David:

I think you've described the most "logical" scenario from the information we have available.  There are other possibilities, including Dunn claiming the work of others, whether by Davis or John Cuthbert (see below confirming your 1892 date for his hiring).  Combining the information in the Davis letter you posted above, the hiring of Cuthbert in 1892 and the information regarding the course still having only 9 holes as of the summer of 1892, the expansion to 12 holes by Davis just doesn't add up. 

There are folks who might assert that the time period between Dunn's arrival and the opening of the new course was too short to allow for this to have been his work.  I'm not sure if we've exactly pinned down when he first arrived here, which may or may not coincide with when he was hired as Shinnecock's professional. 

I'd venture those folks may be overestimating the amount of work that went into building many very early US courses.  There are reports of courses being put into shape in very short order, and there are articles describing play on the very rough and unpolished state of early Shinnecock.  Even if Dunn did just arrive in late Spring of 1893 (assuming we're not reading a delayed reporting of his hiring), that leaves a time period of around 2 months for the work to have been done, certainly less time than Davis' initial 5 weeks on site.

In any case, I'm hoping that at some point the definitive story comes to light.  Shinnecock was the first "professionally" designed course in America, and as such holds a very important place in our understanding of how things were done back then, and is an important piece in figuring out the puzzle of how golf course design evolved in this country.

Sven

July 18, 1892 The Evening Post -

[Sven Nilsen]

Sven,

Thanks for the article. 

The earliest 1891 articles over seen indicate that the 9 hole course was 2.5 miles.  Today I found one from 1892 indicating a 3 mile course.

I'm not sure if that was meaningful but wonder if the early mile long proposed "Ladies Course" designed in 1891 might not somehow factor into this question?

Mike:


I've seen 1894 articles that note the 2 and 1/2 mile distance.  Not sure what significance it all holds, but it would be interesting to compare the distances of the holes of the 9 hole course (noted above in one of the articles) with those of the 12 hole course (not sure if I've seen those).


Sven

[DMoriarty]

Sven,  I think that is the same Cuthbert article I have. I wish we had more on him.

Recently Lee Patterson, who is doing some research for Stanmore GC, reached out with some additional information about John Cuthbert, as follows:
-1872 Born St Andrews.
-1891 Plays Open Championship as an amateur.
-1892 Club professional for one season Shinnecock Hills. (Mr. Patterson relied on my post for this info.)
-1893 Takes position as inaugural pro at Stanmore GC.
-1901 Founder member PGA.
-1902 Leaves U.K. to take position at Wellington Golf Club, New Zealand (wins NZ Open).
-1905 Returns to U.K to take position at Wrekin GC (formerly Wellington GC U.K. version)
-1907 Takes position at Rye GC.
-1914 Leaves Rye GC aged 42.

Thanks very much to Mr. Patterson for supplying this information.  (I may do a follow-up thread on Mr. Cuthbert at some point, or at least another request for additional information.)

Unfortunately, while interesting, this new information doesn't tell us much about Cuthbert at Shinnecock, except to confirm that he did indeed become a golf professional around this time, and that he was not at Shinnecock beyond 1892.

[MCirba]

Without going back through to see if this was previously uncovered information, I found a source that mentioned Willie Dunn arrived at Shinnecock in May of 1893, returned to France that winter, and repeated the same in 1894.   

I also may have missed the attribution of the 1893 drawing to Dunn; could anyone clarify the source?

Thanks for a fascinating discussion.

[MCirba]

As far as I can determine, that 1893 drawing is unattributed and first appeared in James Lee's 1895 book, "Golf In America".

Interestingly, it appears to contain 23 holes, with most of the northernmost holes likely the shorter Ladies' Course.

Didn't Raynor's father do an early contour map of the area if memory serves from prior discussions?  Also, one of the roads is titled Raynor Road.

What year was Dunn's course with the Biarritz in France completed?  It really is an odd story he recounted later in light of other known facts.

Thanks.

[DMoriarty]

The map was published in that book (and that is where the copy I posted came from) but as the book (and many other sources) acknowledge, the course was already 18 holes by the time the book was published.  The map is marked 1893, so my guess is that it is from 1893 and reflects Dunn's first effort.

The map does not depict 23 holes. It is Dunn's 12 hole course, plus the 9 hole women's course. 21 holes. This is covered in the thread above. (There was reportedly an earlier women's course on the other side of the tracks, this too is covered in the thread.)

The new course at Biarritz opened for play in December 1892.  Biarritz was a winter resort.  The timing of this opening fits perfectly with Dunn having come to the U.S. in the spring of 1893. This too is covered in the thread above. 

There is a lot of good information in the thread, you should give it a read.

[MCirba]

Thanks David.  There is indeed a lot of good information and it's an excellent thread in many respects and I've gone back to read as I've been able in a busy season.

I was simply trying to understand if that map had been definitively attributed as to its author. 

It really is a strange mystery.  With an elderly Parrish misattributing the earliest days to Dunn from Davis I wonder how much of the Dunn story years later is true? 

Thanks again.

[MCirba]

I hope this article is readable, but it's from July 18, 1892 in the NY Evening Post.   

