Robert White

[Peter Pallotta]

TE - that's really interesting, i.e. that the course built to Flynn's (and Wilson's) plans would be credited to Hood, and not because he took liberties (as Gordon might have) but because he didn't. Those were different times, huh?

Peter

[TEPaul]

Mr. MacWood:

Even if you've been told a number of times before, apparently you are just a remarkably stubborn man who just isn't inclined to listen to anyone but you really do need to start to listen to some of us who do know because you do have a real bad tendency to sort of glorifying the likes of people like Campbell and Barker and some of these other Scottish emigrant pro/greenkeeper/clubmaker/part time architects into something that was so much more than the way they were looked at back then.

You also have this constant tendency to assume that some of these well-known so-called "amateur/sportsmen" architects just couldn't have done the things they've been given credit for doing. The fact is they did do them the way they've been given credit for no matter what YOU assume or think. I guess this is precisely why you sort of assume in club after club like this that even board members involved in trying to accomplish these projects are lying or that their records are flawed or seriously flawed. They aren't, Mr MacWood. They aren't seriously flawed. What is seriously flawed is your intepretations because you really don't understand how that world was and how it worked back then with the likes of a Leeds and a Campbell or White.

The fact is, no matter how much you assume they couldn't have done those projects as reported because you assume they couldn't have known how, and that they just had to depend on some expert to tell them what to do, I'm afraid in most of these cases like Leeds, Crump, Wilson, Fownes, it just wasn't that way at all.

It definitely does not sound attractive in this day and age and in a way I sort of hate to say it for that reason but people like Campbell, White, Barker and others like that were considered to be basically rank employees and they basically did what they were told to do by people like a Leeds.

Some day you're going to need to understand that better even if it may offend your sensibilities of today as it sort of does mine as well. I don't like it but I've never denied it because I don't like it or don't understand the way it once was. Men like that were not glorified like that apparently the way you think they were way back then and noone, including you can change the way it was back then because you don't like the way it was. We didn't live back then, they did, and that's the way the world was. They weren't necessarily mean spirited, even if Papa Leeds probably was and matter of fact notoriously so, which you also don't understand even if the club sure does and in spades. I don't even want to mention some of the things he did and the way he could be sometimes

I'm sorry, Mr. Macwood, but for all you think you know about the history of architecture and the people who idd it back then this is one fundamental truth you obviously just don't get at all.

And this is precisely why a guy like Barker went home and never came back. That was just the way it was and you're going to have to understand it someday if you ever want to understand that world and the way it was.

I know you will categorically refuse to take my word for this, and I can understand that. Don't take my word for it. Perhaps, you should call up Mr Cornish while he's still around. He knows---I guarantee you that. I had this conversation with him 5-6 years ago. He probably didn't like it any more than I did but he knows, that's for sure. You need to learn this, Tom MacWood, it is the only way you'll ever really understand it ultimately.

It's just a shame you are so stubborn and for some reason assume that you know it all. Like all of  us you need to learn some things. I realize just mentioning that probaby deeply offends you and I'm sorry about that but it is the truth.

[Thomas MacWood]

TE
Please spare us your amateur-sportsman shtick...we are growing tired of your over simplified view of golf architecture.

White's father immigrated to the USA in 1896 and brought his entire family, a very large family. He set up shop in Chicopee.

[TEPaul]

"TE
I stand corrected."


Well, thank you for that, Mr MacWood. Those are a few words I never thought I would hear from you. I deeply appreciate it.

[TEPaul]

"TE
Please spare us your amateur-sportsman shtick...we are growing tired of your over simplified view of golf architecture."

Mr. MacWood:

It truly is a shame you keep saying that. That is a concept, a culture, an ethos that was just huge in and around that time and in some of those places. Matter of fact it was basically the entire theme that drove MCC. It was just huge, and if you don't even begin to get it I'm so sorry because it means you won't even come close to understanding this incredibly important transitional time in the history and evolution of American architecture.

Perhaps what you should do for yourself and your basic understanding in preparation for really learning this stuff is take a course in sociology/history. I guess I didn't appreciate it at the time but I had a sociology teacher in this context who was really awesome. The man was famous and I did not appreciate why at the time.

