Bridge Architects

[Mike Bodo]

I wouldn't put Maxwell into this category.  His principles remained in line with the golden age where he started, but he lasted just a little longer than his contemporaries and had a short stint after WWII.  If he had lived another ten years perhaps, but those courses he completed in the late 1940s/early 1950s were very similar in style with what he did earlier in his career. 


Now, if you wanted to include his son Press into this category I could completely see that.

That's a fair assesment. I felt of all the architects referenced in my original post that Perry Maxwel was, perhaps, a bit of a stretch. However, he did design some great coureses in the 40's. Press Maxwell is a good alternate.

[Bret Lawrence]

Adam -


Agreed about Park. His chapter on gca in The Game of Golf (1896) is almost pure Victorian orthodoxy. Huntercombe breaks from that orthodoxy in limited ways. It has more 'diagonal' features (as opposed to 'carry' features) than you would see on a typical Victorian course, but it is not 'strategic' in the sense we usually attribute to courses designed by Colt and others.


As for Sunningdale, what do we know about the Park iteration? Other than before and after photos of the 10th hole (Park's version is clearly more Victorian), I have seen little about it. I have always thought it odd that the original architect's work on a course that opened to such fanfare has been lost to history. Or am I not looking in the right places?


Bob

There were a number of steeplechase type features. for example on the first, which Colt opened up (there is still evidence of it across the fairway perhaps a hundred yards short of the green). The par threes were not strong, something Darwin remarked on in 'The Golf Courses of the British Isles' -- in particular the thirteenth was a completely blind one shotter played over the top of King's Hill. The seventh was a double blind two shotter with the green well left of and below the current, Colt green. Lots of writers said that the seventeenth was not a good hole: Colt built a new green in wild country in 1908, creating a hole that Arthur Croome said was "nearly all that so crucial a hole should be." The eleventh and twelfth are basically Colt holes too.

Here is a quote from Willie Park regarding Sunningdale in 1910:

[Tim Martin]

Alfred Tull started in the construction end of the business in the late 1910’s and joined Dev Emmet’s design firm in the 1920’s and remained through Emmet’s death in 1934. He then started his own design business and remained active until some time before his death in the early 1980’s. A pretty good run!

[Bret Lawrence]

Tim,


Alfred Tull is certainly a bridge architect in our neck of the woods.  I think Geoffrey Cornish and even Orrin Smith to a small extent bridged the gap between the Golden Age and the post war courses..  You may even find on a few courses in Connecticut a hole designed by these bridge architect that connects an older hole designed in the Golden Age with a modern hole designed in the 1980’s.  They bridged the gap in more ways than one.


Bret

[Tom_Doak]

In an attempt to tie this back to GCA, I'll ask about great bridges in golf.  Bel Air's suspension bridge between the 10th tee & green, which also serves as a backdrop to the 18th green, is iconic.  My home club, Davenport CC, has a similar bridge linking 10th tee & green, also serving as the background to the 18th hole.  Are there other bridges on golf courses worthy of mention?  The Bridges at Rancho Santa Fe obviously comes to mind; Pasatiempo has some pretty good ones; TOC obviously has one on the 18th hole.

It's not nearly as grand as the Bel Air bridge, but I suggested when we were building Rock Creek that it would be good for walkers to have a little bridge on the 13th hole instead of going down through the canyon and back up, and I was so pleased when I went back for the opening and they had built it!


I can't think of many iconic bridges on golf courses but I suppose the one on the 12th at Augusta has got to qualify.  The Sarazen bridge on 15, not so much, considering that it's really not even a bridge but more of a dam.

[Tim Martin]

In an attempt to tie this back to GCA, I'll ask about great bridges in golf.  Bel Air's suspension bridge between the 10th tee & green, which also serves as a backdrop to the 18th green, is iconic.  My home club, Davenport CC, has a similar bridge linking 10th tee & green, also serving as the background to the 18th hole.  Are there other bridges on golf courses worthy of mention?  The Bridges at Rancho Santa Fe obviously comes to mind; Pasatiempo has some pretty good ones; TOC obviously has one on the 18th hole.

It's not nearly as grand as the Bel Air bridge, but I suggested when we were building Rock Creek that it would be good for walkers to have a little bridge on the 13th hole instead of going down through the canyon and back up, and I was so pleased when I went back for the opening and they had built it!


I can't think of many iconic bridges on golf courses but I suppose the one on the 12th at Augusta has got to qualify.  The Sarazen bridge on 15, not so much, considering that it's really not even a bridge but more of a dam.

I can think of a handful of good ones right off the bat and wonder if it’s not worthy of its own thread? There may already be one buried in the list of topics. Don’t forget Streamsong Blue.