Architectural drawings and plans

[TEPaul]

Who knows when architectural drawings and fully developed hole plan drawings were first done and used in golf architecture and architectural construction?

I'm not talking about "stick routings" and rudimentary drawings like that but fully drawn individual holes on a whole course topo or single holes on individual grid paper and such.

[Tom MacWood (Guest)]

TE
That is a very good question. I believe Cornish & Whitten may have made mention of that.

[Brian Phillips]

Tom and Tom,

Cornish and Whitten give credit to Colt as being one of the first to use a drawing board to plan his golf courses.  Paul Turner has a copy of a routing from Blackpool, England which he says is very good draughtsmanship by Colt.

Would you class the routing hanging in PV clubhouse as a routing tom?

Brian

[TEPaul]

Brian:

I certainly would classify the routing map hanging on the wall at PV an architectural drawing and plan, both by Colt and also Crump. Although it was the "working routing map" that Crump apparently used for the next five years, it has very detailed contour lines on it and fully developed holes in the exact places, green shapes, bunkers, fairway lines, etc. The booklet containing the individual hole drawings by Colt, however, is far more artistic and sophisticated as an architectural drawing.

I see the mention in Cornish & Whitten about Colt being thought to be the first architectural draughtsman, but I was trying for something more specific than that mention.

It would certainly appear Colt would likely have been the first to do this, probably just after the turn of the century. If there is anything of this kind from Willie Park Jr from Sunningdale old that might have preceded Colt though.

[Forrest Richardson]

B. Hall Blyth, a civil engineer, was the first to draft a plan using centerlines to represent the intended path of a golfer. This was 1894. His historic plan, for the New Course at St. Andrews, hangs in the Links Trust clubhouse. The Blyth plan was in fact used to plan and build the New Course, although it is hardly "a set of detailed plans". Blyth is not always given credit for the design of the New Course, yet he and Old Tom Morris worked together, with Old Tom most likely setting the ground rules and handling the field work.

The plan by Blyth also shows the Old Course. It was lost until 1976 when head greenkeeper Walter Woods orderd trash piled on the beach for a local celebration bonfire. Woods saw a tube atop the pile and had it brought down before the fire was started. It was never opened until Woods retired. It had been forgotten. Upon cleaning out his desk and office he found it and presented it to the Links Trust who offered it to the R&A. The R&A determined it rightfully belonged to the Links Trust.

I would say Cornish would be an expert on the question of "a set of plans".

[Jeff Mingay]

Very interesting story about the New Course, St. Andrews, Forrest. Thanks.

Ol' Charlie Macdonald must have been one of the first to draw detailed plans for the National GL of America?

ATTN GEO. BAHTO: How detailed were Macdonald's plans/sketches circa 1909, about the time he started planning the National GL?  

Macdonald was a "detail man." Reportedly, he made sketches of famous holes in Great Britain around the turn of the 20th century. right. That was a long time ago, before Golf Architecture was even a term. Perhaps those drawings by CB were the first detailed sketches of golf holes ever made?

[TEPaul]

Forrest:

Interesting about B. Hall Blyth! Would you consider that drawing a "line" or "stick routing" drawing? Did he include things like green shapes, fairway widths and bunkering on that drawing, for instance?

Do you have any idea who first did individual hole drawings on scaled paper, particularly the yardage grid paper?

JeffM:

I asked Geo Bahto about drawings from NGLA and I don't think any exist today if they were ever done per se. I don't know that MacD's drawings from the European fieldtrips exist and I'm afraid Hugh Wilson's don't either (1910, probably a few months preceding Crump's European fieldtrip).

I believe those drawings, from MacD, Wilson and perhaps Crump (although he was a atrocious drawer) were more various little architectural details and concepts instead of fully developed whole hole drawings.

[Forrest Richardson]

TEPaul -- I'd consider Blyth's plan to be more than a stick drawing, but I'd have to look closer at it. It is in my Routing book, but a small photo of an old, weathered map. My recollection is that it shows features. I know it does of the Old Course. Certainly it does not show "fairways" as there was really no such concept. Even if technically a stick drawing, it's the first ever! Don't know about the first to draw individual holes.

[BCrosby]

I think that Ross did individual hole drawings on grid paper from pretty early in his career. (Brad? Are you out there?)

It would be interesting to know who he got the idea from.

Bob

[George Bahto]

CB Macdonald drawings:

CB said he turned all his drawings and sketches and over to Raynor - been looking for them ever since - have a clue to their whereabouts but it hasn't materialized (yet)

I've had (temporarily) in my possession a 1907 blueprint of ngla, probably done by Raynor - there is a picture of it in my book.

It shows the position of the tees and the greens and indicates the line of play. It has dash mark incrementally down each fairway indicating the elevations en route.

This shows the original name of the course, "The National Golf Course of America" - and the original routing of the course beginning from the present 10th hole. A large piece of the print is missing - the area that had the scale and keys to the design etc. but the entire the course area was intact.

This is one place I "discovered" some of the original tees, now abandoned.

[TEPaul]

George:

Just got your book and was just reading it--great book! I saw that routing map of NGLA you referred to above with the right corner in tatters. As for scale, I've never seen one yet from that early era that was not 1"=100'. Interesting routing map indeed, though--I've never seen one that looks quite like that.

But I thought you once said that as far as you could tell they may never have had an actual contour map and they may have just done elevations on paper themelves as they thought they may need them.