Creating a Links Course, circa late 1800s

[MCirba]

There have been a number of threads over the years examining the question of how quickly golf courses were able to open after being designed/laid out back in the old days.   I think we've generally learned that this was not quite as rapid a process as we sometimes imagine, even on links courses where the grasses and soils were suitable by nature and had largely been grazed by livestock.   I think we've also learned that it was often an iterative process between the designer and the club over a period of time, and only sometimes the "18 stakes on a Sunday afternoon" as we sometimes like to categorize it.

I recently purchased the Reverend John Kerr's "Golf in East Lothian", which was published in 1896.   That book has a more detailed accounting of the work effort at Muirfield in 1890/91, but I don't have that in front of me today.   There is however, a synopsis in the book "Muirfield And The Honourable Company, written by George Pottinger in 1972.   From the book;

The Club Minutes of the period are strangely silent about the planning and construction of the new course in the years 1890-91, but the various earth-moving activities at Muirfield did not escape the vigilant eye of the Rev. John Kerr who, as a member and a Scotsman reporter, was present at the opening ceremony.   He records that David Plenderleith put into effect the design staked out by Tom Morris, Senior, the greenkeeper from St. Andrews...  Plenderleith had as assistants Robert Ross, Robert Brown...Fred Hamilton...and Andrew Allen.  These four "dumped away with their iron beaters, levelled mounds, filled up rabbit scrapes, banked up bunkers, turfed, rolled and swept continuously".  For their energy, skill, and devotion to their unusual task, we salute them.

On 2nd May, 1891, sixteen holes were opened for play and the remaining two were completed in time for the opening of the new clubhouse in December of the same year. 

If memory serves, Old Tom laid out Muirfield in late 1890, so it sounds to have been a four or five month process to opening.   Whether this was unusual I'll leave to others.

[Sven Nilsen]

Mike:


The key word in the passage is "earth-moving."


Sven

[Niall C]

Mike

A couple of things; do we know whether the course was played between being laid out and opening ? I strongly suspect it was to some extent as foot traffic was considered good for firming up the ground. By todays (UK) standards, courses were fairly rough and ready so the fact that a degree of work was ongoing wouldn't have been too off putting I wouldn't have thought.

The other interesting thing about that quote was the reference to "banked up bunkers". Now the term bunker was sometimes used to describe other "hazards" back then but assuming it meant a bunker as we know it today then the fact they were building bunkers before the opening suggests play was ongoing. I say that because it was customary to build the bunkers after the course was in play to judge where they should be placed.

And of course the fact they "opened" with 16 holes with two further holes planned, rather than waiting for 18 holes also suggests the "opening" was purely ceremonial.

Niall

[MCirba]

Niall,

A bit more on the creation of Muirfield from the Reverend John Kerr.  I believe it may answer some of your questions and it might be worth considering that the HCEG were still able to play at Musselburgh during this period.

The Howes of today and the making of the green there are what concern me.  Old Tom is a veritable makkar - his is 'the vision and the faculty divine' for making golf-greens; how I felt that as I walked beside him, he glancing 'from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven', taking in the situation at every point!  The holes were then put to shape, and soon the 'local habitation and the name' o fthe new links of the Honourable Company were flashed through all the golfing world.  Another green to bear witness to the skill of the grand old greenkeeper!  What a record he must have of the making of greens!

'It has been cunningly laid oot, Cor'nel, as Maister Arthur Balfour's brither ae day said to me; ay, cunningly laid oot'  It was David Plenderleith who now addressed me.   David is the man who was left to carry out old Tom's designs and superintend the whole operation.  'A golfer and a gairdner', he described himself; and David must drag in the Chief Secretary some way, as all golfers do, before they have spoken much of the game.   I have been as Jonathan to David all the time he was at work, and being in his confidence, the making of the green is as familiar to me as I have said it is.  Under him were the twa Robbies - Ross and Brown, Fred Hamilton and Andrew Allan, a capital quartette; since December they have dumped away with their iron beaters, levelled mounds, filled up rabbit-scrapes, banked up bunkers, turfed, rolled, or swept, unceasingly; and such work has all been needed in the making of the green.   

...What has pleased me most about Plenderleith's work has been the naturalness which has everywhere been observed, as if the maxim 'give the club its own lie,' had been a guide in the treatment of the ground   The putting-greens, which were the first part of the work, were not levelled like a billiard table; the old rig-marks are still there; and lots of ups and downs on a small will elicit scientific putting.   The teeing-grounds, again, were not made up in little sloping plateaus - they are natural, and their variety also will call forth good play.   The distances between the holes are wonderfully near those which Mr. Horace Hutchinson has laid down as suitable for a proper course; and I have been instructed very much in the game by remarking this, and the various lines chosen by old Tom as he drew out the round, for they have all a bearing on the way in which the game is expected to be played.   The nature of the turf has been greatly in favour of the work.  It is a fine 'healing' turf, several inches thick, and intertwined with licorice roots, which act like cords in keeping it together.   'Without a doot,' says Plenderleith, 'it's the finest turf that was ever seen,' and I believe he is right.   There certainly cannot be better for golf.   A few of the committee have taken interest in the proceedings, and visited the work as it went on; but by their absence some of them have shown the confidence they had in my friend David, for, as he remarked one day, 'We've been dumpin'awa here, an' no a leevin' soul near us for three weeks.'

Their work, so interesting to me in a hundred other ways, which I must omit speaking of, has not been without its difficulties.   Thye have had some fierce storms to face this past winter, and when sand and wind go togetehr, who can stand against them?

From a larger article, "The Coming of the Honourable Company  of Edinburgh Golfers to Gullane", published in the "Edinburgh Evening Dispatch", May 1 and 2, 1891. 

[MCirba]

I find the whole idea of trying to keep things looking natural during man-made construction at this very early period a very surprising thing.  I also love the description of old Tom out in the field designing the course in his mind's eye.

I think Melvyn makes a very fair point that we limit our overall understanding of Golf Course architectural history by not fully investigating and appreciating  the work involved in crafting the earliest courses.

[Rich Goodale]

Mike

The word you type in bold should be spelled "makar."  it means "poet" in the Scots language.  Has any other golf course architect other than Old Tom Morris ever been called a poet?  I doubt it.

Rich

[MCirba]

Rich,

I would think calling someone a poet would be the ultimate compliment one Scotsman could make to another. Just my sense from another continent of the whole situation.

Thank you for the translation.