Letter, primary sources from White Bear historian strongly suggest Ross design!

[TEPaul]

"I hate to be a Flemma, but the name is Edward Sayres, not Richard Sayers."


Thanks for pointing that out. It is Edward Sayres, the long time secretary of MCC and soon to be its president when he gave that speech that so impressed MCC they asked him to publish it. Richard Sayers is a friend of mine who was the president of Huntingdon Valley GC a few years ago.  



" If you want to talk about your article, why don't you start a thread?"


Because I'm also talking about William Watson who some believe is arguably the architect, or one of them, of the White Bear Yacht Club golf course, the subject of this particular thread!  

Frankly, I very much agree with Tom MacWood's post #89 that Willie Watson was most definitely no slouch and if this kind of perhaps sideline discussion about him and his heritage and what it might mean and might have meant back then can be of some interest and help to Mark Mammel and White Bear Yacht Club and its history then I think it has some interest and importance to this particular thread and perhaps to Mark Mammel.

Actually, most of whatever I know about Willie Watson came from the Californians; TommyN, Geoff Shackelford, Dan Wexler years ago and more recently David Stamm. But if some petty research competition is what you're into promoting on here, then go for it Little Man! 

[DMoriarty]

"I hate to be a Flemma, but the name is Edward Sayres, not Richard Sayers."


Thanks for pointing that out. It is Edward Sayres, the long time secretary of MCC and soon to be its president when he gave that speech that so impressed MCC they asked him to publish it. Richard Sayers is a friend of mine who was the president of Huntingdon Valley GC a few years ago.  



" If you want to talk about your article, why don't you start a thread?"


Because I'm also talking about William Watson who some believe is arguably the architect, or one of them, of the White Bear Yacht Club golf course, the subject of this particular thread!  

Frankly, I very much agree with Tom MacWood's post #89 that Willie Watson was most definitely no slouch and if this kind of perhaps sideline discussion about him and his heritage and what it might mean and might have meant back then can be of some interest and help to Mark Mammel and White Bear Yacht Club and its history then I think it has some interest and importance to this particular thread and perhaps to Mark Mammel.

Actually, most of whatever I know about Willie Watson came from the Californians; TommyN, Geoff Shackelford, Dan Wexler years ago and more recently David Stamm. But if some petty research competition is what you're into promoting on here, then go for it Little Man!  

Deja vu all over again.  

[Tom MacWood]

"TEP
I'm not interested in guessing what word you're referring to."


Tom MacWood:

Then don't guess; no problem. I'm referring to the word gentleman in that 1900 Sante Fe RR article you posted that you claim is some so-called "promotional" piece. Do you think the mention and use of that term (word) to describe Willie Watson was coincidental and used as just some vaguely amorphous term that we may tend to use today or do you think it implied and intended to imply some deeper and more complex social and cultural implication and meaning that was far more prevalent during that time, and very much including in the world of golf back then?

Is it merely coincidental that Richard Sayers in his speech to MCC on its 50th anniversary in the early teens seemed to focus on that word and term almost as the theme, explanation or even definition of the ethos of the club itself that he believed was fundamentally necessary to preserve? However, with Sayers' speech the word and term seemed to be practically synonymous with amateurism and the avoidance of any hint of professionalism or commercialism in the ethos of the club (both terms he also used in his speech). The supplementary and seemingly synonymous term to him and in that particular time and place to the words gentleman and amateur, in sport, appears to be "sportsman."

I'm particularly interested because I just wrote an article in the Walker Cup program entitled "Merion's Hugh I. Wilson and the Era of the Amateur/Sportsman Architect" and this kind of thing is part of the theme of the article and the ethos of various places and people of that early time.

It seems to me the use of the word and term in that 1900 Santa Fe RR promotional article in referring to Willie Watson (probably because his father appears to have been a prominent business man (your description of him, by the way) belonged to the R&A and Willie attended St. Andrews University wholly unlike any other of those early Scot/English immigrant golf teachers, professionals, greenkeepers, clubmakers, part time architects) despite the fact that he was a professional, was some attempt to meld those two social and cultural worlds together which at that time they largely were not!

