[T_MacWood]

This trio did not stay together long, but they did design (and redesign)  a number of good courses (together and alone)...why don't they get much recognition?

[Joel_Stewart]

Too many chiefs and not enough indians?

Tom:  What courses did they do together and who did what?

[T_MacWood]

They designed or redesigned, together or in collaboration with otheres: West Sussex, Ashridge, Leeds Castle, Ashdown Forest #2, Woodhall Spa. Humewood, Gleneagles, Pitlochry, Wimereux, Tadmarton Heath, Kington, Seacroft, Brancaster, Rye, Princes, Turnberry, Bexhill, Deal, Haagsche, Machranish, Killarney, Felixstowe Ferry, East London, Durban, Kloof, Maccalavie, North Berwick, Pannal and the unfulfilled St Andrews Modern.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood;

Why do you think this trio didn't get much recognition?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

The majority of that list are re-designs and you don't often get credit for that.  The other reason, I suspect, for lack of recognition is that, for the most part, these chaps were working in the UK after the First World War when golf was very much on the back burner.  The Great Triumvirate were past their best, our professional players were undoubtedly good but were required to run shops, mend clubs, serve drinks at the bar, run the caddies and so on.  No wonder they were usually beaten up by the Hagens and Sarazens of this world.  For reasons I outlined in a thread some time ago, there was little interest in golf other than amongst a certain part of society and, despite the efforts of the likes of Darwin writing in Country Life, only a handful of Britons had any interest in golf course architecture.  By then no one outside the UK had any interest in our courses apart from TOC and the like, so courses such as West Sussex and Woodhall Spa remained known only to a handful.  I recall in the 80s that very few English golfers knew of the quality of Woodhall Spa, despite its hosting of many top amateur events, and it was only when there was outrage at its being purchased by the English Golf Union (all UK club golfers paying their £5 a year to be members and they did not approve of their money being used to buy a golf course no one had ever heard of, and which was too remote for anyone to visit it) that the public began to know of its existence.  tadmarton Heath is still hardly known even to GCAers based in the UK, but back in the 80s Saunton, St Enodoc, Southerness, Silloth, Seacroft (to mention only a few S's) were just as unknown.

As for South Africa, we in the UK knew nothing of its courses until World Atlas of Golf in 1976 made us aware of Durban CC, Royal Johannesburg and Houghton.  Some years later the European Tour began including South African events in its own tour schedule and we have become more aware of those courses used for these events.  Sadly, there are very few GCA regulars who know much about the South African courses and they seem mostly to remain something of an unknown to us, just as South American courses remain.

[Sean_A]

Mark

The UK courses you mention are still largely unknown by a significant percentage of golfers.  It is truly amazing to me at how unwilling the British and Irish are to travel for homeland golf.  They are at least as likely to head to Spain or Portugal.  I have resisited these trips because I find it hard to believe that Europe can offer more in golfing terms.  Now if a little golf is going to be combined with wine and food, I am there!

Ciao

Sean

[T_MacWood]

Tom MacWood;

Why do you think this trio didn't get much recognition?

TE
In comparison to the so called big name architects HCH are relatively unkown, and I suspect it may because they were not as skilled or interested in self promotion.

[T_MacWood]

"The other reason, I suspect, for lack of recognition is that, for the most part, these chaps were working in the UK after the First World War when golf was very much on the back burner. "

Mark
Why do you say golf was on the backburner in the 20's?

There were a hell of a lot of good courses built in the UK & Europe in the 20's and golf architecture played a most prominent place within British golf magazines thanks to Darwin, Hilton, Ambrose, Simpson, and many others.

Not to mention the impact British architects were having around the globe. Fowler/Simpson and Willie Park-Jr were designing in the States. Colt and Simpson in Europe. MacKenzie in Australia and then America. Hotchkin in South Africa. Alison in Japan.

The British won the Ryder Cup at Moortown. And Bobby Jones was a pretty big hit too on both sides of the pond.

"By then no one outside the UK had any interest in our courses apart from TOC and the like..."

I think that was for the most part the case prior to WWI as well.

It appears to me there has been little interest in golf architecture in the UK from the 60's and 70's right up through today, ironic in that the subject was perhaps at its zenith in Britain in the 10's, 20's and 30's. I think they generally do a poor job of recognizing their past architectural greats.

