Was C.B. Macdonald's routing of NGLA

[Patrick_Mucci]

a concession to the links courses he had studied in the UK ?

Given that CBM had the luxury of carving out almost any parcel of land that occupies the current NGLA/Sebonack site, why did he select that particular configuration ?

The location of the Shinnecock Inn might have had some influence, but the clear out and back linear routing would seem to indicate that CBM's attempt at replication extended beyond the individual hole designs.

[Bill_McBride]

He was a pretty big fan of the Old Course!

[Greg Smith]

I think you really have a point there.  Remember, the original starting point was out where the 10th tee is now.  One played out to a hole finishing along the water (kind of like the Eden estuary, right) and then returned.  The current 1st and 2nd holes would have represented a very interesting finesse type turn for home, same role as the 12th at TOC.  As the original finisher, the Long hole was quite a different deal than TOC's 18th though.  Would have been a great original sequence with the great holes 3-8 playing as 12-17!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Greg,

I believe that CBM always intended the course to play as it presently plays with the clubhouse occupying it's current location.

CBM had the luxury of picking out the land he wanted and he chose that particular out and back routing not dependent upon order of play.

[MCirba]

Pat,

I asked that very question here many moons ago and of course I got trashed by the usual suspects.    My memory is fading with age but weren't you one of them?  

[DMoriarty]

You are correct, Mike, your memory is fading.  That is not at all the question you asked.

[Patrick_Mucci]

You are correct, Mike, your memory is fading. 

David,

Mike is the poster boy for revisionist history.

That is not at all the question you asked.

Correct again.

[MCirba]

Once CBM decided to use the Shinnecock Inn as his clubhouse, the starting and ending point was determined.  Whether he decided prior the location of today's clubhouse is speculation but if Pat is correct then with those two endpoints the general out and back routing was fait accompli.

[DMoriarty]

Except that he originally had 450 acres to choose from and didn't narrow that down to the land he used until he had done a rough routing of the course.

Please lets not do this again. It has been covered to death in multiple threads.

[Tim_Weiman]

Except that he originally had 450 acres to choose from and didn't narrow that down to the land he used until he had done a rough routing of the course.

Please lets not do this again. It has been covered to death in multiple threads.

Dave,

How much documentation of what CBM was thinking at the time exists? I don't recall getting that much from Scotland's Gift.

[Peter Pallotta]

Pat  - interesting that you used the word 'concession' instead of 'homage'' or 'testament to', but maybe I'm making too much of that word choice.

On a site near the water and sunject to (prevailing) winds, Is there anything more efficiently 'golfy' than to route the holes straight out and back? You almost automatically create a course that tests  both directional control (with winds coming from left and right) and distance control (with winds coming from front and back).

Peter

[DMoriarty]

Tim,

Actually CBM gets into it in some detail in SG, and there are contemporaneous accounts saying essentially the same thing.  I really hesitate to get into it here because doing so will undoubtedly get Mike started again and we've dealt with his various NGLA conjectures too many times already.  I'd recommend taking another look at SG, though, or if you are brave and or bored, searching out some of the old threads.

________________________

Peter, I think you are making too much out of the word choice.  Read CBM's book and you'll see that he gladly and openly paid 'homage' and 'testament to' to the roots of the game.  In fact, throughout his life, that was largely his point.

NGLA isn't exactly a straight out and back routing.

[Tim_Weiman]

Dave Moriarty:

Thanks. Think I will go back to SG.

[MCirba]

Macdonald certainly could have selected any 205 acres of the 450 acres available on the property but once he selected the Shinnecock Inn near the railroad as his clubhouse (starting and ending point) then if Patrick is correct that CBM always wanted to use today's clubhouse site over 1.3 miles away as the crow flies, then that by definition narrowed the possibilities.

However, if Patrick is somehow faulty in reading Macdonald's mind over a century later then I guess CBM could have gone anywhere among the 450 acres, although it is admittedly difficult to imagine hiim passing up the glorious views of Peconic Bay where today's starting and final holes (and clubhouse) are located.

Here's more from Macdonald in "Scotland's Gift".

[Rich Goodale]

Tooshay, Mike.  The routing was chosen to start and end at the Shinnecock Inn (by the 9th green and 10th tee of today).  Unless, of course, one chooses to disagree with what the great man said in S's G=Me.

Oh Hell, I just have to add an emoticon .  Sorry, Dan Kelly (tm)................

[Jim Nugent]

Ditto to what Rich wrote.  CBM says "our first hole now is what was intended to be the tenth, and our eighteenth hole is what was intended to be the ninth."

So CBM did NOT intend to switch the nines.  The fire, and moving the clubhouse site from near the Inn to its current location, caused him to flip the front and the back.  

[Bryan Izatt]

Patrick,

Was C.B. Macdonald's routing of  NGLA a concession to the links courses he had studied in the UK ?

As per the other thread surely, in your view, the routing was a concession to the dictates of the site.   

BTW, it sounds like it was a "hostile" site being all brambles and bogs that required horseback riding to get around initially.  Of course there were the "beautiful golfing vistas".  And, after they built the clubhouse and renumbered the course to accommodate the clubhouse they had an "unexcelled site".

[DMoriarty]

Rich, I don't think anyone ever denied that CBM wanted to start and end near the Inn, although the record strongly suggests that this was NOT the first was determination he made.  I (and others) have written that it was the fire that caused the switch of the nines many, many times.  But, by all descriptions the routing process began with the Alps hole, then the Redan, then other features fitting in with CBM's ideas (the Cape, the Eden, etc.)

