Series Of Articles By Langford

[Jim_Kennedy]

Link:


http://tic.msu.edu/pdf/GCAITCD_large.pdf




Is this drawing of his thirteen years ahead of its time?

[Jason Thurman]

Jim, was the hole shown in the drawing ever built?


I've read the first several articles linked. Most interesting to me is Langford's take on "natural looking bunkers":

Artificial hazards should be copies of the natural features of the adjacent countryside... Artificial hazards (in Chicago) should conform to the landscape and should not be given the barren aspect of seaside sand dunes... build (sand pits and cop bunkers) in as irregular and apparently haphazard a manner as possible... In order to facilitate draiange and make them appear part and parcel of the country, bunkers hereabouts should, whenever possible, be built on some slight swell which can be emphasized by stripping off the sod for quite a distance back of and to each side of the proposed hazard. The ground so stripped should be built up at a gentle gradient to the required height with the earth taken from the pit, and the sod replaced. The bunker will then have the appearance of having been cut out of a natural ridge.

Does Langford's own work reflect this philosophy? On one hand, the bunkering on Langford and Moreau courses is notoriously manufactured in appearance. On the other, the gentle roundedness of the shaping on those bunkers often blends nicely with the rolling hills of the Midwest where so many of their courses were built. Did Langford's philosophy on bunker placement and shaping change over time?


It's notable that he goes on to state that the best hazards for Chicago-area courses are humps and hollows in fairways and rough. Having spent several years playing at a Langford club that generally kept fairway bunkers to a minimum, I can vouch that those swales and hollows often became the primary features to avoid from the tee.

[Greg Clark]

Jim,


Thanks for posting the link.  I look forward to reading these tonight.

[Dan Moore]

Absent the creek running left of the green Langford built a very similar hole at Skokie in 1939. 


These articles were first published in the Chicago Evening Post in late 1914, then I've seen a couple in Golfer's Magazine and Langford compiled them into a book Golf Course Architecture in the Chicago District. These would represent his ideas at the very start of his career.


He clearly was an early adopter of Golden Age strategic concepts and more natural looking hazards.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Dan,


I've read that 1920ish was a major shift in L&M's design philosophy. Before that date they created lower lying greens/greensites and smaller bunkers, after, they went to more highly elevated greens w/steep bunkering and much larger bunkers overall.


True? Do you know what caused the shift?

[BCrosby]

Dan -


Adding to Jim's questions, there are some lingering Victorian ideas in Langford's 1915 pamphlet. Specifically there are references to 'topped or semi-topped shots' and how to prevent them from rolling out as far as well-hit, airborne shots.


I assume that sort of talk does not appear in Langford's later writings when the basics of strategic golf design had been better assimilated.


Also note the reference to John L Low, Langford's only mention of another architect.   


Bob

[Dan Moore]

Dan,


I've read that 1920ish was a major shift in L&M's design philosophy. Before that date they created lower lying greens/greensites and smaller bunkers, after, they went to more highly elevated greens w/steep bunkering and much larger bunkers overall.


True? Do you know what caused the shift?

Jim,

Do you know where you read that? 

I'm not sure if I see a seismic shift in his work but some of the early work was more subtle.  But I also see some of the bold forms in his work in the teens. In the early 20's you can see more subtle forms at a place like Bryn Mawr built on flat land, something in between at Butterfield and fully formed bold design at Culver Academy all built around the same time in the early 20's. It clearly evolved toward a more consistent "National School of Design" look through the 20's.

He probably saw NGLA early on as a student at Columbia Univ. Then he would have seen Shoreacres and Chicago Golf in the early 20's.

Ron Forse says his son Tommy told him he was greatly influenced by Walter Travis a fellow member of the Florida Old Guard Society of Golfers.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Great big blank came over me when I read " Do you know where you read that", until you mentioned Ron Forse.


I'm pretty sure it was his impression of L&M.

[Dan Moore]

That would explain it since Ron and Jim worked at Bryn Mawr.

[RJ_Daley]

I'm looking forward to reading all of the linked material.  Preliminary going to the chapter on drainage was interesting in some of the concepts, including a native soil green construction design that from my understanding has a basic 'California method' without the sand component, just the drainage scheme. 

