RFI: United States Golf Architects, Inc.

[Sven Nilsen]

I've been researching Stanley Pelchar and his involvement with a design firm called United States Golf Architects, Inc.  Pelchar worked with James Prendergast (engineer) and Otto Claus (landscape architect).

There are a number of small advertisements in Golfdom from the late 20's that reference the firm.  Today I found an ad from May 1929 that lists a number of the courses they built, including several I had not heard of before:

Beloit CC (Beloit, WI)
Lake Anna GC (Palos Park, IL)
Oneida Golf and Riding Club (Green Bay, WI)
Municipal GC (Beloit, WI) - this is the Kreuger course
Burnham Woods GC (Burnham, IL)
South Shore GC (Momence, IL) - attributed elsewhere to Willie Watson, aka Garden of Eden GC
Woman's CC (Waukegan, IL)
Palo Alto CC (Chicago, IL) - aka Walnut Hills GC?
Surprise Park Golf Y Boat Club (Cedar Lake, IN)

Does anyone have any additional information on Lake Anna, South Shore, Woman's CC and Palo Alto, including different names that these courses may have been known by?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Interesting in that when I started with Killian and Nugent in 1977, during the construction of Kemper Lakes, the construction manager was the Claus  Bros., probably a descendant of the original, but still named Otto.  Until now, I had not realized that connection.

Of course, Kemper hired them to do the entire corporate HQ for their landscape experience, but I bet their experience in golf had something to do with it.  In fact, they were responsible for hiring K and N for the course.  I think Packard was considered, but Claus wanted nothing to do with Wadsworth coming into "their turf" to build the course, and those two were closely affiliated at that time.

I have seen many of those courses above, although not for 30 years, and would add Nemadhi in Superior, WI to the Pelchar list.  A solid course, built with little fw grading on a flat site.  In many ways, just typical of mid level courses of the 1920's.

[Sven Nilsen]

Jeff:

The legacy of Otto Claus is a bit intriguing. 

In addition to US Golf Architects, I've found ads placed by American Park Builders (a well known entity), Frank MacDonald (located in Chicago), Leonard Macomber (also from Chicago) and George Davies (out of Louisville).  Despite the fact that the latter three were advertising in the most popular trade magazine of their day, the list of attributions for each doesn't suggest that they were overly successful in obtaining business (Macomber seeming to have had the most resonance in the historical record).

MacDonald did some work with Charles Maddox, but advertised his services under his own name. 

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the likes of Pelchar, Macomber, Davies and MacDonald were responsible for more than a few of the "mid-level" midwestern courses that remain as unknowns today. 

I also think the merits of each of their works is open to debate, and in certain cases possibly worthy of study.  The comments I've read about the renovation at Macomber's North Shore CC in Menasha, WI seem to suggest that he left a fairly solid course on the ground.  One wonders if perhaps the neglect that many of these mid-level courses suffered over the years combined with some mindless tinkering have dulled our opinions of what the "lesser-knowns" actually contributed to the genre in the early days.

Sven