Augusta National Announcement

[Dale Jackson]

I just came across this article in Canadian Golfer from 1932, announcing the beginnings of ANGC.  I am not sure how well this will come up on the board but if anyone would like me to email the source files, just let me know.

[Jeff Loh]

very cool
thanks

[Mike_Cirba]

Great Find.

The history of golf is starting to be uncovered in the archived newspapers and periodicals of the time.

It's certainly been educational, and I applaud all of those who are doing the digging.

[Matthew Rose]

I like this:

"Doubtless there will be a Redan one-shotter on the course - correcting
a dozen Redans in America which are not authentic, and are mere
abortions of the original."

Were any of the original par-threes even close to Redans? I'm assuming #6 was kind of/sort of one, but
not really.

[BCrosby]

Note that the article seems to give MacK credit for Sandwich and Prestwick.

A propos old debates around here, note the last paragraph where Jones talks about the highly private nature of the new club.

I assume the big fancy clubhouse depicted in the article was an early victim of the worsening financial times ANGC found themselves in.

Bob



 

[TEPaul]

"A propos old debates around here, note the last paragraph where Jones talks about the highly private nature of the new club."

Bob:

Speaking of that please tell us what you know about those famous "ANGC trains" that apparently plied the north to south East-coast corridor picking up and transporting prospective ANGC members from all along the line down to Augusta to look over the new club.

I heard Bobby Jones wrote numerous clubs along the East Coast making their members aware of this new opportunity in Augusta and the free train ride down the coast to see it. We still have his letter to GMGC about this hanging on the wall of the club.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

I don't know a lot about the the "train". At the Atlanta History Center there are copies of letters Jones wrote asking various personages to join his new club. I would be curious to know the yield rate on those letters, because they were sent just as the US was entering the darkest days of the Great Depression.

Bob

[Mark Bourgeois]

According to Owens's book, Roberts even propositioned strangers on hold courses, for example at Pinehurst (I think).

Mark

[Bill_McBride]

I wonder who planted in Mr Wright's mind the idea that the dozen existing Redans (all MacDonald templates?) were "abortions?"  Jones?  Mackenzie?  What an entertaining question!

[TEPaul]

Bob:

The letter from Bob Jones is in a frame obviously but it's pretty small and the next time I go over to GMGC I'll take it up to the office and ask them if they can scan it for you. It was probably a pretty stock letter from him but it is addressed to GMGC and it's all about the free train ride along the line to pick up interested parties and prospective members.

This brings up another fairly interesting historic question about American golf clubs, and that is who was it who pioneered the "national" membership idea in the formation of a golf club?

I'd have to guess it was Macdonald and NGLA? Was ANGC the second one? Probably not when you begin to get into the details of what Marion Hollins did for Cypress Point by handling its membership drive which certainly seemed to be national in makeup----eg most of it seemed to be her friends and people who knew her. There were certainly a whole lot of both across the country!

[BCrosby]

Tom -

One of Joe Bausch's recent finds in old Philly papers talks about PVGC's "national" members. I'd guess the concept of a national membership was fairly common by the time ANGC came into being.

Note, though, that ANGC from the outset always had a fairly large number of local members. There have always been a sizable group of members who lived in or near Augusta. Which was at one time a source of tension with Jones' Atlanta friends. ANGC has never had a purely national membership.

Bob

[Dan Herrmann]

 Bob,
Did the ATL crowd think the Augusta locals were of a different social class? 

[Wayne_Kozun]

One of Joe Bausch's recent finds in old Philly papers talks about PVGC's "national" members. I'd guess the concept of a national membership was fairly common by the time ANGC came into being.

But what would "national" have consisted of in those days since, correct me if I am wrong, there wasn't much population west of St. Louis (we are still more than 25 years away from the Dodgers moving to LA) and Florida was still pretty much unpopulated.  So did "national" mean all of the Northeast plus Chicago?

[BCrosby]

Wayne - Yes, basically.

Dan - Probably to some extent. The root of the issue at the time was that many in Atlanta were very unhappy that Jones didn't locate his new course in Atlanta. Remember, this was a town that had treated him like royalty, bought him a mansion of P'tree Street, and all the rest. And then he builds his new course in Augusta. So his old Atlanta buddies let Jones know they were unhappy with the location chosen. Jones returned the favor by not inviting many to join. Or, to speculate, maybe Jones was tired of that gang and chose Augusta to achieve precisely the result he in fact achieved.   

[TEPaul]

Bob:

It's interesting what you say that article that Joe Bausch found recently implies that Pine Valley was basically founded on the "national" membership idea.

I think you may be referring to the J.E. Ford article that was from 1925---basically a good dozen years after the club was formed and founded.

It could be but personally, I don't think that was the original idea for it and it sure looks like president Howard Perrin's April 1, 1913 (April Fools Day) letter to prospective members proves that. It was formed as a club for serious golfers who were only interested in really good and testing golf and not in much of anything else like making some kind of profit in any way from their membership thereof. And, there has never been a single iota of evidence that Pine Valley was ever interested in any other recreation other than golf. Perrin's letter states all that in what seems to me today to be an endearingly honest and non-bullshit way! 

However, it seems to me by looking over the membership rolls of the club even during the lifetime of Crump that only lasted five years after the club was formed, that the club took in just about anyone and everyone who filled their expectation of someone who really loved golf no matter where they came from, and a number of them in those first five years did come from afar.

But it looks to me like the real "national" membership idea for PV came later (where the local or regional membership roll was set at a maximum number) and then of course there was president Ernie Ransome who did a remarkable job of pulling in and establishing a truly "International" membership too, as well as constructing remarkable ties with golf and golfers abroad both ways. Ernie followed John Arthur Brown and in 1977, and 64 years after the club was formed, became only its third president.

[Jim Nugent]

I wonder who planted in Mr Wright's mind the idea that the dozen existing Redans (all MacDonald templates?) were "abortions?"  Jones?  Mackenzie?  What an entertaining question!

Couple things interested me in this.  Was Wright talking about all the Redans in the country at that time?  If so, that means that only a dozen existed.  And did he include NGLA's Redan in the group of abortions? 

[Neil_Crafter]

Interesting articles Dale, thanks for sharing.
A good deal of info in this article appears to come from various articles in the Augusta Chronicle newspaper from around July 15 to 17 1932, when Jones and Mackenzie were on site commencing the planning of the course.

Bob
That material about Mac's courses comes straight from an article by O B Keeler (I posted this quote on another thread about Sunningdale New) and I believe it would have been Mackenzie telling Keeler the courses he had been involved in, but picking out the ones that most US golfers would have heard of. He did redesign work at both these courses but obviously did not 'design' them, so perhaps he was letting Keeler give a perception that was not entirely true.

Bill and Jim
The statement in the article about the Redans, is not from Wright, but taken directly from O B Keeler's front page article in the Augusta Chronicle of July 15, 1932. One can only presume he got this information, again, directly from Mackenzie (and possibly Jones).

[BCrosby]

Neil - I did not know that MacK had done work at those courses. That 400 courses number that showed up in his obituaries might not have been far off the mark, given an expansive reading of "designed".

Tom - Sounds like PVGC and ANGC were different in the sense that PVGC didn't seek national members at the outset. ANGC did.

Bob