Tom MacWood, my declining to answer your twenty quesiton attempt has nothing really to do with my knowledge, or lack of it, of London or any other time but the fact that you feel the need to ask me those questions, in my opinion, most certainly does have a good deal to do with your own insecurity about what others perceive your own knowledge of history to be.

"Not only was the A&C movement the dominate force in the arts at that time, its epicenter was London and the suburbs around London (like Surrey), the same place the golden age began."

Yes, that's true, that is where the Golden Age of Golf Architecure began, Surrey, the heathlands et al. But the fact is for it's fundamental model and its by far and away most powerful influence it did not turn to the A/C Movement around London or the A/C movement anywhere else, it undeniably turned back to the Scottish linksland and particularly the model of TOC from whence it and golf had come. This is not speculation on my part as golf architecture's combined literature confirms this beyond question.

What are you going to try to tell me next---that the A/C movement powerfully influenced the Scottish linksland courses themselves and particularly TOC itself TOO?  

I wouldn't put even that past you since your ridiculous inclination to rationalize this subject (positivism) is almost there anyway.

Furthermore, the term "Golden Age of Golf Architecture doesn't have a problem. Its function is to merely point out the fact that age in golf architecture was a true highpoint in the history and evolution of golf archtiecture.

If one wants to find out what the most powerful influences were that made it such a high point all one has to do is study the entire evolution of golf architecture iteself, where it came from, where it went and why and how and what those influences along the way really were that eventually took it to the era known as its "Golden Age".

The prototype, the model and the most powerful influence on it by far was the Scottish linksland and particularly TOC.

You can't deny this, Tom MacWood, you can't minimize it, you can't change it, and you sure can't reassign that primary influence on it away from the Scottish linksland and TOC over to the A/C movement no matter how hard you try or how much you rationalize the influence on it of the Arts and Crafts movmement in a Gertrude Jekyll "wild" cottage garden, around London or anywhere else.

"TE
Once again your response reflects your ignorance of the movement."

Tom MacWood:

First of all, I'm not exactly ignorant of the Arts and Crafts Movement or Pugin, Morris, Ruskin, Jekyll or any of those you've mentioned in this context, as you keep claiming I am. I've known all about it and them for many years, and quite well, thank you. I even grew up in something of that atmosphere, and certainly have visted more of Jekyll's gardens and that style than you have but when I mentioned that to you all you seemed to be able to say is something like I must stay in a Holiday Inn Express. I lived it, have seen it and that's probably a bit more meaningful to the understanding and essence of it than to just have one's head in a book about it without ever really experiencing it.  

Unbelievable.

Secondly, you should learn to live with the fact that those who don't agree with you are not necessarily confused or ignorant.

And thirdly, I read your five part essay a number of times and very carefully. If you are still going to call me ignorant of the Arts and Crafts movement and what it was I guess that doesn't say very much for you as a writer or presenter of the subject, does it?  

On the other hand, I do feel a sense of responsibility to offer a comprehensive counterpoint to your essay to those who probably don't know much about Morris, Pugin, the A/C movement and Jekyll and such things as her cottage or "wild garden" style of landscage design.

I also feel a responsibility to defend the influence that an English landscape designer such as Capability Brown had regarding at least the site characteristics of what he did and what really did involve and influence the so-called "parkland" golf course. You seem fairly incapable of dealing with that reality in this discussion and subject. You seem thoroughly hung up on the fact that A/C proponents criticized him. That does not render his style inapplicable and uninfluential to golf course architecture in the late 19th century or 20th century. If you are interested in general influences, as you obviously seem to be with your A/C essay ;0)it is pretty surprising you missed that and it's more surprising that you seem incapbable of understanding it and admitting it.  

The fact is you just missed the boat on your essay, its assumptions and conclusion. It was a nice try but you missed the boat.  

Tommy Naccarato:

I don't know what it is you think you're saying but it doesn't make much sense to me.

Thomas, Wethred & Simpson, Hunter, Pine Valley, nature, construction techniques, utility and beauty etc----what is your point here? I know all those people and those places and things. Most of them I know as well or better than you do or Tom MacWood does. So what? If he wants to challenge me or my knowledge on those things let him do it in some other place and at some other time. The same goes for you. I'd welcome that.

