Prestige Rankings of Golden Age Architects

[Sven Nilsen]

Here's the scenario, a 100 year old club was always thought to have been designed by Architect A, but in reality it was Architect B.  Now, depending on who the guy was, there might be those at the club willing to immediately announce the information.  On the other hand, if the change was being made to a lesser known guy, it might be hard to get the traction to recognize the error.

Come up with a relative ranking of the top ten architects from the Golden Age, the idea being that the higher ranked the guy is, the more likely it is a club would readily switch their attribution.  Does a MacKenzie beat a Thomas, a Raynor beat a Ross, a Park beat a late model Bendelow?

Ties are allowed.

[Ulrich Mayring]

Has this ever happened? Would be a pretty miserable club membership to

a) think that after 100 years it makes a difference to their outside perception,
b) think that outside perception is more important than inside integrity,
c) think that outside perception can actually be fooled over a stretch of time,
d) think that it would be worth the risk getting found out and being laughed at.

Ulrich

[Nigel Islam]

1. Mackenzie
2. Ross
3. MacDonald
4. Flynn
5. Tillinghast
6. Colt
7. Raynor
8. Maxwell
9. Thomas
10. Park

I rank them a little different personally, but this would be from the club member perspective.
I'm sure a lot of clubs would want an RTJ course but he's doesn't fit the time frame

[Tim_Cronin]

I'm familiar with two Chicago-area clubs that had their original architect confused. One was Ridgemoor, with two nines designed at different times (Thomas O'Neil, then Dave McIntosh and Dave Jolly). The other was Westmoreland, which is a Willie Watson but forever had been attributed to Joe Roseman, the club's first superintendent. Not exactly mixing up Ross and MacKenzie, say, but in both cases, they were happy to have been informed. I'd think any club's member who cared at all would want to know who really did what.

[Mark Saltzman]

I think there's a huge regional element to the prestige ranking. If you went to OK or KS, a Maxwell heritage is a big thing. Not so much elsewhere.

[John McCarthy]

Cronin:  re Ridgemoor:  who did which nine or have the nines been mixed?  Also, I am pretty certain 18 was a redo by Tillinghast. 

There is also been a redesign in the past by Langford and Moreau plus a facelift about 10 years ago by Bob Lohman.

Ridgemoor is the closest club to my house and there is a lot to love there.  Alas, they need to learn to love the music of the chainsaw...

[Tom_Doak]

There is an example coming soon that may allow you to test your theory.

[Chris Clouser]

I was thinking that Wayne Morrison and Tom Paul found a course that was long believed to be a Ross was really a Flynn.  And when confronted with the evidence the club still claims they were built by Ross.  Or was it the other way around?  I don't even remember which club that was, but for some reason that came to mind when reading this. 

Mark is correct on the Kansas/Oklahoma thing with Maxwell.  I know of a club that changed their website within a month of finding out that they had a Maxwell connection.

[Matt Bielawa]

There is an example coming soon that may allow you to test your theory.

Didn't this just happen at Bloomfield Hills CC?  Thought they were a Ross and then found out that they were actually a Colt design...

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303293604579254803127699492

[JESII]

Chris,

It was Philmont here in the Philly area. Apparently a Willie Park Jr courses long credited to William Flynn. Not sure about the last couple of years by the club was resistant to the acknowledgement at first.

[Terry Lavin]

Cronin:  re Ridgemoor:  who did which nine or have the nines been mixed?  Also, I am pretty certain 18 was a redo by Tillinghast.  

There is also been a redesign in the past by Langford and Moreau plus a facelift about 10 years ago by Bob Lohman.

Ridgemoor is the closest club to my house and there is a lot to love there.  Alas, they need to learn to love the music of the chainsaw...

Ridgemoor is closing for a total re-do of the golf course. Perhaps this is what Mr. Doak is talking about. Ridgemoor has good bones, with seven or eight really good holes and three bad holes in unfortunate spots in the routing (1, 9 and 18).  Could be a lot better.

Did you get the job, Tom?

[Sven Nilsen]

Has this ever happened? Would be a pretty miserable club membership to

a) think that after 100 years it makes a difference to their outside perception,
b) think that outside perception is more important than inside integrity,
c) think that outside perception can actually be fooled over a stretch of time,
d) think that it would be worth the risk getting found out and being laughed at.

Ulrich

Ulrich:

I think this happens in varying degrees more often than you might think (some of which have been brought up by others in this thread).

There are more than a handful of examples of courses that hold themselves out as being done by a "Big Ten" architect, when in reality the bulk of what is on the ground is the work of someone else.  Skokie and White Bear are two where the lure of being a Ross seems to outweigh the evidence that others had a bigger hand in the current course.

I think there are also quite a few examples of courses where the initial attribution was simply a mistake, and for whatever reason the club has done nothing to rectify the misconception.

I've heard rumblings of what Tom was referring to in his post, and I think its going to be a bit more interesting than Ridgemoor.

Sven

[Mark Pritchett]

Crump
Wilson
Fownes
Mackenzie
MacDonald

[DMoriarty]

Sven I think it depends on the culture of the club, and how deeply ingrained the supposed "architect" is in the legends about the place.   It also matters how deeply invested the current crop of historians are in preserving the legends surrounding certain designers.

The hardest incumbents to unseat are probably not the working architects, but the popular club members who have long been credited with the creation of the club and/or course.  

In this regard Mark Pritchett's list is a pretty good one, but I'd add Herbert Leeds somewhere in the top four.

As architects go, I think Ross should be on any list, if only because he seems to have been credited with just about any course looking for a name to hype.

[Josh Tarble]

Sven,
It's an interesting question, and I would guess some clubs do think of such things.  I would also guess it's not a simple as Ross has more cache than Mackenzie.  I think it depends on the type of club:

I'd guess new big money clubs love having the Nicklaus name attached to them.
Ross seems like the name to have for general consumption, old school clubs.
Tillinghast/Macdonald/Raynor would seem to be the first choice of old money clubs.

Probably stereotyping in my own head, but that's how I imagine it at least.

[Tom_Doak]

Ridgemoor is closing for a total re-do of the golf course. Perhaps this is what Mr. Doak is talking about. Ridgemoor has good bones, with seven or eight really good holes and three bad holes in unfortunate spots in the routing (1, 9 and 18).  Could be a lot better.

Did you get the job, Tom?

No, I didn't even know about that project.

A few months back I was asked to look at a famous architect's hole by hole plans for a course not currently attributed to him.  It hasn't been revealed yet so I can't say more, but it will be interesting to see the reaction ... unless the club chooses not to reveal the results, which is possible as they already have a fine pedigree.

Another example I know of is that the Old Tom Morris nine at Rosapenna was actually laid out by Harry Colt.

[Dan Moore]

Something I've seen a few times is an original routing by someone less well known with renovations by bigger name.  Routing stays roughly the same but course gets rebranded.  With many of the oldest Chicago courses there have been many hands involved.  In some cases you almost have to go hole by hole to see who did what. My view is to weight the original routing more heavily than green and/or bunker redos. 

Skokie is a good example with some holes still following Bendelows original routing, some following Ross and several others are original Langford holes.  Ross gets more credit than Langford and Bendelow rarely gets a mention.