Lido Competion Announcement in 1914 and Tom Simpson's Drawing

[Sean_Tully]

Found some old issues of the UK Country Life Magazine and went looking for additional information on the original Lido Competition back in 1914. Found this announcement for the competition that includes the rules and a sample drawing. One very significant thing came up before the announcment for the winner of the Lido Competition---just three days before the announcement the First World War commenced! One week later Country Life included two more drawings that were entered in the competition. A third, drawn by Tom Simpson was also included in the article, but Simpson did not entire it because his partner--Herbert Fowler was a judge. Very cool.

Tully


Here is the announcement for the "Lido Competion."

Announcment of winner

[Sean_Tully]

Here is the article that includes Tom Simpson's drawing that he did not enter.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Great Sean - Always wonderful to see Simpson sketches that I haven't come across before...

[Tom_Doak]

Sean:

They actually BUILT the Simpson hole at Lido.  (I think it was the 15th hole.)  And they also built an adaptation of the second-prize hole submitted by Dr. Edmondson -- it was the 6th hole at Lido -- and I think it may have also been the origin of the hole at Tommy Tailer's course in Newport that was named "Raynor's Prize Dogleg".

[BCrosby]

Sean -

Thanks for posting the CL materials. Great to have them together in one place.

I actually prefer the 2nd and 3rd place holes to MacK's. They and Simpson's hole are simpler and (as mathematicians say) more elegant. I've always thought the MacK Prize hole was too busy.

Bob

[Patrick Kiser]

Sean,

Some outstanding stuff as always.  Thanks for posting and sharing.

[RJ_Daley]

I like the look and apparent idea behind the Chorley and Adams entry.

While tramping around some sand hills sites, I saw a few long and narrow, angular irregular depressions alongside flatish more open terrain that could be arranged for a hole corridor as depicted on Chorley and Adams.  It is sort of a bite-off drive with some trouble to the slicers if too far right and plenty of trouble in the depression if you bite-off too much.  Then arrange the greensite to award the daring shot flirting with the biteoff, and more challenging on the approach from the high right side.  

Nice share, Sean.

[Sean_Tully]

Tom-

Yes, it does look like they used the Simpson hole but reversed it! I also see another reference to the 2nd green having a double plateau green that was taken from one of the competition drawings. No specific mention of what plan they used. Looking at the other plans in the CL articles they don't seem to elaborate on the green contours. No other mention of design competition being used beyond those two from the July 1915 Golf Illustrated(US).

Note that there was a reference in the same GI issue that they recieved 80 entries for the design competition.

Tully



Here is the drawing that was drawn by Simpson for the Competition.

Here is the routing version that was at least drawn up from the Vanity Fair article on the Lido course from 1915.

[Tom_Doak]

Sean:

Interesting, I hadn't noticed that they flipped the drawing.  I just remember being very surprised when I first saw the aerial photo of Lido and that hole stuck out as being so different from anything of Macdonald's, and then putting two and two together.

Most likely they flipped the hole to direct the preferred route of play away from the 14th tee.  That part of the course was extremely tight.  If it was still in play today they would have all sorts of safety issues.

P.S.  Where did the routing drawing come from?  It looks like it actually has topo lines on it for some of the fills, such as on the Redan.  I've not seen that before.

[Craig Disher]

Following Simpson's plan to the letter would have placed the tee box in the lagoon. On a busy day this area of the course would have been chaotic.

[Phil Lipper]

Really interesting article about a golf course that has almost mystical qualities like the lost city of Atlantis.  The article had me thinking what other golf courses held design contests, and I wonder if that happened today what people would design.

[Sean_Tully]

Craig-

Just picked myself up off the floor! What is the date for that photo and any chance that we can see what the 18th hole finally looked like? Know that just prior to the property being used for training in WWII that the Greenskeeper took a bunch of photos so they could be used to "restore" the course after the war! Love to track those photos down!


Tom-

That drawing is from something I posted on GCA. Wonderful article on Lido by VANITY FAIR!!! I will send it along to you when I get a chance.

