Just happened to be dreaming some thoughts of NGLA......

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom - a wonderful post, thank you. 

I'll mention just one part of it that's particularly interesting, i.e.  how you had to hit a blind shot with a long iron in your hands, and yet you were confident! The course posed the problem/challenge (the blind approach for short hitters on the 14th) but somehow also engendered the means to meet that challenge (through focus, and the confidence that comes with it). It's very interesting...

Thanks again
Peter

[Adam Sherer]

"The sport comes alive there because the place IS actually alive. Almost like a living, breathing entity."

I think that the "aura" (as TEPaul says) of National equates to its personality, which makes it feel like it is alive.  When you experience the course, it boasts with innate personality, charm, and charisma that creates an identity and personification to the course.  Each individual hole is like an individual character quirk that in-all create a feeling like it's actually a living, breathing entity; one that lives, breathes, and speaks. 

[Tom Naccarato]

Adam, That is perfectly put, what it took me way too many words to try to describe! Aura, Character, Alive, Identity. All of those words! What your saying is much the way I feel about the place.

[TEPaul]

Adam:

When I talked about what seems to me to be very different auras or feelings around a golf course, I meant by that different auras or feelings on different parts of a single course.

I don't get that at NGLA. Nevertheless, the feeling I do get at NGLA (from its aura to me) is probably both very personal and perhaps unique to me in many ways. I do almost palpably feel the history of the place, the aura of its clearly unique architecture (probably very much of an era). I also feel the people I have known during different times of my life when I come through those gates. Some of that could be because I knew it so well once and didn't return for perhaps forty years. The place is like a time tunnel to me. I almost palpably feel people like James Knott (that over-arching SOB), Bobby Grant, the wonderful Choate brothers and many others I knew years ago and played with there, certainly the most palpable to me being my own father who was always with me back then when I played there. When there I can feel them and almost see them, particularly some of the unusual things like how they would all buy a sleeve of new balls and hit them from the back of the tee backwards into the bay----something, by the way, I would not have dreamed of doing at my young age!

With other courses like a Merion, I feel when I'm on that famously nerve-wracking first tee that in the very spot of my own shoes stood most all the greats the game has known. That kind of thing can have a real effect on most people, I'm sure. That alone is a palpable aura for me. I've never been to TOC but there it's probably even greater.

This is not to just say that any course that held big events in the past has this feeling for me but in some ways most do. There are a number of courses I know that I feel just inherently have wonderful, sometimes unique golf architecture but some of these have the spirits too, at least for me they do. They have the aura of the people, most now gone, who were part of the entire tapestry of my life, and who wouldn't feel that pretty palpably particularly if the times you visit these places is quite well spaced out through one's life?

I guess I've gotten away from architecture and its excellence that produces these kinds of auras and  feeling because I can also say that this special aura of the people through one's life hit me bigtime on another course----this time on little nothing Fernandina Beach Municipal. The point is the course looked and felt no different to me when I was last there around 2005 with my wife than it did the previous time I was there around 1949. I just felt if I turned around there would be my dad just as he was on that course with me almost sixty years ago.

Again, I guess I've gotten pretty far afield of the subject of TommyN's thread---NLGA and its feeling. I will say this about its most recognizable feeling for me and that is its first four holes!! (of course not to mention the lunches) I have just never seen or felt anything remotely like that particular start on any other golf course I've known in my life and I'm sure I never will.

I think an appropriate way to describe it is how Bill Coore described the course when I asked him about it one time. He just said; "How did they have the guts to do this?" 

[Tom Naccarato]

Tom Paul,
Getting back to the blindness, here is an image I took of the PN at #8, clearly showing the feature having been "flat-topped" to some extent. Try to imagine this feature  somewhat taller, bolder and I think it describes the point I'm asking about the 8th. Would have this feature blinded the approach shot from the right? My thinking is that it partially did.

[TEPaul]

"Tom Paul,
Getting back to the blindness, here is an image I took of the PN at #8, clearly showing the feature having been "flat-topped" to some extent. Try to imagine this feature  somewhat taller, bolder and I think it describes the point I'm asking about the 8th."


TommyN:

"Flat-topped?"

When did that happen?

