Foulpointe, Madagascar & rankings

[Patrice Boissonnas]

If you read the 2006 published "Disorderly Compendium of Golf", you will find a list of the Top 100 courses in the world... in 1939.
Quite an interesting document indeed, featruring a fair mix of everlasting stars (Pine Valley, TOC etc.) and clubs that have declined or simply been surpassed by newcomers.
The main surprise comes from entry n.10 : Foulpointe in Madagascar.
Internet says it's a 1967 9 hole design by Paul Duponsel (sounds like French) so I assume the original course was lost.
Any idea what this course was like? Who built it? When ?

Another question : I thought Golf Digest was the inventor of rankings in 1966. It's obviously not true.
Who actually started ranking the courses? When?

People with knowledge, please share !!

[David_Elvins]

Patrice,

It started as a hoax on here that got a bit out of control.  Interesting to see it made it into print.  

These threads should explain it...

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/tom-macwood-the-worlds-finest-courses/

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?topic=55.0

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?topic=47822.0

[Tom_Doak]

The list published in 2006 was indeed a hoax; the guys who published it just weren't the hoaxsters, they copied it from this site unwittingly.

I have seen no "top 100" list in any of the old magazines, but there was a published series of articles about the best courses in the world, in GOLF ILLUSTRATED [U.S.].  The first three courses they did were National, Pine Valley, and Lido.

[Patrice Boissonnas]

David, Tom,
thanks for updating me, at least I know now.
I am disappointed this was a joke and feel very sorry this has been reprinted by unaware editors.

This story makes me wonder...
How much of our knowledge in history of golf course architecture might actually be wrong?
Unlike other fields of academia, we don't have generations of scholars who spend their life searching and double checking what others wrote or said.
I believe a significant part of the golf architecture history we know is the repetition of some information published once in the past. What if this information was wrong?
I guess the big picture is right but there are tons of details and anecdotes that might be untrue, yet always reprinted.

[BCrosby]

The first course ranking I've found was conducted by John Low in 1904 (05?).  (My notes are at home.) It appeared in Nisbet's Golf Year Book, an annual Low then edited. His rankings were updated for several years thereafter.  Low had British amateurs and professionals vote on their favorite courses. 50 or so courses were ranked. The results were interesting. TOC was rated the top course in each annual survey, with virtually all amateurs giving it the top rank.  Interestingly, relatively few pros voted TOC as the best.

Low's rankings were published for only three or so years and then disappeared. The next rankings I know of were Joshua Crane's in 1924, in which TOC came in last. .... and not long afterwards the fur began to fly.

Bob

  

[BCrosby]

Patrice -

I think the Foulpoint thing was fairly unique. It was intended as a hoax and then, when the perpetrators knew it was being relied upon by other writers and researchers, it went uncorrected.

That hasn't happened much, unless what we know about golf architecture turns out to be some sort of Cartesian bad dream.

One myth that persists, however, is that TOC is a happy accident of nature. TOC's current iteration is very, very old (ante-Dawson, that is), but it did not just appear one day three centuries ago.

Bob



 

[David_Elvins]

I.. feel very sorry this has been reprinted by unaware editors.

I am not sure but it might be a lesson for checking your sources before publishing lists you come across on the internet??

I guess the big picture is right but there are tons of details and anecdotes that might be untrue, yet always reprinted.

There is some irony in the fact that Tom MacWood spent so much time challenging the common myths of the past and yet he may have created one that bamboozles the next century's Tom MacWood. 

[Patrice Boissonnas]

OK, duly noted.
TOC's mythology is a good example of what I had in mind when I was questioning the solidity of our knowledge in history of golf architecture.

Here is another example: MacKenzie and camouflage.
We always read that his practice of camouflage during the Boers War was a significant part of his success as a golf architect.
Yes MacKenzie was a great architect and Yes he was a camouflage expert. But how did that really affect the way he designed golf course? Being a camouflage expert, did he know things that other architects ignored? Ok he could build a bunker 80 yards short of a green and make it look closer to the putting surface but isn't that common business for golf architects? Sometime I hear that a great thing about his designs is when you look back from green to tee you can't see any of his bunkers. Who cares? As far as I know, golf is played from tee to green and not from green to tee...
Having said that, I am a big fan of MacKenzie. I am just questioning what might be a false truth.

Maybe I should start a new thread on the subject with a more inviting title so we have more people on board.

[Nigel Islam]

Wow, I'd seen that list in the Lawsonia write up, but I had no idea about the back story behind it. Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction! I'm still trying to wrap my head around this.

[Bob_Huntley]

Patrice,

When it came to camouflage Mackenzie was a high handicapper compared to Boer Commandos.

See:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/boer_wars_01.shtml

Bob

[Bill_McBride]

Patrice,

When it came to camouflage Mackenzie was a high handicapper compared to Boer Commandos.

See:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/boer_wars_01.shtml

Bob

But Bob, wasn't Mackenzie there in the Boer War?

One of the best examples of his mastery is the fourth at Cypress Point, where the fairway bunkers overlap and blend so seamlessly with the greenside bunkers so well that you have no idea there's so much fairway out there.  Brilliant.