You may be the type of guy who lives in our policically correct world and just doesn't really understand why it couldn't have always been this way.

[TEPaul]

"White's father immigrated to the USA in 1896 and brought his entire family, a very large family. He set up shop in Chicopee."

So what? What does that have to do with any of this? What's the relevency? You really are a guy who must think if and when you produce some mindbendingly trivial and irrelevent fact like that it's going to impress people into thinking you must be this expert researcher that you keep trying to promote yourself as.

If you want to impress me with some simple fact, why don't you tell me, tell us all, exactly when Willie Campbell arrived in this country. And this time how about some actual proof---not just your word for it with zero support.

[Thomas MacWood]

TE
Do you know what company has its HQ in Chicopee?

[TEPaul]

"TE - that's really interesting, i.e. that the course built to Flynn's (and Wilson's) plans would be credited to Hood, and not because he took liberties (as Gordon might have) but because he didn't. Those were different times, huh?"

Peter:

Not really. Frederick Hood essentially owned the place and/or controlled it. He was the client.

People like Red Lawrence, Dick Wilson and particularly William Gordon served as William Flynn's primary project foremen in his career.

[TEPaul]

"TE
Do you know what company has its HQ in Chicopee?"

Mr. MacWood:

Of course I do. My father worked for it in the 1950s. In the early 1950s he wanted to be a touring pro. Only problem was when he told his mother that she told him if he did that she would disinherit him. Maybe the time has come, Mr MacWood, when you need to recognize you should start to listen to some people who just may know more about some of these places and some of those worlds back then because they actually lived through them, than you do via your "newspapar and magazine" learning. It's too bad really that you've built up so much self-admitted opprobrium and animosity towards me on here. It is definitely holding you back and seriously coloring the way you act and probably the way you think too.

[DMoriarty]

"TE
Do you know what company has its HQ in Chicopee?"

Mr. MacWood:

Of course I do. My father worked for it in the 1950s. In the early 1950s he wanted to be a touring pro. Only problem was when he told his mother that she told him if he did that she would disinherit him. Maybe the time has come, Mr MacWood, when you need to recognize you should start to listen to some people who just may know more about some of these places and some of those worlds back then because they actually lived through them, than you do via your "newspapar and magazine" learning. It's too bad really that you've built up so much self-admitted opprobrium and animosity towards me on here. It is definitely holding you back and seriously coloring the way you act and probably the way you think too.

The advantage of riches remains with him who procured them, not with the heir.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Thomas MacWood]

"TE
Do you know what company has its HQ in Chicopee?"

Mr. MacWood:

Of course I do. My father worked for it in the 1950s. In the early 1950s he wanted to be a touring pro. Only problem was when he told his mother that she told him if he did that she would disinherit him. Maybe the time has come, Mr MacWood, when you need to recognize you should start to listen to some people who just may know more about some of these places and some of those worlds back then because they actually lived through them, than you do via your "newspapar and magazine" learning. It's too bad really that you've built up so much self-admitted opprobrium and animosity towards me on here. It is definitely holding you back and seriously coloring the way you act and probably the way you think too.

TE
Where as your daddy was an aspiring golf professional, it turns out Robert White's father was a master club-maker. In fact Robert and his brothers were all club-makers. Unlike Willie Campbell, Joe Lloyd, Donald Ross, and John Jones who listed their profession as golf professional when they came to America, Robert White listed his profession as club-maker. That may explain why he never appeared in any profesional golfing events from 1894 to 1896 (and there were quite few from Boston to NY). In fact I have not found a single reference to him in any of the local newspapers or golf magazines during this period.

If he was ever officially employed at Myopia it was very briefly in 1894 or 1895, for a cup of coffee, and it was likely as a clubmaker. He came from a family of club-makers which would explain why he was studying agronomy; like your daddy he wanted to become a full fledged golf professional and greenkeeper. I don't know if he too worked at Spaulding, I do know by 1910 his father had worked his way up to foreman for the company, and one of his brothers was working there in 1900 as well. Seeing that Amherst (and the Mass Ag College) is not that far from Chicopee, I'd say its entirely possible Robert spent some time at both Spaulding & MAC, but who knows. His older brother DW was also at Cinti CC, and that may explain how Robert ended up there too.

