https://golfclubatlas.com/feature-interview/feature-interview-with-ed-oden/Similar to when I posted the April 2006 Feature Interview with Chris Clouser, this month’s FI with Ed Oden has me wondering if Perry Maxwell is the least appreciated of the design titans. I say that having spent a considerable time on Ed's non-commercial website
perrymaxwellarchive.com, which launched in March.
Ed has unearthed all kinds of interesting information on Maxwell and cleanly organized it via a timeline, which is freely accessed by one and all. Ed invites all interested parties to submit relevant information to help fill in what is already a rich portrait of Maxwell. Suffice to say, I am a big fan of that method – golf wins when knowledge is imparted, and golfers stand as the beneficiaries. Ed has done this all at personal expense and sacrifice, and such selfless behavior makes him a true friend to the sport.
Ed untangles many mysteries relating to Maxwell and provides clarity as to his design record. Unfortunately, Maxwell didn’t set pen to paper like some of the other Golden Architects. Personally, I think that lack of writing helps explains why my generation might not feel like they ‘know’ Maxwell’s design ethos as well as that of MacKenzie, Tillinghast, Ross, Macdonald, and Thomas. Happily, Ed has found several corker quotations (see Q & A #4 and the quote section in his website) that makes you yearn for many, many more.
Speaking of MacKenzie, all he ever did was praise Maxwell. Take this quote for example:
‘I feel that I cannot leave America without expressing my admiration for the excellence of your work and the extremely low cost compared with the results obtained. As I stated to you verbally, the work is so good that you may not get the credit you deserve. Few if any golfers will realize that Melrose has been constructed by the hand of man and not by nature. This is the greatest tribute that can be paid to the work of a Golf Course Architect.’?! To this day, architects like Coore and Doak extoll the virtues of Maxwell’s work. When seemingly every single peer admires your work, that signifies something.
How wonderful it would be if several Maxwell courses like Twin Hills, University of Michigan and Dornich Hills went down the Old Town path and reinstated as many Maxwell features as possible (in my mind, Old Town which opened in 1939 draws to a close the Golden Age). Perhaps then the man might start to receive just credit. Maxwell’s contributions at ANGC go unmentioned each April – Ed even proved that Maxwell’s involvement there started a couple of years earlier than previously thought. GolfClubAtlas has done 200+ Feature Interviews but few can compete with the sheer volume of facts that Ed presents in a crisp fashion here.
The launch of his website represents the start of the journey. As Ed states,
‘If there is one thing I’ve learned over the last eight years, it’s that you never know the whole story and there is always something new to discover. The beauty of a website is its flexibility to evolve as more and more information becomes available, whereas a book can become outdated very quickly. The Perry Maxwell Archive is intended to be a collaborative effort. My hope is that the Perry Maxwell Archive will constantly evolve and grow as interested individuals and clubs contribute content that adds to our collective understanding of Maxwell.’I hope we can all support Ed and
perrymaxwellarchive.com. One thing is for sure: Maxwell’s economical use of bunkering and convoluted, intermediate size greens would be a breath of fresh air in today’s design world. Since Maxwell wasn’t a self-promoter and in the absence of his own words to tell his story, Maxwell needs a champion in addition to Chris’s
The Midwest Associate. Now in Ed’s website, he has one.
Best,