Did Donald Ross ever say "no"?

[Kyle Harris]

Title says it all.

Did Ross ever turn down a project? Or actively move it to one of his associates without credit?

The only instance I can think of where an architect recommended another for a project was Tillinghast to Philadelphia Country Club advocating for William Flynn.

I'm sure there are other examples and perhaps this can generate some interesting discussion about the architecture market back in the earlier eras.

[Bret Lawrence]

He said No to the back nine at Dedham Country & Polo Club.  There is a scathing letter from Ross to one of his friends about Dedham and how they chose Fowler to build the back nine.  Fowler never finished the work and went back to England, so the club asked Ross to come in and finish the work.  Ross didn’t seem happy about their choice of Fowler and he said something along the lines of He didn’t feel like cleaning up Fowler’s mess.  Shortly after, the club hired Seth Raynor to finish the back nine!

[Kyle Harris]

He said No to the back nine at Dedham Country & Polo Club.  There is a scathing letter from Ross to one of his friends about Dedham and how they chose Fowler to build the back nine.  Fowler never finished the work and went back to England, so the club asked Ross to come in and finish the work.  Ross didn’t seem happy about their choice of Fowler and he said something along the lines of He didn’t feel like cleaning up Fowler’s mess.  Shortly after, the club hired Seth Raynor to finish the back nine!

Oh, tasty!

[Sven Nilsen]

If setting a rate for services that is going to preclude certain clients from asking for your services can be equated to saying no, the answer is yes.


DR's rates were widely reported on and known throughout the country. 


By all accounts Ross was a man of principle.  I doubt he was going to take on a project, whatever the scope thereof, if he couldn't fully meet the client's expectations.


Sven

[Mark_Fine]

Sven,
What is the difference between saying “I doubt he was going to take on a project” vs saying, “He probably didn’t visit the site”?  Both are estimated guesses 

[Sven Nilsen]

Sven,
What is the difference between saying “I doubt he was going to take on a project” vs saying, “He probably didn’t visit the site”?  Both a estimated guesses 

One is a much more educated guess than the other.

[Mark_Fine]

I will pass your response on to Brad     There is a reason he doesn’t frequent this site and join in these discussions and he knows this one is going on.

[Ryan Book]

It seems from my gleanings from the wayside (not a Ross reference) that Ross rarely hesitated to provide paid consulting services in instances where clients didn't have the money for proper design work. One instance came during my chat with the GM at Kebo Valley, who brushed off any claim that Ross was a designer there; rather, during leaner times, he provided a few notes on agronomy and suggested moving one green. It doesn't seem such dealings are as publicized as Tillinghast's PGA tour.


I wonder if these minor inputs resulted in so many alleged Ross "designs" popping up, the product of exaggerating such visits.

[Kyle Harris]

It seems from my gleanings from the wayside (not a Ross reference) that Ross rarely hesitated to provide paid consulting services in instances where clients didn't have the money for proper design work. One instance came during my chat with the GM at Kebo Valley, who brushed off any claim that Ross was a designer there; rather, during leaner times, he provided a few notes on agronomy and suggested moving one green. It doesn't seem such dealings are as publicized as Tillinghast's PGA tour.


I wonder if these minor inputs resulted in so many alleged Ross "designs" popping up, the product of exaggerating such visits.

This tracks with some of the mythos surrounding misattributed Ross courses in Florida.

I believe he may have provided recommendations on construction services, too. Every misattributed Ross in Florida seems to have, at worst, two degrees of separation from an actual Ross.

[Tom_Doak]

Kyle:


It’s a very interesting topic you raise.


I think in the Golden Age, architects and clients had different expectations than today, and our view is skewed by today’s market.  Maybe someone was put off by Donald Ross’s stated price, but not like today when lots of projects start out thinking “we can’t afford Jack Nicklaus so who do we call?”


