Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll

[TEPaul]

Rich:

Cornish and Whitten seem to assign the date 1842 to the ten hole layout Roberston did in Barry, Angus, Scotland that formed the basis of Carnoustie. But in the broad scheme of things what's 6 or 8 years?  

[T_MacWood]

It fascinates me how you use a quote like this and fail to see the signficance in it. We live in 2006. Subtract the 150 years Hurzdan mentioned and what do you get?  

Another example of your creative reading abilities….subtract 150 years and what you have, the date golf architecture began…right? Evidently you forgot to read the rest of the sentence: ‘Over the last 150 years certain conventions have emerged. A round of golf is usually considered to 9 or 18 holes.’ 1856 was the year the Old course became 18 holes.

Are you still trying to prove golf architecture began in the 1850s and since it was so young what was going on in 1900 could not have been a revival?

In my opinion, in essays like that one, or like many of Max Behr's articles, there are a number of assumptions made or at least used that basically need to factually and actually connect to one  another to make the conclusion valid.

Being compared to Max Behr…I’ll take that as a compliment.

But after having really read through your essay over and over again, I believe that description on here that the essay is just 'fire and smoke' is right. Your assumptions and material production on the A/C movement are pretty interesting even if they sure are just massive name dropping of people and places, but they are just too far removed from the under-lying subject at hand---eg golf course architecture and why the Golden Age of golf architecture happened when it did, where it did, how it did and why it did. Your assumptions just don't really connect enough to GCA and the tool you utilize to attempt to connect them is massive generalization and rationalizaton. When one points that out to you your only defense has been to tell them they should open their mind more or read some more books. That kind of on-going defense of one's point, conclusion or theory is ultimately just silly and the farthest thing from informative or edifying or educational.

We know that is what you believe…over the last 18 months you’ve been trying to disprove and discredit the essay, to show that is just ‘fire and smoke’, and not very successfully IMO.  

If anything what you have succeeded to do is first bring much more attention to it than it ever had before and second to show how little you know about the history of golf architecture, particularly early golf architecture and how little you know about the A&C movement and turn of the century London.

I also believe the process of attack & defense has helped to further develop some of its ideas and as a result a handful of minds out there in cyberspace have been affected (I honestly don’t believe many care one way or other about this subject). A few who weren’t on board before now see the plausibility of the A&C theory to one degree or another…Klein and Arble as examples.

I believe that the English A/C Movement did not have much effect or influence on the Golden Age of golf architecture simply because that was a time in a very new art form that was struggling to understand and define itself for numerous reasons that had nothing to do with the A/C movement which was revival based. As Hurzdan said above in the last 150 years certain conventions have emerged. But we are discussing a time approximately a century ago. At that time golf architecture did not have a revival because it didn’t need one. What it needed to do was mature after being taken from a land which was the only one where golf existed in a totally natural state for centuries and put in places that were wholly unsuited to receive it, as Behr said.

Anyone familiar with the condition of golf architecture during the Victorian period would not conclude there wasn’t a need for reform and/or a revival. Recognizing the need for reform is an act of maturity isn’t it?

My belief is you have tried far too hard to apply an A/C movement influence to golf course architecture back then when it was just too young and too immature and ill-defined to receive such a thing. Golf architecture’s most powerful influences back then, anyway, were a series of other events and other ideas that are all pretty well documented.

Do you think maybe you’ve tried too hard to discredit it? What the essay attempted to do was to relate turn of the century golf architecture with what was occurring in society at the time (and London was ground zero). It was a period when the arts were converging and were affected by a certain way of thinking.  As I’ve said many times before golf architecture was not immune. The essay also attempts to bring attention to a very important figure who really hasn’t been given the credit he deserves – Horace Hutchinson.

I recognize the essay is definitely not perfect…it covers way too much ground and should have been much more focused on one or two themes. .

Perhaps you haven’t noticed but I think golf course architecture is in its very first revival or renaissance in its approximately 150 year history and evolution, and it is just that A/C philosophy or attitude that is a fairly large part of it.

Interesting. Do revivals generally come in 150-year cycles? I do think you right about whats going on today.

I’ve tried to get this entire subject to a point where and when you could engage in this area of it and in this time with it but it’s not possible to do, it seems. You’re too evasive, too defensive, apparently because you feel someone is personally attacking you. This remark about a jihad against you is just silly, as is the remark you made about your Crump essay. I thought that was pretty good---I just didn’t like the way you went about coming up with material for it and either did a couple of people in Merchantville NJ. I don’t even know you, Tom, and this isn't personal, I just don’t agree with some of the things you write.