In the US the subject was kept alive by Wind (and RTJ), and then thanks to Whitten, followed by people like Doak, Klein and Shackelford it has become a fairly popular topic....not to mention Morrissett.

[Tony_Muldoon]

I think they generally do a poor job of recognizing their past architectural greats.

Amen to that.  I have just applied to join a club, Upminster, opened in 1928 that has no known designer. (Check out the website the only history they have is the clubhouse and a 13th century ghost). I have met several of the committee and senior members; to a man, when asked about it's history they replied along the lines of  "Why would you want to know that?"  

If I had to put a figure on it I would say that less than 3% of all golfers I have talked to in GB&I have any interest at all in the history of GCA.  Is it any higher in the USA?


Mark can you remember the thread you posted your earlier thoughts on  - I'd like to try and look it up.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

To me something rings very true in Mark Rowlinson's post #4 as to the reasons for little recognition of those architects and perhaps the whole issue of architecture in the UK back then. It's often hard for us today to get an accurate feeling for the way many things were looked at back then. We tend to assume, too much I think, for whatever reasons, that past eras must have looked at some things with the same interest we do in our own era.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom M:

I think it could be summed up very neatly by the following observation:  they didn't write a book.

Colt and Alison and MacKenzie and Simpson were all practicing at virtually the same time as Hutchison, Campbell and Hotchkin (and Abercromby too), but the first group each wrote a book, and that's why they're widely known by Americans today.  It makes a bit of a difference in your career in the short term (judging from my own experience), but it makes a great difference fifty years after you're dead.  

Tony Muldoon:

Enjoyed your observation on the members of Upminster.  To some degree they are right.  Why should any of the history of the design matter to you, other than your own perception and enjoyment of the course as it exists today?  Whether it was designed by a no-name or Dr. MacKenzie himself, it is what it is!  

[T_MacWood]

Tom
I think you are right, they really did not do a very good job of getting their names out, either through a book or some other expression of self promotion. All three were very wealthy, so they may not have cared, my impression is golf architecture was their hobby, and as turns out they were quite good at it.

Actually Campbell did write a book Golf for Beginners (1922), more instructional than anything, although it did contain a chapter on golf design. Hotchkin produced a small pamphlet: The Principles of Golf Course Architecture, which was compilation of articles he had written. I don't know how many were made and who may have read it...perhaps a few family members and associates. And CK Hutchison was one of many who contributed a chapter to Golf Greens and Greenkeeping edited by Horace Hutchinson. All quite forgettable in comparision to the splashy efforts of others.

[BCrosby]

I'm not sure the lack of hardback publications explains very much. You don't come to see Colt and Alison as among the greats because of their book, which is pretty thin porridge, afterall.

Mark is closer to the money. UK courses were built and rebuilt so many times that their history has complications only a medieval scholar would appreciate. And not many medieval scholars become club captains.

On the other hand, I disagree with Mark about the public attention on gca in the '20's. One of the most remarkable things about golf periodicals from the 20's - especially for someone who grew up with Golf Digest post 1970 - is how much space was given to golf architecture. Article after article about new designs, course reviews, rankings (see Joshua Crane), even design theory. What golf instruction is to today's magazines, golf design was to the mags in the 20's. It seemed to be topic very much on people's minds. Perhaps much more so than now.

Bob  

[T_MacWood]

"Mark is closer to the money. UK courses were built and rebuilt so many times that their history has complications only a medieval scholar would appreciate. And not many medieval scholars become club captains."

Bob
British courses were rebuilt more than American courses? Maybe with some of the real old Victorian ones, but that is not my take with the vast majority built in the 20th C, in fact just the opposite. The British were fairly frugal when it came to their golf courses; Americans often liked to spend money on improvements.

I agree with you regarding the magazines in the twenties, it was really the high point of golf architecture writing (including today). There was an amazing amount of space given to golf architecture in the regular golf mags.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

I would think that the architectural progeny of Muirfield, Prestwick, Turnberry and Dornoch, for example, was far more Byzantine than most top-ranked courses in the US.

Among the top ranked courses in the US (at least until the USGA got their hands on them), I would think that ANGC is one of the few that has an equally mongrelized design. But not many others. No?

Bob  

[TEPaul]

"And CK Hutchison was one of many who contributed a chapter to Golf Greens and Greenkeeping edited by Horace Hutchinson. All quite forgettable in comparision to the splashy efforts of others."