This issue I have with Tom MacWood is about one thing only which I explained to you yesterday and which obviously you didn't understand for some reason---eg the degree of influence on the Golden Age of Golf Architecture he is trying to assign to the ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT. I simply do not agree that the A/C Movement had anywhere near that type of influence he suggests it did on the Golden Age of Golf Architecture. To try to relabel the great Golden Age of Architecture "Arts and Crafts Golf" is just preposterous---it's historic revisionism of the worst kind. The primary or poweful influence on the Golden Age was something else and you of all people should know damn well what that is.

Do you understand that?

                                                     "BEAUTY & UTILITY
In Golf construction art and utility meet; both are absolutely vital; one is utterly ruined without the other. On the artistic side there is a theory of construction with a main fundamental that we copy nature; in this all seem to agree."

If you of all people are under some misperception that that statement by Thomas indicates some sole purview of the Arts and Crafts Movement you are incredibly mistaken or worse.

I'm really disappointed in you. I always thought you had a bit more analytical sense and a better understanding of golf architecture's history than that.

Sean
I think you pretty much nailed our positions, which really aren't that far a part.

And speaking of staying at a Holiday Inn Express it was interesting to learn what were some of Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens' inspirations. They were both from Surrey and were introduced to one another at a party given by a mutual friend, a rhododendron grower (Lutyens had built a gardeners cottage for this man). Evidently they discovered common interests, especially an interest in the old vernacular buildings and gardens in and around Surrey.

They would spend weekends in Jekyll's pony cart searching all around Surrey for old farms, broken-down cottages and gardens. There is a book 'Old West Surrey' which includes her photographs & illustrations of the old crafts and cottages they had seen in their travels around Surrey.

Eventually she asked Lutyens to design her home Munstead Wood where they incorporated many of things they had seen in the Surrey countryside. That project began what was a very fruitfull collaboration. The next turning point being when Jekyll introduced Lutyens to Edward Hudson of Country Life. His career exploded shortly after that...largely due to the exposure he got from Country Life.

It was not the A&C movement that was the inspiration for their designs. The inspiration for their designs came for the old cottages and gardens around Surrey. The A&C movement promoted and encouraged an interest in old cottages, old gardens and traditional crafts.

"I hope my interjection won't be seen as a nuisance in this ongoing epic.  If it is, ignore me.”

Sean:

Not at all.  I, for one, wouldn’t think of ignoring you. I think in the few paragraphs below you’ve hit upon and very well defined, and very concisely, the basis as well as some of the details of the disagreement I have with Tom MacWood’s essay on the influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement in GCA or on the Golden Age. Of course it’s a matter of degree—most everything in life is a matter of degree. What I am looking for with the A/C movement is how its characteristics may apply to golf architecture of the Golden Age and/or some definite examples or details of what it was exactly that was evidence of its powerful influence on golf architecture. And I’m just not finding much evidence and certainly no real examples. Did it influence golf architectural routings, or green designs, or fairways shapes, or bunkers styles or some general aura of golf architecture such as its drive towards far more naturalism in architecture beginning with the Golden Age? If so I just don’t see that it did, particularly considering so many who worked in that era in a more naturalistic style seemed to assign their inspiration and influence for doing what they were doing to a completely rekindled interest in the model of the Scottish linksland and particularly TOC. This is what I have always read in their books and articles and explanations of what they were doing and why. They even gave real and definite examples of what they meant and what they trying to emulate. TOC is the perfect example. For instance, they explain, and in detail how the widening of TOC by probably Robertson began to basically morph golf from the penal to the strategic.


“It seems to me that the Toms are not really disagreeing.  Tom P. is saying the links of Scotland is the major influence of heathland golf - though A&C cannot be totally discounted.  Tommy Mac seems to be saying that the A&C Movement was the catalyst which prompted designers to look back at links design as a model to create beautiful and perhaps more functional designs.  If this is the case I don't see where the disagreement is other than in matters of degree which neither chap has been willing to reveal thus far.”

