"One of the many myths that certain posters repeatedly return to is that CBM turned his back on the golf architecture and the game in the 1920's. Here is the latest version . . .
Quote from: TEPaul on September 26, 2010, 10:18:46 PM
I believe you're right about that. In the 1920s and on it appears Macdonald was not willing to get involved in much of what was going on in golf and architecture at the time. Those so-called "agronomy letters" are a very good information source to confirm that in a number of ways. They even mention his book (which would become "Scotland's Gift Golf") that he had apparently been intending to write for quite some time. It seems when he finally went to Bermuda and wrote it (1926) that was pretty much the end for his involvement in golf and architecture other than with improving NGLA.
So far as I can tell there is very little if any factual support for this claim. Sure there are vague references to a single snippy comment someone made about CBM in an Ag letter, but nothing at all to support the claim that he turned his back on the game. So far as I can tell, it is nothing but unsubstantiated gossip. And the known record certainly doesn't support it. Here is a partial synopsis of what CBM was doing in Golf Architecture during the 1920's - the period during which CBM was supposedly not willing to get involved in golf or architecture . . .
1920-1921. Macdonald and Raynor designed and built Ocean Links.
1921-1922. Macdonald and Raynor designed and built Gibson Island Club.
1922-1923. Macdonald and Raynor designed and built Creek Club.
1922 Macdonald and Raynor designed and built a practice course for Eddie Moore.
1922 Macdonald and Raynor designed and built 9 hole course for H.P. Witney.
1922-1923. Macdonald and Raynor helped plan Women's National Golf & Tennis Club.
1922-1924. Macdonald and Raynor designed and built Mid Ocean.
1924-1925. Macdonald, Raynor, and Banks designed and built Deepdale.
1923-1926. Macdonald, Raynor, and Banks designed and built Yale University Golf Club.
1928. Macdonald published Scotland's Gift.
1930. Macdonald turned 75 years old.
Maybe it is just me, but that seems like a pretty productive decade for a guy who was supposedly not willing to get involved in architecture, especially when one considers that he was an amateur with a real job, and never accepted payment for any of his design work. And he kept working on NGLA. I'll bet there are some working designers today who would like to have an off decade like that! Imagine what CBM might have accomplished if he hadn't turned his back on the game. Was he supposed to go on providing free designing services into his 80s?
As for other matters relating to Golf, NGLA hosted the first Walker Cup Matches in 1922 (the second was played at St. Andrews) and hosted the participants at NGLA's famed invitational tournament in 1924. This annual tournament kept going strong. CBM was also actively involved in issues relating to the rules and equipment and was corresponding about these matters with H.H. Hilton, Bernard Darwin, John Low, and W.C. Fownes in 1927-1928. And these are just what he mentions. Whatever else he was doing, he certainly hadn't become a recluse."
What's referred to is not myth.
There is no question C.B. Macdonald was a true force in American architecture but just as importantly, or perhaps more so, in American golf administration.
To me the man is fascinating for everything he did but even more fascinating because he really was a complex and complicated man on some central issues but also personally.
And I should not refer to the approximately 2,000 to 3,000 letters between Piper and Oakley, the Wilson brothers and others as the "agronomy letters" because they are certainly much more than that (Wayne Morrison and I first referred to them as the "agronomy letters" when we first copied some of them about 7-8 years ago while doing research on William Flynn at the USGA in Far Hills). They are actually the entire evolution of American research on golf agronomy with the United States Deptartment of Agriculture which culminated in the setting up of the USGA Green Section. To do that the USGA appointed a committee known as the USGA Green Committee and Alan Wilson chaired it for a number of years.
The USGA Green Section may not have been something CBM agreed with for various reasons as he refused to serve on it or get involved with it when asked in the late teens, giving as his reason that he was basically done with golf at that point.
In the end of 1924 the USGA Green Committee scheduled a very important meeting in New York City to discuss the creation of a corporation that was to fund the USGA Green Section and Clarence Piper made the proposal to ask Macdonald to serve as the special chairman of that meeting. After some consideration and correspondence between Wilson and Piper and Oakley and the president of the USGA, Wynant Vanderpool, it was decided that might be too dangerous to do.
Their comments about Macdonald were surely anything but 'snippy' or gossip, that's for sure. They were involved in something very important and I would say their comments about Macdonald seemed realistic, practical and quite concerned and solicitous. But ultimately they decided to ask him to chair the meeting would be just too dangerous, and they gave their reasons for making that decision.
These are the facts, but I can understand there are probably a half dozen or so on this website who would prefer that these kinds of facts be kept in the closet when it comes to Macdonald.
Personally, I don't think any of them detract from CBM's reputation in golf architecture or golf at all; they are simply the complications nd complexities in the life of a truly fascinating man. The thing to consider is if he had not had them he may've been even more central than he was and if that had been true American golf very well might've been somewhat different than it actually became.
To me that is not a subject that should be avoided!