Should Perry Maxwell get more credit for ANGC?

[Sven Nilsen]

We've just experienced the annual springtime rites of GCA.  There have been a slew of conversations around here lately about the old ANGC, returning to the MacKenzie design, etc.


But like many early courses, ANGC went through an early evolution, and it wasn't until 1939 that Bobby Jones would first declare that the course was "nearly 100% finished."  He would repeat this statement in 1952 saying the course was about 100 percent finished, with a few minor exceptions.  [Edit - It is possible the 1952 statement was an echoing of the 1939 appearance of the quote in the article by O. B. Keeler found below.]


The best summary of the early work on the course can be found on Ed Oden's Perry Maxwell archive site - https://www.perrymaxwellarchive.com/augusta-national-augusta-ga


Maxwell started working with the club in 1935 on the bent grass to be used for the course.  In 1937 he began work on actual changes to the design.  That work continued at least until the early 1940's and it has been suggested to me that Maxwell was on site into the early 1950's making improvements (I haven't seen any evidence to support this claim).


This work included the oft discussed removal of the mounding meant to replicate a seaside course, and has been expressed recently by another poster on another thread as a paradigm shift away from the ground game to a more aerial style of play.  Major changes took place at the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 17th and 18th holes, amongst others. 


So when we talk about early ANGC, should we really be talking about the course post all of the Maxwell changes?  Isn't this the course that more fully represented the ideal evolved course Jones was seeking?  And accordingly, shouldn't Perry Maxwell receive his due for helping to facilitate that ideal?


March 17, 1939 Montgomery Advertiser -





March 30, 1941 The Daily Oklahoman -





April 2, 1952 The Daily Oklahoman -

[Joel_Stewart]

Thanks for posting.  I was asking Dunlop White about this because Maxwell built Old Town in 1938 and 1939 and I suspect was making trips between the two clubs.


The short version is Maxwell did work on,


17
18
5
7
10
17 (second time)
3
6
7 (second time)
10 (moved the green up to the current location)
4
7th (second time)
9
12 (minor expansion to the right)
14


Yes to your question that Maxwell should get more credit but it's not going to happen.

[David_Tepper]

Given his recent participation on a Fried Egg podcast regarding the design of AGNC, I hope Bob Crosby sees this thread and offers his comments.

[Michael Chadwick]

Great reminder, Sven, thanks. If MacKenzie and Maxwell were brought back to tour the course, who would find its current version more familiar? Have to imagine it'd be Perry. 

[Jimmy Muratt]

Yes, Maxwell should get more credit for what exists at ANGC but this tends to be a theme with many of his contributions.   Another example is Crystal Downs, Maxwell did significant work there as well that seems to be overlooked by most.   With the PGA at Southern Hills in May, perhaps more light will get shed on the brilliance of his work.

[Sven Nilsen]

It would be interesting to see a comparison between what was there in 1941 and what is there now.


One could argue that all of the changes made prior to 1941 were part of the initial construction/tinkering and that the course only really represented Jones' vision at that time. 


Sven

[Paul Jones]

I think most architects do not get credit for changes unless they change the routing.  Now it seems more courses are doing a restoration which means they are going back to the original intent.

[Sven Nilsen]

I think most architects do not get credit for changes unless they change the routing.  Now it seems more courses are doing a restoration which means they are going back to the original intent.

Paul:


You could argue that although Maxwell didn't change the routing, he did help to change the ethos of the course. 


The MacKenzie writings about ANGC discuss the ground game, while Maxwell's changes seemingly addressed the advent of the aerial game.


It is almost as if MacKenzie's course focused more on the play of the members, while Maxwell's had the tournament and the challenge to the professionals in mind. 


Sven

[Ben Malach]

I have been a supporter of this view for some time now. If we look at the golf course that existed for the huge moments in early history the work resembles more of Maxwell's work than that of Dr. Mackenzies. Not to minimize the good doctor's role in Augusta National, but rather as an addendum to the existing accreditation to the course. As Maxwell spent more time on site and shepherded the club through the changes that most golf courses go through as they evolve early in their history.

[John Kavanaugh]

As a former member of Prairie Dunes I can assure you that this argument was presented to all first time visitors. I am somewhat ashamed that my personal insecurities would cause me to repeat such gibberish in a feeble attempt to impress my guests. It's like putting a pineapple in a pigs mouth.

[BCrosby]

"You could argue that although Maxwell didn't change the routing, he did help to change the ethos of the course.
 
The MacKenzie writings about ANGC discuss the ground game, while Maxwell's changes seemingly addressed the advent of the aerial game.

