[T_MacWood]

This man had a very long career as a golf architect. Some of his early designs: Came Down, Purley Downs, Harewood Downs (he must have liked Downs) and his later designs with Hawtree: Birkdale and Addington Palace.

What are the opinions of his work?

[TEPaul]

        "The value of this system of bunkering lies in it’s powers of graduating the punishment meted out to those golfers who at times wander from the narrow, straight path. The hills and hollows can be constructed that the further the player gets off the course the worse the punishment. The punishment can be made to fit the crime, as it were, and there are few to be found who will not agree that this is as it should be. It is obviously unfair that the ball just finds its way off the course should be treated with the same severity as the ball that is half-way towards the next county.
          With skillful construction the element of luck can be reduced to a minimum. The accurate player will receive that reward consistent with his superior straightness, and there will be left little scope for the individual who largely trusts to luck to help get near a hole."

In my opinion, this passage from JH Taylor's book "Art of Golf" says a good deal about what he was thinking in architecture, and certainly as it related to strategy, penalty, risk/reward, fairness, luck etc.

This passage that can be found in the In My Opinion section of this website in an article by Tommy Naccarato enititled "In Praise of the Ralph Miller Library" I think very clearly explains what some of the first efforts of man-made golf architecture were trying to accomplish as golf architecture related to the actual playing of the game.

Taylor was speaking of what he assumed was his architectural invention---eg the Mid-Surry "hills and hollows" that he felt created more of a 'graduated' penalty than any other bunker features or arrangement thereof that came before those "Mid-Surrey Mounds".

It's not hard to notice that golf architecture at that time was in fact attempting to become more "scientific" as it related to golfers and how they played the game.

[Jon Earl]

Played Purley Downs a few times and it is a good course. Not overly long (only about 6300 yards off the whites) but seems to play longer due to many elevated greens. Only has 2 par 5s (both under 500 yards) but a couple of long par 4s (one on the front 9, the 6th I think, measures 460). Quite a tight course, quite hilly and the greens are generally well protected by either bunkers or fall-offs. You will also be lucky to find a level lie due to the sloping of the fairways. Starts off with an excellent downhill par 3 and finishes with a strong uphill par 4. Would recommend it.

Never played Addington Palace but I have heard mixed reviews. Not in the class of it's more illustrious neighbour up the hill!

[BCrosby]

From the get go JHT was a supporter of Joshua Crane and the "penal" theories of gca he advocated. Like Crane he thought that TOC was obsolete and needed modernizing. Both became powerful voices in the mid-20's promoting the idea that many of the old links courses were too funky, too unpredictable for championship play. TOC was at the top of that list.

Their theories of proportional penalties, minizing the role of luck, predictable shot outcomes, tight correlations between good execution and good results (and vice versa), were inconsistent with the design theories of the strategic school. As governing principles of gca, they couldn't (can't) both be right. As Taypor's/Crane's theories got more and more ink in golf magazines, they scared the pants off MacK, Behr and other members of the strategic school in the mid-20's.

I too would love to know more about the courses JHT actually built.

Bob

[TEPaul]

Bob:

Taylor to me was one of those I'd call "an architect of an era".

I don't think it's that good for us to damn some of the things they were thinking and trying to do because back then things were just so undeveloped in both golf an architecture. They were just of that era that was struggling to find or define the way---the way of the future, and what golf in such new lands (inland England, the USA) for it was supposed to be or best be.

That the likes of Behr, Hunter, Mackenzie Bob Jones, the heathland school et al turned all the way around and looked so carefully at what it really was that everyone before them had left behind in the Scottish linksland and seaside golf I guess was bound to happen at some point. And so it finally did with those guys who took on the likes of Crane.

By the way, Rand says he knows precious little about this Behr, Mackenzie vs Crane debate but can't wait to hear about and learn about.

Another one I think will be fascinated by that philosophical debate is the USGA's new competitions director Mike Davis. From speaking with him about something, it's pretty clear to me he just loves classic architecture and some of those more nuancy philosophies of it.

[Adrian_Stiff]

From the get go JHT was a supporter of Joshua Crane and the "penal" theories of gca he advocated. Like Crane, for example, he thought that TOC was obsolete and needed modernizing. Both became powerful voices in the mid-20's promoting the idea that many of the old links courses were too funky, too unpredictable for championship play. TOC was at the top of that list.

Their theories of proportional penalities, avoidance of luck, predictable shot outcomes, tight correlations between good execution and good results (and vice versa), were inconsistent with the design theories of the strategic school. As governing principles of gca, they couldn't (can't) both be right. As Taypor's/Crane's theories got more and more ink in golf magazines, they scared the pants off MacK, Behr and other members of the strategic school in the mid-20's.