I feel the use of that term for Watson in that Santa Fe RR piece is an example and affirmation of the theme of that Walker Cup article describing that time and the so-called "amateur/sportsman" architect (as distinct from the professional) of that early time; Should I remind you that more than once when I have used that term on here you have referred to it as 'my schtick?'   I don't think so; I think it was very real back then and a whole lot more prevalent than some to perhaps most today may realize or even wish to admit. My point is that at least in that interesting era of the "amateur/sportsman" architect, a few of which produced such notable courses over time, it was very real and likely was part of the reason they chose to go about their projects the way some of them did!

The other fascinating thing to me is not just that it existed as it did and when it did but it also seems to have come to a fairly abrupt end at a particular time for reasons that are perhaps even more interesting and important in the evolution of American golf and architecture.

Huh? Talk about jamming a square peg into a round hole.

[TEPaul]

Tom:

Thank you but isn't that the same thing as my post #96? Can I assume I can be totally surprised in that you actually read it and understood it or is that still too much to ask?  Perhaps I should post it a few more times.

By the way, I was corrected. It's not Richard Sayres (who is a friend who was the president of HVGC), it's Edward Sayres! 

[TEPaul]

"Huh? Talk about jamming a square peg into a round hole."


Hmmm! Would you care to elaborate on that or is that too much to ask? 

Would it be jamming a square peg into a round hole if I started a separate thread about it which I mentioned to you a few times today on this thread and which you seem to have conveniently ignored and neglected to answer each time?

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
I don't understand your need to include Watson in your already all-encompassing overly simplistic characterization of amateur golf architects -  he was completely unique. The only reason you place these poor fellows in your ambiguous classification is because you don't have the where-with-all to uncover and celebrate their individualism.

[TEPaul]

"TEP
I don't understand your need to include Watson in your already all-encompassing overly simplistic characterization of amateur golf architects -  he was completely unique. The only reason you place these poor fellows in your ambiguous classification is because you don't have the where-with-all to uncover and celebrate their individualism."


Tom MacWood:

Thank you so much for that statement! I feel it gives me so much to respond to that I believe is fundamentally important to a really great discussion on the evolution of golf course architecture (both general and specific) and its multifarious golf course architects. If I do respond to it would you at least agree to consider that response (responses) and try to engage in the discussion?

A simple yes or no answer will suffice for now and then I really will get into it if you say yes. I think you'll be both interested and gratified by the resulting discussion. Unfortunately, I fear YOU are intimidated by this type of subject at this time, and have been for a number of years for a variety of reasons (that I find more and more both fascinating and perplexing about you) but nevertheless if you do agree to just engage I think you will see both the benefit and education of it and in it.

It has occured to me that you just may not be capable of doing this for some reason but I very sincerely hope I am wrong about that. Please show me that I am wrong about that.

ENGAGE Tom MacWood! I'm not talking here about merely spewing out raw research material. What I'm talking about is both a specific and comprehensive method of ANALYZING a lot of what we already have before us with the entire history and tapestry of golf architecture and its architects over time----some truly unique and obviously some not.

[DMoriarty]

"TEP
I don't understand your need to include Watson in your already all-encompassing overly simplistic characterization of amateur golf architects -  he was completely unique. The only reason you place these poor fellows in your ambiguous classification is because you don't have the where-with-all to uncover and celebrate their individualism."


Tom MacWood:

Thank you so much for that statement! I feel it gives me so much to respond to that I believe is fundamentally important to a really great discussion on the evolution of golf course architecture (both general and specific) and its multifarious golf course architects. If I do respond to it would you at least agree to consider that response (responses) and try to engage in the discussion?

A simple yes or no answer will suffice for now and then I really will get into it if you say yes. I think you'll be both interested and gratified by the resulting discussion. Unfortunately, I fear YOU are intimidated by this type of subject at this time, and have been for a number of years for a variety of reasons (that I find more and more both fascinating and perplexing about you) but nevertheless if you do agree to just engage I think you will see both the benefit and education of it and in it.

