Golf Course "Construction" vs "Design" Terminology in the Golden Age

[MCirba]

I was doing some research for a presentation I'm giving in a few weeks and as I often do pulled out my copy of George C. Thomas's seminal masterpiece, Golf Architecture in America: Its Strategy And Construction.   


For those who've been around here for awhile you'll probably recall the long-running debate(s) whether someone credited with "constructing" a golf course was the same as "designing" a golf course, or whether they were two separate tasks with the latter informing and instructing the former.    It occurred to me that a lot of that could simply have been avoided, or at least much better universally understood here by simply looking deeper at the prominent literature available at that time.   


As much as I've read the contents of the book I don't think I ever realized prior to today and going back to read the FOREWARD and some of the acknowledgements in the "An Appreciation" section just how synonymously the terms 'architecture" and "construction" were used back then, with the word "design" appearing much less so.   It is almost as if they thought of their work as all-encompassing of the theoretical thought process and its constructive application as wholly integrated, rather than two separate and distinct endeavors.   I also think it's ironic that we had to go back to "The Captain" to provide clarity in the matter.   


In any case, an interesting intellectual nuance for those who care about such things.   
 

[Niall C]

Mike


If I recall the previous discussions regarding construction versus design it had to do with the meaning of the phrase "laying out". Did that mean designing the course ie. position of tees, greens, hazards etc, or did it mean building the greens, tees, hazards etc to someone else's design ?


That discussion referred to a different age to the one that Thomas was writing about ie. late 19th century up to pre WW1 as opposed to the golden age of the 1920's. That said, Thomas's book is a great read.


Niall

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think I recall the discussion but also that I thought it was much ado about nothing, just as I do now.


A golf course gets constructed. It also gets designed. The former is physical work. The latter is recorded on paper or transferred by any mode of communication to inform construction.


To get a course built, you need it designed and you need it constructed. They go hand in hand, often at the same time.

[MCirba]

Mike


If I recall the previous discussions regarding construction versus design it had to do with the meaning of the phrase "laying out". Did that mean designing the course ie. position of tees, greens, hazards etc, or did it mean building the greens, tees, hazards etc to someone else's design ?


That discussion referred to a different age to the one that Thomas was writing about ie. late 19th century up to pre WW1 as opposed to the golden age of the 1920's. That said, Thomas's book is a great read.


Niall

Hi Niall,


For our purposes here, particularly in America, I'm counting the "Golden Age" as the time period beginning with the early attempts to implement "Scientific Architecture", such as the Travis redesign of Garden City, then NGLA, followed in short order with Pine Valley, Merion, Lido, Shawnee, Pinehurst #2, etc., all pre-WWI efforts.   I think these guys who were studying things were all using shared lexicon and ideas.   Yes, after WWI during the "Roaring 20s" GCA boomed only to later run into the Depression & WWII.


During those discussions much was made of the term "Construction Committee", with the implication that the job of those committees was simply to execute someone else's design plans on the ground, to simply build as opposed to design.   It sounded good and plausible to our modern understanding of the terms.   However, this was not the case at all and even George Crump's design and build team was called the "Construction Committee", as Joe Bausch discovered in early articles from Tillinghast.   Thomas's book and usage of the terms interchangeably puts an exclamation point on that fact.


And you're correct, the term "laid out" was debated strenuously for a long time, but over that period countless examples were found where it meant strictly design, others where it meant only construction to another's plans, and many more where it met some degree of both, particularly within clubs who were doing what were called at the time "inhouse jobs", often over a period of years with various club amateurs collaborating, sometimes seeking external professional and amateur counsel.

[Ally Mcintosh]

A “construction committee” is merely a term for those put in charge of getting a course built, from cradle to grave.


Call it a “development committee” for easier translation.

[Bret Lawrence]

Mike,


One thing that has always stood out to me in Thomas’ book is the order in which he lists the architects under each photograph.  They aren’t in alphabetical order, so there must be some reasoning behind the order of the names.


For example, many of the courses Thomas built with Bell, he lists (Thomas and Bell), but for White Marsh Valley he lists Heebner first and then himself.  I always thought this was interesting.  I’m not sure why he has Mackenzie and Hunter listed for Monterey Peninsula Country Club, considering the routing was designed by Seth Raynor.  The other attribution that threw me for a loop is (Wright) listed under the St. Louis CC photograph, which was a Macdonald design built by Raynor.  It makes me wonder, who was Wright?  In any case, he seems to place some importance on the order of the names when making attriibutions.  I have always found this interesting.


Bret

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Mike,
I think the Philmont thread which I just resurrected  is another example of the " Construction" vs " Design" Terminology in the Golden Age.
Steve Shaffer

[MCirba]

Mike,


One thing that has always stood out to me in Thomas’ book is the order in which he lists the architects under each photograph.  They aren’t in alphabetical order, so there must be some reasoning behind the order of the names.


