Re-engineering Raynor

[Sven Nilsen]

The article about St. Louis CC surprises me too.  It says the club bought a tract of land at Clayton and North & South roads.  But neither of those streets borders SLCC.  They aren't even very near them. 

The article doesn't say that the club bought a tract, it said it was proposing to purchase that tract.  There's a difference.

The point of including the 1909 article was simply to illustrate that the club was looking to move at that time.

Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

1915


Greenwich CC (Greenwich, CT)

There wasn't much in the press about the MacDonald/Raynor work at Greenwich other than a passing notation in this April 9, 1916 New York Times article:



April 24, 1915 Evening Telegram -





Nov. 1914 Golf Magazine -



May 1930 Golf Illustrated -



1921 Scorecard -



1934 Aerial -




Morris County GC (Morristown, NJ)

Jan. 13, 1916 Courier-News -



Nov. 23, 1916 New York Evening Post -



1927 Scorecard -





Bellport GC (Bellport, NY)

The club moved to a new site in 1915, with Raynor supposedly doing the first 9 holes at that time and adding the second 9 around 1919 (there are reports of a full 18 hole course from 1917).  I have no contemporaneous reports of his involvement, although the move itself was noted in the press.

1934 Scorecard -



A more modern Scorecard and map of the course indicating a different sequence of holes -






Gardiner's Bay CC f/k/a Manhasset CC (Gardiner's Bay, NY)

[To be updated]


Payne Whitney Estate Course a/k/a Greentree Course (Manhasset, NY)

Feb. 1917 Golf Illustrated -




Shinnecock Hills CC (Southampton, NY)

[To be updated]


Suffolk County CC (Islip, NY)

Aug. 28, 1915 Brooklyn Life -

[Peter Pallotta]

Geez, it was a tough game back then, eh?
In 1921 in Greenwich: with one set of tees, at 6300 yards, and with brassies and cleeks — and when shooting a 94 was still good enough to have you winning by 9!
If Raynor was around today and put that in the ground, his first course would probably be his last!
And imagine the lambasting he’d get around here.

[MCirba]

Mike:


It wasn’t the first article mentioning Raynor at NGLA.  There were others from as early as 1908.


Sven

Hi Sven,


You seem to take a comprehensive approach to your documentation in trying to provide the entire story, even when evidence is inconclusive or even contradictory.


I know a number of us have never seen any printed account of Raynor at NGLA during the years the course was being designed and built.


Would you provide it here for our collective understanding and mutual benefit?  Thanks for your consideration.

[Bret Lawrence]

Mike,


I'm not sure if I have come across any articles mentioning Raynor at NGLA in 1908.  However,  the club history has a few invoices from Raynor's work on the course in 1908 and 1909 and a paid receipt signed by Stillman. 


When Seth Raynor was hired by NGLA he was an engineer and he was actually paid by the club to engineer the construction of certain features.  His invoice includes surveying bunkers, making sign boards, meeting with the Town Board, laying out the bridge for the masons, etc.


Walter Travis was one of the amateur golfers who helped come up with the concepts and Macdonald seemed to appreciate his advice, at least early on.  I'd imagine Travis was never paid for his work at NGLA, because he was an amateur golfer.


If Raynor didn't get any press in 1908, it was most likely because he was the local engineer on the job. He wasn't a famous architect at the time.  Travis got a lot of press because he was a very famous amateur golfer and he was certainly involved in the early stages of the course's development.


I don't feel like Seth Raynor and Walter Travis performed the same function on the job at NGLA, so I wouldn't say Seth Raynor replaced Travis.  I think they were both working at the course simultaneously and Raynor had the ability to engineer Macdonald, Travis, Emmet and Whighams ideas from paper into reality.


From what I have read, Mortimer Payne was the person who did the actual construction work.  Seth Raynor laid out how to accomplish that work most efficiently and the contingent of amateur golfers basically laid out the ideas for the holes or the design they wanted to see.  I think it was clearly a group effort to get this project finished, but it was all the brainchild of Macdonald, which is where the credit rightfully falls.




Bret

[MCirba]

Bret,


Thanks for the information about the invoices from 1908-09, as well as the particulars.


