[T_MacWood]

TE
I was correcting your post, you had him attached to the wrong department:

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Art_Architecture/faculty_staff/index.html

George Landow is attached to the English Department not History of Art.

[TEPaul]

"TE
I was correcting your post, you had him attached to the wrong department:"

Tom MacWood:

OK, fine, thanks a lot. I didn't even know I had a hyperlink to him. Maybe it was to his "Victorian Web". That's another place to find him. Could we get on with it?  

[T_MacWood]

In all fairness to you, and as I was just telling Paul Cowley, it would seem that your technique in analyzing and theorizing on these things such as the A&C and its influence on GCA (and the Golden Age) is to just keep trying to expand and expand and expand your subject's (the A&C) philosophy and the actual extent of it and its actual impact until it might be seen to influence most any art form or most anything at all.

Which of these designers would you exclude from the A&C movement?

Gustav Stickley and Sidney Barnsley (furniture)

William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll (gardens)

Charles Ashbee and Robert Jarvie (metal work)

CFA Voysey and MH Ballie Scott (architecture)

William Morris and Walter Crane (wallpaper)

Ebenezer Howard, Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin (planning, garden city concept)

EW Godwin and Gustav Klimit (fashion)

Dirk van Erp and LC Tiffany (lighting)

Charles Ashbee and Archibald Knox (jewellery)

LC Tiffany and Selwyn Image (stained glass)

Edward Burne-Jones and Arthur Wesley Dow (painter)

William de Morgan and George P Kendrick (pottery)

[wsmorrison]

"Which of these designers would you exclude from the A&C movement?

Gustav Stickley and Sidney Barnsley (furniture)

William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll (gardens)

Charles Ashbee and Robert Jarvie (metal work)

CFA Voysey and MH Ballie Scott (architecture)

William Morris and Walter Crane (wallpaper)

Ebenezer Howard, Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin (planning, garden city concept)

EW Godwin and Gustav Klimit (fashion)

Dirk van Erp and LC Tiffany (lighting)

Charles Ashbee and Archibald Knox (jewellery)

LC Tiffany and Selwyn Image (stained glass)

Edward Burne-Jones and Arthur Wesley Dow (painter)

William de Morgan and George P Kendrick (pottery)"

What?  No golf architects?  
Just trying to add a bit of levity.

[paul cowley]

Actually...if I may shift forward in time concerning GCA and LArch...I am at a project in Mexico that combines both in interesting ways......at least for me.

I am developing the master plan for a 1600 ac Resort community that has 1.5 miles of ocean frontage on the Pacific, with an extensive dune system behind the beach, while the rest of the property slopes back at a gradient that allows foreveryone to have an ocean view....we are allowing for 36 holes of golf, with 18 being carefully carved and created from the dune system with as little disturbance as necessary [think SHills]....now that leaves the 'back' property that has sparse and over grazed vegetation, but long ocean views.
What we have decided to do with the second course, is create an 18 hole 'oasis', whose very appeal will depend as much on the total landform we intend on creating, along with its complimenting landscape....as it will on its golf [think SCreek].

We will use as a model for our landscape, the existing natural oasis' that I first discovered to my surprise in northern Baja in the early seventies.

We will have two very differing and contrasting courses when completed.....and two very different landscape design solutions.
Tommorrow I hope to find on site some ruins from the original hacienda that was built around the oasis and existed until the 12 year drought of 1898 brought about its demise.....maybe even some of it could be incorporated as part of the course design, as I feel that using history as a design tool has exciting implications, and is no different than the idea of 'distressing' a piece of furniture, or in the broadest sense, designing in any of the 'revival' styles that borrow and suggest history from times past.










The architecture will be 'Mission style'.
....Spanish Colonial Revival 'Mission' of course.....

Buenos dias amigos, como estas?......am I posting on the wrong thread?  ....I even tried to tie it in with the Mission quip.

....seriously why don't the two of you fly down here and we can continue this debate in the arroyos while we search for real or imagined connections of things past....
I will supply the tequila but not the women...you are free to bring your own [I did ]....vaya con Dios.

[TEPaul]

"What?  No golf architects?  
Just trying to add a bit of levity.

Wayne:

I realize it does seem funny but in fact what you said, which is the same thng so many of us have been saying, is pretty much the entire point of this entire analysis and criticism of Tom MacWood's essay "Arts and Crafts Golf"!