Tom MacWood:

You're right, most of the articles in "Golf Greens and Greenkeeping" are quite forgettable, including the articles on golf architecture. Maybe they weren't back then but they sure seem to be ultra obvious today. Golf greenkeeping was pretty rudimentary pre-WW1 though.

[T_MacWood]

TE
The combined authorship of Hutchison, Campbell and Hotchkin is forgettable, not Golf Greens and Greenkeeping....in fact that early volume has recently been reprinted.

You have to understand and appreciate when it was written, and take it in that context. It was the first book to explore the art and science of golf architecture. The contributors make up an impressive who's who of early golf design: Horace Hutchinson, Gilbert Beale, HS Colt, Herbert Fowler, S. Mure Fergusson, Peter Lees, CK Hutchison and Harold Hilton.

[T_MacWood]

Bob

You are right those olden links courses did undergo change, you can add Hoylake, Westward Ho!, Sandwich, Birkdale, County Down and even the Old Course.

A look at the early courses that hosted the US Open and Amateur, presumably the cream of the crop: Newport, Shinnecock, Chicago, Myopia, Baltimore, Garden City, Baltusrol, Glen View, Onwentsia, Philadelphia Cricket, Englewood, CC of Buffalo, Brookline, CC of Atlantic City, Nassau, Apawamis, Ekwanok, CC of Detroit, Merion. Most of these courses were altered, many significantly, and of the eighteen courses, nine were replaced completely...the old course being NLE. Pebble Beach, Columbia, Pinehurst #2, and Oakmont were revamped as well.  

Huntercombe, Swinley Forest, Addington, Worplesdon, Stoke Poges, St. Georges Hill, Walton Heath, West Hill, Royal Ashdown Forest, Coombe Hill and Alwoodley were more or less kept intact during that same period; many of them are surprisingly close to their original form today. I think the British are pretty cheap when it comes to golf, Americans have never had any trouble throwing money at their courses....with mixed results from an architectural point of view.

[TEPaul]

"TE
The combined authorship of Hutchison, Campbell and Hotchkin is forgettable, not Golf Greens and Greenkeeping....in fact that early volume has recently been reprinted."

Tom MacW:

I know, I just read it.

"You have to understand and appreciate when it was written, and take it in that context. It was the first book to explore the art and science of golf architecture. The contributors make up an impressive who's who of early golf design: Horace Hutchinson, Gilbert Beale, HS Colt, Herbert Fowler, S. Mure Fergusson, Peter Lees, CK Hutchison and Harold Hilton."

I do understand that and that's why I said it was probably fairly elucidating for that early time, pre-WW1 but today it seems rudimentary and simplistic. But you're right I take it in the context of its own time, not in our time----that's what interests me most--eg the evolution of it all.

[ForkaB]

Huntercombe, Swinley Forest, Addington, Worplesdon, Stoke Poges, St. Georges Hill, Walton Heath, West Hill, Royal Ashdown Forest, Coombe Hill and Alwoodley were more or less kept intact during that same period; many of them are surprisingly close to their original form today. I think the British are pretty cheap when it comes to golf, Americans have never had any trouble throwing money at their courses....with mixed results from an architectural point of view.

Tom

Interesting list of courses above.  All English.  All non-Championship standard.  All inland.  Mostly focused on the "stockbroker" belt outside of London.

At the same time, as Bob C. has implied, many if not most of the serious courses outside of this cosy little milieu were (and in many cases continue to be) constantly changing (Deal, Sandwich, Rye, Littlestone, Troon, Turnberry, Dornoch, Aberdeen, Carnoustie, Muirfield, Birkdale, Hoylake, etc.).

The reasons for this do not, I think, in any way relate to "British" stinginess.  More likely, the courses you cite were and are seen by their members largely as "nice members courses" and not up-to-date "tests of golf."  They might also be, in a certain way, more thought of as "art" by their members than are the courses I list above, and thus less appropriate for any sort of change.

Just speculating, but it also makes me wonder why there was not (that I know of) any developer/designer/owner in the UK (particularly England) in any way comparable to Crump or Fownes or even the founders of Winged "Give us a man-sized Course!" Foot.  The emphasis (or at least the effect) seems to have been largely aimed at creating sporty tracks, rather than world-beaters.

If this is true, I wonder why?