I didn't mean to suggest that Raynor replaced Travis, who seemed to be with the project throughout the duration and even played with Macdonald during the soft opening tournament in July 1910.  It wasn't until later that the two men had a very public falling out that resulted in Travis being largely  expunged from the NGLA record in all of CBM's accounts, including either resigning or being booted from his NGLA "Founders" membership.  Apparently one did not cross Charles Blair Macdonald without repercussions!


Instead I was curious whether perhaps Raynor was possibly brought in as a replacement for Payne.  The property was secured in fall of 1906 and after a few months of planning the construction started in the spring of 1907.  Payne was still mentioned as having charge in the summer of 1908 but the course had suffered a number of agronomic setbacks by that time.  Those difficulties led to an almost five year construction cycle, with the course conditions described as still pretty rough at the July 1910 soft opening and it wasn't until the following year that the course/club had their official opening.

[Bret Lawrence]

Mike,


Let me start by saying I am not an expert on the history of NGLA.  I probably shouldn't be the guy answering your questions.  However, I am familiar with some of their history and I felt like that information about the invoices may help with your inquiry.


I think it's unlikely that Seth Raynor replaced Mortimer Payne.  In the article Sven posted above (on page 5), the author mentions that once the land was secured they hired Mortimer S. Payne as foreman and Seth J. Raynor, civil engineer to lay out the links.  This passage would indicate to me that these two worked together and were employed about the same time in the process.


Macdonald also mentions in his book (p.202) that he hired Seth Raynor to survey the property and to make a contour map.  I would imagine this was very early on in the process, before the 1908 invoices. 


Seth Raynor was a full-time civil engineer in 1908.  He was also the Surveyor for the Village of Southampton.  He had previous commitments to build roads, lay out bridges and survey plots of land when he wasn't being commissioned by NGLA.  I just don't think he had the time to be the on-site foreman for the project.  His invoices would indicate he was subcontracted throughout the process. 


I think it's likely Raynor's responsibilities increased as the years went by, but I don't get the feeling that he replaced anyone.  According to Macdonald and reiterated in this article, Raynor was there after the land was secured, when the first topographic map was made.


Bret

[Nigel Islam]

.

[MCirba]

Thank you Bret and Nigel.


I think that makes a lot of sense.

[Sven Nilsen]

1916

Mountain Lake Club (Lake Wales, FL)

Mountain Lake was organized in Dec. 1914, with Raynor showing up some time in 1916 to lay out the course.  The first 9 holes would be open for play in the winter of 1916/17, with the second 9 opening in 1920/21.

Nov. 11, 1916 Brooklyn Times Union -



Dec. 3, 1916 Star Tribune -



March 4, 1917 Brooklyn Daily Eagle -



March 9, 1917 Tampa Tribune -



1917 Olmsted Plan -



Jan. 30, 1921 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -



Two Scorecards, the second from 1948 noting some significant changes made to certain holes.






Blind Brook Club (Port Chester, NY)


See also the March 14, 1917 Chicago Tribune article under the Shoreacres listing below noting Raynor had been engaged to lay out the course.

Jan. 7, 1916 The Evening World -



1924 and 1944 Scorecards, indicating how little the course had changed over those 20 years.  Interesting to note that the 12th hole was a par 4 in 1924.






Maidstone Club (East) (East Hampton, NY)


Oheka Golf Course (a/k/a Cold Spring Harbor CC) (Cold Spring Harbor, NY)


Sunningdale CC (o/k/a Overlook GC) (Scarsdale, NY)

Raynor reworked the 1912 C. A. W. Fox 18 hole Overlook GC course on the Thomas Simpson Estate after it was taken over by Sunningdale.  The course would be reworked a couple of years later by Travis with subsequent work by Tillinghast in 1930.

Aug. 9, 1916 Scarsdale Inquirer -




1923 Scorecard -

[Sven Nilsen]

1916 is as good a point as any to do a quick recap of Raynor's work to this point.  With World War I looming, there was most likely a bit of uncertainty lurking on the horizon for a young golf architect.