[TEPaul]

Mr. MacWood:

Interesting info there on Robert White's and his family's employment history in America. Perhaps you should write about him and his family that may serve to clean up any loose ends. Maybe the PGA, Spaulding & Co or even MAC or MacGregor & Co. or Cinti CC would appreciate your article. For corroboration, also refer to Bradley Anderson's post #78 on this thread.

As to Myopia Hunt Club's centennial book ("Myopia 1875-1975") treatment by Edward Weeks, it mentions Robert White briefly as apparently his tenure there was fairly brief:

"Robert White served briefly as Myopia's greenskeeper and profestional and in 1897 was succeeded by chubby, good natured John Jones, who remained for many years. (He lives on in Myopia's memory because his invariably sliced drive into the traps on the tenth hole which ar known to this day as "Jonesville")."

As for Edward Weeks' centennial book on the 100 year history of Myopia Hunt Club which apparently you're not very familiar with, you should know that perhaps one third of it is devoted to the history of golf, the course and Herbert Leeds. The rest is devoted to fox hunting and particularly polo which the club originally was before golf there and still his today. (The club's neat little logo is a fox head).

[TEPaul]

"The advantage of riches remains with him who procured them, not with the heir.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson"

I've always preferred the two remarks made famous in my family by my paternal grandmother, Mrs. A.J. Drexel Paul (Isabel Biddle), a remarkably effective yet severe women who was a marvelous athlete (competing in US Amateurs in both golf and tennis), an extraordinary real estate and stockmarket investor (she turned her own estate into a corporation, The Boxhill Corp, apparently because it had so many peripheral rental properties), semi-famous gambler in card games etc et al:

"Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in four generations."

AND

"I can put up with anything in life except stupidity."

[Thomas MacWood]

Mr. MacWood:

Robert White came to Myopia between the years 1895 and 1897 as the club's pro/greenskeeper. This is accroding to the club's own records. If you chose to believe they are lies or hyperbole (even though they are contemporaneous to that time), I guess that's just your good right as an "independent" researcher.

TE
Your recent quote explains why you were a little confused by the dates, and of course the history book fails to mention Campbell's tenure at the club, which only adds to the confusion.

It does not say much particularly specific about White and Myopia architecturally but when White was there, probably in or around 1896, was the same time Herbert Leeds came to Myopia as a member from TCC and when he basically took over total control of the architectural development of the course. White was the combined pro/greenskeeper at that time and it seems completely logical to assume that Robert White worked hand in hand with Leeds on the development and improvement of the course around that time into what would become known as "The Long Nine" on which was held Myopia's first US Open in 1898.

I'm still trying to figure where your theory about White being involved in the design of the second nine comes from. It made absolutley no sense when you came up with it, and makes even less sense as new info is uncovered.

[TEPaul]

Mr. MacWood:

Perhaps you should write an article or even a book on the lives of Willie Campbell and Robert White and their extended families and their various employment histories and various whereabouts in America and clean up any loose ends therewith. God knows you sure seem interested in both of them with all these extraneous details about them you've been coming up with on this thread.

Or better yet perhaps you should write an autobiography about your research methodology explaining why you consider yourself to be the world's most expert golf architecture researcher (perhaps you might think about throwing in a chapter or two on how suspected homosexuality led to the career of one of America's most interesting early "amateur/sportsmen" golf architects). However, I don't believe Myopia Hunt Club or their history needs your services. As for whether they want it, I'd be more than happy to ask them for you.

Myopia's history says Robert White was their professional and greenskeeper briefly. Generally greenskeepers get involved with golf courses which are made up of golf course architecture, but perhaps you did not realize that; perhaps you just thought all they did was mow grass. White was at Myopia in that capacity when the golf course was evolving architecturally in the latter half of the 1890s.

Myopia apparently has no record of Willie Campbell designing their original nine holes. Is there any evidence of that anywhere that has any remote significance or relevence (can you produce something other than some old newspaper article of questionable accuracy)? If you believe so, as you've claimed, why are you not producing it? Myopia believes, as a result of the club administration records, which I've produced from the club's history book, that three members, Appleton, Merrill and Gardner designed their original nine holes. You've claimed that's seriously flawed and yet you have produced nothing at all to explain why, Mr MacWood.

