Fred Pickering - the "King of All Golf Course Constructors"

[wsmorrison]

Wayne
Since when is asking you to support your claim against me being taken back? Especially when that claim is incorrect. Did you find where I suggested those things...the GCA search engine works well.

I suggested you were taken aback by the posts about Fred Pickering, nothing at all to do with supporting a claim against you.  I don't know why you read into things the way you do.  It is counterproductive.

As for the claims you say are incorrect, see above.  You are wrong again.  Check out the Flynn's Influences thread, which you started.

[Thomas MacWood]

Wayne
My mistake, I had forgotten that I had mentioned Flynn's parents were from N. Ireland. Flynn's parents, Michael and Julia Flynn listed their place of birth as Ire, English (as opposed to Ire, Irish) on the 1910 Census and William Flynn listed his parents place of birth on the 1930 Census as Northern Ireland.

Where did I suggest he wasn't Catholic?

Are you trying to say Flynn's daughter was correct when she claimed her
grandfather died when Flynn was a boy? That in 1908 at the age of 17 he was a tennis pro at Lake Placid? That Flynn married 1909 and moved to Heartwellville? That he dedsigned  the course that same year at the age of 19? That the Gardners came over on the Mayflower? She has been wrong on virtually every thing you chose include in your essay.

By the way, yes I did prove it....I found both Gardner families family trees, I told TE when each first came over and where they arrived.

I did not discredit Flynn's daughter - I repeatedly said it was asking too much for her her to recall those particular events accurately (especially since they occured before she was born) - I discredit your not trying to confirm what she told you. I'm glad to see you are finally getting around to checking on these things, hopefully something postive will come out of all this...like a more accurate account of his life.

[wsmorrison]

Never mind.

[Dan Herrmann]

Tom -  don't be so hung  up on family trees.  My father is really into genealogy and has a great family tree set up for the German side of my family.   About two years ago, he discovered that a certain branch of the tree was totally wrong.  He's now corrected it and, due to serindipity, has our roots back to the 1400's in the Baden area of Germany.

But the fact is that he was wrong for quite a long time.

(My Irish side has a much better golf pedigree - from County Claire, Ireland!)

[Joe Bausch]

It appears that Pickering constructed Tredyffrin Country Club, as this 1918 Public Ledger article states.  TCC is NLE but some consider it to have been one of Findlay's best layouts.  Wexler wrote about it in Lost Links.

[Mike_Cirba]

Wow...that's much later than any other account I've seen.

Does anyone know when he died?   

He seems really linked to Alex Findlay and I'm now wondering if he wasn't also responsible for constructing other courses in the area as well.   

[Mike_Cirba]

The other thing that strikes me is that there seems to be a constant theme running through these accounts where there is amazement expressed at how much Pickering was able to accomplish in terms of grow-in and fine conditioning in incredibly short periods of time (for the time).

[wsmorrison]

I spent a good part of the day yesterday at a reuniting of two families, the Flynns and the Pickerings at Merion some 97 years after Pickering's arrival on site.  William Flynn's daughter, Connie Lagerman, met several members of the Pickering family for the first time.  Fred Pickering was in charge of construction of Merion East for Hugh Wilson and his committee.  Pickering was married to Flynn's sister.  More than likely it was Pickering that brought Flynn down to Ardmore to work on the Merion crew, eventually taking over for Pickering when he was let go.  Flynn's career blossomed in Philadelphia and he and Hugh Wilson became very close on a personal level, much like father and son, and of course in golf design where they worked closely together at Merion and elsewhere until Wilson's untimely death early in 1925 after a chronic illness.

We had a nice lunch and conversation where we learned a few new facts about Flynn and Pickering and their work in golf. 

Tom MacWood wrote,

Lillian Gardner's father was a common laborer. She grew up in the same working class neighborhood of Milton as Flynn. While the story you and Wayne painted about the young man from the other side of the tracks marrying a Boston blueblood is a good one, its not true. Did your info come from Flynn's daughter or did you just figure a Gardner is a Gardner?