A few things are interesting to this discussion and I hope they aren't redundant.   First, at this time it appears the club has purchased 80 acres and from the sounds of it, work is still ongoing on the golf course, including "clearing".   Additionally, John Cuthbert has been hired as the new pro and the course is claimed to be "some three miles in extent", which seems rather long for the nine hole course described the year prior laid out by Willie Davis.   The Davis nine-hole course was just under 1.5 miles in length.   Of course, that total number could include the Ladies Course but that seems a stretch due to the timing. 

I say that because the original Davis "Ladies Course" was described as well south of the Railroad tracks and even the 9 hole Davis course seems to extend much further south than the actual 75 acres that Shinnecock purchased in late 1891 (see maps with property lines above).   So, by definition, it seems that some adjustments to the course became necessary almost immediately after the season of 1891 and it sounds from this article that they were already at work on it by summer of 1892, prior to Dunn's arrival in the US.

[Sven Nilsen]

Mike:

As I noted above, there are reports from 1894 that the 12 hole course was 2.5 miles (one of them is copied below).  I wouldn't put much credence in that 3 mile report (which is the exact same article I posted above).

Sven

June 10, 1894 New York Tribune -

[DMoriarty]

Mike,  the article you posted was discussed in the initial posts, discussed and referenced in the discussion, and discussed and posted by Sven just a few posts above. "Redundant" is probably an accurate description.

As for the three mile length, Davis's 9 hole course, as played in 1892, was almost exactly three miles when played as an 18 hole course.  Earlier in the thread I referenced an article from 1892 wherein the hole lengths were provided, and they are the exact same hole lengths as the 1891 course. 

I've seen nothing indicating that Shinnecock's main course in 1892 was anything but Davis's 1891 layout.  If you have any evidence otherwise, I'd love to see it, but I suspect that you are here rehashing long discredited theories from posters past, and if so I'd suggest you come up with some evidence or give it a rest.

[MCirba]

David/Sven,

No problem, thanks.

Once again, I think it's a question of timing.   I do find it interesting that the land the club purchased in late 1891 did not include much land south of the Railroad tracks and therefore did not include holes 3, 4, and 5 of the course they had been playing that summer, nor did it include the nine-hole Ladies course.   Whether that land was unavailable for purchase or undesirable for golf based on experience is unknown.

Both the 1893 and 1895 maps seem to indicate the property line, with the 1895 one including some additional 60 acres of land west between the tracks and St. Andrews Road that had been purchased by the club in 1894.   

[Sven Nilsen]

Mike:


I'm not sure what significance you place on the 1891 purchase boundaries, as we know the course had 9 holes as late as mid-1892, and possibly later, and that the description of those 9 holes matches what we see on that 1891 map.


I can appreciate that the club figured out they'd need to alter the course early on, but it is the timing of that alteration that we are trying to decipher, not when the motivation for it first came about.


It remains a mystery to me, but I have yet to see anything placing Davis on Long Island after the 1892 reports of 9 holes, and nothing that would eliminate Dunn from having done the work that was first reported on in mid-1893.


I am open to acknowledging that the 12 hole version could have been the work of Davis, Cuthbert, Dunn or another unknown party.  I just haven't seen anything definitive that would suggest it was anyone other than Dunn.


Sven

[MCirba]

Sven,

I would agree with your overall assessment, although the "clearing" and "improvements" reported in the summer of 1892 suggests to me the possibility that was happening on land that was not part of the original Davis 9 holes but instead on new land acquired in the late 1891 75 acre purchase.  Thanks.

***EDIT*** I went back and read what Parrish wrote in his remembrances as transcribed by David on page one of this thread and he indicated that the land they originally purchased was the land of the 9 hole golf course, as follows.   Based on the 1891 and 1893 drawings, this seems unlikely;

At a meeting of the Trustees held on September 5, 1891,
 the officers of the Club were authorized to accept the offer of the
 Long Island Improvement Co. to sell from 75 to 80 acres of land,
 on the Shinnecock Hills for the sum of $2500, the golf course having been already laid out on the land.


[Sven Nilsen]

Mike:


Following up on the distance question, go back and reread the June 20, 1892 article posted above, which notes a 9 hole course of 2 miles.


Sven

[MCirba]

Mike:


Following up on the distance question, go back and reread the June 20, 1892 article posted above, which notes a 9 hole course of 2 miles.


Sven

Sven,

I do see that, although when measured the nine-hole course is slightly less than 1.5 miles.

What do you make of the boundary shift between the land of the nine hole course extending well below the tracks and the land ultimately purchased?  We can obviously only speculate but it seems clear that by the end of 1891 the lands north and northwest of the 9 hole course seemed more desirable and the lands below the tracks less so.   Whether that was because of availability or suitableness for golf is again a matter of speculation at this point.

[Sven Nilsen]

Mike:


I choose not to speculate on the boundary shift.


Instead, I'm focused on the reports that the course had 9 holes in 1892.


Sven

[MCirba]

No real need to speculate pointlessly but it's undeniably odd for a club to purchase land where they hadn't been playing golf on all summer and fall while not purchasing land where they had been.