It has occured to me that you just may not be capable of doing this for some reason but I very sincerely hope I am wrong about that. Please show me that I am wrong about that.

ENGAGE Tom MacWood! I'm not talking here about merely spewing out raw research material. What I'm talking about is both a specific and comprehensive method of ANALYZING a lot of what we already have before us with the entire history and tapestry of golf architecture and its architects over time----some truly unique and obviously some not.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any more pathetic . . .

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
I don't consider your jamming together desperate individuals into an ambiguous category very good analysis. What purpose does it serve? What can we learn about golf architecture history or these individual architects if you continually try to group these gents into an uninstructive category?

This Watson-Wilson connection is bizarre. William Watson and Hugh Wilson have about as much in common as you and I. William Watson grew up at the home of golf, Wilson grew up in NJ. William Watson was an immigrant, Wilson was not. William Watson was a golf professional, Wilson sold insurance. William Watson was one of the most prolific golf architects in American history, Wilson was not. William Watson's design career spanned five decades, Wilson's career was brief. William Watson designed golf courses from NY to California and everywhere in between, Wilson did not. Hugh Wilson often collaborated with others, Watson was for the most part a solo artist.

Analysis without a broad understanding of the facts is worthless analysis IMO. I believe that is what you are engaged in. One of the reasons I find golf architecture history so fascinating is the unique individualism of the architects. We should be trying to uncover more about these individuals rather than trying to place a name in some neat, artificial and uninstructive package.

By the way, you should post your amateur/sportsman article as an IMO piece.

[TEPaul]

*

[DMoriarty]

Tom Paul,

As I said above this has nothing to do with this thread but is just another pathetic attempt by you to turn this into a conversation about your latest pet issue, where others do all the work and you randomly pontificate about things you know little about.   You should take it somewhere else.   And whereever it is that you chose to take it, hopefully Tom MacWood will have the good sense not to follow you given that your basic premise is obviously wrong and based on romanticized and unsupportable legends as opposed to actual facts.  

[Jim_Kennedy]

So what should we do; should we deny and ignore the reality of it back then and just hunt around in old newspaper articles for the mention of those journeymen immigrant Scot/English professionals to suggest they were actually the ones who did it for them and that some of those few famous amateur/sportsmen icons were only myths who were promoted to idolatry to dismiss and minimize the less fortunate socially or culturally?-TEPaul

David,
This sentence/paragraph by TEPaul says it all. I think he has a hard time accepting the fact that these early professionals had such a big hand in prominent architecture.

[TEPaul]

Jim Kennedy:

"Any golfer conversant with the golf courses abroad and the best we have in America, which are generally conceded to be Garden City, Myopia, and the Chicago Golf Club, knows that in America as yet we have no first class golf course comparable with the classic golf courses of Great Britain and Ireland."
C.B. Macdonald, 1904

We also know what his opinion of Merion East and Pine Valley was because we have those quotations of his. We can also be pretty confident of his opinion of NGLA. All the products of those so-called amateur/sportsman architects!

As a precursor to all this he wrote in 1897:

“The ideal first class golf links has yet to be selected and the course laid out in America…….a first-class course can only be made in time. It must develop. The proper distance between the holes, the shrewd placing of bunkers and other hazards, the perfecting of putting greens, all must evolve by a process of growth and it requires study and patience.”

And later on the state of most early American golf architecture:

"It makes the very soul of golf shriek."

What he wrote was the method of study, evolution, and patience utilized by those famous amateur/sportsmen architects of that early time mentioned with their years long "special" projects---eg Leeds (Myopia), Emmet/Travis (GCGC), the Fownses (Oakmont), NGLA, Wilson (Merion East) and Crump (Pine Valley) and not their counterparts of that time who were generally multi-tasking professional golfer/golf teacher/club-maker/greenkeeper/part time architects who were generally in and out of those early projects in a day or two with minimal pay!