Tom MacWood is wrong.  His research methods are narrowly defined and subject too high an error rate.  Rather than widening his scope and conducting interviews and due dilligence outside the confines of his study and Ancestry.com, he chose to disparage William Flynn's daughter's account of her family history and ability to provide accurate information.  Well, the Mayflower Society is one group that doesn't take fact checking lightly and does a much more thorough job of it with far greater expertise than Tom MacWood.  Their findings coincide not with MacWood, but with Flynn's daughter and she was accepted into their membership. 

William Flynn's wife, Lillian Gardner, was from an august family tracing its American roots through the Adams family back to John Alden. 

[Mike_Cirba]

Wayne/All,

Is there any record or other information that Fred Pickering "helped Charles Macdonald build NGLA" as per the May 1912 article that Joe Bausch unearthed yesterday?

[wsmorrison]

Not that I am aware of.  When Joe sent me the article yesterday, that was the first thing that jumped to my mind.  I asked Joe whether he thought the same thing and he surmised as I did.  Is Pickering a missing face of NGLA?  Could be 

Pickering did work at Shinnecock Hills for a time as a green keeper, though we don't know when that was.  If we can narrow down that time frame, perhaps we can discover if Pickering was in the area during construction of NGLA. 

[Thomas MacWood]

I spent a good part of the day yesterday at a reuniting of two families, the Flynns and the Pickerings at Merion some 97 years after Pickering's arrival on site.  William Flynn's daughter, Connie Lagerman, met several members of the Pickering family for the first time.  Fred Pickering was in charge of construction of Merion East for Hugh Wilson and his committee.  Pickering was married to Flynn's sister.  More than likely it was Pickering that brought Flynn down to Ardmore to work on the Merion crew, eventually taking over for Pickering when he was let go.  Flynn's career blossomed in Philadelphia and he and Hugh Wilson became very close on a personal level, much like father and son, and of course in golf design where they worked closely together at Merion and elsewhere until Wilson's untimely death early in 1925 after a chronic illness.

We had a nice lunch and conversation where we learned a few new facts about Flynn and Pickering and their work in golf. 

From what I gather from your previous contact (or was it Tony Pioppi's contact) with Pickering's relative, you two share a common belief that Pickering was a no-good drunken scoundrell. Was that discussed in your get together yesterday?

Tom MacWood wrote,

Lillian Gardner's father was a common laborer. She grew up in the same working class neighborhood of Milton as Flynn. While the story you and Wayne painted about the young man from the other side of the tracks marrying a Boston blueblood is a good one, its not true. Did your info come from Flynn's daughter or did you just figure a Gardner is a Gardner?

Tom MacWood is wrong.  His research methods are narrowly defined and subject too high an error rate.  Rather than widening his scope and conducting interviews and due dilligence outside the confines of his study and Ancestry.com, he chose to disparage William Flynn's daughter's account of her family history and ability to provide accurate information.  Well, the Mayflower Society is one group that doesn't take fact checking lightly and does a much more thorough job of it with far greater expertise than Tom MacWood.  Their findings coincide not with MacWood, but with Flynn's daughter and she was accepted into their membership. 

William Flynn's wife, Lillian Gardner, was from an august family tracing its American roots through the Adams family back to John Alden. 

Thats great, she's a descendant of the Mayflower. If true that fact doesn't change anything I wrote in my quote above. Lillian Gardner's father was a brick-layer/stone-mason. She grew up in blue-collar neighborhood in Milton. Flynn grew up in the same neighborhhod. She was not related to the blueblood Gardners of Myopia fame, which is what you claimed in your Golf Architecture article.

[Mike_Cirba]

Not that I am aware of.  When Joe sent me the article yesterday, that was the first thing that jumped to my mind.  I asked Joe whether he thought the same thing and he surmised as I did.  Is Pickering a missing face of NGLA?  Could be 

Pickering did work at Shinnecock Hills for a time as a green keeper, though we don't know when that was.  If we can narrow down that time frame, perhaps we can discover if Pickering was in the area during construction of NGLA. 