It is almost as if MacKenzie's course focused more on the play of the members, while Maxwell's had the tournament and the challenge to the professionals in mind."

That sounds right to me. (Giving PM design attribution is another issue. Basing credit on routing is a simple, clean test. Basing it on changes in tone is, I think, too subjective to be useful.)

The broader question is why PM's changes were undertaken when they were. My guess is that at least part of the rationale was the dire financial condition of the club in the late '30s. ANGC was digging out from a recent Richmond County receivership action. It was the darkest years of the Great Depression. All of which meant that the revenue contribution of the Masters became more important to the club's survival. It became important that the course was perceived by pros and press as challenging. Sometime in the mid-30s people noted that Nelson and others drove the MacK 7th green. The 10th was seen as too short. Pros would have urged that many of the edgy MacK features be domesticated in the name of 'fairness'. 

The above is speculation, obviously. In my counter-factual Fried Egg podcast, I assumed that MacK did not die in 1934, that the great Depression abated and that ANGC's finances were rock solid. That is, there was a more or less normal historic trajectory after the completion of the course. My guess is that under those more normal circumstances, later changes to ANGC, whether undertaken by MacK or others, would have been different from PM's. More of the "strategic architecture on acid" would have been retained. And the influence of the course on the design of courses that followed it would have been more significant. All speculation, but I think not implausible. 

Bob       

[Sven Nilsen]

Bob:


One of the aspects of Maxwell's changes that isn't discussed is how many were at the behest of someone else, whether it was Clifford Roberts asking for specific changes at the 9th and 12th or Horton Smith suggesting the new green at the 7th.  One wonders if AM was still alive if he would have been as receptive to the ideas of others, or if he would have found different solutions to the problems that prompted those suggestions.


Sven

[jeffwarne]

https://www.perrymaxwellarchive.com/augusta-national-augusta-ga


Maxwell started working with the club in 1935 on the bent grass to be used for the course. 

Very interesting archive.
I find it interesting they/he began experimenting with bent in 1935, yet the greens weren't converted to bent till 1980.
The greens and fairways were bermuda base and were overseeded by rye beginning around 1967.
I'm not sure when they began overseeding greens with rye, I'd assumed 1967, but would be curious to know if the greens were pure bermuda up until 1967, or if they had slipped in some bent(or rye) as an overseed prior to the late 60's.
Snead used to talk about how crusty the greens were and how you could hear it rolling on the greens so I'd assume it was simply dormant bermuda.

[Dunlop_White]

Thanks for posting.  I was asking Dunlop White about this because Maxwell built Old Town in 1938 and 1939 and I suspect was making trips between the two clubs.

Here are the ties that I'm familiar with......

1) Perry Maxwell:  In 1938, Charlie and Mary Reynolds Babcock, scions of the Reynolds Tobacco family, donated 165 acres of their horse farm to establish a small golf club adjacent to their historic estate, now showcased as the Reynolda House and Gardens. One of Babcock’s new business associates at his New York investment firm, Reynolds & Company (later Dean, Witter Reynolds), was Clifford Roberts, of the Augusta National. At the time, Roberts/Jones had commissioned Maxwell to remodel many of Alister Mackenzie’s original greens and bunkers for the burgeoning Masters Tournament, given that MacKenzie and Maxwell worked together as design associates for years before Mackenzie’s death in 1934. Delighted by those outcomes, Roberts naturally implored his employer Babcock to enlist Maxwell to design the Old Town course at Reynolda as well. Not sure how many trips Maxwell was making back and forth, but I do know that Roberts suggested that Maxwell combine the greens at 8 and 17. (Maxwell originally had them separated) Accordingly, Roberts knew how fond Maxwell was of The Old Course, home of 7 double greens and added it would make for a good bar room conversation.
2) Guy Paulson: a teaching professional at ANGC, became Old Town's first professional.
3) Berkman's Nursery, and their designer, Alfred Cuthbert, were already working for the Reynolds fam as early as 1910.

[Joel_Stewart]

I think most architects do not get credit for changes unless they change the routing.  Now it seems more courses are doing a restoration which means they are going back to the original intent.

The MacKenzie writings about ANGC discuss the ground game, while Maxwell's changes seemingly addressed the advent of the aerial game.


It is almost as if MacKenzie's course focused more on the play of the members, while Maxwell's had the tournament and the challenge to the professionals in mind. 

I played both Augusta and Old Town last week and with my little knowledge think you're correct. Old Town can be a stern test with the angles and pins which is obvious at Augusta as well.

