Bunkers-early photos 1900-1932

[Sean_Tully]

I found out rather quickly that having all of the information on the USGA online archive (SEGL) was to become rather addicting. I have always been fascinated by the many forms that golf courses take and even more so in regards to bunkers.

In going through almost all of the magazines online I compiled a lot of photos, articles, etc's that I found interesting. The following is some of the more interesting bunker photos/drawings that I came across.

http://homepage.mac.com/tullfescue/PhotoAlbum7.html

Tully

[ForkaB]

Grat stuff, Sean!

Maybe the "Golden Age" of GCA didn't start as soon as we thought......

[James Bennett]

Fantastic Pictures.  The 'bunker chair'!  Well, there were audible Ozzie yucks at that one.

Re some of the pictures:

1.The mounds at Nassau look like they were the inspiration for the cleavage of the material girl called Madonna.

2.The scenes from the Morris County Tournament.  I'd like to see how aggressively these guys would swing at a ball with a 47 inch, 460cc titanium driver.  I think they would go into orbit.  I thought the old golf woods were meant to encourage a more controlled swing - doesn't look like it.

3.How embarassment!  The bunker on the 15th green at Yountakah reminds me of a bunker that still exists on my home club course today, constructed perhaps 25 years ago.  Very similar style.  Build the back of the bunker with clay and splash some sand at the front above ground level.  Working on clay soils in heavy rainfall country was difficult, but geez it is ugly.

Great post Sean Tully.  Hope you got those greens cored yesterday as planned.

James B

[Mark_Fine]

Sean,
There is some great old stuff there if you spend the time to look.  We used a number of those photos.  There are hundreds of interesting ones if you keep looking.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Sean great Pictures from an excellent site

yesterday I downloaded a copy of HUTCHINSON,
British Golf Links A Short Account of the Leading Golf Links of the United Kingdom - fantastic pictures throughout a must.

Beats paying Rhod McEwan books £750 for a copy

[Sean_Tully]

Just a quick note...
To best view the photos click on the slideshow button at the top right of the page.

The caption to the pics references the course name if given, the magazine (GI is Golf Illustrated), and the issue. Some of the pics were in conjunction with articles about the given course so if you see something of interest you have a place to start from.

The pictures that surprised me the most were the Pinehurst ones. When you look at the first one listed it shows a number of mounds of sand that the caption refers to as hazards. The course was very rudimentery with square sand greens and cop bunkers etc. The early designs and routings are very interesting and you can clearly see that the early work in the USA on golf courses was not very respectful of its roots in Scotland and the like.

Tully

[TEPaul]

".......and you can clearly see that the early work in the USA on golf courses was not very respectful of its roots in Scotland and the like."

Sean:

To me that's the point of all these discussions of very early architecture, particularly very early inland architecture in England and the USA.

The point is those awful looking rudimentary geometric courses that had loads of matching conical mounds and berms and bunkers that looked like a steeplechase course's obstacles to jump over were not being dissrespectful to Scotland or the linksland, it was simply a matter of them just not knowing any better in those early days when there was no previous golf course model to go by.

We have to remember that these peoples were not only experiencing golf architecture for the first time they were experiencing golf for the very first time inland in their particular countries.

I think one can make a very good case that the amount of those geometric courses and the length of time they existed in both England and the USA is perhaps the very reason that a few golf architects began to look back to the natural model of linksland architecture for inspiration. Surely we know this is precisely what inspired Charles Blair Macdonald to do what he did with NGLA which was such a departure from what had come before it in the USA.

He was completely gross-out by what he saw over here and began with his architectural plan around 1900.

Those rudimentary courses and their bizarre geometric forms and features were not considered to be some new and better artistic expression in golf architecture, they were simply all they understood at that time and in those places where golf had not previously existed.

The point is the early architectural models they were using were not even from golf as it had been known for so many centuries in the only place in the world it existed---eg Scotland.

[Sean_Tully]

TEPaul
"The point is the early architectural models they were using were not  
even from golf as it had been known for so many centuries in the only  
place in the world it existed---eg Scotland."

I agree with all that you said in your post, but keep stumbling on  
the one factor that led to the development of golf in America, the  
fact that some had played golf in Scotland and knew what golf was and  
looked like and were called upon to design the courses.