[Thomas MacWood]

TE
While the information you shared about your grandmother, your father and the litigious nature of Myopia HC is very interesting, it really doesn't shed much light on the topic (or topics) at hand. At least the White family background and their acitivities does correct some of the errors found in the Weeks book, which unfortunately led you to concoct some pretty wild conjecture. That conjecture now can put to rest. 

With all due repect to Myopia and their records, they don't appear to be too accurate. There is no evidence that White was ever the greenkeeper at Myopia, he was a club-maker by trade. And your time frame of 1895 to 1897 for White is off the mark too. White was at Cinti CC in 1896 and 1897. Even if your time frame was right (which it isn't) the second nine wasn't built until late 1898 and ready for play in 1899, how the hell could White have had anything to do with it?

[TEPaul]

"With all due repect to Myopia and their records, they don't appear to be too accurate. There is no evidence that White was ever the greenkeeper at Myopia,"


Mr. MacWood:

Perhaps no evidence in your rather strange deductive mind but there is evidence that he was Myopia's professional/greenkeeper briefly and that evidence is Myopia's own evidence. If the golf club hired him and said he was their professional/greenkeeper, and paid him for that and kept a record of it which they clearly did, simple logic and commonsense would probably tell anyone they would be a whole lot more aware of it than you ever would or could be. The fact is your old newspaper articles (or whatever it is since you've refused to produce it) will never trump Myopia's own club records of their own affairs. There is virtually no reason at all for some club to record that they hired some person like Robert White in a particular capacity if they never did that. 

Look, Mr. MacWood, you can continue to ply your strangely speculative and trivial theories and deductions about how seriously flawed the histories of some of these old courses are. You have clearly created a regular pattern of doing that on here and most everyone has never seen any of them check out and make any sense historically. You come up with these ideas and you say you have evidence for them but you don't produce it. Furthermore, you seem even unaware that to promote them as credible one must also prove that the actual events you seem to be questioning must be false and you've never come close to doing that with any golf club you've fixated on this way, and certainly not Merion or Myopia.

I think you've gotten into a pattern of serious attempts at revisionism and I believe I understand completely why you do that and continue to.

Continue to do it, it's OK---you can even continue to label yourself "The defender of the old dead guys" or whatever, as you have on here before.

For my part I will remain the defender of the accurate histories of these old golf clubs and courses from this kind of amateurish and totally illogical historical revisionism. The point is my information is and has been far more direct than yours ever has been and probably ever will be.

Until you actually produce something which you've refused to do for what, a couple of weeks now, I don't believe there is anything left to talk about regarding Myopia's architectural history.

Another quick question-----I recall you've also refused to answer. Have you ever been to Myopia Hunt Club? If you say you have, at this point, after all you've contended about it, I'm afraid I'll be forced to ask you a few questions about it that anyone who's ever been there could not fail to notice.

[TEPaul]

"Even if your time frame was right (which it isn't) the second nine wasn't built until late 1898 and ready for play in 1899, how the hell could White have had anything to do with it?"

Mr. MacWood:

Pray tell, where or when I or anyone ever connected to Myopia, has said Robert White had anything to do with the second nine at Myopia? 

In 1898 the first US Open Myopia held was on their so-called "Long Nine". 

[DMoriarty]

TEPaul,

This thread has a familiar ring to it.  Tom MacWood actually ads something of substance to the topic, and you immediately dismiss his contribution as "extraneous details" and notch up your ridicule.

Your criticisms of his research skills and methodology are completely laughable.  You apparently think that one becomes an historian merely by being born into the right family.    While lineage often provides incredible access, this access amounts to nothing but wasted opportunity if one  lacks the ability, initiative, and desire to move beyond a blind faith in superficial lore. 

You and Wayne have proven this time and again.

"The advantage of riches remains with him who procured them, not with the heir.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson"

I've always preferred the two remarks made famous in my family by my paternal grandmother . . .

How about this one by Thoreau?

Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, but to be still-born, rather.

[Thomas MacWood]

"Even if your time frame was right (which it isn't) the second nine wasn't built until late 1898 and ready for play in 1899, how the hell could White have had anything to do with it?"

Mr. MacWood:

Pray tell, where or when I or anyone ever connected to Myopia, has said Robert White had anything to do with the second nine at Myopia? 