[Mike Bodo]

I believe I've read here and elsewhere that Bobby Jones wasn't thrilled with some MacKenzie's design choices and that a number of holes were compromises between the two. After Dr. Mack's passing it made it easier for Jones and Clifford Roberts to have their vision of the Mack holes they weren't in love with altered by Maxwell, which precipitated additional changes by him at ANGC in addition to course work elsewhere, i.e. Old Town. They had the perfect foil to Mackenzie in Maxwell, whose design aesthetic more closely aligned with theirs.

I wonder if Bobby Jones had to do it all over again if he would have hired someone other than MacKenzie to design the course? That said, I love the rugged look and features of MacKenzie's original ANGC design to the more manicured and polished Maxwell version. Both are great in their own right. However, I'd pay a kings ransom to go back in time to play Dr. Mack's iteration. That just looked like so much fun, albeit intimidating at the same time. That said, I get a kick when Jim Nantz and the guys at CBS give credit to Allister MacKenzie as being the architect. While he was responsible for the routing, there isn't a whole lot left of his imprint on the course. There have been so many alterations made to it even since Maxwell's time that ANGC is really an amalgamation or "mutt" of a course.

If I were to give anyone credit for ANGC's design aesthetic, it would be Maxwell - not to mention the green complexes by and large are the result of his reshaping MacKenzie's original surfaces - many which have been altered over the years as well. In short, ANGC is a continual work in progress. Thus, making it impossible to give credit to a single individual.

[Sven Nilsen]

The short version is Maxwell did work on,


17
18
5
7
10
17 (second time)
3
6
7 (second time)
10 (moved the green up to the current location)
4
7th (second time)
9
12 (minor expansion to the right)
14

The list above doesn't quite tell the whole story of Maxwell's work at ANGC.  Here is a more comprehensive listing of what we know about:

1 – Filled in the bunker on the left side. [1937]

3 – Removed the front tongue on the green and reshaped the bunkers. [1937]

4 – Rebuilt the green diminishing its pitch, turning it closer to the 90 degree configuration of today, widening the left tongue and pushing the bunkers closer to the collar. [1938]

5 – Removed the artificial sand dunes.  [1937]  Reshaped the green to create ocean-wave contours.  [1937]

6 – Rebuilt the green removing the mound, leaving the left side redan features and adding a prominent right side shelf. [1937]

7 – Removed the artificial sand dunes.  [1937]  Reshaped portions of the green per Clifford Roberts’ request. [1937]  Built a new postage stamp green with three bunkers in front beyond the original green.  [1938]

9 – Redesigned and rebunkered the green.  [1938]  Added back a portion of the tongue on the front of the green.  [1938]  Flattened the tongue on the green.  [1939]

10 – Removed the artificial sand dunes.  [1937]  Built a new green up the hill and to the left of the original green. [1937]

12 – Enlarged the right side of the green and added the back bunkers. [1938]

14 – Merged a lower deck on the putting surface and added rightside fairway knobs. [1939][

15 – Lengthened the hole. [1940]

16 – Expanded the green to the left and pulled the two bunkers closer to the green.  [1937]

17 – Remodeled the green and added three bunkers at the front changing the character from a run up hole to a pitch to the green. [1937]  Removed the artificial sand dunes.  [1937]

18 – Eliminated the long front tongue. [ 1937]  Reshaped the green. [1938]

General – Removed the piles of dirt that were added to look like sand dunes.  [1938]  Made other minor changes.  [1940]  Moved tees and greens on five holes (unclear if this was a reference to new work or work done since 1937).  [1941]

[Kalen Braley]

Sven,

I initially wasn't sure what to make of this thread, but the more I think about it, and revisit the pics from Prairie Dunes, I think this a very plausible assertion.

When looking at Prairie Dunes, if you replace the brown sand with white, and mow down all the wild grass, with those undulating greens, I can see it...

[David_Tepper]

Sounds like Perry Maxwell does not get the credit he deserves period.

https://golf.com/news/features/perry-maxwell-under-appreciated-designer-southern-hills/?utm_campaign=forecast&utm_source=golf.com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=%7Bdate%28&user_email=46711a7d8752dad1b1e7b5ee908db635b52d3af08061f8b9672ff1570f17bd75&utm_term=GOLFcom%20Top%20Stories%20Newsletter

[Jimmy Muratt]

Exactly right, that was my point in my earlier post below....

Yes, Maxwell should get more credit for what exists at ANGC but this tends to be a theme with many of his contributions.   Another example is Crystal Downs, Maxwell did significant work there as well that seems to be overlooked by most.   With the PGA at Southern Hills in May, perhaps more light will get shed on the brilliance of his work.