Most of this discussion is in a US context, however as far as the UK is concerned there were professional golf course architects from the 19th century starting probably with Old Tom or possibly even Allan Robertson (Carnoustie), even though their design fees probably only made up a small proportion of their income.
Others in that mould include Willie Fernie who probably was the main man for course design in the west of Scotland, Archie Simpson in the north and Willie Park through in the east, all from the late 1800’s onwards. Considering that all these gentlemen travelled considerable distances in the days when travel wasn’t nearly as quick, cheap and easy as it is now you have to assume they were well compensated for their efforts.
Going into the early 1900’s you had notably James Braid who was quite prolific while holding down a “day job” as well as numerous other golf professionals who turned their hand to course design. To that list you could probably add sundry greenkeeper professionals such as Peter Lees, John Tulloch, John Gaunt and Hawtree.
As to who the first non-golf professional architect who got paid such that they were earning a decent income then I think Sean is right in that it probably was Harry Colt who you have to think must have been getting some decent commissions to leave a secure job (1902 from memory). Colt and probably Harold Hilton and Fowler after him were maybe the first to challenge professional golfers in terms of competing for design commissions, a fact that didn’t go unchallenged.
Harry Fulford, a noted professional who also wrote for one of the golf mags, was the main protagonist who wrote decrying Colt and others (Colt was the only one that Fulford identified by name) for taking money from professionals by taking on design commissions. His argument was that in doing so guys like Colt and others were infringing on their amateur status. The stooshie that this caused lead to much debate as to what constituted an amateur golfer and therefore what impinged amateur status. It was eventually decided that course design wasn’t an infringement (Colt, Fowler etc) and neither was being paid to write about golf (Hilton, Low etc). Given that the decision rested with the R&A and most if not all of these guys were members of the R&A including the Rules of Golf Committee, then you’ve got to think the result probably wasn’t in doubt !
From memory that was about the last part of the first decade. At or about the same time I think there was a similar discussion going on in the US which I think adopted a stricter line.
That Colt was well established before WW1, there is no doubt and indeed he even did designs abroad in US and I think Canada. MacKenzie also was well established and while I can’t recall off hand when he eventually stepped back from his doctors practice I’m fairly sure it was pre WW1. Copies of the Golfers Handbook pre WW1 and after show that they were advertising their services as were others such as Simpson, Fowler, Abercrombie etc a couple of years after WW1.
With regards to the discussion of GCA’s and associated construction companies, a lot of these guys had their preferred contractor and MacKenzie’s favoured approach seemed to be “here’s the design, do with it what you will but if you want my advice the best results are obtained by the architect working with and supervising the contractor, and by the way can I introduce my brother who has a golf course construction company…….” .
As for professional associations, Simpson set up a golf course architects association in the 1920’s which was supposed to have a global reach and he roped in MacKenzie and others but I think it was short lived as probably by that time many of the other guys in the profession seemed to think he was bonkers. Anyway I don’t have the stated aims to hand but I think it can be assumed it was a fairly self-serving organisation.
Niall