Macdonald spent his time at St. Andrews and came back to Chicago and built GCG and Washington Park in 1895(a sort of homage to Musselburgh as the course was inside a racetrack) and the layouts albeit rudimentary by modern standards they were pushing the envelope of their day as compared to Skokie, Evanston, and Brwn Mwar that had roads and crossing holes. But, they were still a ways from getting back to the designs that we are familiar with from Scotland.

Early layouts here...
http://homepage.mac.com/tullfescue/PhotoAlbum9.html

Another question that has some of the similar aspects is why did Jack  
Fleming build the courses that he built in the 1950's and 1960's that  
where nothing like he was known to have built when he worked on the  
majority(if not all of) Mackenzie's courses in California? It's  
obvious from his previous work that he was capable of producing a  
high level of work, it seems to me that the standard/expectations for  
what a golf course was supposed to be had been lowered or was not  
appreciated.

Evolution of how bunkers were being perceived...
If you look at the pictures of Mid-Surrey in 1913 you can see the  
work that was done by Peter Lees and J. H. Taylor to try and bring  
the links feel to the parkland golf course by producing natural  
looking mounding and bunkers. Then there is the photo of Colt's  
bunkers from 1914 where the caption reads..."The preservation of the  
natural landscape is very important, for it adds tremendously to the  
pleasure of the game. It can be very easily destroyed, as it has too  
often been in the past, by breastwork and geometric type of bunker."

These guys(along with some others of course) were laying the  
foundation for the Golden Age of golf!

Tully

[TEPaul]

"Another question that has some of the similar aspects is why did Jack Fleming build the courses that he built in the 1950's and 1960's that where nothing like he was known to have built when he worked on the majority(if not all of) Mackenzie's courses in California? It's obvious from his previous work that he was capable of producing a high level of work, it seems to me that the standard/expectations for what a golf course was supposed to be had been lowered or was not  
appreciated."

Sean:

That's such a fundamental question. The example of why a guy who'd been involved in building what we consider to be some of the best, most natural and stylish architecture almost ever would go in another direction in style later as did Fleming, is a good one? We should include as notable similar examples RTJ and Desmond Muirhead. RTJ certainly cut his teeth at the end of the "Golden Age".

My answer (it's been discussed before on here) involves a number of factors during the so-called "hiatus" of the depression years and the developments in golf architecture that had resulted in those ensuing 15 or so years, most notably far more efficient earth-moving methods.

Another factor was most of the old guys had died off even if that may not have made much of a difference.

Developments in golf equipment was probably pushing a change too---eg steel shafts and more reliance on the aerial shot.

On further reflection, I think the primary influence on the change in look and style and type of architecture into and through the so-called "Modern Age" was simply a desire on the part of golf architects to strike out into new and different areas in design in look and type and style, and perhaps even just to be different from the "Golden Age". After all, the desire to be different or unique is one of the prime motivations of the artistic mentality and spirit.

Face it, the entire weight of landscape architecture had also begun to influence golf architecture too and as much as we may want to believe it, landscape architecture, particularly in that era, may not have been particularly natural looking.

Modernism had become part of it---symbolism too, as seen later with Muirhead.

The "art principle" elements of landscape architecture--eg Harmony, Balance, Rhythm, Proportion and particularly Emphasis had become far more applied in golf architecture and I think we need to be prepared to consider the odd directions in style and type and look that may've led golf architecture in the "Modern Age".

We may think of landscape architecture as natural, but is it really, or, is it always? I don't think so, or, at least not as it was often applied to golf architecture during the so-called "Modern Era".

It was too idealized, sort of unreal and an exaggeration of only some aspects of Nature. Certainly we know the idea of the removal of Nature's "imperfections" was a long time working principle of landscape architecture. What does the dedicated and applied removal of Nature's imperfections really mean in golf and golf architecture? To me it means the removal or minimization of "randomness"---the very thing about Nature that makes the playing of golf a "sport" or a game of necessary unpredictableness (luck).

On the other hand, the very idea of landscape architecture had almost always been to provide scenes that looked good, that looked soothing or notably impressive in some arranged way.

The art principle element of Emphasis is frankly the one that disturbs me the most in modern golf architecture---eg the idea of drawing the eye to the most important part, particularly if the most important part the eye is being drawn to is where one should or even must hit the ball.

This idea taken too far, as I think it was in golf architecture of the "Modern Era", eventually gets into shot dictation or the obvious definition of where everyone "should" or "must" go with impunity.