I too would love to know more about the courses JHT actually built.

Bob

Great Golfer Bob but I dont think he was particularly a great designer. Of the 3 Triumvarates, James Braid was the one with the flair if you look at their collective works relative to the golf courses and the way they are perceived today with the countrys top 200. The period those 3 designed was also the Harry Colt period, needless to say HC has far more in the 200.  HC either had the better land or the better pencil.

J H Taylor worked quite a lot in the West country, I would say his best course was Burnham & Berrow, although I think it was a much different layout than today and some of the holes were reminisent of early the early Prestwick 12 holer, playing over mounds with blind shots but they got changed later, the 1st, 4th, 6th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 18th are def not his. I remember as a boy playing some of the old ones and the old sixth hole was great, you GCAs would have raved about it, I think this was an original JHT, because this was a way out of the dunes into the lowland, the present 6th hole is probably on land that was sea 120 years ago. The other ones I am familiar with is Knowle, which is largely unchanged. Clevedon which i'd say is about 30% there, there was a substantial re-routing about 10 years ago. Filton again about 30%. Long Ashton probably has about 6 JHT holes left, I did some work here in the mid 90s. Long Ashton  has some wonderful quirky holes early on, but they are disliked by many, we removed two of these holes one of which I agreed with the other I did not, but their Committee were too strong for me, I wanted a hoe in the back nine taken out/ doubled up 11 and 12, they wanted the 5th removed and to make matters worse in my opinion they added length to the brilliant 6th. Club members I speak with have mixed views. Long Ashton was once the best course in Bristol.

here is a list of other J H Taylor courses, Royal Winchester is of some significance, but probably not good enough to break the the top 250 rating, the rest are very averagey although some I am not familiar with. Langley Park has hosted Regional Qualyfing for the Open so thats normally a good plus.

CAMARTHEN
CHESTER LE STREET
YORK
SEAFORD
QUEENS PARK
SELSDON PARK HOTEL
LANGLEY PARK
STRATFORD ON AVON
LONG ASHTON
CAME DOWN
ROYAL MID SURREY (I)
ROYAL WINCHESTER
HIGHWOODS
BIGBURY
GORLESTON
PINNER HILL
CLEVEDON
EASTBOURNE DOWNS
PURLEY DOWNS
ROYAL ASCOT
OGBOURNE DOWNS
WEST WILTS
FLEMPTON
AIRLINKS
ANDOVER
BATCHWOOD HALL
DATCHET
HEATON PARK
LINKS COUNTRY PARK HOTEL
OKEHAMPTON
SIDMOUTH
STRAWBERRY HILL
WINDWHISTLE
HIGH POST
KNOWLE
FILTON
HAYLING
BURNHAM & BERROW
WILLINGDON
SELBY

[T_MacWood]

From the get go JHT was a supporter of Joshua Crane and the "penal" theories of gca he advocated. Like Crane, for example, he thought that TOC was obsolete and needed modernizing. Both became powerful voices in the mid-20's promoting the idea that many of the old links courses were too funky, too unpredictable for championship play. TOC was at the top of that list.

Their theories of proportional penalities, avoidance of luck, predictable shot outcomes, tight correlations between good execution and good results (and vice versa), were inconsistent with the design theories of the strategic school. As governing principles of gca, they couldn't (can't) both be right. As Taypor's/Crane's theories got more and more ink in golf magazines, they scared the pants off MacK, Behr and other members of the strategic school in the mid-20's.

I too would love to know more about the courses JHT actually built.

Bob

Bob
I'm not sure I'd paint Taylor (or Crane) as advocates for penal golf architecture...especially when you consider he (Taylor) designed and wrote about design for over thirty years. I get the impression he was well liked and respected by his peers, from what I've read from him he impresses me as a pretty thoughtful guy...I believe he wrote his own biography.

Taylor & Hawtree designed what looked to be a very interesting course in Sweden for the Nobel family - Bastad. Anyone played it?

[Chris_Clouser]

Sean,

Being a five-time Open Champion carried a lot of weight and allowed Taylor to work at many locales.  

I wonder if his arrangement for outside work with his club was similar to what Braid had at Walton Heath.  

[BCrosby]

Bob:

Taylor to me was one of those I'd call "an architect of an era".

I don't think it's that good for us to damn some of the things they were thinking and trying to do because back then things were just so undeveloped in both golf an architecture. They were just of that era that was struggling to find or define the way---the way of the future, and what golf in such new lands (inland England, the USA) for it was supposed to be or best be.