But we are disagreeing even if it may be on a matter of degree. I feel that matter of degree is most certainly significant enough to question his entire thesis that the A/C Movement itself really is a powerful influence on GCA, particularly when we can both see and read the literature of the history of GCA and clearly tell that the true most powerful influence was something else. Tom MacWood certainly is saying the A/C movement was the catalyst that prompted designers to look back at the links courses as a model. I don’t really buy that either since there is just no real proof of it, as there most certainly is for the model of the linksland and TOC, pretty much as it had naturally been for eons. Or at least  he has simply not provided that proof. Tom MacWood’s evidence of a connection or catalyst is that Htuchinson or Darwin knew Gertrude Jekyll or some school master somewhere who knew some A/C proponents and that they knew Park Jr et al or met them somewhere around London, and that since all these people had apparently met each other somewhere around London and that those architects such as Willie Park jr were therefore all somehow imbued with the spirit and essence of naturalism by the A/C movement that somehow transposed their designs beginning in the healthlands into what they were. I just don’t buy that either. Park Jr was a Scottish linksman, he was more than aware of that naturalistic model when he set about designing Sunningdale and Huntercombe. And he was obviously more than aware of that linksland model long before that. So why didn’t he design and build to that naturalistic model, including natural and rugged bunker features akin to the linksland when he first plied his trade in England? Why didn’t Dunne or Old Tom Morris? Why didn’t any of those early journeymen linksland professionals/designers? Probably one good reason was they weren’t exactly asked to, or paid to, or given the necessary time to. This too has been clearly written in the combined literature of the history of architecture. They were only asked to do something quickly, perhaps in a day or so as Bernard Darwin so well explained in a remark that is ironically contained in Tom MacWood’s own essay. They were asked and paid to do basic layouts, essentially stick routings and then they were off to some other layout or even back home for they day jobs as golf professionals. They probably didn’t stay to build anything or even watch it being built. If one asked Frank Lloyd Wright to design him a house in a day what do you think he would get but perhaps about four walls laid out? The actual architectural features and architectural details were left to those from those sites and English inland locales. And what did they make? They made such things as hazard obstacles that looked remarkably like steeplechase pits and berms and jumps and courses. And why wouldn’t they as that was all they knew then? Bernard Darwin mentioned this explicitly in that remark in Tom MacWood’s essay. When I asked MacWood if that wasn’t the best example yet of confirmation of my point he said that he felt that Darwin must have been joking, obviously implying that what Darwin had said in that vein was not true and shouldn't be taken seriously. When I asked MacWood what led him to assume Darwin was joking and not to be taken seriously he only responded that it was because he’s read everything that Darwin had written and apparently I hadn’t, and therefore I couldn’t know what I was talking about regarding that remark of Darwin's and only he did. What the hell does that mean? What kind of response is that to a legitimate question? But perhaps in some way Darwin was joking about his steeplechase reference to the way most all architecture was during that age known as "Victoran" architecture that preceded the beginning of the Golden Age. But if so, then why was he joking about the look of it?

Well, that brings me directly to my real point here of why and how and when the linksland, and particularly TOC became the model for what was to come in the heathlands and beyond in time and place that became the great Golden Age of golf architecture, and even what the catalyst was that made it become that model and by far and away its most powerful influence.

In my opinion, as in the opinion of the architectural literature as written, at that point (around 1900 and on), those such as Park Jr, Colt, Fowler, Abercrombie, MacKenzie et al, Macdonald et al in America and probably even Horace Hutchinson looked out on the accumulated product in England and America and said to themselves what has come before us was rudimentary, unsophisticated, geometric, awful looking and basically just a bunch of crap and we can do better if given the time and money and the model of the naturalistic linksland from whence this game came a few decades ago in the hands and minds of those who migrated it out of Scotland without understanding that they were taking just the basic structure of golf architecture out of Scotland for the first time and forgetting to take with it its very essence---the formations and arrangements and natural golf features of its very ground. That observation and realization of what had preceded them outside the linksland on mostly inland sites ill suited to golf or agronomy and what a bunch of rudimentary crap it was and why was the real catalyst for the return to an interest in the linksland model and TOC model that became the real and most powerful influence on the Golden Age of golf architecture. This is what Macdonald wrote, and Hunter, and Thomas, and particularly Alister Mackenzie whose seminal book on architecture was interesting entitled “The SPIRIT of St Andrews”.