And I'm quite sure modern golf architects rationalized the idea of why not do it that way---after all the virtual dictation or demand that golfers should proceed down a prescribed route is nothing much more than a more refined examination of physical "skill"---the very fundamental of "games" (games=those recreational pastimes whose playing fields are precisely arranged and defined by the organized minds of Man).

[TEPaul]

"Evolution of how bunkers were being perceived...
If you look at the pictures of Mid-Surrey in 1913 you can see the work that was done by Peter Lees and J. H. Taylor to try and bring the links feel to the parkland golf course by producing natural looking mounding and bunkers. Then there is the photo of Colt's bunkers from 1914 where the caption reads..."The preservation of the natural landscape is very important, for it adds tremendously to the pleasure of the game. It can be very easily destroyed, as it has too often been in the past, by breastwork and geometric type of bunker."

Sean:

I think the examples of Taylor's "Mid Surrey" mounding against Colt's early bunkering are excellent examples.

There's little question that Taylor thought his "Mid-Surrey" mounds were natural looking but to me and probably many others they really weren't. They were basically a crude and somewhat grotesque interpretation of Nature.

However, Taylor's purpose in doing them that way had a lot more to do with golf and architecture than just a look, even a natural one. By his own words they were supposed to be an applied "graduated penalty". Taylor had begun to think of architecture in a more scientific way as it applied to the playing of the game. Taylor did not like the perpindicular "cop" bunker across fairways and he did not like the answer to it---eg the bunkering flanking along both sides of fairways. The "Mid-Surrey" mounding he felt was the ideal answer to the problems of both.

Colt, on the other hand, created bunkering that was undeniably natural looking in every way, as we can see from those photos above.

Why was one different from the other if they were both attempting to do basically the same thing----eg create natural looking golf architectural features?

Probably for the reason Ron Prichard gives---some were more intelligent than others, particularly in the sense of artistic talent.



"These guys (along with some others of course) were laying the foundation for the Golden Age of golf!"

Yes, they were, but in that early era some were just doing it a lot better than others.  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Sean Tully,

Are we certain that the dolomite features on the 4th hole at Somerset Hills were contained within, or as part of a bunker complex ?

The dolomites that exist today appear far smaller, and less interesting, and they're not maintained as any part of a bunker.

Frankly, the bunkers pictured are harsh hazards, which probably became extinct through the quest for fairness.

I happen to like most of those bunkers and would certainly like to see more of them in golf today.

[Paul_Turner]

That USGA site takes all the fun out of research, it took me months to those pics of St George's Hill

Is that the 4th or 6th at Somerset Hills?

[ChipOat]

I had never seen those Merion pictures before; I'm sure they're not new news to many.

Are there any more of them on the USGA website?

[TEPaul]

I think one thing is fairly certain and that is that the look of "Mid-Surrey mounding", "aplinization", "Himalayas" or whatever else one called that unique feature that was basically the same thing is that it certainly didn't last very long as a type of feature to continue to do. Merion and PVGC removed what they had of it very early on.

I wonder why?  

[Paul_Turner]

Royal Mid Surrey is on one of the Heathrow flight paths.  It's highly distinctive from up there.

It was such a shame when the clubhouse burned down a few years ago.  Apparently the place was crammed full of historic photos of Taylor and his mounds.  If ever there was a case for making copies and keeping these, or the originals, in a fire proof case then this is the one.

[Sean_Tully]

Patrick

Beyond the recent thread from a few weeks ago that showed the redan at Somerset these are the only pics that I have seen of the course. Would love to see what is there know to see how it aged, but could not find any pics in a quick internet search. Is the feature only on the 6th or is it found throughout the course.

On a side note, Peter Lees was in the US having been involved at Lido and after looking at the photo of Mid-Surrey/Somerset have the same general look(of course it is a copy of that style), but I seem to recall(50-50) that Tillighast had Lees build or superintend some of his work so that might be something that would be interesting to look into. I will have to go through my stuff to see what the reference was, if it was one course or a number of them. Just throwing it out there maybe someone knows, my focus is in California but this stuff is too interesting.

Paul
That is a great cartoon, they sure had a sense of humor!

Chipoat-

Those were the best that I have seen and I have gone through almost all of the periodicals except for the 1924-30 Golf illustrateds. They had a nice article that was attached as it was for the 1916 am, use my caption as a reference for your search and you should be able to find it no problem.