The point of this professor, and apparently those in his profession he mentioned, as well as Paul Cowley (a man whose practiced in all these art forms), me, and a number of other critics, obviously including you, is that if one just keeps on attempting to expand, and expand some subject (in this case the A&C movement) and stretching and stretching its realistic art form and the extent of its actual and historical impact far enough it seems possible to just connect all the dots into a conclusion of one of significant influence on another art form very far removed from it in the first place.

The point is if one does something like that many who understand these art forms and their various differences and distinctions from one another begin to feel that this excercise of "comparison" (looking for similarities) becomes virtually meaningless and of very little educational value or interest.

It's pretty much as simple as just that.

We have seen in Tom MacWood's recent posts, once again, that he just keeps mentioning some perhaps relatively tenuous connection between Rushkin and Morris (British A&C movement) and a man like Gustav Stickley, an American furniture maker who was not a golf architect----eg pretty damn far from furniture making! And it just goes on like that from the A&C to Gertrude Jekyll, a landscape architect who had nothing to do with golf course architecture. Or Lutyens, a building architect who may've been influenced in some ways by the British A&C movement but who had nothing whatsoever to do with golf course architecture.

And it just goes on and on lke that. It seems as if he thinks if he just keeps throwing more and more names at us we may feel that there is some universal connection to almost all art forms or almost all things. Now it's gotten to be what Tom MacWood calls "Another A/C moment" that seem to punctuate his recent posts. But we notice none of them have anything to do with golf course architecture, and they never have.  

This kind of expanding and expanding his initially subject (A&C movement) and then trying to connect the seriously loose and disconnected dots (his premises, some of which are seriously unfactual anyway), one after another and on and on (a series of attempted a priori reasoning) to others things and other art forms that don't really relate to one another makes this entire theory and thesis and essay of his of little to no real historical or educational value or interest.

It's not much different from this;

Did the sun shine on the British A&C movement? Yes it did.

Does the sun shine all over the world and always has? Yes it does and has.

Does the sun shine on golf course architecture? yes it does.

THEREFORE,

The A&C Movement must have been a significant influence on golf course architecture.

Tom MacWood needs to audit a freshman class in Logic 101, in my opinion.  

[T_MacWood]

TE and Wayne
You are correct I did not list any golf architects (TE would've automatically ignore what the post was trying to illustrate if I had done so...it appears he ignored anyway), but based upon the bewildering diversity of arts and crafts listed above, is it a stretch to see the name of golf course designers like Hutchinson, Park, Fowler and Colt in that company?

Especially considering the two most prominent voices of the A&C movement (Ruskin and Morris) dominated popular aesthetics at the time.

The arts, crafts, designs and ideas of those artists listed above were plastered on the pages of popular magazines: Country Life and The Studio.

Those early golf architects worked with and/or hired some of those same designers.

And last but not least the ideas those early golf architects promoted (golf courses that were more natural and drew inspiration from the past, i.e. the naturally evolved links) mirrored some of the ideas put forth by those within the A&C movement (working with natural materials, the inherent beauty of Nature and drawing inspiration from the past).

Is it that difficult to believe the A&C movement and those surrounding the A&C movement had an influence upon turn of the century golf architecture? I don't think so...in fact I think it is more a strectch to believe those golf architects (considering their location, education, circle of friends, etc) were immune to popular culture and aesthetics.

[TEPaul]

Tom:

Noone on here has ever said golf architects or any of the others were 'immune' from the A&C movement or wholly unaware of it.

Nobody on here has ever said anything like that, so why do you keep bringing that up as if we had said that? I think the reason you do that is pretty obvious. But if they weren't immune from it, if they were 'aware' of it does that mean they were all significantly influenced by it as you've claimed in your essay?

Of course not!! That seems to be one of your falacious premises, a number of which you use to try to make "a priori" connections in a series of "cause and effect" logic to make your ultimate point.

Being 'aware' of something or not 'immune' to it does not translate into "significant influence" although you keep trying to make it look like it does. The very first thing you need to do here is understand THAT and come to grips with it. That's most of the problem people seem to have with your thesis and the seriously loose logic you use to attempt to string it all together to arrive at your conclusion and your thesis.