I gotta disagree. By the mid-20's golf archtiecture was well beyond trying to find its feet. MacK, Behr, Hunter and others all had definite, well-developed ideas on the topic and thought that design philosophies mattered. And they quickly grasped that design theories espoused by Crane and Taylor posed a threat to the things they held near and dear. Especially because those "penal" theories were based on a simple sort of schoolyard morality that had a simple, intuitive appeal that was immediately understandable by everyone. (Making the case for strategic design was far more nuanced. Then and now.)

I take it as a sign of how seriously the strategic school took the threat that they all wrote books that read like legal briefs against penal design principles. The greatest books of the Golden Age were not neutral desriptions of the various ways to build a golf course. They weren't textbooks that surveyed the field. They were from page 1 arguments against penal architecture.

Design philosophies weren't then (or now) something about which Mack and others thought they could afford to be indifferent about. They viewed Crane, Taylor and others as bad guys who - if left unchecked - could undermine public support for the kind of golf courses they wanted to build.

I think they were right to feel that way. (It is also not clear to me that they prevailed in the end. Or, better put, the debate is still very much alive.)

Bob

[Mike_Cirba]

I can't help but note how much Taylor's design philosophies seem to be a precursor to what is often stated with US Open setups and the idea of "Progressive discipline".  

If you told me that quote was from Rees Jones describing his changes to Congressional or Hazeltine I would not have blinked.

[BCrosby]

I'm not sure I'd paint Taylor (or Crane) as advocates for penal golf architecture...especially when you consider he (Taylor) designed and wrote about design for over thirty years. I get the impression he was well liked and respected by his peers, from what I've read from him he impresses me as a pretty thoughtful guy

Tom -

I have not read the entire Taylor corpus, but as of the mid-20's he pretty clearly lined up with Crane as to what needed to be done to TOC. Which is a major telltale. Other quotations I've read seem to indicate that he and Crane might have exchanged Christmas cards on a regular basis.

Whether you call their theories "penal" or something else is not very important. Afterall, that is a tag their opponent gave them. What is important is that they were understood by the strategic school as the bad guys. It was against their theories that Mack, Behr, Thomas etc. were writing.

Bob

[BCrosby]

I can't help but note how much Taylor's design philosophies seem to be a precursor to what is often stated with US Open setups and the idea of "Progressive discipline".  

If you told me that quote was from Rees Jones describing his changes to Congressional or Hazeltine I would not have blinked.

Bingo. That's one reason why that old, moldy debate still matters.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Not to get off subject....

I've told Ran before about the Joshua Crane vs. A. MacKenzie-Max Behr tag team matches that went on in many periodicals of the day. I even equated it to him how it was much like our Matt Ward vs. Wayne Morrison-T. Naccarato-T.Paul-T. MacWood and everyone else who likes to challenge Matt's perplexing views on golf course architecture. (You see, I don't think Matt really studies golf architecture like some of us, as he is more of a critic. And I think it's his somewhat flawed logic and reasoning which ironically is the same verve Behr & MacKenzie had in arguing with Crane in those articles. But then again, the botttom line is sometimes Matt and all of  us do agree on some aspects, and so did Crane, Behr & MacKenzie.

Simply put, Crane was more of a man-about-town/person on the golf scene-critic whose methods or mathematics Mac & Max abhorrd. The articles, when read today are hilarious because it really shows how much those periodicals (Golf Illustrated, British Golf Illustrated and Country Club & Pacific Golf & Motor magazine) were the Golf Club Atlas of it's day.

Mr. Joshua Crane again accuses me of being verbose. I do not wish to be rude, but I much doubt if I were to throw the whole dictionary at his head I could make a new idea penetrate his cranium.

The reason for this is only too apparant. His mind is laboring under two delusions; first, that he knows golf architecture from A to Z; and second, that his knowledge is an exact knowledge.

Sound familiar?  

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I don't know how much original Taylor survives.  Hayling, Burnham and Berrow, for instance - does any survive?  I know Heaton Park quite well.  It is a fairly eccentric municipal course in North Manchester.  The greens are terrible and there are any number of blind holes (which a murderous on a heavily played muni) but there are some terrific holes, as well as a number of potty ones.  I don't know how much survives at York - it's a very flat course alongside military ranges at Strensall a few miles out of York.  It has excellently-conditioned greens, but it can get very parched in a dry summer.  Many prefer it to Fulford.  Ogbourne Downs is a fun course, again getting very dry in a dry summer.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Other courses I believe he had a hand in
The original 36 holes at Fulwell.

