Olmsted Golf and Country Club Projects Master List

[Kevin Mendik]

My work for the National Park Service has given me several occasions to conduct research at the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation (FRLA) in Brookline, MA. I recently was given a copy of The Master List of Design Projects by the Olmsted Firm 1857-1979. It contains a multi page section listing all the golf and country club projects undertaken by the firm and there are over 150 of them! The list notes whether plans were prepared and how many as well as the dates of correspondence and the Olmsted Job #. This is a tremendous resources which I have forwarded to the U.S.G.A. Museum folks as well as to various golf club historians. Many of the original plans are located at FRLA and although they will not run them through a scanner, the will take a professional quality high resolution photo that can then be reproduced in the exact size as the original. In most cases, this image is of far better quality except for those originals retained by the respective clubs. Research appointments can be made by contacting FRLA at http://www.nps.gov/frla/olmstedarchives.htm

[Joshua Pettit]

Thanks Kevin.  The Olmsted Archive is a great resource, and where I found the Augusta Approach & Putt Course drawing as well as many other Augusta related materials.  The curator of the collection was immensely helpful with my research efforts.  I was very surprised that the collection was largely untapped by golf historians -- glad that the word is getting out.