A golfing Saturday that Tom Paul would love

[Lynn_Shackelford]

Tommy N. and I spent several hours this Saturday, perusing the golf library collection at the Amateur Athletic Foundation (old Ralph Miller collection).  Including the old magazines, Pacific Coast Golfer, 1936-1940, we spent some time looking through Golf Illustrated's from 1916-1919.  The editor was Max Behr!  Great stuff, even as good as the Halibut Enchiladas at El Cholo.  Some people just know how to live.
For Tom Paul I will leave you with this....
In discussing possibly changing the Amateur from match to medal play, Max (who was opposed) wrote..."there has always been a recognition of the fact that skill alone should not be the determining factor.  Golf is peculiar in the play it gives to character."
On the possibility of doing away with the stymie...
"Equitableness is foreign to the very nature of the game.  It is a contest with nature and not, as in all other games, a contest where the only unknown element is that furnished by the skill of one's opponent."
I don't know if we improved our golf, but it is stimulating stuff.

[Phil_the_Author]

Lynn,

You are certainly very fortunate in having the opportunity to peruse that collection!

Were there any references to Tillinghats's tour for the PGA in the Pacific Coast Golfer? That would be interesting to see.

[ed_getka]

Lynn,
 Is the collection open to the public as it was before? Where is the facility located?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Phil,
Yes, I did come across a piece where Scotty Chisolm mentioned  in his column that Tillie coming to town and how we should salute the PGA of America for this effort.

It was just a short blip, but in another column Tillie wrote of the history of the Duel Hole, and what happened between the two David's at that site.

Ed,
The AAF has certainly won me over with this wonderful facility. There just isn't golf there, in fact there is much, much more. In truth, I can't wait to get back there and kill another five hours in what seems like and hour and a half. There just isn't enough time in the day to really get to everything. Also, for those of you that were familiar with the Ralph, Everything is about the opposite there now. Instead of the Golf Illustrated's, British Golf Illustrated, and American Golfer being behind lock and key, it is now the books themselves yo have to have brought out to you, while all of the other stuff is right there for you to peruse on the shelf.

They have computers to use with a T1 connection, and at one point today, I had to get up and walk around a bit, and I checked out GCA on them. It sure is noce to see images downoad so fast!

[TEPaul]

Lynn and Tommy;

Thanks for this thread. It certainly would be a fascinating Saturday to me;

"In discussing possibly changing the Amateur from match to medal play, Max (who was opposed) wrote..."there has always been a recognition of the fact that skill alone should not be the determining factor.  Golf is peculiar in the play it gives to character."
On the possibility of doing away with the stymie...
"Equitableness is foreign to the very nature of the game.  It is a contest with nature and not, as in all other games, a contest where the only unknown element is that furnished by the skill of one's opponent."

Those two remarks are classic Max Behr, very likely controversial and perhaps misunderstood back then and sure to be misunderstood again today on here (can't wait until Pat Mucci reads them and takes Max to task for somehow skewing the essence of the game which Pat believes to be wholly and in toto the act of proceeding from point A to point B in the fewest strokes possible and beating one's opponent with singlemindedness despite Nature's roll in the golf course).

Max Behr was without question one of the most interesting writers in the annals of golf architecture regarding the roll of nature in golf and its architecture in ways others seemed to have only skimmed over. He didn't only try to explain what Nature's roll meant in architecture but exactly why it was so necessary and fundamental to the golfer--to the golfer's mind, in fact.

[A_Clay_Man]

I find the comment about golf being more than just the skill of the golfer and his reference to character and I also infered "luck".

Haven't you ever golfed with someone who had fewer skills(ability) but somehow managed to win some holes or the match because of their aura (luck)? I know I have

And the anti-thesis to the guy with good luck would be somewhere along the lines of Floppy's lack of Major chumpionships.

[John_D._Bernhardt]

Lynn and Tommy, thank you for bringing this wonderful source of information to me and others. I hope I have the opportunity to read through the collection one day. John

[Patrick_Mucci_Jr]

TEPaul,

Just when I thougth that you were making progress it becomes evident that you need additonal sessions with Dr Katz.

Max Behr favored Match over Stroke play for the Amateur.
To win in match play, still requires you to try to get the ball from point A to Point B in the fewest strokes possible, and certainly to get the ball from Point A to Point B in fewer strokes then your opponent.

Without that journey/pursuit/challenge, you might as well just walk the property and flip a coin to determine the winner.

Are there sub-plots and goals, sure, as you alluded to, the seduction of out-driving your opponent, or having been outdriven, the desire to stick it closer than your opponent, or when your opponent is Hoganing it, to chip and putt him to death, but, those are micro skirmishes.  In the ulitmate, the PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THE game/sport of golf, especially in competiton with others, and possibly yourself, is to get the ball from Point A to Point B in the fewest strokes possible, and for those who think otherwise, I would suggest that you're going to hurt your hand, elbow and possibly your shoulder.

[TEPaul]

Pat said:

"Max Behr favored Match over Stroke play for the Amateur.
To win in match play, still requires you to try to get the ball from point A to Point B in the fewest strokes possible, and certainly to get the ball from Point A to Point B in fewer strokes then your opponent."

Well, My Goodness Pat--isn't that  a revolutionary thought!?

And then;

"In the ulitmate, the PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THE game/sport of golf, especially in competiton with others, and possibly yourself, is to get the ball from Point A to Point B in the fewest strokes possible."