With Hawtree
Chigwell – was M Bonallack’s club for many years
Hainault Forrest –  the original 18.  I just played there with camera on Saturday will try and get them up this week.
It is often said that he was interested in Golf for the masses but apart fromm Hainault I’m not sure how many municipal courses he did.


I’ve played Selsdon Palace (in my first year of Golf) and I was thrilled by it. There was a lot of movement in the ground and at least one of the Par 3’s still stick powerfully in my mind.  It suffers from over playing and some drainage/maintenance/underinvestment issues. I also heard P Allis say he’d once played in a pro competition there when a car was on offer as a hole in one prize – so it can’t be that long since it was deemed worthy of a competition featuring the professionals.  

There is a book in the works and the author told me he’d found courses in Spain and Egypt that he’d designed.  He also said he’d be able to prove that both Taylor and Braid were designing much earlier than previously thought, while still actively collecting Open titles.

[TEPaul]

BobC:

I don't know---it just seems hard to figure out exactly where JH Taylor is coming from in the debate we call one of strategic vs penal architecture.

I mean if you read the excerpt from his book on this website, he starts out by talking about the glories of the old seaside and linksland course and their 'strategic' arrangments of bunkers made by natural herself.

Then he damns the rudimentary whole hole cross bunkers that looked like steeplechase pits and berms that first appeared on the early rudimentary inland courses of England. Then he also damns the early flanking pot bunker type hazard that replaced those original Victorian steeplechase obstacle look-a-likes and praises his idea of the man-made "hills and hollows" of Mid Surry GC (Mid Surrey mounds) that he says is the progressive answer to graduating the penalty for lack of accuracy and such. He even praises those "Mid Surrey mounds as being a good imitation of natural formations. He then ends the except by oddly saying he thinks it was a mistake to stop doing cross bunkers.

In a sense he uses the same words and descriptions of others, such as "strategic".

So it's hard to know where he was really coming from. I don't even know when it was he wrote that excerpt in his book "Art in Golf".

To me this just shows that like us today on here, some used the same terms to describe things that really were very different.

The best we can do with an architect like Taylor is to look at some of those photos of the Mid-Surrey mounds or "hills and hollows" he built and called a good imitation of Nature.

Do they look natural to me? Not on your life. They frankly look groteseque to me and that is precisely why I said I think we need to look at some of these guys not just for what they said but what they did and what it what it looked like. He may just not have gotten as far along at that point as such as Behr, Hunter, Mackenzie, Colt et al.

I guess one reason could surely be something that Ron Prichard often says and says we should realize and that is that some of those old guys just weren't too bright. Taylor may fit that description, and judging from his writing and its style it would sure seem so.

I know just what you're driving at, Bob, when you say you disagree with some of what I said about Taylor in an early post but I still think he was sort of an architect of an era and a pretty non-consensus-like era. But again, I don't know when it was he wrote that excerpt. If it was before maybe WW1 what he said would be more understandable. If it was well into the 1920s then less understandable.

[T_MacWood]

Bob
I would not characterize Taylor as someone who advocated penal architecture. (I don't believe Joshua Crane did either). Taylor's famous exchange with Tilly in 1917 was the result of an article he (Taylor) wrote entitled 'Modern Courses Too Severe'.  

The chapter he wrote in The Art of Golf (published in 1913) was written several years before. And when you consider what Taylor & Lees were replacing at Mid Surrey (some of the most ungodly ramparts ever constructed) with their Alpinization its hard to look at that chapter in a negative light (or modern strategic vs penal light).

His design at Queens Park, Bournemouth was mentioned in the same breath with Sunningdale and Woking as examples of cutting edge design. And a few years later the redesign of Mid Surrey certainly gained a great deal of publicity as well.

I think you can probably separate Taylor's career into at least two stages - before and after Hawtree.

Some other courses that Hawtree & Taylor appear to have been most proud: Richmond Park, Highwood, Hull and Ifield. I get the impression H&T specialized in municipal courses.

[TEPaul]

Sean:

If we are going to discuss golf architecture on this website we sure can have a discussion on strategic vs penal, and what we may mean by it vs what they may have meant by it back then. Even how different what some who used those terms back then felt about it and looked at the subject. Historically, there could be little more interesting to know than that.

And when it comes to whether or not photos tell the truth or lie, I'm sorry, but even if photos are definitely not the same as being there they sure don't lie so much that one can't see from the photos of some of that Mid Surrey mounding that it was pretty grotesque to a whole lot more than just me. Just track some of the clubs that tried it out for a time early on---such as PVGC and Merion. It didn't last two years. I'm pretty sure it was simply because it was pretty aweful looking and another philosophy and another aesthetic just overtook it real fast. That's precisely what I meant when I said a lot of this stuff has to be looked at in its own era and where golf architecture had gotten to at various points in its 150 year history to date.