Without much evidence as to why he chose this career, we can only speculate that there was something about the work that intrigued him.  Perhaps one misconception we have about Raynor, with little prior experience with the game of golf, is that he was a kind of Johnny-on-the-Spot, having lucked into his career as CBM's right hand man.  It is true that Raynor didn't start playing the game until after his work at NGLA, Sleepy Hollow, Piping Rock and St. Louis.  But he had known about the game and how courses were built for a long time, dating back to his early days assisting his father with the surveying of Shinnecock in the 1890's. 

Whatever the reasons were for why Raynor pursued an early career in Civil Engineering, it is no stretch to see how those skills were compatible with the work he was learning working with CBM at NGLA.  Golf course design and construction was a fairly logical next step for the man who had spent his post-graduate years working with maps, roads, sewage, drainage and water works.  There may have been a few men in the country as versed as Raynor, but probably none in the world of golf with the background to take on the necessary dam and drainage work at NGLA, let along the massive engineering project of the Lido in 1914.

There are really no reports on Raynor's choice to transfer from his Civil Engineering practice to a career dedicated to designing and building golf courses.  I doubt it was a decision made overnight.  After NGLA, it is obvious that CBM recognized Raynor's value, and capitalized on it with their first few projects at Sleepy Hollow, Piping Rock and St. Louis.

However it happened, whether self-initiated or at the recommendation of MacDonald, at some point Raynor began taking on projects by himself.  This may have first occurred at Forest Park in St. Louis, or a year or so later with renovation work at Misquamicut or Nassau or entire new course projects at Westhampton or North Shore.  What we do know is that by the time Raynor started his work at Mountain Lake he was a known entity in the world of golf course architecture, and was being sought after to do solo work.  His informal partnership with CBM would continue for a number of years, but by 1915 his transition to becoming a course architect was pretty much complete.

I am posting the first half of this Jan 14, 1923 Brooklyn Daily Eagle here, as it as good a summary of Raynor's early career path as you can find in print.  The entire article will be posted later in the thread.



There is some scant evidence that Raynor's decision to pursue a full-time career as an architect didn't occur until some time after 1913.

In 1912, he resigned from his position as Street Commissioner of Southampton to lay out a golf course in St. Louis.  Two weeks later he was reappointed in the same role.

March 29, 1912 County Review -



April 15, 1912 Brooklyn Daily Eagle -



In 1913 he was still active as a surveyor.

April 6, 1913 Brooklyn Daily Eagle -



Aug. 24, 1913 Brooklyn Daily Eagle -

[Sven Nilsen]

Realized I gave this thread the wrong title.  From now on it is going to be called "Re-engineering Raynor."

[Sven Nilsen]

1917


Santa Barbara Golf Course (Santa Barbara, CA)

Both Santa Barbara and Sequoyah below remain mysteries, as better described by Nigel in post #40 below.  It is possible he was brought in to look at the Santa Barbara CC, which would have Bendelow rework its course a couple of years later.


Sequoyah Country Club (Oakland, CA)

Sequoyah was a 1914 Willie Locke design.  In 1920 three new holes were built at the course, with Herbert Fowler proposing renovations that were carried through on in 1921 and H. Chandler Egan looking over the course to suggest improvements in 1930.

While we don't know the extent of Raynor's involvement, if any, we do know he was in California as early as 1918.


Shoreacres Golf Club (Lake Bluff, IL)

Shoreacres would get its start in late 1916, with Raynor being hired early in 1917.  Although work on the course was to begin in 1917, it really wouldn't get underway until after World War I with the course being ready for play in July of 1921.

Dec. 30, 1916 Brooklyn Daily Eagle -



March 14, 1917 Chicago Tribune -





April 1917 American Golfer -





Aug. 1919 American Golfer -





Nov. 1919 Golfers Magazine -






Feb. 6, 1921 Chicago Tribune -






1934 Scorecard -



1937 Aerial -




Links Club (Roslyn, NY)

Another CBM project where Raynor was involved.  A more in depth discussion of the course including Tom Doak's photos taken prior to its demise can be found here:  http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,57728.0/nowap.html

Dec. 30, 1917 New York Times -



1922 Golfers Magazine -



Early Aerial -



1940 Aerial -



Scorecard -

[Jim_Kennedy]

I think it's a reasonable assumption that SR's choice to become a CE was, as you noted, due to his working with his pops. It's also reasonable to assume that he saw the profession as a way to achieve status in his community, and as a way to be intimately involved in its growth.