I think one of the most interesting reasons people like a Professor Landow can clarify this entire issue is because obviously he understands the Victorian Age, all of it, so much better than you do.

I very, very much doubt a Professor Landow, whose field is the Victorian Age and most everything about it, would ever say the A&C aesthetic was the prevailing aesthetic or the 'prevailing popular aesthetic' of the Victorian Age. All it was, was one in a number varying aesthetics of the Victorian Age, and some perhaps quite diametrically opposed to one another.

Obviously you've become so fixated over the A&C Movement, and combining that with the fact you probably don't know that much about the rest of the dynamics of the Victorian Age, and certainly nowhere near what a Professor Landow knows about all of it, you've just assumed the A&C was the 'prevailing aesthetic' of the age. And you use it as such to continue your a priori "connect the dots" logic that culminates in this seriously shaky thesis of yours.

It wasn't. I suggest you begin to read a whole lot more about what a Professor Landow and his colleaques who are authorities on the Victorian Age have to say about it all. It might help you lose some of your "missing the forest for the tree" outlook. You should begin to read his "Victorian Web"---there's a whole lot in there, and some valuable links and connecting resource info. You'd obviously learn some valuable things about this entire subject and this entire time and then all this that we've been saying to you would probably become a whole lot clearer and more understandable to you.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood, I have a proposition for you that may help all of us get over all this sematic wrangling back and forth which does turn into a frustrating waste of time and energy.

Professor Landow asked me to write a piece on golf (and architecture) during the Victorian Age (presumably in GB).

How would you like to collaborate with me on it?

If we did that we'd probably come to a far better understanding on all this and we may also be able to present a more balanced or inclusive report on the subject.

PaulC:

From the prespective of a guy who's worked in all these mediums, as you have, I sure would be appreciative if you helped create the report too.

What do you guys say?

[T_MacWood]

Tom:

Noone on here has ever said golf architects or any of the others were 'immune' from the A&C movement or wholly unaware of it.

Who are you trying to kid?

Nobody on here has ever said anything like that, so why do you keep bringing that up as if we had said that? I think the reason you do that is pretty obvious. But if they weren't immune from it, if they were 'aware' of it does that mean they were all significantly influenced by it as you've claimed in your essay?

Of course not!! That seems to be one of your falacious premises, a number of which you use to try to a priori connections in a series of "cause and effect" logic to make your ultimate point.

Let me get this straight...you admit they were aware of the A&C movement, but for whatever odd reason it had no influence upon them. It influenced a bewildering number of other design disciplines, but for whatever reason not golf architects....even though it was thriving around them--both figuratively and literally. That sounds like they were immune to me.

Being 'aware' of something or not 'immune' to it does not translate into "significant influnece" although you keep trying to make it look like it does. That's most of the problem people seem to have with your thesis and the seriously loose logic you use to attempt to string it all together to arrive at your conclusion.

The essay never tried to quantify the influence of Ruskin and Morris and the A&C movement on golf architecture. The essay simply points out that golf architecture did not evolve in a vacuum...that is was effected by prevailing aesthetic thought. The essay points many influences: economics, the move from city to counrty, the growing popularity of the game, Country Life, Horace Hutchinson, the links model and the prevailing aesthetic thought. The fact that the essay is entitled A&C Golf is your problen...you can not accept the fact that golf architecture is related art form.

I think one of the most interesting reasons people like Professor Landow can clarify this entire issue is because obviously he understands the Victorian Age, all of it, so much better than you do.

We shall see...I'd love to here more about his theory regarding landscape architecture being the likely influence on the heathland architects.

I very, very much doubt a Professor Landow, whose field is the Victorian Age and most everything about it would ever say the A&C aesthetic was the prevailing aesthetic of the Victorian Age. All it was, was one in a number varying aesthetics of the Victorian Age, and some perhaps quite diametrically opposed to one another.

What are some of the other important aesthetic movements in Britain at the turn of the century? How would you compare the influence of the proponents of those movements to the influence of Ruskin and Morris?

Obviously you've become so fixated over the A&C Movement, and combining that with the fact you probably don't know that much about the rest of the dynamics of the Victorian Age, and certainly nowhere near what a Professor Landow knows about all of it, you just assume the A&C was the 'prevailing aesthetic' of the age. And you use it as such to continue your a priori "connect the dots" logic.