My mistake. When someone calls me on the telephone screaming that they will show the world that I am fraud and then several days later informs me their first effort will be to pick apart my A&C essay (an effort that has continued off and on for a year and a half)…you might get the impression it was personal.

[T_MacWood]

Rich:

Cornish and Whitten seem to assign the date 1842 to the ten hole layout Roberston did in Barry, Angus, Scotland that formed the basis of Carnoustie. But in the broad scheme of things what's 6 or 8 years?  

Robertson consulted on revisions at Carnoustie...historian have concluded that his suggestions resulted in the course being reconfigured as a ten-hole layout (between 1841 and 1844 competitions were recorded as being played on a 19-hole layout).

I feel sorry for the poor guy who originally did the 19-hole course for free...I think his name was Steve.

[ForkaB]

Rich:

Cornish and Whitten seem to assign the date 1842 to the ten hole layout Roberston did in Barry, Angus, Scotland that formed the basis of Carnoustie. But in the broad scheme of things what's 6 or 8 years?  

Tom

Your last sentence is very apropos!

As you may know, my next book, "Experience Carnoustie," will be released before the end of the year.  Local historians know that Alan Robertson visited many times (starting in 1839 with "Old" Tom Morris in tow).  The first written mention of Robertson's new 10-hole course was in 1848.  It could have been completed earlier, but nobody really knows (nor really cares, for that matter).....

[T_MacWood]

Rich
It sounds like Steve is going to get the short end of the stick in your book as well. Hopefully you'll give 'Gowfin Charlie' Robertson and Sir David Moncrieffe their due.

[ForkaB]

Buy the book and find out, Tom.

[TEPaul]

"Are you still trying to prove golf architecture began in the 1850s and since it was so young what was going on in 1900 could not have been a revival?"

Tom MacWood:

I don't know that I'm trying to prove that but that is about the time this USGA architecture archive will concentrate on beginning from. Michael Hurzdan, by the way, is definitely one of the central figures on this architecture archive committee. But I suppose you figure all these people just don't know the things you do.

That figures as you continue to ply your theories in the face of a complete lack of historical support or historical relevence.

Your knack of massive generalization about something like the A/C movement really does allow you to take it almost anywhere and claim its an influence on far too much.

It's not much different than suggesting the sun rises everyday everywhere and is therefore a powerful influence on everything too. Perhaps you should write another five part essay on how the sun is also a powerful influence on the Golden Age of Golf Course Architecture.  

[TEPaul]

"Being compared to Max Behr…I’ll take that as a compliment."

Tom MacWood:

I'd certainly agree with that parlticularly if the comparison was favorable. Unfortunately it isn't.  

I believe he connected his assumptions very well with perhaps the exception of one. You haven't come with ten city blocks of connecting your assumptions to support your conclusion, in my opinion.

[TEPaul]

"Interesting. Do revivals generally come in 150-year cycles? I do think you right about whats going on today."

Tom MacWood:

What kind of question is that? Are you now looking to something formulaic time-wise in the way of revivals, renaissances and cycles of styles?

If one studies history it's not that hard to see that revivals cycle in numerous ways and in numerous timespans.

Golf course architecture, in my opinion, and in the opinions of many has traveled a rather short but very interesting history span or evolution.

It's come a long way in that timespan and the real powerful influences on it such as varous forms and styles of landscape architecture are perhaps in many ways something other than benefical to it or certainly to various types and styles of it.

This, I believe, is one of the areas a renewed interest in some of the ramifications of a philosophy or attitude of the A/C movement (in a general sense) may powerfully effect and influence it or portions of it in the future. I feel that has begun to happen.

But golf architecture in the last 50-75 or so years has changed immensely. Agronomy and maintenance practices have been a strong force in that immense change too. One may even correctly say it has taken many wrong turns and wrong roads. But in that time and longer it definitely has come of age. That was just not the case between the middle of the 19th century when it first began and around the turn of the 20th century.

Golf architecture as an art form is mature now and it just may be that the duration of time it has been down those wrong turns and wrong roads (perhaps a half century or more) is bringing it back in some ways to a time that may be now considered something of an architectural pinnacle---a time that the last half century or so had left in the dust and which almost became forgotten (along with many of its architects).