Also something that I just noticed, the Bahto book on CBM did not have a reference to Washington Park and his contribution there. Take a look at the layouts and you can see some similarities to his work at CGC. Also, take a look at the Shinnecock layout anybody know what is going on there as the date given is 1893 and it was a 12 hole layout then!

Tully

[Paul_Turner]

Woodhall Spa is famous for its bunkers and even early on it had some formidable bunkers, particularly for an inland course.  This pic is around 1912.

[DMoriarty]

Sean,

You likely saved me some work, I've been going through the same thing.  Extraordinarily interesting.  

Rich,

I've been through many of the same photographs and, with regard to America, I am not sure why you make your   comment about the dates of the Golden Age. Can you explain??

TEPaul said:

The point is those awful looking rudimentary geometric courses that had loads of matching conical mounds and berms and bunkers that looked like a steeplechase course's obstacles to jump over were not being dissrespectful to Scotland or the linksland, it was simply a matter of them just not knowing any better in those early days when there was no previous golf course model to go by.

I disagree here.  I dont know if I'd call it "disrespectful" but these early course very definitely rejected the links model.  Looking and reading the old stuff leaves no doubt about this.  

I think one can make a very good case that the amount of those geometric courses and the length of time they existed in both England and the USA is perhaps the very reason that a few golf architects began to look back to the natural model of linksland architecture for inspiration.

TEPaul,  I am glad you are finally beginning to understand that what we call the "golden age" was indeed a conscious rejection by some architects of the "dark ages" and a return to the more natural model of the links.  

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,  I am glad you are finally beginning to understand that what we call the "golden age" was indeed a conscious rejection by some architects of the "dark ages" and a return to the more natural model of the links."

David Moriarty, let's not have more of your pathetic horseshit in your perpetual attempts to argue with me and others on this website.

Believe me, I'm pretty comfortable that I know what the "Golden Age" of golf course architecture is and that the Dark ages of golf course architecture was perhaps the primary reason to turn back to the model of the natural linksland for golf course architecture that basically became known as the "Golden Age". And I'm also pretty comfortable that I've understood that a good deal before someone like you came on the scene and felt the need to inform me of it.

What I am not willing to admit, however, is that the cause or even influence of the dark ages in golf course architecture was the industrial revolution and/or the Victorian Age's aesthetic or influence per se. In essence, I do not subscribe to Tom MacWood's theory of the prime causes or prime influences on of what some call "Victorian Golf Architecture" (Dark Age architecture).

And therefore I do not agree that the reaction of the "Arts and Crafts Movement", particularly in Britain was a significant influence on the artistic and naturalistic evolution of the "Golden Age of Golf Architecture".

I subscribe to the belief that the primary and most significant influence on the Golden Age of golf architecture is what most every historian of golf course architecture said it was---eg a return to and a reawakening in the naturalistic model of the Scottish linksland.  

That is all I've ever contended on this basic subject. Matter of fact that's a point I've made and subscribed to long before anyone ever saw you and your argumentative opinions on this website.  

[TEPaul]

"I disagree here.  I dont know if I'd call it "disrespectful" but these early course very definitely rejected the links model.  Looking and reading the old stuff leaves no doubt about this."

Do you disagree? Well, how odd that is! I'm sure I've looked at and read everything and more that you have and the best sources of in-depth information on that including writers such as Darwin and Behr leave little doubt that there was no rejection of the linksland (conscious or otherwise). Those early rudimentary golf courses, particularly inland, when golf first emigrated out of the linksland to inland England and America were simply a total lack of understanding of what golf course architecture even was. And the reason for that is pretty clear---eg man-made golf course architecture, particularly on sites inland and outside Scotland, and on land naturally unsuited for golf had basically never existed before.

[DMoriarty]

TEPaul,

I have no interest in discussing Arts and Crafts with you.  

As for whether or not you have consistently recognized that the Golden Age must be viewed as a conscious rejection of the dark ages and a return to the principles and aesthetics of the links courses, your volumonous record on the matter speaks for itself.