For example, many of the courses Thomas built with Bell, he lists (Thomas and Bell), but for White Marsh Valley he lists Heebner first and then himself.  I always thought this was interesting.  I’m not sure why he has Mackenzie and Hunter listed for Monterey Peninsula Country Club, considering the routing was designed by Seth Raynor.  The other attribution that threw me for a loop is (Wright) listed under the St. Louis CC photograph, which was a Macdonald design built by Raynor.  It makes me wonder, who was Wright?  In any case, he seems to place some importance on the order of the names when making attriibutions.  I have always found this interesting.


Bret

Bret,


The one I was actually looking up in regard to your point was Kittansett with both a photograph and hole drawing of the 3rd hole, sent to Thomas by Frederic Hood.


You may want to take a peak at how they are listed! 

[Bret Lawrence]

Mike,


Isn’t that one (Wilson, Flynn and Hood)?


Bret

[MCirba]

Mike,


Isn’t that one (Wilson, Flynn and Hood)?


Bret

Bret,


Indeed it is, on both photo and drawing.

[Bret Lawrence]

In the foreword you attached, he makes it sound like he learned golf architecture under Heebner, which is likely why he listed him first.  He also mentioned his respect for Wilson as an architect.  So I think the order of names is kind of important, how important, I don’t know, but interesting none the less.

[Bret Lawrence]

Mike,
I think the Philmont thread which I just resurrected  is another example of the " Construction" vs " Design" Terminology in the Golden Age.
Steve Shaffer

I think Willie Park ran into this problem more than most architects of his time, because he didn’t stick around for long after designing golf courses.  He was in and out using local men or Carter’s Tested Seeds guys to build his courses.  Some of the guys working ar Carter’s Tested Seeds either were already architects or became architects later on.  Reading these attributions many years later, we assume one of these later architects who built the course actually designed it. 


We have found while researching Raynor that he used many different guys to build his golf courses, usually local engineers, turf experts or an assortment of his engineer buddies from Southampton.  He had to groom some of the local men (Joe Bartholomew, Ralph Linderman, Major R. Avery Jones) by bringing them to New York and showing them examples of other courses they had already built.  I think if you dig deep enough you can usually find out who was in charge of construction on most of his projects.  Raynor also used turf experts to build his greens.  The green builders would come in first, and sub grade the putting surfaces, sometimes they completed the greens and seeded them, other times, when the schedule was tight, they would be on there merry way, but would always be followed by another turf expert to finish off the greens and take care of the course during grow-in.  The superintendent of construction was often the future superintendent of the golf course or the local engineer on Raynor courses.  Guys like Arthur Arnold built the greens at Ocean Links, Yeamans Hall, CC of Charleston.  Guys like Robert White built greens at Mountain Lake in 1916.  Both of Robert Whites brother-in-laws also helped Raynor build some of his early New York and CT courses.  All of these Golden Age architects were using an assortment of talented guys  to construct these courses that have stood the test of time.  Just like today!

[MCirba]

Bret,


That is all very fascinating, thanks!


Quite a number of Willie Park's courses in the Philly/NJ area were misattributed until Joe Bausch researched and discovered the Park heritage.

[Bret Lawrence]

Mike,


Agreed!  Sometimes it just takes finding a few more articles to fill out the story.  No one is better than that than Joe!


Bret

[Forrest Richardson]

Ally is spot on. Sometimes we walk on site an ‘know’ exactly what we’ll do, and this leads to a very compressed design process resulting in little to no formal plans. The other end of the spectrum is the multiple option process of routing and deciding among hundreds of options and approaches. Only the fool tries to do such things with earthmovers and labor. Pencils rule.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I think I recall the discussion but also that I thought it was much ado about nothing, just as I do now.


A golf course gets constructed. It also gets designed. The former is physical work. The latter is recorded on paper or transferred by any mode of communication to inform construction.


To get a course built, you need it designed and you need it constructed. They go hand in hand, often at the same time.

We can't forget that those pushing the definition of "laying out" also had an outside agenda beyond pure truth (as much as we can know about what was done 100 years ago)


While it makes sense to me that there was less standardization of terms as architecture was just getting started in America, I agree with Ally - courses are designed and then built.  Both are important, which is why it is usually most efficient to plan first, and then build.  Trying to do both at the same time may shortchange both. 


Courses are usually laid out on paper, and then laid out on the ground, so it can perhaps be both, but it doesn't affect the process very much.  It does seem Bendelow and a few others made trips to "lay out" the course by wandering around and pounding key stakes at tees, greens, and doglegs.  However, these trips were in advance of actual construction.