A question for someone like Dan or if Nagle or Forse are looking in.... do you think Langford's notions on design and construction techniques changed from the experience of his early career with American Park Builders, to alter his approach in his partnership with Ted Morreau?  Was the mission of APB more attune with the most economical and municipal oriented projects an influence on construction techniques, and when the L&M partnership reached full bloom, design ideas and construction techniques got more elaborate to suit more private and well funded clients, thus aspects like bunkers and shaping got bigger and bolder? 

With Bendelow taking over APB from Langford, would it be fair to say Bendelow's work also changed to a more buttoned down and defined construction and design approach due to need to work with more municipally oriented budgeting process?

If you view Lawsonia as perhaps L&Ms 'capolavoro' or gran opus, would it not have been considerably less impressive in scope of bold design and shaping features, if he had done it under the parameters of American Park Builders, vs the L&M overall design/construction regime?  Perhaps one of the more interesting juxtapositions might be the early Bendelow course in Green Lake at Tescumbia (circa 1905ish) contrasted with the latter Lawsonia (1928-30).

[Sven Nilsen]

RJ -

You make a bunch of assumptions in those questions, assumptions I'm not sure I follow.

First, I don't believe APB (under Langford or Bendelow) was highly focused on municipal projects, and thus limited by budget constraints.  Most of Langford's work in the late teens while he was with APB was for private clubs, many of those being clubs we wouldn't think of as operating on a shoestring.  Bendelow, on the other hand, always had an interest in promoting public golf but maintained a fairly well-rounded practice throughout his career.  I don't think his m.o. changed when he started working for APB, and if anything it may have resulted in him getting some higher profile projects (like Medinah) that he wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Second, I have yet to see any evidence of the timing of Bendelow's involvement at Tuscumbia.  If it was as early as 1905, I don't know if any kind of comparison to a later Langford would teach us much.  The world of GCA changed a lot during those intervening 25 years, with 1905 lying right at the cusp of the adaptation to the new ball and an explosion in the lengths at which courses were built.  It was also in the middle of the transition away from "Victorian" architecture to the more strategic school of design (interestingly a move highly influenced by the thoughts of Travis).

For some reason Bendelow is thought of as a low-budget architect.  Part of this comes from the types of projects he pursued during the busiest years of his career when we was spreading the game throughout the country on behalf of Spaulding.  It would have been difficult to convince a town like Ottumwa, IA or Paragould, AR to spend big to start the game of golf.  Thus his designs for places like this were more economical, with the goal of getting the game started and not necessarily building the biggest, best or most comprehensive course they could on their land.  But at the same time he was working for the major hotels in California and was brought out by the Southern Pacific Railroad to build courses and advise on those already in existence.  Here he had more of a free hand, and the work reflected it.

If there's a lesson here, its that every project should be examined in light of its purpose.  Its easy to use a broad brush in describing one particular architect's style, but there are so many independent considerations that they had to take into account, and thus that we should appreciate in analyzing what they did.  Even for Langford, his work at Lawsonia is different from what he did a few years earlier at Mid City in Chicago, and both were probably vastly different from what he did on completely different terrain for some of his courses in Florida.

Sven

[Jim_Kennedy]

Dan,


Ron Forse, as quoted in the article:

“Langford and Moreau didn’t use the heavily plateaued-green idea until about 1920 at Ozaukee CC in Mequon, Wisconsin. Before that, their greens sat pretty low and the bunkers were small, looking more like Donald Ross and other early classic architecture. After that there is definitely a change to a larger elevation and scale of the green complexes and bunkers. The fairway bunker on six at Lawsonia is 35 feet front to back, 150 feet side to side, and up to ten feet deep and it has a steep grass face. Those are an unmistakable characteristic of Lawsonia. Those bunkers give the course some great unique and natural character.”

[Jeff_Brauer]

Makes you wonder just what design influence came over LM, no?  Any guesses?

[Jim_Kennedy]

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jim,

I knew Pete Dye mistook some Langford courses for Seth Raynor.  I can see that influence, but I wonder the mechanics of how that happened?   

Langford started with American Park Builders, but formed his own firm in 1918.  My first guess is that in his first few years with APB, he built the style they wanted.  It may have taken from 1918 until 1920 to get Ozaukee open as the first example of his own style?


Of course, one or both could have travelled.  I think