My point is and was, don't forget, those features on Mid-Surrey and particularly Merion and PVGC were pretty early--before even WW1 in Europe. And even while recognizing that golf course architecture most certainly is a subjective thing that we shouldn't allow ourselves to make more out of certain architects and what they did at particular times and eras then is really there.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

I sort of agree with you about probably needing to look at Taylor in perhaps two stages of his career. No way in the world, though, would I say he was an architect who'd philosophically advanced all that far (certainly as far as Mackenzie and Behr in the 1920s) if what he continued to do and say sounded anything like or looked anything like that excerpt of his from "The Art of Golf" (and those photos in TommyN's piece). To say that early stuff was cutting edge in a real postive way aesthetically or other-wise in the context of where some were about to take the artform would not be intelligent or discriminating, in my opinion. One needs to be very careful if one tends to glorify various things just because it's old or was praised once upon a time. I'm quite sure plenty probably praised as cutting edge some of that God awful early American geometric stuff too, at least for a short time.  

[BCrosby]

Sean -

There is a school of thought at GCA that thinks that all courses are strategic and all courses are penal. But that is too clever by half.

Some distinctions do real work and are worth using for that reason.

My wife's eyes that are somewhere between brown and green. It's hard to say which. That doesn't mean we should stop using brown and green to describe her eyes.

There are some courses that are both strategic and penal. That's not a good reason to abandon the concepts.

The two concepts are poles which help to organize our thoughts about golf course design. I see no reason to think they are no longer valuable for that purpose.

Bob

[BCrosby]

I would like to note for GCA posterity that I am engaged in a discussion in which TEP and TMacW are in league together against me. It restores my faith in humanity.

Seriously, I do need to read more Taylor. In the 20's he did line up with Crane on many issues. I need to look at his earlier stuff. I am unfamiliar with much of it. There is no question but that in the teens the battle lines were less clear. But by the '20's they were very clear and if you missed them then you weren't paying attention.

Bob

 

[TEPaul]

Bob:

If one goes by what Taylor said in that 1913 excerpt I think the lines of penal vs strategic in a philosophical sense were quite gray, and probably because they were sort of unformed at that point. But I'm taking your word for it that they got very black and white around the mid 1920s. Not only am I taking your word for it, I'm very much hoping they were as black and white as you say because I want this debate to regenerate now and in the future. I really do want golf architecture's history to show that it hit a real crossoads at that point, even if, particularly if, not enough noticed that it was at a crossroads back then.

That reminds me of this girl I know who said when her Dad was driving her to her wedding at every intersection he reminded her; "I can always take a right or a left, you just say the word."

[BCrosby]

Sean -

I'll give it a whirl.

Seems to me that the core concept in penal architecture is to punish missed shots immediately. If you are a penal architect, you have failed your in mission to the extent that foozles don't end up in the rough or in hazards or lost. The narrow playing corridors on penal courses are a necessary consequence of the foregoing. Only narrow playing corridors will make that happen.

The only other variable is what you want to count as a missed shot. If you think a drive 10 yards off center is a miss, that's where you put the rough or hazards or whatever in the LZ. Depending on the yardage spread you decide on, you will either have a strongly penal course or a weakly penal course.

A subsidiary concept is that a purely penal course tests each individual shot separately. Playing golf is a series of isolated tests of your ability to hit shots straight and long. Any linkage between shots, the advantages you get on the next shot from hitting the preceding shot to one spot or another, is not relevant to a truly penal course. In fact, it would be viewed as a design weakness to a penal architect. The only meaningful measure of a good shot is whether it avoided hazards while advancing play towards the hole. Another consequence of narrow playing corridors.

In essence, a penal course makes negotiating it's hazards mandatory on every player for every shot. You can't escape dealing with them. (On a strategic course, hazards are often elective.)

The concept or proportional penalities is just a refinement of the basic penal concept. A penal course need not have proportional penalities.

Bob

[T_MacWood]

What Taylor and Crane shared was their criticism of the Old course.

[TEPaul]

Sean:

Your humanities professor's proclamaton aside, if you want the absolute best dissertation on the differences between penal and strategic golf and architecture you never will find a better or more comprehensive one than is found in these two articles;

1. The Dilemma in Golf Architecture (Strategy that leads vs. Penalties that Punish)

2. Golf Architecture (An Interesting Reply to the Penal School of Golf)

It's apropos to this particular thread too because one of the articles is a direct response to Joshua Crane's mathematical formula for what constitutes quality in golf architecture.

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