As for what tripped the switch to his next career as a golf course engineer/architect, I'd say it's likely that income played a substantial part. A CE working for a town or village was paid between 3 and 9,000 dollars per year, whereas a CE that created his own business could knock down 25 to 150 thousand per year, and that's in the second decade of the 19th century!........and just think of the other opportunities, financial and otherwise, that would become available to him while under the aegis of Charles Blair Macdonald! No brainer!


 
 

[Jeff Schley]

Looking forward to the Shoreacres info.  Also didn't know anything about Santa Barbara Country Club is this what course now? 

[Nigel Islam]

.

[Sven Nilsen]

1918


Olympic Club (San Francisco, CA)

After the Olympic Club took over the Lakeside course, Raynor was brought in to examine the property and suggest changes.  Nothing ever came of this visit, with the club going in a different direction over the subsequent years.

March 9, 1918 San Francisco Examiner -








March 9, 1918 San Francisco Chronicle -





March 1918 The Olympian -
















Raynor's Plan for the Course which appeared in the April 1918 edition of The Olympian -







New Haven Country Club (New Haven, CT)


A recent discovery prompted by the issuance of the list, Raynor consulted with the club in 1918.  Willie Park would end up designing the new course which opened in 1920's, but up until now we did not know about Raynor's involvement.



 

[Jeff Schley]

Looking forward to the Shoreacres info.  Also didn't know anything about Santa Barbara Country Club is this what course now?

    Santa Barbara, Sequoyah, Rumson, William E. Stauffer Estate course (Likely Metairie CC,) and Westchester Hills CC all become associated with Raynor from a Rolodex card(s) at a surveyor's office in Southampton called Squires and Holden. Raynor filed plans there with a guy named Wallace Halsey. The office is very protective of its information. George Bahto saw it back in the day, but the climate is different now. Other than Rumson (scant evidence but there) there is no evidence any of the other courses implemented any of Raynor's "plans."
   Remember however Raynor did visit LA in 1918 after he went to SF then home then Alberta then LA. The East Hampton Star reported Araminta was going to visit him while he was laying out a course. La Cumbre is a candidate for this course, but obviously Thomas did the design some years later. I researched Santa Barbara golf courses around that period last year, and didn't come up with much useful.

Thanks Nigel.  This is intriguing and another way to research is if Raynor filed income taxes (doubt there were W-2’s back then) that claimed income from XYZ Santa Barbara course.  I think 1912/13 is when taxes were law.

[MCirba]

Good thinking Jeff Schley.


What a novel research avenue!    Unless paid under the table, a 1099 taxable report could yield some fabulous primary evidence.

[Nigel Islam]

Another fascinating aspect of the Raynor Civil engineering story is that he likely didn't graduate from Princeton even though he was there four years. He was also a little older than most when he started. Not sure what he did between Princeton Prep School and Princeton, but it was one maybe two full years. Of course his father died during this time so perhaps that explains it.


This is all stuff Anthony has taught me of course.

[Sven Nilsen]

1919

Everglades Club (Palm Beach, FL)

Paris Singer's Everglades Club would open in 1920 with 9 holes that were partially renovated prior to the 1921 season, with 9 more holes being added in short order.  William Langford reworked the course in 1936.

Feb. 4, 1920 Palm Beach Post -




Feb. 5, 1920 Palm Beach Post -









Feb. 15, 1920 New York Tribune -



Feb. 15, 1920 Philadelphia Inquirer -




Jan. 6, 1921 Palm Beach Post -






Scorecard -



1920 Aerial -



1928 Aerial -




Midland Hills Country Club a/k/a University of Minnesota Golf Course (St. Paul, MN)

Midland Hills began when professors at the University of Minnesota sought to build a new course to replace the 1915 9 hole course they had been using.  That 9 hole course would be reworked in the late 1920's by Tom Vardon and stands today as the current Les Bolstad Golf Course.  The Raynor project, which is where he met Ralph Barton, underwent a name change and became Midland Hills.

