I admit to being all over the place when trying to measure someone’s contribution to the history of golf course architecture. Some days, I think folks like CB Macdonald and George Thomas who worked on twenty or so original designs had it right. Heck, maybe Crump, Wilson, and Fownes who designed even fewer but made them colossal achievements are more significant. At other times, I place more value on those architects that touched more lives. Donald Ross and AW Tillinghast spring to mind and so does James Braid after my reading of John Moreton (this month’s Feature Interviewee) and Iain Cumming’s newly released book James Braid and his Four Hundred Courses.
That’s right – 400 according to the authors! John and Iain break it down in the Introduction; 85 courses from scratch, expansion of 55 nine hole courses to 18, 90 reconstructions, including Carnoustie, 125+ courses with alterations and/or new bunker schemes, the list goes on! There wasn’t a lot of money in it at the time and one can only imagine the transportation snafus that Braid endured. Like Old Tom Morris, this was clearly a man who loved golf and gave back with every fiber of his being. I say this not even considering his great playing accomplishments – I am strictly talking about Braid and golf course architecture.
Motion sickness prevented him from traveling to North America like Colt, Parks, Fowler et al, so that your impression of him may be biased if you have not been privy to his UK portfolio. Personally, I admire his range and place two of his gems, Gleneagles and St. Enodoc in my own personal world top 100 (Brora once too when I was feeling really anti-manicure). Sean Arble’s In My Opinion piece on Pennard will have you double-timing it to Wales and one of the great surprises in my golf of the past five years is Fraserburgh in northeast Scottish. Next Braid for me is Perranporth in Cornwall but this new book offers plenty other appealing options.
John and Iain cover each and every course in a neatly organized format. Chapter 1, Philosophy, succinctly summarizes Braid’s design tenets more effectively than any single source which I am familiar. Chapter 2 is told in Braid’s own words, ‘….how golf had got a very firm grip on me.’ From there, we're off on a terrific read about a gentleman champion and his body of work.
Tony Muldoon made me aware of their update to John’s original 1996 Braid book. I ordered my copy from Grant Books in the UK and in 7 days, my grubby hands held it in North Carolina. Maybe some of John’s other works are still available; Philip Gawith alerted me to John’ s very fine Huntercombe centennial book years ago.
Hope you enjoy this month’s Feature Interview, which like last month’s, has me re-thinking a few things.
Best,