Are we having these same discussions over 100 years later? Seems like it. Weird.
Here is a cut and paste from Tom Macwood's "Crane and the Greater American Movement". I thought it might dovetail with your post Mike.
British golf vs. American golf, and its architectural offshoot. It was a discussion that had been going on for several years in a number of different forums. The first major confrontation came in 1917 with AW Tillinghast and JH Taylor. Taylor warned that American courses were becoming too severe, to which Tilly took exception, arguing modern Americans course although more testing were also fair and enjoyable to all classes of golfer. That more severe trend can be traced to Harry Vardon and Bernard Darwin’s criticisms of American courses a few years earlier. In 1914 Vardon wrote his infamous article ‘What’s Wrong with American Golf?,’ in which he suggested American golf was not progressing because American golf courses were weak. Darwin wrote a series of critical articles while covering the Vardon/Ray tour of 1913. Those articles were syndicated by American papers and generated quite a controversy, particularly in Chicago where he was most unflattering. The result was a design and redesign spree in Chicago in the aftermath by the likes of Colt, Ross, Watson, and others. The Chicago Tribune (10/3/1916) observed: “I am of the belief, although none of the men concerned admits it, that Darwin’s critical rejection of Chicago’s claims in 1913 served to whip the executives of the most pretentious clubs into the activities that have resulted in providing the district with the most wonderful group of high test golf courses the world has today.”
As editor of American Golf Illustrated Max Behr wrote this blunt commentary in July 1914:
“Vardon in a recent article in Everybody's Magazine places his finger upon the weak spot. After expressing the opinion that he noticed little improvement in American golf during the interim of fourteen years which separated his first visit to America from that of last year, he says:
‘This is not the fault of your golfers. They have not had the chance. It is the fault of those who are responsible for your courses. Because the American golfer is seldom put to a real test, he has not improved his game to any great extent. You have some good players over here, but they are not trained to play the right way. In other words, America is not getting as much out of its golf as it should. Your golfer can not play a proper game, because his course is not right.’
Is there anyone to doubt the truth of these words? With those who know what a real testing golf course is, there can be no difference of opinion with him. Our golf courses as a whole are far from good. In a sense they are no more than kindergartens upon which the beginner can only learn his alphabet. The shots presented him to play are the simplest, and even these he cannot become full master of, for, the complete absence in many instances of real obstacles to be avoided develops a loose and indecisive style, wholly unfit to wrestle successfully with the difficulties of a course designed to bring out the true beauties of the game. One of the most general criticisms of our style is the full swing taken in playing iron shots. What has developed this but unprotected greens? Then the general tendency to play for a pull has doubtless come about from the meadows we are given to drive into from the tee. This criticism is of course very general. We have a number of very fine courses, and a great number that are trapped in a fashion, but before anything in a big way can result a lot of missionary work will have to be done. If all the golfers of this country could play for a week upon the National Links at Southampton, L. I., they would then comprehend what a game golf is, and would not be satisfied until their courses were rounded out to give the best golf the natural lay of the ground was capable of.
Golf is the same as everything else in life. It is through the reaction of man upon his environment that development of character comes about, and in golf, it is the course that must either make him a strong and scientific player or develop habits of play which must prove his downfall when he is really called upon to play a difficult shot for which he has had no training. It is not at all necessary that all our courses should be championship tests. But it would be well if each one of them had a few holes at which the golfer would have to call all his resources into play.”
Obviously Behr amended his views later, but it is worth noting he was among the first calling for a more penal approach for American golf architecture. His plea, and others like it, would result in a new American movement in golf design. Donald Ross also got into the act, as seen in this article (written by Jerome Travers) regarding the consequences of Vardon’s criticism (Boston Globe 1/30/1916):
“Harry Vardon and other experts say that American course have been undertrapped and too sparsely bunkered and that to improve our golf we must add extra hazards and put a further tax upon a poorly played shot…If what Harry Vardon, Donald Ross and others have to say is correct, life for these hereafter will be just one bunker after another—an endless chain effect of earth thrown up and traps cut deeply.”
“’The object of golf now on’, says Donald Ross, who has laid out 72 American courses, ‘will be toward an even greater science of stroke. Deep traps will be placed down the center, so that the golfer must shoot either to the right or left. To play well a man must have a wide variety of shots. More and more he will be forced to use his head as well as his hands and arms. More and more the golfer will have to have control over the club to insure direction or meet certain trouble.’”