The following is from the Guide to American golf by A.H. Findlay. I could not find a date in the book but the last date referenced was 1897 so this is pretty early. The entire book lays out the rules of the game and some thoughts on laying out a course, hints on playing the game, etc. It seems inevitable that this was used by any number of people as a guideline for their taking up the game and building there own golf course. Funny that there is a reference to steeple chase, but it is not attached to the cop bunker, but a hedge made from branches and is frowned upon. If you read this and the other articles that I put in a previous thread it shows a very defined description of how to layout a course and build bunkers. The first two articles are very interesting and as you read them you see the thought moving towards allowing nature into the design of bunkers.
http://homepage.mac.com/tullfescue/PhotoAlbum11.htmlWhere nature, by some oversight, has forgotten to provide
hazards or bunkers, they should be built by man. The best
are made by building a pile of earth work, about waist high
and with sloping sides. The sod should be carefully removed
from the place where the bank is to be constructed, and the
earth thrown up in front of the excavation until a mound of
the right height is formed. Shape the earth so that the sod
may be replaced on the bank thus formed, for this adds
greatly to the appearance of the bunkers and preserves its
shape and outline. The trench behind the mound should be
filled with loose sand, if possible, as to get the ball out of sand
requires a peculiar stroke, unlike any other in golf, and there-
fore adding to the variety of the game, and it is less unpleasant
to play a ball out of sand than out of the mud that is sure to
collect in such a place in wet weather. This bunker may be
either in a straight line across the course, or in a zig-zag pat-
tern like the lines of a fortification. Hazards may be also made
by building hedges of branches, such as are used as hurdles in
steeple-chasing, but these are not so satisfactory, as the ball is
apt to be lost in them or creep into such a nook as to be un-
playable. Wooden hurdles with sloping sides are also open to
objection, as the ball often strikes there and bounds over on
the other side.
2nd part...
This is a perfect description of golf that dominated in America in 1903 when the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society’s made a tour of our best courses at the time. This first page gets to the point of our whole discussion. This is only the first page to three-page article that only gets better when they refer to CGC and some other courses in the East. I have always wanted to see Myopia Hunt Club from the first pictures that I saw of the course, and this article is even greater impetus for me to see the course.
You have to love the intro, I’m sure they had a lot of fun on their trip. In a side note, a member of the OCGS was a young man named C.H. Alison, I wonder if he ever wrote anything about his thoughts on his trip?!!!
Some Reflection Upon American Golf Courses By J. A. T. Bramston
USGA Bulletin November 1903
WHEN our ancestors gave dinner-parties in the hard drinking days, it was customary to put their best wine on the table at an early stage in the meal, the poorer quality being retained until the taste and discrimination of the guests had been somewhat blunted by their potations. This method was adopted by those who had charge of the arrangements of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society's tour. For there is little doubt, at any rate in the minds of the English players, that the best course on which they played was that of the Myopia Hunt Club in Massachusetts. The reason why this course proved so popular was because it presented many of the characteristics of the British links. The holes are made to fit into the natural lie of the ground, and the ground is not tortured and twisted so as to afford holes of the supposed ideal lengths. Moreover, natural hazards are made use of and brought into play wherever possible, and the greens are not banked up and made true with a spirit level, but are left naturally rolling and undulating. All this is admirable, and it proves what a great advance has been made in the American conception of a good golf course, Elsewhere the courses show many proofs that the spirit of mathematics has been abroad. The hole, it has been assumed, must be a definite number of yards in length, and when that distance has been measured off, the green is manufactured irrespective of position, surroundings, and the natural play of the ground. It is easy to see how this method has arisen. It is a direct corollary of the American thoroughness. Some authority gave out that the holes should be of certain varying lengths, and this dictum has been followed out in the absolute letter, without regard for the greater plasticity of treatment demanded of the spirit. But, after all, the origin is more or less immaterial. It is the result which is important. And the result is a number of courses of a very similar nature, which call for the same strokes time after time. There is nothing to make the player exert himself, to draw him out, and compel him to use his judgment. In a word, there is a great lack of interesting shots. Now this plea for interesting shots is not in the least confined to the American courses. The English links (as opposed to the Scotch) have in many cases the same characteristics as those across the Atlantic, arising also from the sudden spring that the game made into popularity. Only this happened in England some fifteen years ago, whereas in America it was more recent. The courses were laid out by a few men whose ideas upon golf were materially the same, and, unfortunately for the game, these were not the best ideas. The result was a crop of holes varying between 300 and 400 yards, with a narrow bunker across the course to catch a miss hit drive and another of the same type in front of the green to entrap a foozled second. But it must be patent that the amount of skill requisite to surmount these obstacles is infinitesimal, and the interest which they arouse really non-existent.
Thanks to the USGA for making this info available on the internet.