Kanawaki Golf Club - Possible H. S. Colt Design

[Karl Jensen]

I came across this newspaper article yesterday. It gives credit to Colt for the Kanawaki course design in 1913. Colt was certainly in Canada during 1913 by other newspaper reports.


Charles and Albert Murray are usually credited online with designing Kanawaki.


Does anyone think the below newspaper article about Kanawaki and Colt holds water?


Kanawaki Golf Club article, 3 Jul 1923 Lethbridge, Canada Herald newspaper

[Wayne_Kozun]

Ian T. Murray (@golfvue) is very active on Twitter, tweeting about the Murray family and their role in Canadian golf history.  Might want to touch base with him and see if he knows anything about the course and the role of Colt and the Murrays, although me might be biased in favour of the Murrays.

[Adam Lawrence]

Anthony Gholz and I have known about this article for some years. I have Kanawaki down as a possible. We know Colt was in Montreal, but so far there’s no other corroboration of this.

[Karl Jensen]

Thanks Adam and Anthony,


I too have found nothing further connecting Colt to Kanawaki other than the below Carters Tested Seed advertisement from Nov 1914 that has Kanawaki prominently listed as a Carters client along with Colt's CC of Detroit and Old Elm. So what motivated Carters to list these five clubs by name above their other client courses? Perhaps a well known golf course architect? I'm just speculating.


Karl


Carters Tested Seed advertisement, Nov 1914 Golf magazine

[Andrew Harvie]

I have done a lot of research into Kanawaki & Colt and I think it's entirely possible, but I don't know for sure. I haven't found any definitive proof, so unfortunately, I can't prove it.


With that being said, Colt was in Montreal spring of 1913 and Kanawaki opened with 15 holes that fall, and the full golf course opened in 1914. The golf course is routed in triangles, like Colt did at Hamilton, and the par 3, 17th feels like a Colt one shot hole.


Anthony's book mentions the long two shot holes feels like Colt, too.


My best guess as of now: Colt stopped by to help a very new Albert Murray given Kanawaki & Royal Montreal's relationship, and gave some direction. As of now, I can't officially prove it's a Colt.


FYI, Donald Ross renovated Kanawaki around 1920 and the club has buried that, so it's entirely possible.

[Karl Jensen]

Kanawaki Golf Club course was already under construction in Oct 1912. So this rules out Colt's visit to North America arriving 7 Apr 1913 in New York City with a destination of Chicago. His previous visit, as far as I can tell from passenger manifests on Ancestry.com, was 17 Mar 1911 arriving in New York City with a destination of Toronto. By May 1911 Colt was back in England competing in a golf tournament. The Outremont Golf Club in Sept 1911 had a special meeting to discuss a report by the Kanawaki committee to incorporate the club and to make arrangements for financing new grounds and a new clubhouse. Colt was already back in England.


A newspaper report from his 23 Apr 1914 trip to North America, arriving in Boston, MA with a destination of Montreal states Colt only had two previous visits to America. The timeline pieces don't fit that Colt designed Kanawaki. He may have visited Kanawaki at sometime and made suggestions.


Kanawaki Golf Club article, 21 Oct 1912 Montreal, Quebec Gazette newspaper

[Anthony Gholz]

Karl:


Yes several articles have Kanawaki under construction in 1911 and 1912, long before Colt's 1913 visit to Royal Montreal's Dixie site.  His 1911 visit was very targeted with pre arranged contracts (The CCD/Toronto GC).  It was a less than three week visit so I don't think Montreal was on the itinerary.  This is a Murray brothers course.  As per the book Colt was at Royal Montreal in 1913 and of course could have easily made a Kanawaki visit, but the course was at the tail end of construction and they were playing a couple holes.  So if Colt had a comment or two it wasn't the routing or basic design, maybe a bunker.  Moved after lunch [size=78%].[/size][/size][size=78%]  Colt's RM work is a "no longer existing" course on a long gone site.[/size]
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[/size][size=78%]Anthony[/size]

[zachary_car]

Sorry to revive an old topic but I was recently discussing Kanawaki with Ian Murray (who used to post here), and he asked if I could add this information since it wasn't brought up initially. The May 1923 to April 1924 editions of the Canadian Golfer can be a bit harder to come by, because, unlike those published before and after this period, they haven't been digitized yet.


However, correcting a claim forwarded by Kanawaki's Captain W.G. Thompson in the May '23 ed. that their course had been constructed in 1913 a year after Colt had "gone over the available ground in 1912", Ralph Reville (who was personally close with Colt) stated that "by the way, in the article in the May issue {...} it was stated that its author was Mr. H.S. Colt. This is a mistake. Kanawaki was laid out by Albert H. Murray, who was the club's first professional, and C.R. Murray of the Royal Montreal, his brother, was several times called into consultation."

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