He was there, that's for sure and consequently I figure he probably knew a whole lot more about what was going on back then than you and that other delusional character you just addressed your last post to. I'd prefer to take his word for it and his opinion on it rather than yours. But hey, that's just me, I guess. Anyone on here is certainly welcome to their own opinion about it no matter what it is; no big deal really; it's only the factual history of early American golf course architecture!

[DMoriarty]

David,
This sentence/paragraph by TEPaul says it all. I think he has a hard time accepting the fact that these early professionals had such a big hand in prominent architecture.

No doubt.  I think he views himself as some sort of a progenitor and protector of these society legends, and takes personal umbrage to facts suggesting that anyone but a blue blood was involved.  Why else would he get so excited about someone like Watson (who TEPaul can try to twist into the blue blood mold), or so upset when facts establish that others of less social standing played a major role in all of this?  (Remember to TEPaul not even CBM was a true blue blood, but was a few rungs below.)  I

t is like he needs these legends to validate his own self-worth, as if all he has to stand on in life are the shoulders of the long dead and the stories told about them in parlors up and down the Eastern seaboard.  

But whatever the reason, it has long grown stale and cold, like the legends he continuously props up.    He should take it somewhere else, and quit mucking up otherwise interesting threads.   I want nothing to do with him and his delusions of the past grandeur.

[TEPaul]

!

[DMoriarty]

As usual you miss the point.   I've nothing against those men or that generation.  They were nothing like you.

But this is a thread about White Bear.  Why don't you take your narcissistic ramblings elsewhere? 

[Jim_Kennedy]

A quick look back on this thread will show where the first jab was thrown (reply #19), then the second and longer jab (reply #43), and finally, where the fight in the prison yard really began (reply #63)

Prior to these posts there were a couple of flea flickers which weren't really bothering anyone, and the sparring was going along nicely. Why it couldn't have remained so is no mystery, it's pretty clear to me that prisoner #36,432 (at this writing) wasn't happy so he finally brought out his shiv and threatened to shank anyone who disagreed with him, especially prisoner #834 (prisoner #834 was paroled some time ago, but he is a recidivist).  

Hopefully we can come up with enough cigarettes to bribe prisoner #36,431(still) into silence and make a good impression on the Dr. when he enters the cellblock.  

[Patrick Hodgdon]

Is this what all the old Merion threads are like? If so, egads! Can we get back to WBYC? Or at least Watson and Ross?

[RJ_Daley]

Is this what all the old Merion threads are like? If so, egads! Can we get back to WBYC? Or at least Watson and Ross?

Patrick, a damn fair set of questions you ask.  The first part of the question is, yes;  the second part of the question is, probably not all the way back to just WBYC now;  and the third part of the question is, they couldn't get back to posting just the facts they have gleaned about any two archies, without a catfight.

[TEPaul]

RJ:

As for the first part, I agree with you. As for the second and third part, having read through this thread, I'd go with Tom Doak's position and I also note shortly after his position he started a thread entitled "Off the Radar Screen for Awhile" because he's off around the world! 

[DMoriarty]

Patrick,

I think Tom MacWood has emailed Dr. Mammel quite a lot of information on the origins of the WBYC golf course and I have emailed him a few tangentially related items as well.  Not sure what else there is to say about the origins of the course until more new information is discovered or at least until Dr. Mammel has a chance to review the information in conjunction with whatever additional information he has available.   Dr. Mammel mentioned he was still looking into the origins of the story about the 1910 Sunday lunch with Ross, and I hope he will let us know if he figures it out.

As for the rest, I hope at some point we can have an actual discussion on Watson's work without it digressing into something else, but that may be best left to another thread.   

[Tom MacWood]

I found this article the other day which relates to the origins of White Bear YC.

[Rick Shefchik]

Tom,

This link no longer works. Would it be possible for you to post it again? Thanks.

[Tom MacWood]

Unfortunately, since they updated the site, I have no ability to post images. IM me your email address.