"Interesting note:
Susan Clarke's father was a founder at National. He was also the lawyer for Isaac Singer (sewing machine fame)."
Uncle GeorgeB:
A bit of minor family and generational house-keeping here:
The man you refer to above as a founder of National was Edward S. Clark (no e on the end of the name). He was the grandson of Edward S. Clark who was not Isaac Singer's lawyer exactly but his original 50% partner in the Singer Sewing Machine Company. NGLA founding member Edward S. Clark's brother F. Ambrose Clark (known by all as "Brose") was one of the biggest deals in American throughbred horse racing and definitely the biggest deal in the history of American Steeplechase racing. He was a very big deal in NYC and certainly on Long Island and definitely in Aiken SC as well as I guess Cooperstown, as were most of the Singers and Clarks over the last century or more.
I went to St Mark's School with one Alfred Corning Clark (which is a name through the Clark generations) and at some point in school some of us became aware that Alfred wasn't just rich he was REALLY rich.
Al was a pretty cocky guy and one day he came breezing down the hall towards me and as we passed in the corridor I said: "Hey Al, why in the hell are you so danged rich?" That made him do about a triple take but he kept on breezing down the corridor and when he got to the end he wheeled around and yelled all the way back down the corridor at me. "Singer Sewing Machine, Pal, have you ever heard of it?"
(I shoulda said: " I don't sew Al, but I think I've heard of it.").
PS:
In a real way guys like Devereaux Emmet and C.B. Macdonald weren't just their architects they were very much part of their crowd. Big timers like the Singers and Clarks weren't just really rich they were really smart too and as you and I know, they knew damn well too that if they got guys like Emmet and Macdonald to help design them golf courses they didn't even have to pay them for it.