Early American routing - All in a day's work?

[John Connolly]

Tom Bendelow was considered, rightly or wrongly, the "fastest gun in the west" when it came to laying out his courses. How long did it really take him to get 18 flags in the ground? And in general, how long did it take early designers to route the "steeplechase" kind of course of the late 1800's?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Didn't Old Tom have a few one day staking visits even earlier?

[John Connolly]

I'm not sure and is the heart of my question. At some point in architecture's evolution, and to this day, layout planning became more sophisticated and was more heavily contemplated. My guess is early on, in the States anyway, maybe not so much. Maybe Old Tom wasn't the only one to have it mapped before his noon tea was poured.

[Tom_Doak]

I'm sure it didn't take too long.  They were generally building new courses on open parkland, so it was easy to see where they were going and what the terrain was like.  And they weren't too fussy about the pacing of the holes, they were just trying to vary the lengths.  That would be easy to do in a day.

The stories of Herbert Fowler at Walton Heath are more involved, but he had to work from horseback as it was impossible to see over the bushes otherwise.

[Sven Nilsen]

John:

I'd caution against using too broad a brush to describe the design techniques of that era.  There were certainly courses that were laid out expediently, but at the same time, there were courses where the architect spent time studying the land and worked out a routing over a longer period of time.

Bendelow himself had differing levels of effort on different courses.  It is claimed that he and Travis laid out Flushing in an afternoon.  At Staten Island, he worked out an 18 hole routing on a particularly difficult parcel of land that was selected by the committee from a number of submissions before anything ever happened on site (i.e., no stakes in the ground).

To get a better sense of "routing" back then, I think you need to understand the tools that were available to the constructors of courses.  There wasn't going to be a ton of earth moving, as it wasn't feasible.  So part of the design process by necessity included identifying locations of holes that may have minimized the amount of work required to make the land golf worthy.  As we get later on, projects became larger in scope with the ability (and money needed) to add fill, clear large areas of trees and carve fairways out of solid rock by blasting.  But in 1897, the process involved identifying land that would work, placing the holes on that land with perhaps a modicum of clearing or rock moving and then over a number of years improving the course by adding and adjusting bunkers and traps.

The best architects back then were able to use natural features in a way that worked.  Not every course was a "steeplechase" design, and I suspect what was called the "Willie Dunn System" may have been the fall back when the land didn't present much interest.  But there are plenty of examples of courses incorporating knolls, streams, areas of elevation and other native attributes to their best use.

Hope this helps,

Sven

[PCCraig]

This is from the Club History at my home club. Granted they only laid out 5 holes, but still done in what probably took 2 hours.

The first round of golf in Minnesota was played at the historic Town & Country Club of Saint Paul in 1893. Actually, golf began here as an afterthought. A pioneer member, William F. Peet, conspired with a Saint Paul newspaper reporter. Desperate for tidbits of news, the reporter asked Peet for the latest Town & Country Club gossip. Peet suggested a story about a new game called golf which was getting some press in papers along the East Coast. The reporter disliked his duties of social reporting, so he contrived a news story that the Club was thinking about starting golf.

Enter George McCree, a transplanted Scot, who had migrated here from Canada and was familiar with the game of golf. He read the article and immediately offered to help Peet start the game. “I finally took McCree out to the Club with my lawn mower in the back of my roadster to help lay out the course." Using an old driver and a twenty-five cent gutta percha ball, after a couple shots, McCree marked a spot with a stake - “This is the first hole." In this fashion, the first five holes were laid out, at a time before country clubs had become synonymous with golf.

[Peter Pallotta]

John - I don't know, but from reading some of the co-temporary reports it seems that for many years (and in fact, for decades) from the 1880s and onwards, a variety of *hole lengths* was deemed of primary importance, i.e. the key (if certainly not the only) design consideration. The inclusion of an appropriate number of one, two and three-shot holes, each at the appropriate length (for the time) and adding up to a *legitimate* total yardage (for the time), seems to have been a common consideration shared by all -- experienced and less-experienced architects alike, whether they had a lot or a little time on their hands, and largely independent of the nature of any given site. Something I've not read about much (here or in the co-temporary reports) is what if anything was considered a necessary/ideal *flow* of golf holes, i.e. what was considered a good way to mix-in the one shotters with the two and three-shotters. 

Peter

[John Connolly]

Good and helpful input fellas, thank you. As I try to piece together a reasonable theory as to our very old club's routing, understanding what was a typical (usual, general, customary) timeline is very important to me, hence the original question. Sven's caution about generalizing the process is fair as I probably was assuming things were a bit more rote at that time than they may have been.

What has come to the fore in the discussion thus far is:

1 - variable lengths were a focus
2 - earth moving was limited (as I assumed)
3 - many late 19th century courses were laid out quickly - hours moving into days. That is not to say, as Sven points out, that some were given more consideration but it's probably within reason to say many were quickly assembled.

Pete,
Where have you read about the design philosophies of early architects? And what of this "Will Dunn System" Sven speaks of?