Why do you suppose it was titled that? Isn’t it obvious? It was simply that to them, then, it was there finest model of naturalism and its prototype for golf architecture.  If he, and those many others of like mind with him mentioned above felt that the A/C movement was as powerful an influence on golf architecture and the Golden Age as he and they felt the linksland/TOC was he probably would have titled his book “Arts and Crafts Golf” as Tom MacWood titled his essay.   But he didn’t do that, they didn’t do that---neither he nor any of them even bothered to merely mention the A/C movement-----he entitled it “The Spirit of St Andrews” and he wrote of its significant influence, as they did on what they began to do and did.  

This is why I disagree with Tom MacWood’s conclusion about the significance of whatever influence the A/C movement had on the Golden Age, even if the disagreement is a matter of degree. I feel that matter of degree of disagreement is far too significant not to continue to disagree. This is what I believe and this is my point and I will continue to make it unless and until Tom MacWood or others can come up with some definite examples of direct influences on GCA from the A/C movement as I can with numerous examples of direct influences on the Golden Age from the linksland and TOC. So far a bunch of people just knowing each other or meeting each other at some point around London, or examples of A/C houses or fonts on magazines or “wild” cottage landscape gardens in England that have no real application to GCA is just not convincing me and either is this suggestion that the A/C movement was so ethereally pervasive (just a “philosophy” of no real direct influence) that it had to be a powerful influence.

(continued)

Sean:

Seriously now, just take a look at Tom MacWood's post #85.

It is interesting isn't it? But about what? As you can see it's interesting to know how Lutyens met Jekyll and all the various things about the English countryside of Surrey they sought out like old walls and ruins, and countryside "naturalism" so that they could apply them to their professions and art forms of landscape gardening and building architecture.

We even hear from Tom MacWood that someone connected to Country Life magazine became very interested in what they were doing and that furthered his career at Country Life magazine.

Sean, have you ever seen Country Life magazine? Well, if not I most certainly have, altough Tom MacWood doesn't think that means much other than I must stay in Holiday Inn Expresses on this subject.  Ironically, it has been around me every month of my entire 62 years old life. When I mentioned that to Tom MacWood he didn't seem to see the significance of it.

I admit I did not read Country Life in the 1890s, 1900s or probably until the 1950s but I would bet great money that its basic format and general content has never really changed. It concentrated on just what its name implies---eg "country life", the life in the English country side. It concentrates on building architecture, landscape architecture, gardens, it has a section on the sort of aristocratic debutante of the month , it has a section on interesting craftmen, on auto racing, horse racing, golf and cricket etc etc. And in more modern times it has had just fantastic almost fantasy-like advertisements for real estate properties in both London and the English country side (and other European watering spots) that were so interesting and fantasy producing that I would wager that section alone was the real reason for the magazine's continued existent.

Anyway, Sean, look at what Tom MacWood mentioned in that post #85. Again, it's interesting about Lutyens and Jekyll and Country Life magazine, isn't it? But would you please tell me where or what at all the connection of that post and it's information possibily has to do with golf course architecture?

Do you see what I'm saying about his tendency to say all this stuff but basically just fail to make a connection with it to golf architecture, not to mention that any of that could've been some powerful influence on the golf archtiecture of the Golden Age, even when Hutchinson and Darwin wrote for it (after the beginning of the Golden Age, I might add )?

Oh sure, I know, I've heard it a hundred times----that A/C "philosophy", mostly even unamed, or even unspoken, was just so pervasive, so influential on most all things in England or elsewhere that for that reason alone it only stands to reason the A/C movement must have been such a powerful influence on GCA as to warrant relabeling the great Golden Age of Golf Archtiecture "Arts and Crafts Golf"!!

What else can be said really than Bullshit!?  

TommyN, go ahead and say that we really agree on this issue if you want to or even that its just a disagreement of some matter of small degree.

It isn't.

And I am most definitely not denigrating the Arts and Crafts movement or its philosophy or general theme or ethos. The fact is I've known it pretty well my entire life, I've read about it, lived with it, I agree with it and frankly I love most everything about it and always have.

But none of that and certainly none of what Tom MacWood has ever said about it or its proponents has made a strong enough connection of it to a type and style of golf course architecture (which I also happen to love) to call it a powerful influence on GCA of any era, including the Golden Age.

"I don't know if A&C had much influence on golf architecture, but it would be a hell of a coincidence if the rise of the A&C movement, which shares much of the same idealism concerning aesthetics, use of the total environment and function with the Goldan Age of GA, did not have any influence."