Wayne,

In some ways, I'm starting to think that Findlay and Pickering were the fathers of american golf course architecture and construction.

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

You are so disingenuous that it is hardly worth discussing anything with you.  

To clear the record you constantly invent and distort, I never characterized Pickering as a no-good drunken scoundrel.  On the contrary, I stated facts that were not all that pleasant.  The family is keenly aware of them.  For someone that goes to great lengths to prove a suicide, why are you chastising me for explaining the circumstances as to how Flynn came to prominence at Merion?  That is a far more relevant and influential fact. 

While you ignored him for many years and later minimized his contributions, I promoted Pickering's efforts at Merion and quoted the Findlay article years ago as well as making known that he had more experience in building golf courses than Macdonald, Whigham and Barker combined.  You did so, not because you were unaware of his efforts, they were disclosed years ago, but because you had an agenda to discredit Merion's internal efforts to route and design Merion East and also the quality and integrity of their historical record.  So it was you that turned his back on the truth so you could promote Macdonald, Whigham and Barker as the driving forces behind the routing and design of Merion East.  Your argument hinged on no one at Merion having the ability or experience to design and build a golf course saying the only way it could have happened was for the two best architects of their era (Macdonald and Barker) had to do so.  Your story does not make sense and does not hold up to the most superficial scrutiny.

We discussed everything we knew about Pickering warts and all at yesterday's gathering.  If you don't think that the actions of Pickering resonated throughout subsequent generations represented by the family members visiting Merion yesterday, you are out of touch.  There was no need to impune Pickering for his actions, but we did recognize them and not gloss over them.  This is the reality you get in the field and not in your study pouring over Ancestry.com pages.  It comes to life and is a necessary addition to document searches.  You cannot or choose not to do this sort of work.

As to the Lillian Gardner story, it changes a lot about what you wrote.  None of us claimed that Lillian Gardner's family was wealthy.  By the late 1800s that family was in Boston for nearly 250 years.  Wealth and position tends to get diluted.  Do you think every DuPont or Rockefeller is wealthy and powerful?  In any case, you made it very clear that you did not think Lillian Gardner was related to the old line Boston family due to your investigations on Ancestry.com.  Well, I mentioned the truth on here to demonstrate that your findings are not always reliable.  Your steadfast adherence to your findings without going into the field and to the clubs and families themselves is a serious flaw in your methods.  Like it or not, it is clear to many of us that bother to check your work.  No doubt most on here, including the site host, take you and your protege for your word.  I think that is a mistake.

By the way, you are wrong again.  I did not claim that Flynn's mother was related to the Myopia Gardners in my Golf Architecture article.  I stated that she was a member of that august family.  We now know that she was and is also related to the Adams family and can trace her roots to John Alden.  I would be surprised if she were not somehow, no matter how distantly, related to the Gardners of Myopia.  Perhaps you are right in this instance.  You've been so wrong, maybe you got something right.  Anyway, I think it is much more interesting that she is related to John Alden than the Myopia Gardners.  

Now you go off and study your Ancestry.com.  Spend hundreds of hours disproving the story.  I'm sure you will come up with something.

[wsmorrison]

Mike,

Speaking of Findlay, it may be that Fred Findlay designed the CC of Virginia, but it also may be that Fred was construction foreman for Flynn as has long been held.  findlay stayed on and became green keeper.  But Craig Disher found an article that implies Findlay (Fred not Alex) designed CCV, James River.  The Flynn drawings we have don't fit so maybe they were an earlier draft and not the final plan.  The routing is quite good though it has long since been altered beyond most Flynn recognition.

[Thomas MacWood]

Wayne
Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed?

You seem to be on a mission to convince us you never said the things you have said about Pickering and Gardner, fortunately we have a written record. Here is a post made and later deleted on Pickering.