Phil-

Not many others that I am aware of. There was one for a course that Chick Evans designed that compared his drawing to he eventual winner. Still researching that one, so more to come.

Tully

[Joshua Pettit]

Tully,

I was just looking at that article last night!

Can you believe they dredged 2 million cubic yards of material!?

[Bill_McBride]

As a sidebar, there's a separate (and unfortunately truncated) article at the very bottom left of the piece discussing changes to the 6th and 12th greens of The Old Course!   The more things change.....

[Sean_Tully]

As a sidebar, there's a separate (and unfortunately truncated) article at the very bottom left of the piece discussing changes to the 6th and 12th greens of The Old Course!   The more things change.....

Bill-
Take another look, it continues on the top of the page.

Josh-

thanks for posting that. Great article from an interesting source! Gotta love the routing map.


Tully

[Sean_Tully]

Any thoughts on the sample drawing? Considering the judges, was this drawn by Fowler? Don't think that I have seen too many of his routing maps in his hand? Anyone have some good samples? Did Darwin ever dabble in design? Hutchinson wrote in A Few Leading Principles in Laying Out Links that one of his principles was that "there shall be no bunker right across the course except in a one-shot hole."

For me it seems like an example of what not to do!

[Niall C]

Sean

I don't think I've ever seen anything in Fowlers hand either. It occurred to me that it was possibly Simpsons own hand or alternatively that fo Charles Ambrose who was sort of the artist in residence for Country Life.

Re Darwin, he wrote a few articles in CL over the years that alluded to him dabbling in design but in that deprecatory way of his playing down the results. I know he did design a short pitch and putt course with JH Taylor for a competition as well as tailing along with Colt when he was advising on changes to Darwins beloved Aberdovey but apart from that not sure if he did any serious design.

Niall

[Sean_Tully]

Sean -

Thanks for posting the CL materials. Great to have them together in one place.

I actually prefer the 2nd and 3rd place holes to MacK's. They and Simpson's hole are simpler and (as mathematicians say) more elegant. I've always thought the MacK Prize hole was too busy.

Bob

Bob-

Agree that AM's drawing is pretty busy and not what most of his earlier drawing seems to depict. Interesting to note with the handful of drawings available to study that the two architects that we have drawings for have multiple tees depicted. Doesnt seem that much thought was put into the teeing ground by the armchair types. How much thought goes into tee placement then as compared to know? Also that all of the tee "boxes" are depicted as a box(s). Looking at some early photos of Alwoodley show a square tee at the 18th! Twenty years later at Cypress Point the tees have a more rounded and loose form compared to Alwoodley. Not sure about the timeframe for the photo of the square tee, but there it is.

Interesting.

Tully

[Sean_Tully]

Sean

I don't think I've ever seen anything in Fowlers hand either. It occurred to me that it was possibly Simpsons own hand or alternatively that fo Charles Ambrose who was sort of the artist in residence for Country Life.

Re Darwin, he wrote a few articles in CL over the years that alluded to him dabbling in design but in that deprecatory way of his playing down the results. I know he did design a short pitch and putt course with JH Taylor for a competition as well as tailing along with Colt when he was advising on changes to Darwins beloved Aberdovey but apart from that not sure if he did any serious design.

Niall

Niall-

Thanks for the background info! Good point about Ambrose, I have a article that he did with Max Behr that includes a drawing that I will have to go and track down!

Looking at the sample drawing on its design merits--it just strikes me as odd with a large center line++ that leaves little ground to play to off of the tee. There is slightly more room on the right side of the fwy to play a shot into the green that opens up from that angle. Anything left with a hole location middle to left of that green is a challenge and possibly to a blind shot from the fairway. Is there a hole in Fowler's career as a designer that bears any resemblance to this drawing? Walton Heath New was built around this time? West Kent GC and North Foreland GC as well. A side note from the West Kent website, Charles Darwin's home was off the 12th fairway and Bernhard Darwin wrote the clubs first club history. Pretty cool.

Tully