In 1898 the first US Open Myopia held was on their so-called "Long Nine". 

TE
I see, you thought White was involved in the design of the first nine in 1894. That makes perfect sense, you have him working at the club from 1895 to 1897, but somehow he's involved in the design of the course in 1894. Did he have a time machine?

[Peter Pallotta]

David -

that last quote by Thoreau wasn't one of his best.  It makes him sound like a harsh, narrow-minded and self-righteous prig.

Tom M -

As I understand it, the club's history book has it that members Appleton, Merrill and Gardner designed the original nine holes.

Peter

[TEPaul]

There is no ridicule at all on this thread. The ongoing discussion is only about information, offering it and/or challenging the significance and credibility of it. That is all.

Neither Mr MacWood nor anyone else can ever offer just his word (just his opinion) on something and get away with it. There must be more. If he wants to be taken seriously by anyone he needs to offer more than he has. And then he will need to offer some remarkably persuasive argument why what the club has offered is wrong or as he says; 'seriously flawed.'

There has been none of that offered by him and it's probably likely there won't be. His arguments on every post on here could not convince a class of third graders with decent minds and some concentration.

This is just an opinion forum on architecture. Anybody can offer any kind of revisionist nonsense they want to on here but if this site is any good they will be challenged and shown to be wanting.

That's all that is happening on this thread, there is no ridicule at all. It's all about information, credibility and the lack of it.

Merion's and Myopia's architectural records as presented are clear and they are historically accurate.

[TEPaul]

"TE
I see, you thought White was involved in the design of the first nine in 1894. That makes perfect sense, you have him working at the club from 1895 to 1897, but somehow he's involved in the design of the course in 1894. Did he have a time machine?"


"Robert White served briefly as Myopia's greenkeeper and professional and in 1897 was succeeded by chubby, good natured John Jones, who remained for many years."
Myopia  1875-1975, by Edward Weeks

[Thomas MacWood]

Mr. MacWood:

Robert White came to Myopia between the years 1895 and 1897 as the club's pro/greenskeeper. This is accroding to the club's own records. If you chose to believe they are lies or hyperbole (even though they are contemporaneous to that time), I guess that's just your good right as an "independent" researcher.

It does not say much particularly specific about White and Myopia architecturally but when White was there, probably in or around 1896, was the same time Herbert Leeds came to Myopia as a member from TCC and when he basically took over total control of the architectural development of the course. White was the combined pro/greenskeeper at that time and it seems completely logical to assume that Robert White worked hand in hand with Leeds on the development and improvement of the course around that time into what would become known as "The Long Nine" on which was held Myopia's first US Open in 1898.

Peter
That's right, the history book has the master of the hounds designing the original nine.

TE has a slightly different historical take on how it all came about. His theory has Leeds redsigning the original nine in 1896 or 1897 with the help of Robert White. There are a couple of problems with TE's theory. Leeds did not touch the original nine in 1896 or 1897, and Robert White was in Cincinnati at the time....Willie Campbell was the pro at Myopia beginning in 1896.

Since his theory is now pretty much shot to hell, he's been forced to evolve it slighty. He now has White involved in the design of the original nine with the help of a time machine. I believe it is the same time machine Hugh Wilson used after his tour of the UK.

[TEPaul]

Mr. MacWood:

At some point not in the distance future I will be going back up there. The club will be looking to organize their archives and hopefully what they seem to refer to as their committee record books. Hopefully the board and committee meeting minutes still exist from the beginning of golf at Myopia (they apparently existed in 1975). If they do they should show when White was there and what he was paid to do. If the first nine holes were designed by Campbell that and the payment for it should be recorded. If those meeting minutes reflect exactly what Weeks quoted from his book about them it should confirm what he said that the original nine holes were laid out in the early spring of 1894 by MHC members Appleton, Merrill and Gardner and that they were in play in three months. Within a month following the opening of play two tournaments were held and the scores are recorded. Herbert Leeds of TCC won them both. In 1896 Leeds joined MHC, and he began to improve the course and continued to do so for about the next 30+ years.

This is the architectural history of golf at Myopia and it stands and with good reason. If you choose to challenge it you need to come up with something credible. Everyone knows that and you should too.