Sean:

I couldn't agree with that remark more. I don't know that the A/C movement had much influence on GCA either, and from all the available info to date it wouldn't seem it did have much direct influence but to say it had no influence would be a foolish thing to say and I've never said it. All I've ever claimed is it doesn't appear in any way at all to have had a very powerful influence on GCA and certainly nothing remotely like an influence powerful enough to warrant relabelling the Golden Age "Arts and Crafts Golf" to more clearly explain what a very powerful influence on golden age architecture was.

But as a catalyst that may've contributed to a far greater awareness of the linksland and TOC model in the latter part of the Victorian Age we can probably assign some real influence to something that had nothing really to do with golf---the railroad.

We often think of the Victorian Era as a time of conservatism in manner and such, sort of a quiet time in some ways perhaps but it was nothing of the kind. Queen Victoria herself may've lent that aura to the age named for her but that era was one of incredible explosion in all kinds of things, almost every phase of life and thought in fact and transportation was one of those things.

In the latter part of the 19th century GB had been blanketed by railway lines, as America had been at that time, and access of so many more into and out of Scotland and to courses like St Andrews was a result. Golf also trickled out of Scotland in the 1860s and 1870s, that pace picked up considerably in the 1880s and virtually exploded in the 1890s and on into the new century and by that time one could not help notice the unsophistication of the rudimentary initial efforts of golf architecture inland in England. The time of much greater familiarity and understanding of the true essence of it back where it originated had arrived in places outside Scotland, and the English heathlands was the first place it showed.

"The question is why then and there."

Tom MacWood:

If you mean the English healthlands I don't think there is much question at all why it happened then and there. All those factors have already been more than well identified and explained by golf architecture's best literature, in my opinion. Perhaps you should read it rather than researching the Internet for information on the a&c or A&C Movement.

Gentlemen,

Forgive me for dropping in to this erudite and somewhat personal fray but I would submit that Desmond Muirhead is perhaps a better example of what a GCA influenced by the A&C movement would produce- highly sylized and romantically executed designs.

McKenzie was influenced by camoflauge concepts- Colt by St A- Ross by Dornoch; not attempts to perfect the color wheel or blend wilderness into nature. My impression is strategy
and degree of playability influenced them

XOXOXO
Ward P

Ward,
Desmond was influenced, but not by craftsman influence. He was more influenced by historical figures and subject matter, as well as Greek and Pop cultures. But your point is an excellent one. However Desmond never really ever really created anything inspired by nature itself, other then maybe features that were somewhat historical.

But your right, he was inspired by artistry too. It's just most don't care for his taste in art or other subject matters. But then again, George Thomas created Mae West @ Bel Air Desmond created similar holes, only in a more gimmicky way. And I'll tell you this for sure (that's how Desmond would say it) Desmond created interesting shots on golf courses.

Sean
I think there were a series of designs and redesigns back then that were significant. Everybody knows about Sunningdale and Huntercombe, what they don't know is that Colt almost immediately began to redesign Sunningdale. His finishing of the course in many ways elevated into a revolutionary design. Walton Heath began 1902...I just learned recently that he asked Taylor to check over his layout.

Low & Paton at Woking and Mallaby-Deeley at Princes Mitcham (and then Princes at Sandwich was truly groundbraking) were extremely important. The rebunkering of St. Andrews, I believe Low was involved there and the redesign of Westward Ho! by Fowler. Le Touquet by Taylor and Fernie but built by Horace Hutchinson was influential. Mure Ferguson and New Zealand. And Colt going up to Ganton and then over to Alwoodley to observe/collaborate with MacKenzie. There were a number of things going on...all before 1906.

I don't think it is possible to discuss the weakness of the Victorian model and the positives of the links model without discussing strategy. That is really at the heart of the strengths and weaknesses of those types of designs and at the heart of the discusions.

Hutchinson was at the forefront of those discussions. First his British Golf Links (1897) picture book, which incidently he did not write (which is its weakness IMO) and 'Golf Greens and Greenkeeping '(1906) which is still a brilliant book today. His writing in Country Life and other magazines. Low wrote for the Pall Mall Gazette and along with his book he was very important too. You can find the topic coming up in Golf Illustrates as well, although not as focused as CL. GI was fixiated on the topic of the proper length of holes for some reason, but their best holes discusion was very important as we know.