Art historians have been connecting the dots for a couple of decades now...I'm simply suggesting there should be one more dot. (we are still waiting for you to tell us which one of the many diverse artists and art forms I listed should be excluded from the A&C Movement)...

It wasn't. I suggest you begin to read a whole lot more about what a Professor Landow and his colleaques who are authorities on the Victorian Age have to say about it all. You should begin to read his "Victorian Web"---there's a whole lot in there. You'd obviously learn some valuable things about this entire subject and this entire time and then all this that we've been saying would probably become a whole lot clearer and more understandable to you.

I've read it...I read it prior to writing my essay. Is there anything specific that struck you...that you think we should pay particular attention to.

[T_MacWood]

Tom MacWood, I have a proposition for you that may help all of us get over all this sematic wrangling back and forth which does turn into a frustrating waste of time and energy.

Professor Landow asked me to write a piece on golf (and architecture) during the Victorian Age (presumably in GB).

How would you like to collaborate with me on it?

If we did that we'd probably come to a far better understanding on all this and we may also be able to present a more balanced or inclusive report on the subject.

I would be glad to.

[TEPaul]

"Tom MacWood:
Noone on here has ever said golf architects or any of the others were 'immune' from the A&C movement or wholly unaware of it."

Who are you trying to kid?

Tom MacWood:

I'm not trying to kid anyone. Where have any of us said anyone was 'immune' or 'unaware' of the A&C movement? Just show us where anyone ever said that or just stop saying it.

I said;

"Nobody on here has ever said anything like that, so why do you keep bringing that up as if we had said that? I think the reason you do that is pretty obvious. But if they weren't immune from it, if they were 'aware' of it does that mean they were all significantly influenced by it as you've claimed in your essay?"
Of course not!! That seems to be one of your falacious premises, a number of which you use to try to a priori connections in a series of "cause and effect" logic to make your ultimate point.

You said:

"Let me get this straight...you admit they were aware of the A&C movement, but for whatever odd reason it had no influence upon them. It influenced a bewildering number of other design disciplines, but for whatever reason not golf architects....even though it was thriving around them--both figuratively and literally. That sounds like they were immune to me."

Tom MacWood:

That's right, you got that straight, I admit I said they may've been aware of it and that it did not influence them significantly (or at all). You say it influenced a bewildering number of other design disciplines but a number of authorities on the A&C Movement just do not agree with you that A&C includes a 'bewildering number of design disciplines' and either do I. A&C influenced dec art according to these authorities, perhaps building architecture to some extent and perhaps LA architecture to some extent. That doesn't sound like a bewildering amout of design disciplines to me. It sounds like perhaps three, and that does not include golf course architecture. If it was going on around them of course they can be aware of it and not influenced by it.

A lot of things go on in life around people and don't influence them. How can that be difficult for you to fathom? I'm sure every architect today is AWARE of Rap music or punk rock. Do you think it infuences their golf course architecture? I'm sure a lot of them are AWARE of "green building" today. Do you think it influences their golf course architecture, not to even mention "significantly". People are "aware" of all kinds of things that don't influence them. Why you have a problem understanding that is beyond me and a lot of folks on here and elsewhere.

[TEPaul]

Quote from: TEPaul on Today at 12:07:23pm
Tom MacWood, I have a proposition for you that may help all of us get over all this sematic wrangling back and forth which does turn into a frustrating waste of time and energy.

Professor Landow asked me to write a piece on golf (and architecture) during the Victorian Age (presumably in GB).

How would you like to collaborate with me on it
If we did that we'd probably come to a far better understanding on all this and we may also be able to present a more balanced or inclusive report on the subject.

 

"I would be glad to."



Tom MacW:

Very good, happy to hear it. How do you think we should set it up? Since we probably (more like obviously) have quite different opinions about some of the reasons many of the crude, rudimentary and ultra artificial features of the so-called "Dark Ages" of golf architecture in GB happened to look the way they did and to be built that way it may be both difficult and confusing trying to put that into a single report. Maybe the Professor will let us do two reports---eg perhaps a "Point" vs "Counterpoint". This will be going onto his "Victorian Web", BTW. If you haven't already, check it out. He says this Clive Wainright is one of the world's experts on A&C and his friend who runs some gallery was the one perhaps most responsible for a recent regeneration of interest in A&C. But mostly the "Victorian Web" contains fascinating explanations about a whole lot of things to do with the entire "Victorian Age". It's about a whole lot more than just the "A&C" movment, that's for damn sure.