March 27, 1921 Star Tribune -


 
Plan of the Course -



1935 Scorecard -



1937 Aerial -




Somerset Country Club (St. Paul, MN)

[To be updated]

Sept. 10, 1919 Star-Tribune -



1935 Scorecard -




Oakland Golf Club (Bayside, NY)

Oakland started as a 9 hole 1896 Thomas Bendelow layout with Walter Travis and Stewart Gardner adding 9 holes in 1906.  Raynor was brought in to remodel the entire course, and when he was done only 3 of the existing holes remained intact.

April 1919 Motor Travel -



July 22, 1925 Brooklyn Daily Eagle -




Ocean Links (Newport, RI)

Sept. 12, 1920 The Sun and New York Herald -



Sept. 22, 1920 Brooklyn Daily Eagle -



July 1921 Golf Illustrated -









Aug. 1921 American Golfer -









July 2, 1924 New York Evening Post -



Oct. 5, 1931 Boston Globe -



Scorecard taken from Golf Architecture in America -




Porto Rico Country Club (San Juan, PR)

April 5, 1919 Port Jefferson Echo



April 25, 1919 East Hampton Star -



Sept. 6, 1919 Buffalo Morning Express -

[Sven Nilsen]

1920

Babson Park Golf & Yacht Club a/k/a Crooked Lake Golf & Yacht Club (Babson Park, FL)

I have yet to see anything directly linking Raynor to Babson Park.  This older thread on the course probably has the best description of its history that has been put together so far:

https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,58228.msg1391108.html#msg1391108


Chicago Golf Club (Wheaton, IL)

Originally built prior to CBM establishing his thoughts on an ideal golf course, Chicago was updated and tweaked over the years until CBM and the club approved Raynor's plans for a radical redo.

Sept. 18, 1920 Chicago Tribune -




Aug. 1923 Golf Illustrated -






April 1930 Golf Illustrated -


























2005 Aerial -

[Jim Nugent]

I played the Bolstad course probably 75 times in 1980, and still remember it quite well.  Real interested to read more about Raynor's work on it, because while the article says it has 6 templates, I can't think of any there.  As at Forest Park in St. Louis, maybe the course I played differed significantly from what the article describes.  Perhaps #14 is sort of a cape??

Raynor is certainly not shy about his accomplishments.  In this article he names Bolstad as among the finest layouts in the country, and earlier he pronounced Forest Park as the best public course in America.   

[Sven Nilsen]

As the 1920's started, America was on the verge of experiencing the greatest surge in golf course construction the country would ever see.  Raynor had already received the accolade of being one of the county's best course architects, and was poised to capitalize on the continued demand for an "ideal course" fomented in CBM's work at NGLA a decade earlier.


It is entirely possible that we do not know the full extent of Raynor's portfolio to this point.  In the 1918 interview he did for the Olympic Club it was mentioned that he had built 60 courses.  We can only account for a little under 30, and it is unclear what was meant by the word "built."  Did Raynor contribute to a good number more courses in some way to come up with this number?  Or was this an exaggerated estimate, similar to some of the numbers thrown around by some of his contemporaries.


Whatever the case, by 1921 Raynor was highly sought after for both his design and construction expertise, and his workload (while perhaps not rivaling that of Ross with his associates and networks of construction teams) demonstrated that high demand.


What remains interesting throughout Raynor's career his that he never completely got out of the shadow of his mentor.  It was rare to find coverage of his work that didn't mention his association with CBM.  Their continued collaboration, while now less master and student, would continue right up to Raynor passing.  One of the lessons we've learned over the years of studying the two men is that as time went by Raynor became the more important of the two on their joint projects, even if CBM's name would continue to be touted in the press.

[Sven Nilsen]

Raynor is certainly not shy about his accomplishments.  In this article he names Bolstad as among the finest layouts in the country, and earlier he pronounced Forest Park as the best public course in America.

Jim:


He wasn't the only one.  All of the early guys used a good bit of hyperbole when describing their own projects, and probably more so if they were still angling to lock down the work or get a check.


Sven