So I am confused by Mike's analysis.  Mike seems to be saying that because CBM wanted the course to start and end the course near the Shinnecock inn, he therefore was locked into one (and only one) particular out and back routing. Is the argument really that once a clubhouse location is determined, then the entire routing is set in stone?  If so, this is silly.

In fact, CBM described the process in Scotland's Gift and in a number of articles at the time.  He and Whigham rode the land, found some key land formations for certain key holes (the Alps, the Redan, the Eden, the Cape, etc.), worked out a rough routing, optioned the land, refined the routing, purchased the land, built the course.  

[Jim Nugent]

Rich, I don't think anyone ever denied that CBM wanted to start and end near the Inn

Patrick said that above: "I believe that CBM always intended the course to play as it presently plays with the clubhouse occupying it's current location."

That's the main thing I got out of Mike's post: that CBM did NOT intend for the course to play as it does now. 



 

[DMoriarty]

Jim,

I think some people are coming into a discussion/argument that has been going on for years, and it is causing a bit of confusion.

One of Patrick's pet theories has long been that, while CBM did want the initial course to start and finish near the Shinnecock Inn, he also planned to eventually build a permanent clubhouse in the current location. While Patrick's theory is interesting and I guess possible, I've never seen facts that convince me that it is correct. (I've never been much interested in the debate myself, because as I said, I haven't seen facts to support it.)

My critique is of Mike's contention that starting and ending near the Shinnecock end made the rest of the routing "fait accompli."  That makes no sense to me, and it directly conflicts with CBM's various descriptions of how he came up with the routing.

[Tim_Weiman]

David,

I did not participate in past threads on the routing of NGLA. However, based on my very limited experience, I agree with your skepticism on the "fait accompli" theory.

Sand Ridge Golf Club near Cleveland is probably the only course where I had exposure to the early development thinking by the owner, project manager and the architect (Tom Fazio). This exposure included subjects such as clubhouse location and course routing.

While I didn't agree with the clubhouse location selection, once it was made there were still quite a few routing plans (>20) that were considered. More than that, while certain hole appeared in several of the proposed routing plans, there were really very different routings considered.

I don't claim a project or course like Sand Ridge compares in architectural importance as NGLA, obviously, but the point remains: most, if not all sites considered for development could easily offer several different routing alternatives.

Doubt there are many true "fait accompli" examples.

[MCirba]

At this stage I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself poorly or if my statement is being purposefully misconstrued, but let me make it simple.

I did NOT say that once the Shinnecock Inn was selected for the clubhouse that the routing was fait accompli.   In fact, virtually any of the 450 available acres could have still been used.

I DID say that once the Shinnecock Inn was selected for the clubhouse and if Patrick is correct that CBM intended the clubhouse to be in its present location all along then the general out and back routing was fait accompli.

This is not difficult.   Really.  

That CBM would have found it desirable to head 1.3 miles down to the bluffs over the Peconic Bay for drama, beauty, and compelling landforms should hardly surprise anyone, however.   

[Patrick_Mucci]

Once CBM decided to use the Shinnecock Inn as his clubhouse, the starting and ending point was determined.  Whether he decided prior the location of today's clubhouse is speculation but if Pat is correct then with those two endpoints the general out and back routing was fait accompli.
Mike,

Not at all.

If you have a spot behind the current 9th green as your starting and ending point it does NOT dictate an out and back routing.

You have the entire property NGLA/Sebonack at your disposal for routing.

CBM had the luxury of being able to select whatever land he wanted for his course.

The starting and ending point are merely that, and as such they don't dictate an out and back routing.

My premise dictates an out and back routing.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ditto to what Rich wrote.  CBM says "our first hole now is what was intended to be the tenth, and our eighteenth hole is what was intended to be the ninth."

So CBM did NOT intend to switch the nines.  The fire, and moving the clubhouse site from near the Inn to its current location, caused him to flip the front and the back.  

Jim,

I would disagree.

The fire was irrelevant.

The current site was always intended to be the site of the clubhouse.

CBM wouldn't site his clubhouse in the shadow of the clubhouse of a club that he was just thrown out of.

The donut hole between the current 1st and 18th hole didn't happen by accident, it happened by design because that's where CBM always intended his clubhouse.

In addition, NGLA did NOT own the land behind the current 9th green, hence CBM could never site his clubhouse there.

[DMoriarty]

Mike, "the general out and back routing" was not "fait accompli."  Unless what you mean by "fait accompli" is that, if we accept Patrick's premise, then the golf course probably would, at some point, go somewhere in the vicinity of the location of the Inn and somewhere in the vicinity of the location of the current clubhouse.

But if that is what you are trying to say, then you aren't really saying much of anything at all.  Even here, there would be plenty of potential for variability. I don't even think Patrick has suggested that the future clubhouse was necessarily planned to be on that exact spot, nor is there any indication that it was extremely important to CBM to be right next to the Inn. (Why would he care if, as patrick speculates, the arrangement was temporary?)

Regardless, I think this sort of hypothetical does little but distract from what actually happened. CBM found the golf holes based on the land formations, and routed the course accordingly. That the hotel fit in to the plan was terrific, but it is misleading to portray it as the driving force behind the routing.  And it is also seems disingenuous for your to adopt Patrick's theory for the purposes your argument, given your past positions.