I don’t think CBM traded on their names in public, and I’ve never seen the 1904 agreement that was the basis for attracting them in print, outside of much later in his 1928 book. The inner workings of the club itself have never seemed to make their way into the public domain.
Jim,
For some reason the 1904 Founders Agreement that appears in Scotland's Gift is truncated.
In 1912 he sent another letter to the Founders, referring to what had been accomplished, but attaching a copy of the original agreement and referring to various sections of it.
After the sentence about proposing that each Founder would get "something" for their $1,000 investment, the last few paragraphs read, as follows;
"Assuming that we buy 200 acres, it would take about 110 acres to lay out the golf course proper, and five acres for a clubhouse and accessories. We would give to each subscriber an acre and a half of ground in fee simple. The ground in itself should be worth $500 an acre in the vicinity of a golf course of this character.
"Further than this it is proposed that each subscriber receive a $1,000 3% debenture bond. We would issue this so as to identify the holder, and make it a debenture bond so that it would not be a fixed charge. This debenture bond must be held so long as one is a member of the Founders, and in case of selling, it can only be sold to one who would be elected a member of the Founders."
"This is simply a suggestion. The details can be worked out later."
"As to the building of the golf course, it is well known that certain holes on certain links abroad are famous as being the best considering their various lengths. It is the object of this association to model each of the eighteen holes after the most famous ones abroad, so that each hole would be representative and classic in itself."
"Mr. Charles B. Macdonald will take charge of this matter and associate himself with two qualified golfers in America, making a committee of three capable of carrying out this general scheme. In the meantime, you are asked to subscribe and leave the matter entirely in his hands."
On other matters...
As regards the publication of the member's names, I find it somewhat odd that the one 1906 article written by HJ Whigham does in fact "name names", while an article from the same time period quoting Macdonald says the names of the Founders are being kept confidential at present. Perhaps they were just not on the same page, or perhaps one was doing what the other wasn't able to, at least publicly.
A few other questions I'm interested in...
1) What if anything do we know about the 120 acre property next to Shinnecock that Macdonald offered to buy before procuring the 200+ acres that encloses the present course?
2) Do we know if Seth Raynor was hired to do his survey of the NGLA property (and then other extended duties) before or after it was secured by Macdonald in November 1906?
George's book indicates that the property was "cleared" in conjunction with this event, so I'm thinking perhaps after, but am looking for clarification.
Thanks for any info anyone has that might clear this up.
Tom MacWood,
Please feel free to post those, or any other articles.
The ones I've posted here weren't easily searchable through most of the standard online databases like aafla.org, or Seagle's Electronic Library that the USGA provides.
If you think they contain important information that might not be widely generally known about the origins of NGLA, I'd certainly be happy for you to even link to them here so folks can benefit.
Thanks.