Colt/Ross

[Ira Fishman]

I am sure that there are prior threads, but as I head to Chicago tomorrow, I was reading a bit about Old Elm. A few questions:


Is it true that Colt did the design and Ross did the construction?


If so, what circumstances led to the collaboration?


Did Ross view himself as a mentee/successor of Colt?


Thanks,


Ira

[Anthony Gholz]

Ira:


Wow.  You can upset quite a few people with this discussion.  I'll try not to.


Design vs construction:  In very general terms yes. HOWEVER, C&R spent a week on the site together before Colt did his famous drawings, copies of which are on display in the clubhouse.  I don't believe its possible for them to spend that time together without any design input by Ross.  The during construction Colt was back in England and Ross spent weeks (over a years time) on site.  Did he make design changes in the field?  Of course.  The club (general term) in the past 5-6 years has changed several holes where Ross deviated from Colt's drawings.  They're using Colt's drawings as gospel.  Should they do that?  Were there field issues which Ross responded to when he made the changes?  A dang river was involved with swampland.  Discussion would take many days at the bar.


Collaboration/mentorship, etc.:  Ross spent considerable time with Colt at The CC of Detroit on C's 2nd and 3rd visits in 1913-14.  Ross is called Colt's "associate" in several Detroit newspaper articles by a reporter who was very knowledgable about golf, The CCD, and the people involved.  It was said that Ross was consulted on all bunker changes in preparation for the 1915 AM, based on his working with Colt.  Of course there's the famous Colt paragraph on those same OE drawings where he calls Ross by a different name. 


Ross views of ...:  I let others more knowledgable re Ross to comment on that.


BTW OE is a fabulous course and wonderful property and I highly recommend that anyone who can swing it play. And, of course take time to view the Colt drawings.  If you can also get to Ancaster compare those Colt original drawings in color with the OE drawings.  There's a thread somewhere on here that covers both the OE and Ancaster drawings.  Well worth reviewing.


Anthony

[Ira Fishman]

Anthony,


Many thanks. How did Colt and Ross connect with each other initially? Was Colt looking for an up and coming US based associate? Or did Ross reach out to Colt when he learned that Colt was traveling to the US?


Ira

[Sven Nilsen]

Ross was the initial hire in late 1912/early 1913 (perhaps Anthony knows more about exactly when Colt was engaged, but I have not seen anything suggesting his name was in the mix before the club was talking to Ross).


Once Colt became involved, the press described the project as a co-design with Ross to superintend the construction.


Probably important to remember that 1913 was very early in Ross' design career.  He was a known entity, but not to the extent he would be 5 to 10 years later.

[Ira Fishman]

Yes, the timing is what struck me because Ross was relatively unknown. I assumed that given the emphasis that the club puts on the Colt pedigree, Colt was the senior member of the team and that somehow he engaged Ross. It sounds as if the club may have “thrown” them together.


Ira

[Anthony Gholz]

Ira/Sven: 


Colt's trip in 1913 is described somewhere as Detroit Detroit Detroit with a little Hamilton thrown in and "possible some work in Chicago."  Colt didn't make those trips without prearranged "real" work on the books.  Sweeney at The CCD alone would cover that, but there was Toronto and Hamilton that were prearranged before Colt got on the boat.


Yes, I agree Ross was involved with OE at least as discussion prior to Colt's arrival.  Several newspaper articles speak to that.  Colt did think positively about Ross's skills as later that same trip he had him at The CCD.  There was no reason for him to "help" Colt at Detroit unless Colt wanted another pair of construction eyes (similar to OE?).


Separately I should have mentioned that the same comment I made regarding Ross's involvement with design certainly starts with the routing.  Once again the routing drawing is in Colt's hand, but Ross had to have had some input as they went along; even if the outside inside loop routing (ala Muirfield/Bloomfield Hills) is Coltian.  OE's land was/is tight and the river had some of the acreage in marshland.  OE doesn't have an actual dedicated practice area even today.  I believe the first hole was extended by the club after the river had been tamed (channeled).


I always hope for more info to surface, but this discussion may never come to a satisfactory conclusion.
Anthony

[Bret Lawrence]

Ross’ individual hole drawings seem to be closely related to Colt’s individual graph paper drawings.  It makes me wonder if this was one of the lessons Ross took from working with Colt? Colt clearly had the ability to design courses that he may never return to and one way he did this was to illustrate his designs in a very detailed way on graph paper. 


I haven’t researched this as much as I’d like to, but a quick glance through the Ross drawings and it appears Ross never drew individual hole plans before 1913 (or when he met Colt).  Many of the drawings on Ross’ early courses only included the full course layout.  Perhaps, one of the lessons Ross took from Colt was how to better communicate his design ideas using these individual hole designs on graph paper? With these detailed drawings, the architects wouldn’t have to be on site all the time, for every job.


Ross certainly became more prolific after he worked with Colt.  Other architects who came into the business later also used graph paper designs such as Alison and Stiles.  Anyone renovating a Ross design could likely tell you how useful these drawings are when they are trying to restore a green, hole or course on a Ross design.  These graph paper designs obviously stood the test of time better than any plasticine models.


I also wonder if this collaboration had anything to do with Carter’s Tested Seeds?  Colt was strongly tied to Carter’s and it appears Ross built some courses using the Carter System very shortly after working at Old Elm.  Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts would be one example.  Perhaps Carter’s was trying to recruit Ross in order to get a foothold in the US market?  Ross appears to have used Carter’s at times but not necessarily exclusively.  By 1916, Willie Park arrives in the US and becomes the head architect for Carter’s Tested Seeds. Once Park arrives in the US, the Carter’s System became much more prolific in the US over the next decade. It may just be coincidence, but it seems more like an early attempt by Carter’s to expand their business model to the United States.

