ANGC, Ross and Pinehurst

[BCrosby]

Reading Charles Price this weekend on ANGC and I came across something I had never heard before.

Price says that after Ross saw ANGC in '33 or '34, he returned to Pinehurst, abandoned his design for No. 4, plowed under the old 9th and 10th on PII, and built the current 4th and 5th.

Price said that Ross, also in response to the "revolutionary" ANGC, widened many fairways and removed dozens of bunkers at PII. I suspect it also hastened the grassing of the greens there.

Finally Price notes that the forces at Oakmont removed a number of bunkers after seeing ANGC in the 30's.

The transmigration of ideas in gca is fascinating, but it is almost never documented. Much is just word of mouth. Like the passages by Price.

People can be wrong, but I don't think Charles Price was the kind of writer who would just make this stuff up. He was very well connected, a good friend of Bobby Jones and a senior editor at Golf Magazine for 25 years.  

Anyone know something about this?

Bob

 
 

[Richard_Mandell]

Bob:

I heard that from Charles Price himself back in 1990 and then Pete Jones and others throughout the nineties so I have been hunting for that specific documentation throughout work on my book and have never found one reference to Augusta National in that regard.

The fact is that Ross built a nine hole employees course in 1928 and the first and ninth holes from there are now #4 and #5 of Pinehurst #2 (this happened in 1934 as Ross rebuilt all the greens and grassed them for the first time).  Ross built the employees course to extend real estate down Midland Road at the request of the Tufts.  After the depression they shut down the course and nine holes of #4.

There is no truth to the Augusta connection that I have come across.

Thanks,

Richard Mandell

[BCrosby]

Richard -

I guess I'm not surprised that there is no documentation supporting Price's statement. I would assume it was something said to him (by Ross himself possibly?) in passing. It's not the kind of thing any archtiect would be eager to commit to paper in any event.

But does the story sound plausible to you?

In a slightly different vein, was Ross impressed with ANGC? Did he in fact view it as a revolutionary course, as Price claims?

The relationship between Ross and Bobby Jones must have been a very interesting one. After Jones had become the most famous golfer in the world, Ross redid East Lake no.1 in '24 and built the new no. 2 course at EL later that decade. Also in '24/'25 Ross designed Highlands, where Jones had his summer home.

I find it hard to believe that Ross and Jones didn't interact at some point on all of those projects. They must have known each other pretty well. But on the two occasions when Jones commissioned an architect (ANGC and Peachtree), he chose someone else. Did Ross ever say anything about that?

Bob

[TEPaul]

Bob:

As to what Price said about Oakmont removing bunkering due to the influence of ANGC you should get in contact with Mark Studer of Oakmont about that. He has as good an understanding of the architectural evolution of Oakmont as anyone. That would seem to be a bit suspect from some of what I've heard about the bunkering of Oakmont. Mark told me that Oakmont once had considerably more bunkers than they do now---at one point over 200. I think you need to ask Mark if William Fownes was adding bunkers at Oakmont through the 1930s and until his death in 1949 or subtracting them.

[TEPaul]

Bob:

If this point of yours about Ross removing bunkering after being influenced by the lightly bunkered (22 if I recall correctly) ANGC of MacKenzie/Jones, and others such as Fownes and perhaps other architects of the 1930s were following that ANGC lead would you not then have to agree that they were all selling out their architectural principles if you subscribe to this revisionist theory of Tom MacWood that A.W. Tillinghast was selling out his architectural principles as he proceeded around the country in the mid 1930s recommending the removal of bunkers for the PGA of America?

What's the difference? It appears bunkering was getting removed in the 1930s, right?  

[Richard_Mandell]

Bob:

Another element of the story I've heard was that Ross was upset about not getting the Augusta job that he made it a point to make #2 better than Augusta ever was.  But I haven't seen anything about that either.  

Now of course Ross would never go public with his feelings so I guess the story is plausible to an extent regarding Ross's motivation to outdo MacKenzie, but not building new holes in direct response to any of that.  Again, the two holes in question were already in place in 1928.

If Ross was so determined to outdo Augusta, then somewhere there would surely be a small reference of comparison (in a well-crafted way so as not to sound bitter), but there is nothing.  


Regarding Augusta's influence on grassing at Pinehurst, Ross and Frank Maples had been working on grassing improvemetns since 1911 and they knew grass greens were ineveitable regardless of any outised influence like Augusta.

[BCrosby]

Richard -

Thanks. Interesting.

My sense is that ANGC was viewed as pretty revolutionary at the time, but that there was relatively little follow-on.

MacK died in '34, The Great Depression hit, WWII came along, and by the time gca got cranked back up in the 50's, whatever was revolutionary about AGNC had been either forgotten or suffocated by R. Trent Jones's marketing machine.

Bob

[TEPaul]

Ross visited PVGC one time during construction---ever hear about that? His opinion has been recorded by the man he went down there with. Ever hear about the apparently highly competitive relationship John Arthur Brown and Clifford Roberts had with one another? J.A. told Cliff, he didn't mind if he came and played but not if he continued to talk with his superintendent.

