When was the Golden Age?

[BCrosby]

I would put the start date with the first of the great inland courses by Colt, Park et al.

The end date ought to be WWII. There were too many great courses built in the 30's. Golden Age type courses continued to be built after the '29 crash.

(Which raises the question as to why Golf Week demarks its classic v. modern courses at 1950, a date that makes little sense. The demarkation date ought to be 1940.)

Every Golden Age ends. In the US it ended with the rise of RTJ post - WWII. I would claim that P'tree ('48) was the first great post-Golden Age course.

Quaere: Was there a similar break point in the UK at the end of WWII? Or did the devastation to the UK economy after WWII make the question meaningless?

Bob  

[TEPaul]

"Ron's idea of change during the period following the Crash is at first counter-intuitive but makes a lot of sense upon further reflection."

Wayne:

It may seem counter-intuitive to some today but that's only because they aren't particularly aware of some of the details of the depression years and labor. All that was going on with courses in both deconstruction and more redesigning than we may be aware of is provable. More than half of the changes that took place on my course's history took place in the decade of the 1930s. Do you really think we were unique that way?

What do you think Moses was doing at Bethpage? The depression years saw the beginning of a government "Make Work" philosophy under FDR which pretty much carried on through to the into the "social engineering" era of the US Government for most of the rest of the century. FDR pretty much picked up on Keynesianism which was deficit spending or "spend your way out of economic problems".

[T_MacWood]

What about them? In my view they were predecessors to the Golden Age. NGL brought in an era.

And...I do not think we are in a Golden Age today. I think Kelly hits it on the mark: We are in a period of retro-ism. Reliving the past with seldom a new idea or breakthrough. Among the most exciting designs of recent years (15-20) has been the infliction of certain styles in regions where such styles have been absent...

...links courses on coasts which have never seen such courses

...rough edges on parkland courses which had been previously manicured

...purposeful manufacturing of broken ground

...the idea of fewer trees, a throwback to days when courses were constructed on plowed land

Forrest
Most consider Park, Fowler, Colt, Abercromby and MacKenzie a big part of the golden age and do not divide their work into pre-NGL or post-NGL. How did the NGL bring these golf architects into that era?

[Bill_McBride]

Paul Turner, wouldn't you love to have been there at Alwoodley in 1907 with MacKenzie and Colt, tramping through those meadows and heather going over MacKenzie's routing? That's as close as it gets for me to the start of the Golden Age.

[T_MacWood]

Sir Guy Campbell identified three architectural periods:

Primitive age: the very first links up until the advent of the gutta ball (1848). According to Campbell what was surprising about this period was how few links of importance existed: St.Andrews, Aberdeen, North Berwick, Monifeith, Crail, Burntisland, Montrose, Dornoch, Barry, Scotscraig, Elie, Leven, Musselburgh and Dunbar. And the relatively large number of inland courses.

Orthodox age: the courses between the gutta and the rubber-core ball (circa 1902-3). "Some of these, almost all of them 'courses', outraged nature in every respect. and they are best forgotten." He listed the best courses of this period; he includes Huntercombe and Sunningdale in this period.

Mechanical age: the close of the S.African war to present day (1952). The most important links in chronological order: Princes (Hutchings), Eden (Colt), Turnberry (Hutchison), Birkdale (Hawtree/Taylor).... the most important inland: Walton Heath (Fowler), West Hill (Park), Alwoodley (MacKenzie), Addington (Abercromby), Stoke Poges and Swinley Forest (Colt), Worplesdon (Abercromby), St. Georges Hill (Colt)

[paul cowley]

neo[new] traditional [traditional]....is moving forward...v.s. retro[ism], I think is a backward move.

we are moving forward.

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