We have since learned many more facts about Fred Pickering and if anything, his base nature had been minimized. He had a number of affairs, children out of wedlock and skipped out on his marriage with Flynn's sister early on, returning to Massachusetts when he was fired from his job at Merion.   By the way, Pickering was from Boston, England.  We know this from Pickering's great granddaughter who will be visiting Merion this Fall, something you have yet to do.  She is very interested in the life of her great grandfather, warts and all. The family has no illusions about the man's drinking, deceptions and wandering ways.

On the post below you tried to tell us Flynn had married a Boston blueblood...working class kid marries rich girl from other side of the tracks. In your article you wrote Flynn married Lillian Garner of an august Boston family. August meaning distinguished; her father was a bricklayer. Instead of attacking me and my research methods/abilities, why don't just admit you were mistaken. We all make mistakes, and this one is not that big a deal. The more you try to backtrack and distort the story the more foolish you look.

Alright, we get it.  You don't want to hear about connections among the small world of the movers and shakers in the early 1900s.  That doesn't mean there isn't anything interesting there including the marriage of a working class Irishman with an upper crust elite Boston Brahman debutante.  It just so happens that a member of her family helped create the golf course at TCC.  Several decades later her husband significantly remodeled and designed holes for TCC.  Your narrow little scheming mind doesn't care.  Who gives a shyte?  It certainly doesn't mean that others do not care.  I don't post for you.  The world doesn't revolve around you...though with your massive (and completely unwarranted) ego there probably is some gravitational effect.

PS: Didn't you say a few days ago you would never post on any thread I was involved with? That didn't last long.

[wsmorrison]

Tom,

No, I didn't get up on the wrong side of the bed.  I was outraged at your dismissal of Mrs. Lagerman's recollections and family history because of your limited research methods.  Your false reporting and inaccurate analysis needs to be pointed out at all times so no one takes your word for granted.  Your conclusions and statements don't warrant such merit.

If I am mistaken about the relation between Lillian Gardner and the Gardners involved in the development of the Country Club, I made a very minor error due to a belief that most of the Gardners in Boston of that era were related no matter how distantly, especially those dating back to the Mayflower.  You have not disproved that there was no relationship.  I believe in your mind you disproved that Lillian Gardner was not related to the Myopia Gardners.  I am not convinced.   In any case, as you say, it is minor. 

It is not minor to paint Mrs. Lagerman as not reliable and uncertain of her family history.  Nor is it minor to deny that Lillian Gardner is anything less than a direct descendent of John Alden and the Adams family.  You may not think they are august ancestors or deny she is a member of an august family despite her father's work and financial conditions.  I do not interpret it the same way.  Are all DuPonts millionaires?  Are all Rockefellers?  Some of them live quite modestly and work with their hands and not their trust funds.  You don't get it.  That's OK, there's a lot of truth you don't get and a great many falsehoods you cling to.

If you would only stop being so wrong, I wouldn't be so compelled to post on threads. 

[TEPaul]

Mr. MacWood:

No matter how you try to slice it or rationalize it you are just wrong about Flynn and the Gardners of Boston.

In my opinion, this is what GOLFCLUBATLAS.com is all about. You've tried to float some real misinformation on here about a bunch of courses and architects and your research, implications, premises, assumptions and conclusions have been shown to be distinctly lacking. This is apparently what happens when one uses a research modus operandi like yours almost always is.

Don't worry, I doubt any of us will ever expect you to admit that but at this point, thankfully, it really doesn't much matter anymore! You proposed more "expert, independent" research and you got it and in the process your limited research information got trumped.

Your constant and expected responses such as "Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed?"; "you must be frustrated", and this ridiculous "Philadelphia Syndrome" thing have been shown to be pretty shallow when it comes to research and an intelligent discussion on some important architectural subjects on here! 

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

It wouldn't be hard for me to prove if Connie's family and the Gardners and Adams we are talking about are related. I've known those Gardners and Adams I'm talking about for over fifty years.