Taller and bolder? Was the PN much taller and bolder at some point? If so, I must say I didn't know that or notice it. I can't recall what the PN looked like when I played there now and again over forty years ago but in about the last ten years having played there a lot more often I don't recall the PN ever blinding my visibility of that green, including having it right in line with my shot in to the green which would probably be from somewhere on the right of the inline bunker scheme, I would assume.

[Tom Naccarato]

Tom,
Uncle George was right there with me when I took this actual photo, and explained to me that at one time, the PN was actually taller and bolder to some degree. If memory serves right, Karl was responsible for taking it down to today's current height, as well as the blinding dune on the 17th.

This is why, going back to the previous discussion from some months ago regarding the 8th, or the Bottle Hole in general, what was the best route, or what was the exact strategy or outcome for going right rather then left.

BTW, I like this photo!

[Tom Naccarato]

I know this has been brought up before, but this is an excerpt from American Golfer regarding NGLA that I found extra interesting: (ultimately wrong but interesting.)


TOO SEVERE.

There is no question that they have
overdone it at the National course. It
is too severe. We refer, of course, to
the course of the National Golf Links
of America at Shinnecock Hills, sometimes
known as the "ideal" course.
The primary idea was to make each
and every hole an exacting test; to
copy, so far as Nature would permit,
certain of the famous holes abroad,
and to make the whole eighteen
"ideal" holes. So far as reproduction
of any of their prototypes is concerned
—whether it be the "Sahara" at Sandwich
(of which the second at the
National is supposed to be a copy),
the "Alps" at Prestwick (represented
by the third), the "Redan" at North
Berwick (the fourth) or any of the
others—without going into any elaborate
description—the simple fact remains
that outside of the general principles,
in a broad sort of way, none of
the physical features of any of these
holes has been reproduced. The whole
face of Nature would have to be radically
changed, at incalculable expense,
to permit this—and even then they
would not be alike. For the simple
reason that it would be impossible to
duplicate the soil, the turf, and the
general environment. The plain truth
is that they have overdone it at the
National. The scores in the recent
tournament go largely to support this.
Fancy Mr. Norman Hunter taking 87
at St. Andrews or Mr. Hilton 89!
As they did at the National. They
have overdone it in making every hole
a very difficult one. It is too much.
There is no let-up—no breathing spell;
one's nose is everlastingly at the
grindstone. Which, after all, is not
golf. For golf is a game—a recreation.
Take any of the championship
courses on the other side and what
do we find ? Four, five or six holes
of the eighteen very severe; the rest,
interspersed, of the usual type to be
found on good courses. Good holes,
but not all of the "death or glory"
type. That would be asking too much,
even at the hands of the most finished
exponents of the game.

At the time, Travis was the editor of American Golfer. He was also a founding member of NGLA. The description here I don't think could ever be Travis', but I could be wrong. However this was from the opening news items and observations that used to lead the publication off, and which are usually reserved for the editor.

[TEPaul]

TommyN:

I've seen that article (or editoral) at some point along the way but it's been a while. I don't know who wrote it but if it was Travis it wouldn't surprise me. Travis was not a founding member of NGLA but initially he was one of a committee of three that Macdonald formed to do the course. The other two were Whigam and of course Macdonald himself. Macdonald wrote in his book he eventually dropped Travis and there were a number of others who helped out including Emmet.

I don't think there's any question at all that Macdonald and Travis very much got on the wrong side of one another as the first decade of the 20th century progressed and the apparent reason seems to have almost wholly emanated from the Schnectedy Putter controversy that was huge. Travis really blamed Macdonald for being on both the USGA and the R&A Rules Committee. Under the circumstances Travis saw that as a real conflict of interest for an American USGA Rules Committee member.

Apparently Travis may've even blamed Macdonald to some extent for the Schnectedy Putter issue or for the R&A's position on it which frankly seems a bit unfair to Macdonald because if one reads his position on the issue carefully he really wasn't exactly for banning the putter at all. Macdonald's position was a quite interesting compromise. And frankly Macdonald seemed pretty much always to be against the standardization of balls and implements. He was a very old fashioned purist that way in the mode of the classic sportsman!

[George_Bahto]

Karl didn't lower the PN on the 8th. As far as I have learned it may have been done just after CBM lost control of the course. Lots of changes were done there because Charlie (the dictator) was not there to negate their ideas for changes in HIS course.

[Tom Naccarato]

Tom, I had completely forgot about the putter issue. Just completely skipped my mind!