[Sven Nilsen]

John:

This has been posted many times on the site:  http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/AmericanGolfer/1920/ag2333f.pdf

I'd suggest plugging "willie dunn system" into the search engine, and you'll get a number of good discussions on early design philosophy.  Most of it deals with the shift away from the steeplechase or geometric design style.

Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

John:

The other aspect to consider is that often the architect had little to do with choosing the site.  Most of the time, land was suggested, and then an architect was brought in to see what they could do with it. 

As time went on, the scale of the projects got larger.  But at the same time there were still small town courses being built all over the place on limited budgets. 

For example, while Bendelow was working on Olympia Fields in 1915, he was also hired to design the Mount Vernon, Ohio course.  OFCC was a large scale project with deep big city pockets backing it.  Mount Vernon was a small town course for a club with limited means.  At OFCC, he spent a great deal of time on site, while at Mount Vernon he showed up for an afternoon, staked out 9 holes and left instructions for how to build the course (all for the grand fee of $100).

Sven

[John Connolly]

Sven et al.,

Thanks for the leads - I've gone and printed up previous threads for the Willie Dunn System. Very helpful stuff all - I appreciate your insights.

[SL_Solow]

I dove into my library last evening and pulled out Robert Kroeger's The Golf Courses od Old tom Morris.  In his description of Old Tom's procedures, he noted that they varied depending on the assignment.  However many of the jobs consisted of staking out the courses, often in less than a day.  Indeed, he cited to several cases where Old Tom staked out the course in the morning and played an exhibition match to open the course in the afternoon.  In fairness, he also noted that in other cases, Old Tom returned to courses to put in bunkering after play had established appropriate locations.  Finally, Kroeger noted the standard fee was 1 pound per day which he suggests approximates $100.

[jeffwarne]

  Indeed, he cited to several cases where Old Tom staked out the course in the morning and played an exhibition match to open the course in the afternoon. 

That is incredible.
I'm assuming they simply mowed out the greens that day and the course had been routed where the sheep had carved out the playing corridors?

[Tom_Doak]

That is incredible.
I'm assuming they simply mowed out the greens that day and the course had been routed where the sheep had carved out the playing corridors?

They probably didn't even mow the greens.  He most likely laid them out in spots that were well grazed ... and for an exhibition to a bunch of non-golfers, smooth greens were probably not necessary.

On a few occasions, I have participated in events at potential courses where we played the routing that we had built, after gang-mowing the fairways.  It's a lot of fun.  Unfortunately for a couple of them that's the only time the routing was ever played.

[SL_Solow]

Obviously, greenkeeping  was less scientific and standards for maintenance were very different.  In Old Tom's defense, it appears that this was typical of the era.  As a greenkeeper, Old Tom is credited with being well ahead of his time.  He is generally recognized as having introduced/popularized top dressing as a method of encouraging growth on greens and creating smoother surfaces.  His role in widening the playing corridors of the Old Course is well known.  But the game, its architecture, its equipment and its maintenance standards were very different.

[Sven Nilsen]

Shelly -

You bring up the great point that golf wasn't made in the early days, it was found.

There was a reason it was played on linksland first, and that is because it could be, without anything really being done to the ground itself.

Growing grass, mowing fairways, cutting down trees, clearing rocks and even building bunkers are all later day efforts to emulate what existed on the ground when golf first started.

Sven

[Peter Pallotta]

And to relate it to an earlier post on a variety of *hole lengths* being the key consideration, references to how Old Tom sometimes worked suggest that indeed the role of (a modern-day conception of) hazards was minimal, as was some/much of the strategic implications we today associate with the use of such hazards. Yes, perhaps the glories (and any 'ready-made' hazards) of linksland might've allowed for quick routing work that *did* strategically or even penally incorporate such hazards, but as other posts suggest (re courses in America), the process was not much different in those early days whether the site was inland or by the sea or whether it was rich in natural and golf-useful features or barren of them. 

John - sorry, other than pointing you to the same archive/website that Sven did (la84.org) where over the years I did most of my browsing, I don't have a main or specific source for my readings or speculation. But note as well the 35 page thread on pictures of old routings; I seem to see a a pattern whereby the earlier examples were mostly straight lines on maps that included only the barest of notes on natural features and/or hazards and that focused instead just on the length of holes, while as the decades passed you saw more and more attention (at least as reflected in the maps/drawings) on the *features* that defined the routing.    

Peter

[Tom_Doak]

I seem to see a a pattern whereby the earlier examples were mostly straight lines on maps that included only the barest of notes on natural features and/or hazards and that focused instead just on the length of holes, while as the decades passed you saw more and more attention (at least as reflected in the maps/drawings) on the *features* that defined the routing.    

You could just be seeing the difference between maps that were meant to be functional [showing where the holes were going to be] versus maps that are meant to sell potential members on the project, which are called for more often in the modern era.

[Peter Pallotta]

Hmmm. Yes, could be. I hadn't thought of that -- but then, of course, I never do! 

Thanks, TD

Peter