That's what a revival in an art form (and its ancillary ramifications) is. It's a revival to a former time and type and style in that art form that becomes respected again for various reasons. By 1900 the art form of golf course architecture in its rudimentary form and rudimentary ancillary ramifications wasn't old enough or mature enough or understood or respected enough to revive back to a former time of interest in the art form of golf architecture, certainly not the least reason being there wasn't one (a former time of interest in the art form), so around 1900 it reacted to the immature and rudimenaty crap that was its entire history to that point and looked back to the natural Scottish linksland model that for hundreds of years had preceded the art form and the existence of man-made golf course architecture.

[T_MacWood]

Tom MacWood:

I don't know that I'm trying to prove that but that is about the time this USGA architecture archive will concentrate on beginning from. Michael Hurzdan, by the way, is definitely one of the central figures on this architecture archive committee. But I suppose you figure all these people just don't know the things you do.

Dumb dumb, let me help you understand this excerpt: 'Over the last 150 years certain conventions have emerged. A round of golf is usually considered to be 9 or 18 holes.’

I'm sorry to disappoint you but 'certain conventions have emerged' does not translate into 'golf architecture began'. You see the year 1856 - or 150 years ago - was the year the Old course became 18 holes, not the year golf architecture was born.

Perhaps the word 'convention' has thrown you off....convention means customary practice or rule....for example 9 or 18 holes are the accepted number of holes for a golf course. Do you smell what I'm cooking?

Hurdzan's new edition is very good, but it requires the reader to be someone of average intelligence. You need to walk before you can run...I'd recommend you read Tom Fazio's book on golf architecture before you get into anything as advanced as Hurdzan's...plus TF's book has lots of pretty pictures!

[TEPaul]

"My mistake. When someone calls me on the telephone screaming that they will show the world that I am fraud and then several days later informs me their first effort will be to pick apart my A&C essay (an effort that has continued off and on for a year and a half)…you might get the impression it was personal."

Tom MacWood:

If you want to keep bringing that up it's just fine by me.

You had been very critical of PVGC regarding their treatment of Harry Colt. I didn't like that at all and I never will. It just isn't the case but obviously you're not in a postion to understand that. All you could do is refer to an article or so that suggested something like that but that article was entirely inaccurate too, even if written by an otherwise respected woman member of Merion.

You seem to want to be percieved as some great researcher and history writer for uncovering Crump's death certificate. If anyone around here or perhaps from anywhere else wanted to find out how he died at anytime in the last 85 years then that would not be a very difficult thing to do. Obviously no one really wanted to get into that. Apparently you didn't have or don't have much appreciation for why that was. You deduced it was to cover something up and glorify the man perhaps at the expense of Colt. That's just total BS but perhaps you don't even realize that today.

You told me that you wanted to write about that and then might consider writing an article about Crump's death while being harrassed by people around here who were looking to cover something up.

At least I'm happy to know that I disabused you of an idea like that or the one about PVGC always being out to glorify Crump at the expense of what Colt did at PV. And I don't like the way you took advantage of those people in Merchantville either. If you had any kind of integrity or understanding of researching and publicly reporting something you should have told them what you were calling them for in the first place. You might tell me you didn't know at that point you were going to write an article about his death, but, frankly, I just don't accept that explanaton. To me that's simply a lie.

But in the end I think you did a pretty good article on him even if it has nothing much to do with architecture, or PV's architecture or who did what down there. PVGC thankfully doesn't mind the article either which pretty much proves they weren't out to hide anything regarding Crump, and their only motivation was obviously one of respect for him and what he really did do there.

The manner of his death doesn't have anything to do with what he did there in the last six years of his life anyway.

The resaon he shot himself has never even been remotely explained and certainly why his family (or friends) would've endorsed a story that he died of poison to the brain from poor teeth has never been explained either and it probably never will be.

It looks fairly certain to me that Crump didn't even die in Merchantville. It looks like he died at PVGC and his body was moved to Merchantville.

In an interview in 1990 his foreman's son, George Govan, mentioned how sad it was when Crump was found dead in his bungalow at PVGC. The Govan family was the only other one who lived down there back then.

But again, I have nothing personal against you. I don't even know you---I just think some of the things you write are very wrong.

Personally, if someone even handed me Crump's death certificate I think I'd have more respect for him and his memory than to write about the manner of his death to try to make a name for myself.