[BCrosby]

I have heard that J. Arthur Brown made Cliff Roberts look positively democratic. Did you ever meet him?

Bob

[TEPaul]

"Did you ever meet him?"

Maybe I should say thankfully no. He died in 1977 just about the same year I got to this town. Actually people like Mayor Ott say Brown was really a pretty nice guy and it may've been that some of those things he did were just every so often and perhaps even sort of for effect just to keep the image of total control going.

Did you ever meet Clifford Roberts?

Bob:

If you could me anyone from the past in golf who would it be at this point---Bob Jones? I think you might be able to guess who I'd most like to meet just to see if he spoke the same way he wrote.  

[BCrosby]

Never met Roberts, though I saw him and Jones when my father would take me to the Masters in the early 60's. They would hang around the pratice green now and then. Jones was always in his cart, with a cigarette holder lodged between his shriveled fingers. He was a little scary looking to a boy of ten or so.

The deceased person in the golf world I would most like to talk to is O.B. Keeler. For a lot of different reasons.

Bob

[TEPaul]

Bob:

I'd still take Behr as a golf architectural philosopher but if I could meet one of the great players it would have to be Jones or Hogan, two sort of enigmatic and complex men. I'd much rather meet them than someone like Nelson because he just doesn't seem so complex.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

It's for threads like this that we plough through millions of 'Sunningdale vs St George's Hill' threads here on GCA.  Keep up the scholarship and minimise the speculation.

[Brad Klein]

I never saw a single reference to ANGC in Ross' very detailed account of the evolution of No. 2 that he wrote for the program of the 1936 PGA Championship at No. 2. As mentioned above, he was constant making improvements to the course, so adding 4-5 and taking out an awkward loop elsewhere was no major undertaking.

As for the rumor of Ross being considered for ANGC, or being upset about not getting the commission, I looked into it and found not one shred of evidence anywhere - not with Ross, not with ANGC, to that effect. He was affiliated with Augusta CC and even represented that old resort hotel in 1928 in promo ads, so it is very unlikely that Clifford Roberts would have even considered him to do the course if he was looking to make an impact on the local or national market.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

Jones and Behr would be near the top of my list as well. But if you've only got a couple hours to chat in a bar, Keeler would be in a different league.

I don't know about Hogan. So much of his personality was tied up being competitive in all things. It didn't leave much energy for reflection. His ideas about gca were truly cro magnon man stuff.

Tom Simpson is another name I would add to my list. A fascinating character with lots of interests, including some pretty astute ideas about architecture. (Now that I think about it, I wonder if Agatha Christie modeled Peter Wimsey on Simpson? Same dilettante type. In the good sense of the word, of course.)

Bob

[BCrosby]

Brad -

Agreed. I've never found anything to suggest that Ross was ever in the running for the ANGC job.

That's curious in a minor way. Ross was probably the first serious architect that Jones got to know. In the early 20's they would have crossed paths at Augusta CC, East Lake Nos. 1 and 2, as well as at Highlands. That's four courses designed by Ross for clubs where Jones was an active member. I'm sure they crossed paths at other courses too.

Jones was more familiar with the work of Ross than any other architect of the era. No other architect would have been close.

Nonetheless, Jones picked MacK.

My hunch is that Jones chose Mack because (1) Mack was used to collaborations and had a more open personality, (2) was one of the few designers who loved TOC as much as Jones, (3) Mack was a more daring designer, willing to take chances and do something radically different, and (4) more fun to hang with.

Bob

[Dunlop_White]

Bob,

I could be mistaken, but I think I remember reading about Ross being upset about not being chosen for the ANGC job in the Augusta's Club History book.

Ultimately, it was Jones and MacKenzies' mutual fascination and affection with St. Andrews, where Jones won both the 1927 Open Championship and the 1930 Amateur Championship on his way to capturing The Grand Slam, which sold Jones on Mackenzie.

Also, of note, I remember reading in Roberts book that before they had commisssioned MacKenzie, they went to play Ross' Whippoorwill C.C in NY. When asked whether Mackenzie liked the course. He said it was remarkable. Roberts summoned him to explain. Mackenzie replied, it's remarkable who would be such a fool to build a golf course on property that was not fit for golf. Again, speculating ... but could this have turned there heads? I don't know?

[BCrosby]

Dunlop -

I've got the Roberts book at home. I will check it out tonight. My sense is that, at least in the beginning (and maybe only in the beginning), Jones called the architectural shots and that Roberts had relatively little input. I don't think the choice of architect was one that was discussed much. It was pretty much a done deal from the get go.

I have also read that Ross was disappointed in not getting the job, but I've been unable to locate a reliable source for that. There have been some wild stories about Ross proposing a routing for ANGC, visiting to Augusta, letters pleading his case, etc., all of which turn out to be untrue.

Bob