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Sven Nilsen

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Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« on: March 16, 2014, 02:26:04 PM »
The following article is from Outing magazine in 1922.  In the article, Barton gives his reasons for moving from academia to GCA.

One item of note in the article is the description of a golf course in New Mexico designed by Barton while he was teaching at the University.  I don't have a good sense of exactly when this would have been done, or exactly where (guessing somewhere around Albuquerque), but the timing would definitely precede his time in Minnesota which I believe stretches back as early as 1914.



"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

Bill Brightly

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Re: Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« Reply #1 on: March 16, 2014, 03:19:00 PM »
Interesting read. Thanks for posting, Sven.

Sven Nilsen

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Re: Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2014, 12:49:04 PM »
Barton ended his career by working in New England, and I suspect there are a good number of courses in the area that he worked on that we don't know about as of yet.

Two examples are Androscoggin Valley CC in New Hampshire and Norway CC in Maine.  I could find no mention of Barton on either course's website, and noted that AVCC underwent a recent renovation.  One wonders if the reno might have been approached differently if they were aware of the true pedigree of the course.  In any case, there might be a fairly untouched example of his work sitting on the 9 hole course in Maine.

AVCC (The Lewiston Daily Sun - May 23, 1936) -



Norway CC (The Lewiston Daily Sun - May 19, 1936) -

"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

Charlie Gallagher

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Re: Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2014, 02:16:10 PM »
Sven
   Barton designed the original 9 holes at Concord Country Club in Concord NH. I believe Geoff Cornish did nine more in the early 1970's and the two nines were integrated into the 18 there now. Barton's holes are 1,2,3,4,5,8,9,17 and 18. I really enjoy the character of his greens there, they are more interesting than the Cornish ones.
Hole 4, a long down hill par 3 has been redone entirely, except for the tee. Hole 8 had a very tricky convex green that has been redone.
  Barton did some consulting work at Laconia Country Club after it was built  by Wayne Stiles in 1922. I have seen a routing map he produced. How much of his work, if any, was incorporated, I can't  say. Laconia Country Club's club house burned to the ground in the early 70's and I believe club records were destroyed.  That course has been completely redone by Phil Wogan, though much of the original routing is still used.
  I don't know if that is useful to you, you may already know that info, but it does show Barton was a presence in NH.

Rick Shefchik

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Re: Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2014, 01:37:14 PM »
I've been doing research on Barton for a couple of years, and I can fill in a little more of his background. He was born in Newport, N.H., in 1875, and attended Harvard and the University of Chicago before completing his undergraduate degree at Dartmouth in 1904, at the age of 29. By that time he was married (to the first of his three wives, all of whom died while married to Barton) and had already been hired as a mathematics instructor by the college, the only undergrad ever to serve on the Dartmouth faculty.

He taught math there until 1912, when he left to become dean of civil engineering at the University of New Mexico. In 1913 he became math professor at Lombard College, and in 1914 he was dean and acting president at Lombard. He moved to the University of Minnesota in 1916, just at the time a group of U. of M. professors and administrators were establishing a 9-hole golf course at Larpenteur and Cleveland Avenues in St. Paul. Barton became a prominent member of the group, partly because of his experience working on the grounds crew at Hanover Country Club while a Dartmouth student. When the University group lost the lease on their 9-hole course, they found a nearby farm on which to build a new 18-hole course and form a private club. They ended up calling their club Midland Hills, and Barton headed the committee that hired Seth Raynor to design their course (they wanted Ross, who rebuffed frequent requests by Midland Hills to take the job; Raynor was building Somerset C.C. in nearby Mendota Heights, so Midland "settled" for Raynor.)

Barton was put in charge of organizing the work crews to build Raynor's design at Midland Hills, and did such a good job that Raynor hired him as a fulltime associate. Barton hesitated a bit before leaving the teaching field; he offered to stay and see the Midland Hills course through to completion if the club would match Raynor's salary offer, but the club declined. Barton almost immediately went to work on Mid Ocean with Raynor, and then Yale.

Barton's writing demonstrates him to be a proud, creative and thoughtful man; how much he really contributed to Mid Ocean and Yale is something we'll never know, but to the end of his days he insisted he didn't get the credit for those courses that he rightfully deserved. I never got the chance to ask George Bahto about Barton's claims, and though I'm pretty sure I know what George would have said, I'd have enjoyed the conversation.

The Barton design that interests me the most now is his 9-hole course at Hanover Country Club, opened in 1932. It was closed in 1970, the year I arrived in Hanover, because of highway construction, but remained in use as a practice course. I never used it at the time, and had no inkling of who Barton was, but last year I walked the remaining five holes on the east side of Lyme Road, and found what looked to be some very good design elements, particularly a couple of greens benched into hillsides. Jack Nicklaus is said to have called it the finest practice facility he'd ever seen, and I was told that Tom Doak once spent a good amount of time admiring those old holes (I hope Tom might confirm or deny that here.) Ron Prichard was eventually hired to renovate the original 18 holes at HCC; he would have liked to have used some of Barton's nine-hole course, but the college would have insisted on a tunnel or a bridge over Lyme Road, and there wasn't enough money to do that.