Do you disagree? Well, how odd that is! I'm sure I've looked at and read everything and more that you have and the best sources of in-depth information on that including writers such as Darwin and Behr leave little doubt that there was no rejection of the linksland (conscious or otherwise). Those early rudimentary golf courses, particularly inland, when golf first emigrated out of the linksland to inland England and America were simply a total lack of understanding of what golf course architecture even was. And the reason for that is pretty clear---eg man-made golf course architecture, particularly on sites inland and outside Scotland, and on land naturally unsuited for golf had basically never existed before.

I think your assumptions about what I have read or not read are mistaken.  

Also your conclusions here are unsupported and, I think, unsupportable.  For example, much of the "dark ages" work done in America was done immigrant Scottish professionals who were quite familiar with Scottish courses.  To say that they had a "total lack of understanding" of Scottish golf courses is denying history.

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,
I have no interest in discussing Arts and Crafts with you."

David Moriarty:

Nor do I have any interest in discusing Arts and Crafts with you. I view a discussion on that with you as a complete waste of time.  

"As for whether or not you have consistently recognized that the Golden Age must be viewed as a conscious rejection of the dark ages and a return to the principles and aesthetics of the links courses, your volumonous record on the matter speaks for itself."

I'm more than certain you will find that my consistent opinion on what inspired (as a model for golf architecture) the Golden Age was the rejection of the rudimentary golf course architecture variously known as "Victorian" or "Dark Age" and promoted a return to the linksland courses, particularly TOC as the model for so-called "Golden Age" architecture.

Matter of fact, this was just about my entire point to prove that Tom MacWood was wrong in concluding that the most significant influence on the Golden Age of GOLF ARCHITECTURE emanated from the British Arts and Crafts movement that was a reaction to the mass produced materiels and products of the Victorian Age and the Age of the Industrial Revolution.

Obviously you missed that fundamental point which certainly doesn't surprise me.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

[TEPaul]

"Also your conclusions here are unsupported and, I think, unsupportable.  For example, much of the "dark ages" work done in America was done immigrant Scottish professionals who were quite familiar with Scottish courses.  To say that they had a "total lack of understanding" of Scottish golf courses is denying history."

First of all, Moriarty, I absolutely NEVER said the early linksman architects had a "total lack of understanding" of Scottish golf courses. So why do you say I said that? Is it just to make your next point that what I'm saying is denying history? Apparently.

What I've said and maintained about why those early inland courses that were the first outside Scotland were the way they were is no different than what Darwin said or Behr said. And what I've said and maintained about why they were eventually rejected which inspired an examination of such as TOC and the beginnings of golf architecture that eventually became known as the "Golden Age" is the same as such as Behr and Darwin said and maintained.

Why don't you read what Darwin said about some of those early Scottish linksmen "lay-out" architects like the Dunns and how they did what they did and the time it took them to do it? Why don't you read and understand such as a book called "Eighteen Stakes on a Sunday Afternoon" that explains why those courses were so rudimentary if in fact they even were laid-out by one of those early peripatetic Scottish immigrant architects? It's what early Scottish immigrant architects like Bendelow or Findlay did in most all cases.

What do you think a club would get for $25 on a Sunday afternoon from one of those guys? It doesn't mean they had no talent at all or had no understanding at all of their own Scottish linkland, it merely means they STAKED a basic routing and were down the road probably the same day.

Do you think any of them did any construction drawings? Never

Do you think the bunkers or greens or tees were built to their specs while they were there for less than a day or two? Of course not. That would've been impossible, although the obviousness of it has not yet occured to you.

Use your head for a change, David Moriarty, so some of us can see if you have any common sense at all for any of this stuff.
 
 
 

[DMoriarty]

TEPaul asked:  First of all, Moriarty, I absolutely NEVER said the early linksman architects had a "total lack of understanding" of Scottish golf courses. So why do you say I said that? Is it just to make your next point that what I'm saying is denying history? Apparently.

Right above, TEPaul.  My bolds . . .

Those early rudimentary golf courses, particularly inland, when golf first emigrated out of the linksland to inland England and America were simply a total lack of understanding of what golf course architecture even was. And the reason for that is pretty clear---eg man-made golf course architecture, particularly on sites inland and outside Scotland, and on land naturally unsuited for golf had basically never existed before.

As to the rest, Tom, pardon me for saying so, but it is a mistake for you repeatedly assume that I have not researched these issues before commenting.  

The beauty of this USGA search tool is that there is little need for speculation any more.  We can simply look it up.  Sean is not speculating.  I am not speculating.  Are you?