[T_MacWood]

That's right, you got that straight, I admit I said they may've been aware of it and that it did not influence them significantly (or at all). You say it influenced a bewildering number of other design disciplines but a number of authorities on the A&C Movement just do not agree with you that A&C includes a 'bewildering number of design disciplines' and either do I. A&C influenced dec art according to these authorities, perhaps building architecture to some extent and perhaps LA architecture to some extent.

What about the Garden City movement? Fashion? Jewellery? Photography? Book art? Calligraphy and typography? Painting and graphic arts? What else is there? You mention dec arts like it is a single discipline. You've got a wide variety of disciplines within that area: Tapestries, textiles, Silverware, glass art, stained glass, lighting fixtures, furniture, metalwork, pottery, tiles, wallpaper. That is why Horace Hutchinson said it was virtually impossible to look around in any direction and not see something influenced by William Morris.
 
That doesn't sound like a bewildering amout of design disciplines to me. It sounds like perhaps three, and that does not include golf course architecture. If it was going on around them of course they can be aware of it and not influenced by it.

Only three....not too widespread IYO?

A lot of things go on in life around people and don't influence them. How can that be difficult for you to fathom? I'm sure every architect today is AWARE of Rap music or punk rock. Do you think it infuences their golf course architecture? I'm sure a lot of them are AWARE of "green building" today. Do you think it influences their golf course architecture, not to even mention "significantly". People are "aware" of all kinds of things that don't influence them. Why you have a problem understanding that is beyond me and a lot of folks on here and elsewhere.

You equate the profound and historically documented influence of Ruskin and Morris on aesthetics and design in general with Rap music? Hmm.

[T_MacWood]

Very good, happy to hear it. How do you think we should set it up? Since we probably (more like obviously) have quite different opinions about some of the reasons many of the crude, rudimentary and ultra artificial features of the so-called "Dark Ages" of golf architecture in GB happened to look the way they did and to be built that way it may be both difficult and confusing trying to put that into a single report. Maybe the Professor will let us do two reports---eg perhaps a "Point" vs "Counterpoint". This will be going onto his "Victorian Web", BTW. If you haven't already, check it out. He says this Clive Wainright is one of the world's experts on A&C and his friend who runs some gallery was the one perhaps most responsible for a recent regeneration of interest in A&C. But mostly the "Victorian Web" contains fascinating explanations about a whole lot of things to do with the entire "Victorian Age". It's about a whole lot more than just the "A&C" movment, that's for damn sure.

Why would you say that? I'm sure we have a similar view on Victorian architecture....the golf architects who wrote about it were in complete agreement.

I've read Wainwright's book on Pugin, I used it in my essay. I believe his area of expertise is Gothic architecture and design. He is not the gentleman who said the A&C movement was strictly a British movement?

[TEPaul]

"Why would you say that? I'm sure we have a similar view on Victorian architecture....the golf architects who wrote about it were in complete agreement."

Tom:

I'm sure we agree on what it looked like, how rudimentary, crude and obnoxious looking the first "inland" architecture of the Victorian Era was just as the golf architects who wrote about it said---there's little doubt about that. We may not agree why it was that way, though. The crude features of those first English "inland" courses basically had no real man-made golf architectural model to go by (as that was basically the first man-made golf architectural expression on "inland" courses). I don't think it's much more complex than that and I take very careful note of how either Hutchinson or Darwin explained they were designed incredibly rapidly (probably in less than a day) and who then likely built those crude features like they were. And I take very careful note of what Bernard Darwin said they looked like. I wouldn't expect an observer, critic and golf writer of Darwin's import to be wrong about what the architecture of the "Dark Ages" looked like, in his opinion

"I've read Wainwright's book on Pugin, I used it in my essay. I believe his area of expertise is Gothic architecture and design. He is not the gentleman who said the A&C movement was strictly a British movement?"

No, that wasn't Wainwright. That was a friend of the professor from Brown U who's a director of a famous gallery the Professor said was largely responsible for the revival of interest in dec arts and A&C.  