Some, including yourself probably think the PRIMARY OBJECT of learning is just walking into the classroom. But congratrulations--at least it's a start!

[Tommy_Naccarato]

John,
There so much to learn at the AFF's Ralph Collection, I think it would take days now to really go through it all. That would be OK though. You just have to take a break every couple of hours otherwise you get a little closed-in! This actually happened to me yesterday, and I had forgotten, it used to happen to me when the Ralph was at Industry Hills. You are taking in so much information you need to actually stop and walk around a bit!

Tom, You will be interested to know, and I'll try to find it later because I didn't get a chance to copy it down, but someone named C.B. MacDonald wrote a letter to the editor of Golf Illustrated (Behr) complaining about the USGA. In previous issues, it appears that Francis Ouimet, who happened to be an amateur, had his status taken away from him. Why, I have yet to find out, but in the previous issues Max Behr, as well as many others actively complained about this situation and that the USGA had much better things to do like monitor equimpment (No fooling) C.B.'s letter was just as interesting. Here was one of the founding father's of the USGA actually lambasting the shortsightedness of the committee for taking away Ouimet's amateur status. He mentions that Mr. Havemeyer would be turning in his grave. Apparently, it had something to do with either Ouimet writing somethign and then getting paid for it, which at the time, if one actively wrote about the sport of Golf, and recieved compensation, he was consdiered a Golf Professional. Further, they said thet if you worked in a facotry manufacturing golf balls, the USGA in fact did consdier you to be a person who recieved compensation, hence a professional.

It was some pretty interesting stuff.

[TEPaul]

TommyN:

The Quimet amateur status situation had to do with Francis considering being a part owner in a sporting goods store, I believe. Whatever it was the problem was avoided at the last minute. Walter Travis, however, was another matter. They did remove his amateur status for being an architect and then restored it at some point. Did you know that even Bobby Jones was in grave danger of having his amateur status removed and some say that's the reason he quit the competitive game when he did.

When I saw some mention of these things while at the USGA, I actually called downstairs to Tony Zirpoli and asked him if one could lose their amateur status in those days for being a "professional" architect and he said he wasn't sure but he was going to say he didn't think so. But of course evidence shows that it was otherwise--at least for a time.

C.B. MacDonald was a hard one to understand on just where he was coming from on some of these matters. It appears he was a real stickler on the subject of amateurism and did not believe that professionalism of any form was acceptable for amateur golfers. C.B. did mention that personally he swore he would never take a dime for anything he did architecturally and of course the reason he gave was amateurism. C.B. was one of 2-3 who made up the original Rules Committee of the USGA and was looked upon by the USGA as the one to speak to the R&A as he knew most of them so well (particularly Horace Hutchinson).

C.B apparently did not like the inclusion of too many rules in the game and simply expected amateur golfers to understand the essence of the rules without endless direction. But one of the Presidents of the USGA (following Havermeyer) basically believed that the Americans should go off on their own and not follow the R&A as much as others such as C.B felt or hoped they would. Basically C.B was attempting to bring the "spirit" of the game of golf to America and it's fascinating to see and read how he tried to go about it. He realized Americans did not innately have that "spirit" since the game was so new to them, that they had no "history" with it as the Scots and the R&A did, and there appears to be a sort of glum resignation to what he did and felt in the late teens and 1920s etc.

C.B's ongoing philosophy about the USGA (and probably golf organizations) appears to have been the less they had to discuss the better they were! An interesting philosophy indeed since C.B. himself created plenty of controversy early on in the USGA and he certainly did write plenty of intricate and somewhat convoluted letters on various matters. If you ask me C.B. probably favored dictatorship bigtime in golf organization and was one who did not think that things should be questioned. In this sense he was probably a true "elitist". He believed, for instance, that only a small and select group of golf clubs should be the regular members of the USGA and that other clubs should only be "associates". Why did he feel this way? Apparently because he didn't think those other clubs had what it took to make intelligent decisions--a true "elitist's" philosophy.

He was critical of the USGA, particularly later, but one gets the feeling he wasn't as publicly critical as he might have been. It's an interesting situation and might be one of the reasons C.B. MacDonald sort of withdrew back to NGLA and got out of lots to things in the last 20 some years of his life.

[Norbert P]

  For those of us without access to a teletransporter . . .  

http://www.aafla.org     has many articles in Adobe Acrobrat by Max Behr.

 Click on SEARCH then put CHECK in Golf Illustrated Box and type in Max Behr as AUTHOR.

Too cool...  Dig the many references to "dogs hind leg holes".

[RJ_Daley]

Nice internet reference link, you old cybersurfing fossil

[Allan Long]

I am glad to see the collection is in good hands. When the Miller library used to be at Industry Hills, I stopped in every time I played the Ike and Babe. When I heard IH was giving the Miller the boot, I was fearful that they would break up the collection and sell to the highest bidder.

I envy you both for having the opportunity to see the collection.

[Lynn_Shackelford]

Tom:
You are right the written articles at that time over who was and who wasn't an amateur went on for several years.  
I came across what I thought was a good American version of who should be able to retain Amateur status (they were very rigid in Britain).  This was written by Bliss Perry.  I don't know who he was.  In any event, I am not sure this description is confining enough as I reread it.

"He cultivates an art or a sport or a study or an employment because of his taste for it:  he is attached to it not because it gives him a living, but because it ministers to his life."