Birth of Garden City's 12th! (fka US Am was the first with strategic bunkering?

[Ed Homsey]

Great articles, Mike.  Here's link to an article that Travis wrote for Country Life in America, in 1906.  Contains his ideas for improving the GCGC course.

https://walterjtravissociety.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/1909-sept-merits-and-demerits-of-the-garden-city-links-amer-golfer127.pdf

[MCirba]

Ed,

That's a terrific article, as well!  It's very interesting to me to see that Travis considered the roads as good hazards.   In fact, at that time under the Rules of Golf, roads were indeed a "hazard" and needed to be played and treated as such. 

Therefore, it shouldn't surprise anyone who looks at old routings to see many of the first courses had holes intersected by roads, as Jim Kennedy often points out.

[Ed Homsey]

Mike---and others---here's one more article that Travis wrote about Garden City Golf Club and published in Country Life In America, in 1909:

https://walterjtravissociety.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/1909-gcgc-new-hazards-sept-amer-golfer-sept1-686.pdf

[MCirba]

Ed,

That's terrific, thanks!   I see he was proposing building a Bottle Hole bunkering scheme on the 10th at GCGC.   I wonder if it ever got built?

He also seems to go to great lengths to promote the status of the course in comparison to others in the country.   With the National Golf Links of America slated to open the following year, and an August 1908 article mentioning that he was still working on/involved with NGLA at that time, I'm wondering what might have happened during the interim.   

I can't recall the specifics but didn't he write something to the effect that his work at NGLA was overlooked?

[Ed Homsey]

Mike--

The only Travis NGLA articles in our possession are laudatory about the course.  Nothing later to suggest his disappointment, or whatever, about being kicked off the project.  Hard for me to imagine his writing an article complaining that his ideas were ignored.  But, if such articles are out there, either our crack researcher, or Jim Kenneday, or you, will find them.  Let us know.

Ed
www.travissociety.com

[MCirba]

Ed,

I'll see what I can find but am betting Jim Kennedy will beat me to it.