Carters, Suttons, et al

[Thomas MacWood]

TE
Re-read Tony's posts.

[TEPaul]

Mr. MacWood:

I already have. But I'm not speaking about what he said; I'm speaking about what you said or did you not understand what you said? No problem, though, I can certainly understand why you consistently fail to address simple questions put to you and refuse to provide answers. Both I and most everyone else on here has certainly been through that method of yours in discussions on here with you over the years.

On the other hand, if there's anything there it would be nice to know. It is a most important subject in the history and evolution of golf course architecture.

[Thomas MacWood]

I guess I don't understand your question. What did I say specifically?

[TEPaul]

"I guess I don't understand your question. What did I say specifically?"


Mr. MacWood:

I guess I've just grown too tired of that seemingly automatic evasive and hackneyed response on your part on here, so never mind. I've only asked you the same question on here a number of times because it has directly to do with what you said you "strongly believed" and felt I should familiarize myself with---but you can never seem to figure out the question so how in the world could anyone expect you to figure out an answer? You could try just reading a few of my last posts for the question but since you can't even be bothered to read any post more than a sentence or two I guess that's not an option either.

[Thomas MacWood]

I don't recall precisely what I said, but I have feeling you did not understand what I said or took my comments out of context.

[TEPaul]

Mr. MacWood:

Whatever, and again, never mind. Trying to have anything remotely resembling an intelligent discussion with you on here is clearly near an impossibility. You sound like somebody who can't do any more than claim "I Have No Recollection" or the 5th Amendment.

But you may want to take a look at post #48 and try considering what it means and respond to it if you can understand it. I think it has a lot to do with the point and subject of this particular thread, not to even mention its true significance to the evolution of architecture in and around that time.

[Peter Pallotta]

Who knows what the first golf course was that was comprehensively seeded or what we know today as "grown in?" When and where did that begin to happen and why? ....

TE - interesting question. I've wondered out loud before about how conscious an awareness there was of the principles of good golf course architecture before 1900. Yes, judging from the results of those early 1900 polls, the experts of the day had a pretty clear idea about what consitituted the world's great golf holes, and they articulated those ideas well. But those golf holes were all on British links courses, where the hand of man had merely 'enhanced' what nature had provided, and more importantly had simply taken the great-grass-for-golf itself as a pure gift.

How would have an awareness of the principles of good golf architecture changed/deepened/gotten clarified when architects first began to a) really move earth around and b) more importantly, first learned how to GROW the good-grass-for-golf on the land they just moved?

You mention Sunningdale as a possible candidate for the first 'grow-in'. Does it manifest the principles of good golf course architecture in a more 'conscious' way?

Peter

[Bradley Anderson]

Who knows what the first golf course was that was comprehensively seeded or what we know today as "grown in?"

When and where did that begin to happen and why?

In my opinion, that seems to me to be a really fundamental question in the history of golf and certainly golf architecture, and most certainly it would be fundamental to the history and evolution of golf agronomy.

Was it Sunningdale or perhaps Huntercombe? Was it a course inland? Something tells me looking at the history and evolution of golf and architecture it would have to have been inland and probably near the very end of the 1890s or the beginning of the 20th century.

And just think what that must have meant back then compared to the way things were done before it. Was this when some real earth moving began to take place too and when golfers and those involved in the creation of courses first came to understand that for this whole thing to improve it was really going to take more time and more effort and more money than had ever been used before in the incipient world of golf course architecture----at least of the truly man-made variety?

According to Beale it was Sunningdale. I think it was 1902 or thereabouts.

I plan on digging in and really studying this very issue this winter. Anyone who has any leads on this issue please let me know. I basically plan to scan all of the various databases and read as much as I can on the subject of grass seed for golf courses.

I have a theory that the bentgrasses that we are putting on today are linked all the way back to those grasses that were collected and seeded by Beale and others on those earliest golf courses. Just a theroy mind you.

[Thomas MacWood]

You are right, Sunningdale (1900-01) was first and Walton Heath (1903-04) was #2.

[TEPaul]

What about Huntercombe in 1901? If it is true that the site (or at least those areas that became the tees, fairways and greens) had to be cleared of heather and rhododendrum then obviously they had to comprehensive seed (and grow-in) those areas which had been stripped and perhaps even shaped to some extent following the stripping away of their natural vegetation unconducive to the playing of golf.

Is it not true to say that the inland sites that had been used previous to those heathland courses just mentioned must have used turf for golf that was obviously pre-existing? This would explain the term "meadowlands" that apparently were the courses of early inland golf outside Scotland laid out simply over pre-existing turf somewhat conducive to the playing of golf.

If this is the case just think what it probably means in not just when but also WHY essentially comprehensive man-made shaping and architecture began, particularly and primarily inland.

I have for years felt that this was the primary significance to architecture's future history and evolution of the English heathlands and its discovery or even the reason for its discovery---eg far better grass and turf types by comprehensively seeding following more shaping of the earth after the comprehensive stripping away of preexsiting vegetation completely unconducive to the playing of golf.

[Thomas MacWood]

Two different types of sites. Sunningdale and Walton Heath were heathland; Huntercombe was up on a down and on common land. Up on a down?

What made Sunningdale and Walton Heath unique is that they were completely sown from seed. Other courses previously had used seed, but not wall to wall.