Barton donated his work on HCC's 9-hole course to the college. The course was highly regarded at the time, but his luck was never very good. By 1932 the bottom was dropping out of the golf course architecture business; he spent the last years of his life working for the New Hampshire Highway Department. I suspect a potentially great career was lost.

  
« Last Edit: March 23, 2014, 06:06:29 PM by Rick Shefchik »
"Golf is 20 percent mechanics and technique. The other 80 percent is philosophy, humor, tragedy, romance, melodrama, companionship, camaraderie, cussedness and conversation." - Grantland Rice

Sven Nilsen

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Re: Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2014, 02:06:29 PM »
Rick:

Any thoughts on what the "rough" course built by Barton that developed into a fine institution was in New Mexico?

Sven
"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross

Rick Shefchik

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Re: Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2014, 02:09:55 PM »
Here are a few photos of Barton's 9-hole course at Hanover Country Club. The holes are minimally maintained now, but players still go across the road to work on their games there.

Here's the 290-yard 4th hole:



They only mow the 340-yard 5th hole once or twice a year:



The 540-yard 7th looks like it was quite a hole:



From behind the 7th green:



Tee shot on the 345-yard 8th hole:



Approach shot to #8:



Barton's original design for the course. Holes 1, 2 and 9 grew over long ago; that land is presently used for HCC's new 16th and 17th holes, built by Ron Prichard in 2001:

"Golf is 20 percent mechanics and technique. The other 80 percent is philosophy, humor, tragedy, romance, melodrama, companionship, camaraderie, cussedness and conversation." - Grantland Rice

Rick Shefchik

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Re: Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2014, 02:13:39 PM »
Sven, I haven't come across any information about Barton's year in New Mexico. I did find it interesting, though, that in addition to teaching math there, he was the dean of the civil engineering school. I don't where he picked up that expertise, but it came in handy later.
"Golf is 20 percent mechanics and technique. The other 80 percent is philosophy, humor, tragedy, romance, melodrama, companionship, camaraderie, cussedness and conversation." - Grantland Rice

Brad Tufts

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Re: Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2014, 03:39:35 PM »
Love GCA for this stuff.

Always been curious about Barton for his role in the Raynor career, and because of my quasi-association with Hanover CC golf over the years.

I attended Nike golf camp at Dartmouth at 15 in 1995, and played the old layout and the practice holes many times that week.  Looking back, the practice holes might have been the highlight.  As my GCA knowledge grew a bit, I heard of Barton's role, and enjoyed the fact that some of his holes were still in play.  I even walked off piste a couple times into a couple adjacent yards, as I was convinced one of Barton's earthworks was located in the back yard adjacent to the "rarely-mowed" (sad!) hole above.

Unfortunately my ability level out of HS was not of Dartmouth Golf Team standards, so I went D3.  Luckily for me, my wife went to Tuck 05-07, so I was fortunate to play the Pritchard 18 many times and the practice holes a few times as well.

The Barton 9 plan above is really great stuff.  Is one of those holes inside the ravine?!?!  The new Pritchard #17 is all kinds of awkward, but it looks like that area drove Barton's plan nuts too.  I can't wait to get the current aerial and plot a few of those holes and see where they were.

Today's course is certainly better than the old 18-hole layout, but still contains quite a bit of quirk and old New England charm.  These REALLY neat stories make the place truly great...and we haven't even mentioned the 1st tee/2nd green/3rd tee backing up to one of the greatest pond hockey locations in North America!!
So I jump ship in Hong Kong....

Dave Herrick

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Re: Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2014, 05:29:57 PM »
I was reading the recent thread about what courses were the first played by members of the Discussion Group, which led me to ponder my first course. I am reasonably sure that it was the Hanover CC 9 hole course, which I played while taking golf lessons my freshman year at the college in the spring of 1968.
I was back in Hanover a few years ago and took a couple of hours to wander around the practice holes. It was a bit frustrating to me not to be able to recall the precise routing or to remember clearly the look of the holes which are no longer there. Thanks, Rick, for providing the map. I do recall that the 1st tee was just off the left side of the 18th hole of the Pritchard course, perched above the Vale of Tempe. The tee shot was down into the valley, through which the first fairway coursed.
The 9 hole course provided a wonderful introduction to the game. One could go out early in the morning and learn the game without feeling any pressure from other golfers. I am saddened that the course is no longer there.

herrstein

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Re: Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« Reply #10 on: July 08, 2014, 09:52:07 PM »
Reading this for the first time, I realize that Ralph Barton was at Lookout Mountain, or so I recall a newspaper clipping reported. I'll try to find it. I am intrigued to know more about his role with Raynor.

Nigel Islam

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Re: Ralph Barton - His history in his own words.
« Reply #11 on: July 09, 2014, 12:30:51 AM »
Did Barton uses templates in any of his solo work?