Peter Lees Take On Lido

[Tommy_Naccarato]

The following is Peter Lees take on the Lido during construction. It may have some stuff some of you may or may not want to hear, but the main thing is that it is FACT.

To repeat myself, It is also almost a 90% chance that the ultimate destruction of Lido was at the hands of organized crime boss Charlie Lucchese who maintained a huge hold on that area as his OWN personal turf. I'm searching now to see if one of his companies was in fact the developer of Lido Estates, which are the houses that now exist on that once fabled property. Yes, the Navy did some damage. But it was someone else who built on a property that I'm being told was drastically altered until the development of the housing took hold.

I have this as almost FACT from a long time Long Beach resident.

But once again Buon Natalie', Feliz Navidad, Happy Chanukkah  or Merry Fucking Christmas!

[TEPaul]

This is interesting stuff from Lees. This article would probably be in 1915 or perhaps 1916. Clearly in "grow-in" agronomy on a sand based golf course Macdonald learned his lesson with his agronomic failures at NGLA where according to Piper & Oakley (and Hugh Wilson) he was initially practically trying to grow grass on sand without a growing medium!

[A_Clay_Man]

The words "springy" and "straight" jumped off the page at me, as well as a touch of hyperbole.

I wonder iif Don or Pete, or any other keeprs of the green, could comment on the subsurface components.  Bog, lime, manure. Is this ideal for percolation? Where was this right, and were was this wrong?

[RT]

Adam,

Back in those days that was pretty much the ken of that time concerning turfgrass science.

If your read through old Golf Illustrated UK, there is a "turf tips" section for Club Secs, strangely enough, to pass on to the head greenskeepers, with all kind of hocus pocus advice compared to today's scientifically explored realms of soils, turfgrasses, fertilizers, fungi-pesti/cides, microclimate stress studies, etc..

Twas more an art back in those early days, yet charming to read.

RT

[TEPaul]

RT:

Interesting post of yours. Could you say a bit more about what you mean when you say "it was more of an art back in those days"? I'm supposing you mean it was more of an art than a science back in those days.

I don't know much of anything about agronomy but I was very surprised reading the agronomy files of Piper & Oakley's correspondence with Hugh & Alan Wilson of Merion beginning in 1911. It's amazing how completely rudimentary golf course agromomy was back in those days--and what a complete hit and miss procedure it was. And those four fellows basically became about the most accomplished golf course agronomy experts in the world in a general sense just following WW1 and into the 1920s. Their correspondence led them to compile the National Green Section reports which morphed into the USGA Green Section around 1925-6.

[Craig_Rokke]

Tommy-
Thanks for the re-print. Do you know if Lees was a well-known golf author in those days?

[RT]

TEP,

Exactly.  Greenskeeping, like golf course architecture in the early 1900's, was in its innocent infancy. Yet there had been a long history of "agriculture" that preceded turfgrass management that was extrapolated into the art of all things turfgrass.

This included things like bloodmeal, charcoal, among other oddities/curiosities.

Craig, I am looking into anything Lees while he was in London at Royal Mid-Surrey GC with J.H. Taylor, before being "poached" to come to Long Island for his grass growing expertise.

RT