[wsmorrison]

It sure wouldn't be hard to prove, Tom.  Especially given how rigorous the geneology requirements are for the Mayflower Society.

We get an inkling into Tom MacWood's narrow mind when he says a common laborer couldn't be related to the Gardners of Myopia or TCC or the Adams and Alden families.  He just doesn't realize that these very old families have branches that spread out pretty far from the main trunk or that families close to the main trunk of the family tree may not be well off.  Yet, they are still relations.  He relies too much on his Ancestry.com and a few columns in a table.  It just doesn't work that way.  He overestimates the reliability when information seemingly supports his notions and ignores all information that would upset his cockamamie theories.  That isn't good research but that's what you get with MacWood.

All old families like the Adams, Gardners, Rockefellers, DuPonts and maybe even the Pauls are made up of different kinds of relations in all kinds of socio-economic situations   

[Thomas MacWood]

With all due respect to Flynn's daughter, she was wrong when she claimed Flynn's father died when he was a boy, she was wrong on the date of their marriage (by almost two years), she was wrong that they moved to Heartwellville in 1909, she was wrong that Flynn was a tennis pro, she was wrong that he designed Heartwellville at the age of 19, she was wrong that he designed Heartwellville at all. I can't say she was wrong about Lillian Gardner being a member of the wealthy Gardners of Myopia fame because that one I'm sure was cooked up by TE & Wayne. IMO it is unreasonable to ask a person in their eighties to get precise dates correct, especially when those events took place before she was born. Why Wayne & TE did not try to confirm her information (especially under the circumstances) is beyond me.

TE & Wayne
You are free to write anything you want about Flynn, if you want to prortait he and Lillian as the King & Queen of England thats fine with me. I'm confindent as time goes on we will get a clearer picture of Flynn and his activities.

[wsmorrison]

You are off in your research in determining Flynn's father's death.  I have the death certificate given to me by Pickering's great granddaughter.  If I said Mrs. Lagerman told me Flynn's father died when he was a boy, that was my error, not hers.  She is quite aware when he died and you are off by more than 15 years.

William Flynn was a tennis instructor.  You rely solely on census records to make your determinations.  We consider those and a lot more.  He was, as you know, also a golf instructor.  We have longed believe the date for the Kilcare course is wrong, off by a couple of years, and say so in our book.  Flynn told his daughter that he designed the course.  You read one newspaper article and make huge leaps to assume otherwise and you declare that he didn't design the course.  You have no proof of that yet you claim it with complete certainty.  We know that Pickering built the course after he left Merion.  Pickering was one of the great course builders of all time, yet you ignored him completely for years and now think because Pickering had a relationship with another architect (he must have had lots of relationships given how many courses he was involved in) that Flynn didn't design the course.  I guess Flynn's daughter just made it all up.  How the heck was she to know anything about Kilcare anyway?  She doesn't recall ever having been there.  It was opened for play more than a decade before she was born.  Her father told her and she remembers vividly.  Before you lump her into a category of memory failing octogenarians, have the decency to meet her, talk to her and know her before you disparage her with you uninformed generalizations.  You are a shallow man to behave the way you do and I am outraged by your callousness. 

Don't tell us what we are free to do and free not to do.  Stay in your ivory tower and pour over Ancestry.com.  Our paths won't cross.  We're in the field studying at length courses first hand (the few you do consider first hand, you rush through them without taking any time...how many courses did you see in a day on Long Island?), interviewing family members, going to research libraries and making contacts with the clubs themselves and reviewing all archival information available. 

I'm not confident that you'll get a clear picture of anything at this point.  You have Hurdzan's collection, Ohio State's library and the Internet with your precious though inherently flawed Ancestry.com at your disposal.  You make a mess of your analysis.  You make significant mistakes in your analysis of your  Ancestry.com files, which you think infallible when it suits you and complete.  You know enough to be dangerous to the truth if people trust you without due diligence.  Well, I don't trust your results as they've proven to be quite lousy.  The more significant the implication, the more you are prone to error.  You are fairly competent with little meaningless details.  Stick to the unprovable influences and your theoretical grand unified Arts and Crafts theory.  Real truths continues to elude you.