[T_MacWood]

TE
Hutchinson and Darwin would be an excellent place to start. I'd also look at what Garden Smith, AJ Robertson, Guy Campbell and others said about it. I'd contrast the inland courses in the 1860s and 1870s to those in the 1880s and 1890s. I'd compare and contrast the inland courses in Scotland with those in England. It might be a good idea to look at the background and influences of the men who built these courses, not just the professional golfers, but those turf experts who were often incharge of construction. And perhaps the most important question....when did the term Victorian golf course first show up, and what was meant by that term.  There would be a lot of things to potentially explore.

[paul cowley]

TomMac....now you are really on to something ...I would love to see more pictures and info from that era that I call Steeplechase Golf.

[T_MacWood]

Paul
If I were you and TE...I'd explore the Hurdling angle more than Steeplechase one. I think you two maybe on to something there...of course there are some on this site who don't even acknowledge there was a Victorian period....see Rich G and Sean A.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood said:

“TE
Hutchinson and Darwin would be an excellent place to start. I'd also look at what Garden Smith, AJ Robertson, Guy Campbell and others said about it. I'd contrast the inland courses in the 1860s and 1870s to those in the 1880s and 1890s. I'd compare and contrast the inland courses in Scotland with those in England. It might be a good idea to look at the background and influences of the men who built these courses, not just the professional golfers, but those turf experts who were often incharge of construction. And perhaps the most important question....when did the term Victorian golf course first show up, and what was meant by that term.  There would be a lot of things to potentially explore.”

Paul Cowley said:

“TomMac....now you are really on to something  ...I would love to see more pictures and info from that era that I call Steeplechase Golf.”

Guys, I agree with all that. Looking at what the best observers and critics of that age (Dark Ages) said about those courses, what they looked like, how they were designed and built and occasionally perhaps why they may’ve looked like they did is the way to go to explain that first era in golf course architecture outside the linksland for the very first time in golf’s existence. Even looking at that age (Dark Ages) even as a progression or evolution in and of itself from perhaps 1860  to 1900 in England will tell us a lot about it and why it was that way, I think.

Terms themselves are sometimes tricky business to pin down the meaning of as we look back at them from our time. For instance, during the Victorian Age the names and meanings of the names of their political parties and movements are just about the opposite in name and meaning from what we use today.

A term like “Dark Ages” is pretty obvious and explanatory, in my opinion, but a term such as “Victorian architecture” may not be at all. That could mean anything from the look of something identifiable to the Victorian era itself to merely something that took place in the Victorian Age whose look may’ve had little to do with the Victorian Age per se.

In that vein the oft-used description of what those early Dark Age Courses looked like---ie “steeplechasing” or “Steeplechase courses” is most interesting to me and very likely highly explanatory not just as to look but as to why they looked the way they did. What was “steeplechasing and where did it emanate from and when? We can pin that down to a large extent. Was it uniquely Victorian? Of course not. The sport of steeplechasing, sometimes today called “Cross-Country” or even forms of equestrianism, horse racing in conjunction with obstacle, ie jumping, had been around about as long as men have ridden horses.

The remarkable thing is most all those early features, at lease the man-made hazard or obstacle features of those rudimentary, crude, straight-lined featured courses of that “Dark Age” and particularly inland looked virtually identical to the features used as obstacles in steeplechasing, Cross-Country competition or even equestrianism both back then and still today!! From what I’ve seen of those Dark Age features, particularly obstacle/hazard features they look virtually interchangeable with steeplechasing and Cross-Country obstacle features.

I will never forget going to see the great George Thomas's very first course (1905) when he must have been very young and inexperienced in golf architecture----the little 9-hole Marion G.C in Mass. The course is totally remarkable as it is almost perfectly preserved. But what really shocked me is if you took away the greens almost invariable just over a stone wll immediatly in front of them the golf course could have passed for a steeple-chase or Cross-Country course and could've been easily used as one today. The exact similarities were amazing

And why wouldn’t they be? What more obvious and appropriate model could there be in those early days of the very beginnings of golf course architecture outside the linksland than the world of horse competition or even horse recreation? We may tend to forget today how huge and prevalent that was in that day and age and the mere remarkable similarities in look and structure just makes it all the more obvious to me.

I look forward to your help because I’m not that up on even where those early English “Dark Age” courses were, what they were called, who belonged to them or exactly who designed them but far more importantly who actually built or as C&W says, ‘erected’ them.