Most business people (and Donald Ross was a business person) will offer some sort of introductory services as a way of qualifying new leads, and it sounds above like Ross indeed did that.  The Dedham thing sounds like they passed him over for Fowler originally and he had no interest in working with those people.


98% of architects will take any job where the client agrees to their price and I am only sure of two architects today who you can’t say that about.

[Sven Nilsen]

Tom:


Here is the actual letter regarding Dedham.  This should give you some clarification and erase the need for suppositions.


Sven

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle:


It’s a very interesting topic you raise.


I think in the Golden Age, architects and clients had different expectations than today, and our view is skewed by today’s market.  Maybe someone was put off by Donald Ross’s stated price, but not like today when lots of projects start out thinking “we can’t afford Jack Nicklaus so who do we call?”


Most business people (and Donald Ross was a business person) will offer some sort of introductory services as a way of qualifying new leads, and it sounds above like Ross indeed did that.  The Dedham thing sounds like they passed him over for Fowler originally and he had no interest in working with those people.


98% of architects will take any job where the client agrees to their price and I am only sure of two architects today who you can’t say that about.

It sometimes gets lost or forgotten that Donald Ross was, first and foremost, a golf professional. Yes, he may have focused on construction and design, but we can state that he was in it for the money with absolute certainty. No businessperson is going to outright turn down income, especially if he can hire or contracto qualified people to keep clients happy. Ross seems to have had enough people in his orbit to never actually have to turn down work.

I wonder if he ever had any dissatisfied clients?

One thing I note is that all these articles Sven is posting about Ross's involvement beg a perhaps unanswerable question... what exactly did Ross do? A site visit before construction? Generate plans? Provide those plans and a list of contractors to the client? They seem laden with words like "confer" and "tour" and the like. I've never read a local newspaper that didn't hype up a local project. And Ross built more would-be "finest courses in this district" than anyone.

If so, the statement that Ross may never have seen X amount of his golf courses is true, because the only time he was ever on site was before it was a golf course!

[Andrew Harvie]

Tom:


Here is the actual letter regarding Dedham.  This should give you some clarification and erase the need for suppositions.


Sven

woof!

[Tom_Doak]

Kyle:


There are a lot of golf architects back then who never saw the finished version of some of their courses: 


Everything Alison did in Japan
A lot of what Colt did in Europe
Crystal Downs, Augusta and Royal Melbourne for MacKenzie


When I had only built ten courses it was easy to go back, but now that I’ve done 40+ (and am adding 2-3 per year), who has time to go back? 


And what difference does that make?  The routing and the construction supervision are the work, and Donald Ross was very proficient at delivering quality results, however he achieved them.  I don’t think there is much disagreement that he worked his ass off.

[Sean_A]

Tom:

Here is the actual letter regarding Dedham.  This should give you some clarification and erase the need for suppositions.


Sven

Strikes me as a petty letter. Why would Ross think he should be called upon first to complete a further nine holes? If this is a tell the story letter, shouldn’t Ross say he was guaranteed a first call if such a guarantee was made?

Ciao

[Kyle Harris]

Tom:


No, It doesn't make a difference to the end user.


Academically there is a lot of parsing going on in the other thread of what words mean, which is nothing new when analyzing these older arcticles.

What is interesting to me is that Ross set up an excellent system all the same. Especially when considering that an early contemporary (and countrymen) of his, Willie Park, Jr., did not and likely succumbed to exhaustion due to all the travel in the early 1920s. I think it's also worth exploring or even speculating if Ross setting up a system for accepting so much work influenced his designs or not.

Which would make the projects he rejected all the more interesting!

[MCirba]

After reading that letter, I find myself wishing that Ross had written a "Confidential Guide" in the late 40s.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Maybe Mrs. Ross said "no" often, explaining his desire to travel?

[Sven Nilsen]

I just posted an article in the other thread on the Elks CC course in Columbus.  The article discusses a bit of DR's design practices, and notes that he didn't like to lay out 9 hole courses, and very seldom accepted a commission to do so.