In one of these same articles, Travis is listed as a founding member.

Here is that list (copied and pasted from that issue)

The National Golf Links, is appropriate by
reason of the fact that the sixty-seven
founders, each of whom has put in
$1,000, and in whom the ownership of
the property is vested, reside in vari-
ous parts of the country; while as to
the term "Links" it is really about the
Following is the original list of the
founders:
 
H. M. Atkinson, Daniel Bacon, Robert
Bacon, George W. Baxter, Watson F. Blair,
John M. Bowers, Urban H. Broughton, E.
M. Byers, Daniel Chauncey, Stephen C.
Clark, T. Jefferson Coolidge, Jr., Charles
Deering, James Deering, Findlay S. Doug-
las, F. P. Dunne, Devereux Emmet, Henry
C. Frick, Elbert H. Gary, Hugh J. Grant,
John P. Grier, J. Horace Harding, J. Bor-
den Harriman, H. M. Harriman, Jarvis
Hunt, Leigh Hunt, Robert Bage Kerr, F.
S. Layng, J. Bowers Lee, Robert T. Lin-
coln, Charles B. Macdonald, Clarence H.
Mackay, J. J. Manning, J. H. Moore, W.
H. Moore, John Bowne Mott, DeLancey
Nicoll, Alfred L. Norris, Howard Page, J.
C. Parrish, W. A. Putnam, Norman B.
Ream, Winthrop Rutherford, Arthur Ryer-
son, Roy A. Rainey, H. B. Hollins, Sr., Ed-
ward L. Ryerson, S. L. Schoonmaker,
Quincy A. Shaw, Jr., W. D. Sloane, Charles
D. Stickney, James A. Stillman, James L.
Taylor, R. H. Thomas, W. B. Thomas, T.
Toscani, Walter J. Travis, H. McK.
Twombly, W. K. Vanderbilt, Jr., C. F.
Watson, Robert C. Watson, H. J. Whig-
ham, H. P. Whitney, R. H. Williams, B. F.
Yoakum, Richard Young, Col. R. M.
Thompson.

But this is interesting. (and I know you have seen this)

The issue of the Schenectady Putter was a passionate debate for its time, seemingly no different then a certain golf course in Ardmore, PA.! Still it is interesting because it reflects on something we have discussed nor researched much about on Golf Club Atlas--the relationship of Travis and MacDonald and the process of what led to this division.

From Travis:

Mr. Macdonald had not even been
consulted on the question, other than
in the indirect way he states, and it
was as much a surprise to him as to
anybody else that such precipitate ac-
tion had been taken. It developed
subsequently that this pronouncement
of guilty was ex parte on Captain
Burn's side, being merely a gratuitous
expression of his personal opinion, no
decision whatever having been arrived
at by the Committee as a whole. In-
deed nothing definite was done until
the September meeting of the Royal
and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews,
when the poor Schenectady which had
been prejudged and its fate settled
months before, was ignominiously con-
demned.
 
It may not be inappropriate to here
explain the relationship which Mr.
Macdonald occupies as a representa-
tive of the U. S. G. A. on the Rules
of Golf Committee. The latter body
is composed entirely of members of
the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of
St. Andrews, appointed by the Club.
In short, it is not at all a representa-
tive organization, drawn from vari-
ous clubs in different sections, such as
the U. S. G. A., for instance, but a
self-appointed oligarchy pure and sim-
ple. Mr. Macdonald was not ap-
pointed by the U. S. G. A. St. An-
drews attends to that; the U. S. G. A.
can only humbly acquiesce when St.
Andrews arrogates to itself the sole
appointive power . . . and no one is
eligible who is not a member of that
club. Mr. Macdonald is not an official
of the U. S. G. A., although represent-
ing it as a member of the Rules of Golf
Committee . . . ridiculously anomal-
ous—and quite un-American.
Surely the U. S. G. A. should at
least be permitted to elect its own dele-
gate! Not that it really matters
much, his influence being so inconse-
quential.—THE EDITOR.]

° ° °
° ° °
Very interesting stuff!

[TEPaul]

TommyN:

In Macdonald's own book Travis as a founding member either slipped Macdonald's mind or he expunged him from the club and its recordings because he didn't include Travis's name in the seventy founding members who paid $1,000 each. Sounds like some bad blood along the way to me. 