[Thomas MacWood]

Wayne & TE
In your Flynn manuscript you wrote that Flynn's father died when he was young boy. When I corrected that information you told me it came from his daughter.

Have you been able to confirm Flynn was a tennis instructor?

Your Heartwellville information is both wrong and illogical. Flynn's obituary in the NY Times said his first involvement was in building Heartwellville, it made a distinction between building and designing. I'm sure his daughter was relaying info from the obit and was obviously confused.

I also have my doubts about the story of Flynn disliking McGovern. Flynn's doughter would have been a young girl at that time and I seriously doubt Flynn was confiding with her. I suspect you may have been leading the witness. Your disdain for Ross and McGovern is well known, perhaps not to the degree as with Macdonald (to my knowledge you have not urinated on Ross or McGovern's grave), but obvious none the less. I suspect, consciously or subconsciously, you put words in her mouth.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I get the feeling that the obit for MacWood and Morrison will be well documented....."died of stroke at keyboard while typing rebuttal posts on golf club atlas......"  We know the cause of death, we just need to guess at the date. 

Chill boys, for your own mental and physical health.  In the end, it ain't that important!

[wsmorrison]

Jeff,

My goal is to correct the impression that Tom MacWood is an authority on anything other than historical inaccuracies.  I am not overly upset about anything except that he disparages and generalizes a gentle lady without every having spoken to her, written to her or met her.  He is a cad.  That is his problem while my mental and physical health is just fine, though I thank you for your concern.

macwood,

You have a manuscript that is obsolete by several years.  We know when Flynn's father died.  You do not have the right date.  You are off by more than 15 years.

We have not yet found the check stubs for Flynn's employment as a tennis instructor, though we will search day and night to satisfy your desire to know.  Of course not, you idiot.  Why would I bother?

As for the NYT obituary, I doubt the writer knew the difference between building and designing.  For that matter, those in the business often blurred the distinction.  There you are making mountains out of molehills to suit your crappy analysis and foregone conclusions.

Who gives a rat's ass about your doubts about anything?  I do not have a disdain for Ross.  I think I have a pretty darn good perspective on him.  He had his strengths and weaknesses.  I think Gulph Mills is one of America's great golf courses.  Even there he made a few mistakes.  I don't feel the same way about Aronimink and Pinehurst #2 or other numbers.  As for my disdain for McGovern, why would I have any at all?  When we spoke with Mrs. Lagerman, I knew next to nothing about him.  As for leading her on, you have no basis for that except your warped mind.  You are sick to even consider such inane issues as that.  Go ahead, believe we led her on and put words in her mouth all because of our Philadelphia Syndrome conspiracy.  It was our evil scheme to shed a dark cloud over McGovern.  Take your medicine like a good boy, will you please?

I asked you to stop making references to urinating on graves.  You continue to perpetuate lies in your attempt to ridicule and discredit.  If you do not stop, I will ask Ran to stop you.  If he does not, and this slander remains for all to see on the internet, I will take actions against you.  You are warned.  Do not do it again.

Jeff,

As you can see, Tom MacWood is not mentally stable.  He needs to be taken to task for being such an lowlife scum.  Will anyone do so?  Or does everyone just enjoy the car fire and train wreck that is MacWood?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Wayne,

He does like to tweak you, no doubt.  And Tom Mac's incessant questions would bother me to some degree.  I wouldn't alter the course of my research based on anyone else's questions.  Well, maybe once or twice, because he has had a few good points and questions, but not continually.

I agree its a matter that Ran should take up, as I mentioned to Tom N.  Just like our financial markets, it appears that the laizzez faire method of regulation is not going to work.  Higher ups need to do something, although I agree it would be too easy to "overdo it" both there and here.