[BCrosby]

Tom/Rich -

I don't know which English courses are top tier or which are not, but I have a pretty good feel for that in Scotland. As for Scottish courses, I suspect that top tier courses there have a more tortured architectural history than similarly ranked US courses.

I agree with Tom that courses at lower tiers have been messed with a lot less. But that is no less true for middle tier courses in the US.

(All just flying on instincts. I haven't done any hard digging.)

It is interesting that the desire to build big, bully-boy golf courses never took hold in the UK. It is hard to imagine someone in the UK saying anything like Fownes' (and I paraphrase) "a bad stroke is a stroke that is irretrievable and lost forever". There was a nasty puritanical streak in the Fownes and the Crumps that you did not hear from their contemporaries across the sea.

Bob
 

[TEPaul]

"Just speculating, but it also makes me wonder why there was not (that I know of) any developer/designer/owner in the UK (particularly England) in any way comparable to Crump or Fownes or even the founders of Winged "Give us a man-sized Course!" Foot.  The emphasis (or at least the effect) seems to have been largely aimed at creating sporty tracks, rather than world-beaters.
If this is true, I wonder why?"

Rich:

That is an unusual although very interesting question and there's a chapter by Harold Hilton in that reprinted book mentioned above "Greens and Greenkeeping" that probably sheds the most light on that question.

In that chapter Hilton reviewed the courses that were locked solid into the British Open rota back in that very early time. Hilton mentioned that even if some of them may not have been that championship worthy in various ways nevertheless they were not likely to be given up as British Open and Amateur championship venues simply because the clubs were proud of that, I suppose they were close R&A member clubs and consequently would remain in that fairly tight rota.

On the other hand, that was definitely not true in the States at that time both pre and just post WW1. In the States, for a variety of reasons, the quickly exploding game of golf had a remarkably strong and interested competition and championship contingent who were looking to raise the level and quality of tournament players in their regions. In other words, there was a strong championship influence from various contingents early on both in men's and women's championships. This in an atmosphere where a formal championship rota of courses basically didn't exist in the States, at least nothing like that locked in rota existed in the British Isles.

And so in America that lack of championship courses inspired the likes of Crump, Fownes, Wilson, Ross, Flynn, Tillinghast et al to build those so-called "Championship" courses beginning around 1910 and on. If one tracks those courses whose clubs called for "championship" courses they are the very ones where the US Opens and Amateurs were to go in the ensuing years.

The British Isles didn't really need those "championship" developers like Crump, Fownes et al because the British Isle's championship rota was set and had been almost since the beginning of British Isles championship golf.

At least that's the way Harold Hilton seemed to explain it and being the premier championship golfer he was back then he should've known as well or better than anyone.

[Tom_Doak]

Rich:

The English counterparts to Crump and Fownes would be John Low and Stuart Paton (Woking) and S.V. Hotchkin (Woodhall Spa).  None of those three were really thinking "championship" because everyone outside America knows a championship can only be held on a links   , but they were very involved in tinkering with their courses to make them more interesting and challenging for the members and visitors.

[ForkaB]

Tom D

Thanks.  It's interesting that while Crump and Townes set out to build the greatest and/or toughest courses in the world, Low/Paton and Hotchkin seemed content to "tinker."  Is this an example of the class system at work (i.e. no chance to get an Open since non-links, therefore set one's sights appropriately lower....)?

Tom P

Pre-Pine Valley/Oakmont there were just 5 UK courses on the Open Rota (TOC, Muirfield, Sandwich, Hoylake and Deal).  Only the first 3 have stayed on the rota consistently.  Post-Pine Valley/Oakmont, 4 courses were added in rapid succession after WWI (Troon, Lytham, Carnoustie and Princes).  The first 3 of them have stayed on hte rota farily consistently.  After WWII, three courses were added, two of which (Turnberry and Birkdale) have had multiple Opens.

Your argument just does not fit the facts this time.  Sorry!

[Philip Gawith]

Rich - I am not sure there is a contradiction between English "stinginess" and wanting to preserve "nice little members's courses".

Most (not all) of the courses listed by Tom MacWood are socially exclusive. And for that class of English people being understated and thrifty is a core part of their persona. They would rather die than be thought flash - hence the phrase "shabby genteel" which was made for them.

It is entirely consistent with that outlook that these same members would not want to spend much on their course either.

At the same time, though, there is enough common sense to know that they have a "nice members club". Add in a small dose of conservatism ("leave well alone") - and that is your recipe for little change.

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