[Adam Lawrence]

I also wonder if this collaboration had anything to do with Carter’s Tested Seeds?  Colt was strongly tied to Carter’s and it appears Ross built some courses using the Carter System very shortly after working at Old Elm.  Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts would be one example.  Perhaps Carter’s was trying to recruit Ross in order to get a foothold in the US market?  Ross appears to have used Carter’s at times but not necessarily exclusively.  By 1916, Willie Park arrives in the US and becomes the head architect for Carter’s Tested Seeds. Once Park arrives in the US, the Carter’s System became much more prolific in the US over the next decade. It may just be coincidence, but it seems more like an early attempt by Carter’s to expand their business model to the United States.

We should clarify that a little by saying that Colt was closely associated with Carters in the US and Canada. This connection is a matter of some interest, given that back home, Colt was allied with Carters' big rivals Suttons. Carters got their entry into the US via The Country Club in Boston, and specifically through one of the leaders of the club, and the 1903-4 president of the USGA, G. Herbert Windelar. I haven't been able to prove this yet, but it seems certain to me that Windelar, who was born in the UK and crossed the Atlantic regularly on business, came across Carters on one of his trips and invited them to Boston.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Here's a link to Adam's article on Old Elm from 2015:


 https://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/content/a-legendary-collaboration-at-chicagos-old-elm-club



[/size]"Colt, as was his modus operandi even back home in England, didn’t stick around for the construction of the Old Elm course. He left a selection of drawings, plans and instructions, and a recommendation that the club should be confident in letting ‘Douglas’ handle the construction work. This the club did, thus making Old Elm the only golf course on earth touched by the hands of both Colt and Ross."[/color]
[/size][/color]
[/size]Not sure of that is indeed the case as there is much info on Colt/Ross collaborating in Chicago on Glen View Club and Indian Hill at the same time as Old Elm.[/color]

[Adam Lawrence]

It should be said that I know a lot more about Colt in Chicago now than I did in 2015

[Ian Mackenzie]

It should be said that I know a lot more about Colt in Chicago now than I did in 2015

 


Glen View is hosting the Western Amateur next week.


Following Jim Urbina's direction, and "master super" Brian Moore's vision, the course presents better than ever today.

[Ira Fishman]

Fascinating information, thanks. Each time I look at the Ross Archives, I wonder about the graph paper.


I long have been interested in the origin and nature of the relationship between leading lights in the same or different fields. Wittgenstein’s Poker being a great read about a single encounter, and the Adams-Jefferson relationship lasting a lifetime with the most amazing fact of them dying on the same day—the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.


Did Colt and Ross maintain a relationship after Colt’s trip to the US and Canada?


Ira

[Ira Fishman]

Ira

[Tom_Doak]

I have no special knowledge of the specific collaboration at Old Elm.  I’m just weighing in here to point out that such collaborations have happened many times in golf design.


As with MacKenzie in Australia, many clubs would have tried to interest Colt in helping out at their club, once they didn’t have to pay to get him to America in the first place.  Some would have been redesign projects and some new ones; Old Elm was just in between as it hadn’t been built yet.


Colt (like MacKenzie) would have welcomed having someone to supervise construction.  Ross might have just wanted to stay involved and collect the rest of his fee, or might have thought about doing more collaborations.  But then a World War intervened, and then Alison came to America to represent Colt, and Ross became the competition.


The reason to bring Ross to The Country Club of Detroit was surely to indoctrinate him in how Colt liked to build things, not to get Ross’s help there.  I have done this often with new construction people.


As I said, it’s not unusual.  You could make the case that Michael Clayton and I had a similar collaboration at St Andrew’s Beach, or Jack Nicklaus at Sebonack.  Martin Hawtree used Tony Cash more’ screw to build his work in Australia.  Robert Hunter and Perry Maxwell both had contracts for projects in America before MacKenzie’s arrival, that became collaborations when they decided to partner up (although, in all of those I know of, they stuck with Hunter or Maxwell’s routing).

[Sven Nilsen]

The reason to bring Ross to The Country Club of Detroit was surely to indoctrinate him in how Colt liked to build things, not to get Ross’s help there.

The timing doesn't work for this theory.  By all accounts Colt had come and gone by the time Ross was involved and his ideas were incorporated into the project.  Unlike Old Elm, the articles here discuss this as being designed by Colt for around two years prior to when Ross was brought in.

[Anthony Gholz]

Sven: 


Absolutely correct.  The CCD project was the main event of Colt's 1911 trip with Toronto solo second.  Pretty fine resume for a 3-week visit!  In 1913 Colt was at The CCD prior to OE and meeting Ross.  Perhaps they came back to Detroit after OE, but I don't have anything to confirm that.  I don' think that Ross came to Detroit until Colt's third visit in 1914.  After Colt left Ross stayed involved in the bunkering "per Colt's plans" until the 1915 USAM.  There is some evidence that CCD pro Simpson was more the eyes and ears of Colt on site in 1911 and '13, and perhaps including the 1914 prep for the 1915 AM.  So maybe Ross and Simpson together; as Simpson was of course on site 24/7?


Anthony

[Ira Fishman]

Did Colt and Ross collaborate after OE and DCC?


Did Alison and Ross collaborate?


Thanks again,


Ira