My guess is that Ross said "no" way more than we think.  Turning down work wasn't something that would be reported in the papers, so there is not going to be much of a record of this happening. 

[Ian Andrew]

We spend a lot of time assuming people's choices or motives.
This goes for old architects "and new". Why?

I know from research Stanley Thompson. He came from nothing originally.
He employed a massive workforce till the mid-1930's in his construction business.
I know he was terrible with money. Spent too much. The associates had checks bounce all the time.
I had lunch with his executor, who married his step-daughter. He was bankrupt multiple times.
He died and his estate was sold to pay debts. There was nothing left.

He would have had to pursue everything he could from 1921-1953.
"Financially" he was never successful.

Did he every say no? Probably not.
Be even with all this information, I have no idea ....

I'm just not sure why any of this is important.

[Ryan Book]

I had penned a one page, back-of-issue article for TGJ circa 2020 titles "Fuck You, Herbert Fowler, Yours, Donald Ross" but it turned out Anthony Pioppi had covered the meat of it in McKellar.

Tom:


Here is the actual letter regarding Dedham.  This should give you some clarification and erase the need for suppositions.


Sven

[Kyle Harris]

We spend a lot of time assuming people's choices or motives.
This goes for old architects "and new". Why?

I know from research Stanley Thompson. He came from nothing originally.
He employed a massive workforce till the mid-1930's in his construction business.
I know he was terrible with money. Spent too much. The associates had checks bounce all the time.
I had lunch with his executor, who married his step-daughter. He was bankrupt multiple times.
He died and his estate was sold to pay debts. There was nothing left.

He would have had to pursue everything he could from 1921-1953.
"Financially" he was never successful.

Did he every say no? Probably not.
Be even with all this information, I have no idea ....

I'm just not sure why any of this is important.

The psychology of decision-making is interesting. As is the development of processes. Educational as well.


As for importance, if that’s the criteria I’m not sure 95% of any history would ever be written. Including this website.

[Phil Young]

Here is an example of Donald Ross telling a club “No!” In 1922 he examined the golf course of Bloomfield Hills CC. This was followed by his providing the club with complete full course and individual hole drawings. After receiving them, the club decided that they weren’t going to make any of the changes recommended by Ross and the drawings were placed with the permanent club records.
      On November 23^rd, 1926, former BHCC President, Edwin S. George, wrote a letter to the members of the Forest Lake Country Club, of which he was in the process of organizing. In the letter he wrote, “Let us briefly consider the Bloomfield Hills Country Club’s popular golf course, which will serve to illustrate the points that I wish to bring out. 
      “The Bloomfield Hills Country Club I had the pleasure of organizing about sixteen years ago. Having been the first president of this Club, and over a term of five years, I am well acquainted with its early history.”
      He then went on to give a hole-by-hole description of the golf course. Among these descriptions he stated, “Hole No. 18, 470 yards, has been criticized by so able a golf architect as Mr. Donald Ross, as too hard and too long a hole for the finish of a game. Undoubtedlywhen Mr. Ross said this he was considering the average golfer, who makes up the usual membership of the golf clubs, and not the professionals.”
      In this somewhat long letter, this was the only specific mention he made of Donald Ross at BHCC. Had his criticism of this hole, and most likely of some of the others, have soured his relationship with the club leading to its decision not to use his redesign of the golf course? Other than his plans being placed into the club’s permanent records, there is no other mention of Ross.
      In the early 1930s the club chose to have the Green Committee redesign and reconstruct the first 10 holes of the course, especially the green complexes. This project would stretch out and be completed early in 1936. Realizing that they needed help especially in redesigning the final 8 green complexes, the club reached out to Donald Ross, asking him to come to the club that summer and for him to lay out plans for remodeling these eight greens.”
      Ross never responded to the club. That is about as clear-cut a “No!” as one can get. The questions as to ‘Why?’ he turned down this commission while the Depression and design/construction projects were few and far between remain unanswered.

[Tags:]

Tags: