Definitive List of Raynor Courses

[Tim Liddy]

How about a definitive list of Raynor golf hole designs? Thinking there are about 25.

[Bret Lawrence]

The listing for Harry Payne Whitney's estate in Manhasset is confusing.  Harry Payne Whitney owned an estate in Old Westbury called "The Manse". It was his father William C. Whitney's estate before he inherited it.


Harry Payne Whitney's brother William Payne Whitney, was better known as Payne Whitney after he dropped William from his name.  Payne Whitney owned "The Greentree Estate" in Manhasset.


In Scotland's Gift Golf, Macdonald states on pages 305:
"When Payne Whitney proposed building an eighteen-hole golf course on his property at Manhasset there was plenty of room, but the land was not adapted to it, and I persuaded him to build a nine-hole course and to build it on some twenty or thirty acres immediately back of his home.  I grouped three classic holes in the center of the land which had to be played at different angles.  In this way it was perfectly simple to get nine good holes on a small acreage."


If you search "The Greentree Estate" on a modern aerial, you can still make out the greens and bunkers.  Some of the greens appear to be very well defined. The estate is located north of Deepdale Country Club.


I don't know if there is information on a separate course for Harry P. Whitney, or if the wrong Whitney was listed for the Manhasset course?

[Sven Nilsen]

Bret:


I think you're spot on with regards to the H. P. and William Payne issue.  Bahto has this as H. P., but all other references I've seen are to just Payne Whitney.


Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

Bret:


I think you're spot on with regards to the H. P. and William Payne issue.  Bahto has this as H. P., but all other references I've seen are to just Payne Whitney.


A 1951 Golfdom article notes Greentree as being on the estate of John Hay Whitney, who was the son of Payne Whitney, amongst other things.

Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

The Aug. 3, 1923 edition of the East Hampton Star notes Raynor being called to California to work on a course.

This seems early for the MPCC and Cypress work.  Anyone have any thoughts as to what course this might have been?

[Bret Lawrence]

Sven,


I don't know the answer to that, but it could have been a few possibilities.  Tony posted about Raynor working at Pebble Beach about a year ago, but the article didn't mention specific dates and the article itself was from 1927.  One of Raynor's obituaries in 1926 noted that he built a course for California University? George had mentioned a course in Santa Barbara and Sequoyah as possibilities, but I have never seen any information confirming Raynor was there. 


There is also an article from 1918 mentioning that Mrs. Raynor was heading to Los Angeles where her husband is laying out a golf course.  We know his trip to Olympic fell around that time, but I had never heard of anything in Los Angeles? 


It sure would be helpful to have access to some older California newspapers!


Bret

[Bret Lawrence]

The Los Angeles reference was from The East Hampton Star-June 14, 1918:

[Jack Carney]

Sick and Wicked Man - did someone say you had a book out?

[Sven Nilsen]

One of the courses on the list, North Palm Beach CC aka Palm Beach Winter Club, is one I'd like to revisit.

The EoG cites this as a Raynor and notes it as his last design, but if you look at the newspaper accounts from that time credit is given to William Langford.

Philadelphia Inquirer - Jan. 11, 1925



Palm Beach Post - March 26, 1925



The timing of these articles, early 1925, suggests the course was not the same course noted as the reason for Raynor's early 1926 visit to Palm Beach, and the organizers associated with the club are not Paris Singer.

Instead, it seems more likely that Raynor was visiting Palm Beach in connection with the plans for a different course that was being constructed for Paris Singer, that being the course to be located in the Cragin Park area of Palm Beach.

Palm Beach Post - Dec. 20, 1925



Evening Post - March 12, 1926



The course at Cragin Park was to be built in connection with Singer's plans for his Blue Heron Hotel which would be located just across a new causeway on Singer Island (you can see the Blue Heron Hotel noted on the plan above with the road in question now being named Blue Heron Boulevard).  The Blue Heron Hotel project did get underway, but Singer's misfortunes resulted in a cessation of construction, with the bones of the partially constructed building remaining for quite some time.

http://historicpalmbeach.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2010/09/02/test/

So to sum up, Raynor never had anything to do with North Palm Beach aka Palm Beach Winter Club.  Instead, he was working on the Cragin Park course, work that was interrupted by his death and later completed (at the least the lay out on the ground) by Banks.

[Sven Nilsen]

To make all of this even more confusing, Scott Edwards of the Florida Historic Golf Trail sent on a map of the course Langford built in Kelsey City (which we know as the Kelsey City Golf Course) which designates that course as the Palm Beach Winter Club.


So strike much of the last post, as both Langford and Raynor may have built courses known as the Winter Club, they were just different courses.

[Bret Lawrence]

Should Watchung Valley Golf Club be added to the list, formerly Twin Brooks Country Club?


https://www.watchungvalleygc.com/history/


Does anyone have any information on the Crawford Country Club in Crawford, NY? 

This course is listed in the Cornish & Whitten book, but I can't find any articles on the course or determine where the course was located.  Any help would be appreciated.

[Bret Lawrence]

Sven,


I noticed you have a question mark for the date of Riddle's Bay.  This article discusses the formal opening of the course in early February 1922. 
The New York Herald-February 12, 1922:



Does anyone know the proper spelling of this course?  This article mentions Riddle's Bay, but the modern maps call the area Riddell's Bay?


Bret

[Nigel Islam]

A lot to noodle on in these articles.


The plans for Forest Park were supervised by Commissioner Davis with assistance from a golf advisory board made up of representatives of a number of St. Louis clubs, including SLCC.  Its not hard to imagine CBM having a role in recommending Raynor for the work and how his name got to Davis.


The articles seem to note a conceived routing, even going so far as to note the locations of certain holes.  I have no idea if the course as built followed these plans.


I've been told that Robert Foulis later claimed responsibility for Forest Park, but did he claim responsibility for the design or for the construction work?  If the latter, its not hard to imagine how many of the MacRaynor touches (bunker scale, green sizes, etc.) did not make its way onto the ground.  It may have been his first design, but it probably wasn't the first Raynor course in the same way a course built under his supervision would have been.


Why, so many years later, did Irwin's team add in some MacRaynor templates when they redid the course?

So Ryan Hillenbrand and I played there a few weeks ago. A few thoughts that I had.


1. The map of the original routing in a clubhouse magazine closely follows the description in the article.
2. The magazine article states that the city representatives wanted to design the course themselves. They went to NY, Chicago, and Pittsburgh and returned ready to get started. Davis convinced them to “design” the course, but let Robert Foulis construct the course.
3. I can find no contemporary mention of Robert Foulis in conjunction with the course.
4. The current 6th is a par three with a swale in the middle of an elongated green (Biarritz.) This seems to have predated the Irwin Group restoration. The green might be similar on a 1968 aerial as well. Hard to tell
5. The current 9th has a “Long/Hell” bunker complex that existed in 1968
6. The current 12th has and had some “Leven” tendencies.
7.  Finally, the recently posted WPA list mentioned Forest Park as having government funds spent on the golf course in 1935. I’d love to know if they had an actual golf course architect


A sporty course and a fun day. Was it a Raynor design? It is certainly within the realm of possibility.

[Nigel Islam]

This is from the April 5th, 1921 edition of the Miami News;
 

Adams was fascinating character. He was by no means a "hotel man," nor was Raynor. He was an author and an inventor, but he had the golf bug. He once wrote a book about golf, and he played golf at Hastings on the Hudson the day he died later on in 1921. He went to The Bahamas twice before this in 1921. I have no idea what he and Raynor were up to, but its an interesting trip nevertheless.