[paul cowley]

I think a good place to start would be to determine if any of these early inland courses were a component of a larger hunt club or equestrian sporting club that might of preceded the course....whereas when the golf came into vogue, it was added as an additional amenity....and not the primary one, which might help to explain the crudeness of construction as well as the equestrian look......I think it unlikely, but they might of even shared the same course area in certain situations, where the golf and cross country utilized some of the same space.

We know that many of our early courses also had a equestrian component.

From a design perspective I could envision the shared or co-existing uses, it makes sense.......what we could use now is a good forensic golf examiner.  

[TEPaul]

Paul:

There's no question that many of the old line golf clubs began before golf got here as something to do with the horse world or some other recreation---eg Hunt clubs, horse racing, polo, cricket etc. Off the top of my head this would include Brookline, Myopia Hunt, Piping Rock, Westbury Hunt, Meadowbrook Hunt, London Hunt, Philly Cricket, Merion Cricket, St David's, various "field" clubs, Moorestown, Merchantville, Pittsburgh, Wilmington, and those just off the top of my head in the northeast.

Golf being a sport it's only logical that it's first architecture would model itself after some sport that preceded it and such as steeplechasing, cross-country, fox hunting being the big "open-field" sports that both preceded it and were hugely popular when golf archietcture began and also and most important sports with man-made obstacles, fences, earthen berms large rectangular pits like early cop bunkers that were sometimes filled with water, sometimes not, etc, etc.

Darwin was right, those early "Dark Age" golf courses in England looked remarkably like steeplechase courses et al as he said. It seems completely logical and actually obvious when you think about it.

For me the sight of the almost perfectly preserved Marion G.C (Thomas, 1905) was more proof of it in this country early on. It looks almost exactly like a steeplechase course still today.

[T_MacWood]

If you are looking for a connection between equestrian practices and Victorian golf architecture I'd suggest you look in Britain...afterall didn't "Victorian" designs first spring up in Britain and early British golf architecture?

It wouldn't be difficult to discover if those early British clubs had any hunting component.

[TEPaul]

"If you are looking for a connection between equestrian practices and Victorian golf architecture I'd suggest you look in Britain...afterall didn't "Victorian" designs first spring up in Britain and early British golf architecture?"

Tom:

Definitely. If we're going to do a piece for the "Victorian Web" on "Victorian golf" and its golf architecture it's primarly golf architecture in Britain between app 1860-1900 we need to really focus on.

"It wouldn't be difficult to discover if those early British clubs had any hunting component."

No, it probably wouldn't be, and if some of the early clubs in the USA are an example some probably did. But the real point will be not to just determine if they had that component in Britain then or even how many had hunting, polo, steeplechasing, racing etc but to simply analyze those very early golf architectural features in Britain to see what it was exactly that they did look like. Darwin saw them first-hand obviously and his description is an excellent key, in my opinion. Why wouldn't it be?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

If the A&C movement influenced golf course architecture, who were the architects so influenced, at what stage in their career did this influence take place, and in what way did their design features manifest this influence, versus their prior design philosophies ?

I don't know that moving away from a highly geometric style or any style can necessarily be attributed to the influence of the A&C movement in other disciplines.

Rejection of geometric architecture may have been caused by.... geometric architecture itself.

While I'm not rejecting any influence on golf course architecture, A&C or otherwise, I think a feature specific connection needs to be made in order for you to make your case that golf course architecture was influenced by the A&C movement in other disciplines.

In modern times, what caused the rejection of linear or geometric tee designs in the 60's, 70's and 80's ?

Free form tees became the norm on many new courses, with many established courses eliminating their linear tees in favor of free form tees.  

Why ?

Subsequently, free form tees were rejected in favor of linear tees.  

Why ?

Sometimes golfers get bored with repetition and seek features with a new look, but the same function.  
Not because they disliked the old feature.  
Not because the old feature wasn't functional.
But, because golfers sometimes change things just to change things.  The latest fad isn't confined to attire.

In order to claim a clear cause and effect relationship with respect to the A&C movement in other disciplines affecting and influencing golf course architecture, I think you have to demonstrate, at the feature level, how the A&C movement specifically altered those features.

Could Charles Blair MacDonald's NGLA represent a rejection of the A&C movement as it applies to golf course architecture ?

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