It has always been my feeling that the story of Macdonald, the man, and certainly the man in golf other than just in golf architecture should be told in its entirety somehow. It is a remarkably complex story about a remarkably complex man and if told comprehensively many of us might see how American golf might've taken a fairly different road had Macdonald gotten his way as he clearly thought he should, hoped he would, but definitely did not in the end (actually a whole lot earlier than I think most of us realize or appreciate).

Macdonald's philosophies on the Rules of Golf, on golf administration, on the prospects of I&B standardization and regulation, as well as the ongoing relationship between golf abroad (particularly the R&A) and American golf are really interesting and are generally not what most might expect they were.

His penchant for taking complex positions rife with intertwining Victorian Rules of Order propositions and resolutions, debate and procedure could've rivaled Salisbury or even Bismarck for keeping things ultimately close to the vest to insure control by a few which he felt was the only structure for the ongoing strength and health of golf administation and golf. In golf he really was an incredible combination of both the spirit of democracy, on the one hand, and the essence of elitism, on the other.

[Peter Pallotta]

"In golf he really was an incredible combination of both the spirit of democracy, on the one hand, and the essence of elitism, on the other"

TE -
it strikes me that the line you use to describe Macdonald could also decribe not only NGLA, but the game of golf itself.

I'm thinking of Patrick's post on that wonderful round he had at NGLA when he was far from the top of his game, i.e. The course (and the nature of the game itself) allowed him to score very well (democratic in that way), but only because Patrick was an experienced and clever strategist, in control of his thinking and choices (elitist in that way)

Interesting to think of how the dual nature of The Man himself was manifested at NGLA, the course he designed to set the standard for the game of golf in America.

In importing the principles of the great golf courses/holes from Britain, he managed to import the democratic-elitist spirit of the game itself -- a nature that he shared as a person

No wonder he was so invested in NGLA, and that -- this personal and professional task completed -- he turned away from building golf courses once he saw that the way HE wanted golf in America to go wasn't the way it was likely to go

It's as if he took that as a truly personal rejection

Peter   

[TEPaul]

"TE -
it strikes me that the line you use to describe Macdonald could also decribe not only NGLA, but the game of golf itself."

Peter:

Maybe so. Here's the line again:

"In golf he really was an incredible combination of both the spirit of democracy, on the one hand, and the essence of elitism, on the other."

I suppose in a real way one could say that Pat Mucci essentially proved (with not being able to hit a drive more than 180 yards at the time or to get his irons much airborne) there is a form of strategic democracy in the architecture of NGLA with that round he had in the National's Singles Tournament.

On the other hand, it can be pretty tricky business, in my opinion, for some of us today to appreciate or even understand the complexity and the historical context of Macdonald's position on the spirit of democracy in the playing of golf, on the one hand, and the essence of his belief in the necessity of a form of 19th century elitism to do with the administration of golf, on the other hand.

[Peter Pallotta]

You're surely right, TE - it's much more complex than my little schematic there.

But the thought hit me and then my fingers just took off, in love with the Big Theory that was emerging

I really should be more careful with stuff like that....

Peter

[John_Cullum]

You can tell when you've been on this website too long when you can see the letters PN and immediately know what it means

[TEPaul]

"- it's much more complex than my little schematic there.

But the thought hit me and then my fingers just took off, in love with the Big Theory that was emerging

I really should be more careful with stuff like that....  "



Peter:

Not at all. Maybe it is complex and pretty tough to put into an accurate historical context with what-all was going on back then in these various areas but I believe it's very much worthwhile looking into and discussing (and debating), hopefully for greater clarity and understanding in the end. We have to start somewhere and you have and that's always a good thing.

What I would ultimately like to do with Macdonald, is first endeavor to get historically correct what he really did believe and do back then (not just with golf architecture) and why. Having done that it'll be easier to put him and his ideas in what was really going on in his time (not ours), how his time jibbed with him and his ideas and how it didn't and why. After that we can better understand how golf has come to us the way it has today from that time and if the evolution of it all was and is a good thing or not a good thing or something in between.

You know me, I think there are some good and interesting reasons why we go through the cycles we do, why we stop and look back to something in the past from time to time (what is it we're looking for back then?), why and how we land at our little renaissances and such. But then the cycle turns again and we are off into new territories and ideas probably fueled by some reaction or new interpretation of what once was and is now.