Why does James Braid

[johnk]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but bunkering is one area where Braid did get recognition.  Even on courses he never touched, you can find fairway pot bunkers that are known as "Braid's bunkers".

I think that's an accurate summation of one of his tendencies.  In contrast "MacKenzie greens" meaning multi-level, never made any sense to me.

[Kyle Harris]

Sean,

Without visuals, this may get dicey.

I feel you may be blurring a few lines between strategic/penal hazards, and strategic/penal holes. I've sketched two examples that I will post later when I can get my scanner hooked up that demonstrate how two strategic holes of similar makeup can have varying levels of strategic dimension based on the placement and orientation of hazards.

In one example, the hazards are arranged such that the hole is preferrably played to one side off the tee, however, there is hazard that much be negotiated regardless of angle off the tee. The preferred angle is preferred due to the location of another hazard, with the shape and slope of the green not influencing position from the fairway.

In this case, the shape/slope of the green, and the placement of the fairway hazard are penal, since they do not change based on play. The greenside hazard is strategic, since its involvement changes based on angle and since it influences play.

This type of hole is a very shallow dimension of strategic thinking, but strategic nonetheless.

The second example features the same things, however, they are arranged such that a certain angle off the tee will provide a clear tee shot, however, that easier tee shot will result in the greenside hazard being in play. Additionally, the green is angled such that the preferred approach is as near as possible to both the greenside and fairway hazard, making the golfer challenge both to get an ideal line in.

This second hole has much more strategic depth, and the hazards are positioned such that the golfer can choose whether or not they are penal or not affecting play. For the optimum score, the golfer must rely on skill in challenging the hazard, or luck.

[David_Tepper]

The James Braid Golf Trail info can be accessed at:

http://golf.visitscotland.com/jbcollection/

You can request a free copy of the JBGT brochure on that page.

[Tony_Muldoon]

I spoke with Ian Cumming today who informed me that he had been assisting John Moreton update his “The Golf courses of William Braid”.  The work is now largely done and will again be published by Grant Books once Moreton has finished two club  and a county history.

Apparently Braid was more prolific than previously thought and the new book will raise the number of courses on which he worked from 185 to 370!  They have been in contact with his granddaughter who is still alive.  Apparently the family were happy with the Darwin book, which he points out was published less than two years after Braid’s death.  He said they had documentation of the changes that Braid suggested for Troon before its first open (1924) and that these were subsequently accepted in full.

He is now working on his own volume which will be on the golf courses of Taylor and Vardon.  Discoveries include that Taylor was responsible for the first course in Spain and one in Egypt. He is in contact with Stanley Howell who is Vardon’s son, his mother Audrey Howell wrote a book "Harry Vardon Champion Golfer". Again the number of courses he has already established links to these two greatly exceeds previous credits.  Finally he said the two books would show that all three were designing courses much earlier than had previously been believed and certainly in the 1890’s.

I encouraged him to look in and perhaps to post but he declared that he was happy as a luddite.  

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I had a conversation with a Scotsman a year or two ago and his take on it was that Braid's reputation as an architect is much higher in Scotland than in England.  I suspect much of this is to do with the fact that very few English golfers have any knowledge of or interest in golf architecture.  If Braid were to be judged on St Enodoc and Carnoustie, Gleneagles and Blairgowrie his reputation would be high.  Probably some of his lesser-known courses are worth consideration - Luffenham Heath, for instance, a real charmer in Rutland, England's smallest county.  If Cornish and Whitten are correct in assigning North Hants and Hankley Common to Braid, then he did work on the Surrey heathlands.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Trying to catch up and threads are now overlapping. Sorry Sean I don't know any more about the upcoming book or how it was originally laid out.  But with that number of courses I can't believe there’ll bee too much detail.

Mark he told me it was amazing that Braid had worked all over England and Scotland "in every county except Rutland".  I think you should talk to him.

PS am reading the Darwin biography - not impressed save your money. It really say's little about him or his architecture only giving an interesting outline of golf around the last but one turn of the century.   Incidently Braid played Sandy Lodge and Braid Hills (which I had previously thought was named for him).

Isn’t the cricket exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Never thought I’d write that).

[T_MacWood]

I would agree the Braid biography isn't real stimulating....not one of the more interesting characters of that era.

Here is short exerpt on Braid the architecture from his biography (written by Darwin):

"I should not say that he was very imaginative or subtle in the designing of a hole--and it is possible to be too subtle for ordinary human nature--but he had what the golf architect needs, a good eye for country and, as in everything that he touched, a temperate judgment and a fund of plain common sense. We hear a great deal of the contrast between the penal and strategic schools of architecture and I do not propose to become involved in any discussion on the that thorny question. I do not think that James was deliberately penal in spotting bunkers here and there to catch each and all of the bad shots. He was too good an artist for that, but at the same time he did not like to let the errant play 'get away with it', amd would now and again have a gently malign satisfaction in blocking his too wide and easy road....It was a curious fate that he should live and play for so many years of his life on two of the best inland courses, the Old and the New at Walton Heath, and yet have little or no hand in the designing of them. After Herbert Fowler's death he would no doubt be consulted as to any changes, but as long as Mr. Folwer was there, I doubt if anybody else has much to say in the matter, for he was not only a most accomplished architect, with a touch of genius, but aslo an instinctive despot."

Braid was best known for his redesign work, and even after reading Moreton's excellent book it is unclear to me what exactly he did at a number of his most prominently mentioned courses...which may explain why he was not mentioned in the same breath as the other big name architects while he was actively designing.

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