[Melvyn Morrow]

To those interested in history the topic is reinstated

Is anyone aware that Willie Campbell designed an eleven hole course around the 3.10. 1889 called Monmouthshire Golf Club. This is the Willie who designed Machrie course on Islay



The Club’s own web site does not name their original designer and has a date of 1892 for the course which they also say was only 9 holes.  James Braid some 40 years later up-rates the course.

Last summer Willie’s name was mentioned with various US clubs, but does anyone have any further info on the above mentioned course as it may be one of his first designs.

I have also found another private course in Perthshire designed by Old Tom in 1898 for Sir Donald Currie at his home Garth House. Sir Donald was the owner of the Castle Shipping Line. Regrettable the course appears to have closed some years ago. 

Melvyn

[Joe Hancock]

I can't keep up.......

[Chip Gaskins]

and i was just about to chime in....

[Tim Bert]

I find this quite interesting. 

[Mike Benham]

Don't despair, good topics die on Friday afternoons and during the holiday season ...

[Rob Rigg]

Did a good topic die?

For those of us on the left coast who only get on GCA after work it is frustrating when this happens. Often topics find there way to page 2 or 3 before we can chime in.

Melvyn - I think your time difference works against some of the stuff you post. I think I just caught the Morris vs Park Doc thread with a couple spots to go before it entered the world of page 2.

Happy almost Santa Claus time to all!

[Jeff Goldman]

"Let's go"

"Yes, lets"  (they do not move)

[Mike_Cirba]

Melvyn,

This may be the most brilliant thread marketing move of all time.

After a solid 10 minutes of complete disinterest, you pull the thread, which now causes the rest of us to flock here like moths to a flame.

I'd keep us all on the hook awhile longer...before springing your original point back to life.

Good show, man! 

[Joe Hancock]

10 minutes??

That's nine more minutes of complete disinterest than normal for me. Usually it's one minute of disinterest followed almost immediately by deep sleep.

[Mike_Cirba]

Frankly, Joe...I'm sort of hoping that Melvyn has some good porn in mind on this thread to counter-balance the highly sentimental and emotionally draining (albeit amazing and inspiring) film that Dan Kelly blessed us with earlier this evening.

[Mike_Cirba]

Wait a second...

Melvyn...is this the thread you started about Willie Campbell designing a course in England circa 1889?

Well, I think that's interesting, and I'm sure somewhere there are architectural historians who think it makes some point in their favor, but I have to wonder if this was the Willie Campbell who went to Boston or the Willie Campbell who went to Philadelphia??

Each came to the US around the same time and although  Boston Campbell was involved in the course at Brookline (and at least one former participant here claimed he designed the original Myopia), the Philly Campbell designed much of the original Merion Cricket Club course, the original course at Torresdale, and some others.

I'm not sure we even know that the Willie Campbell who designed the course in GB that started with an M was either one of these gentlemen, as it seems there were a whole host of Campbell's, including Alex, aka "Nipper".

Your snippet also mentioned that the inland course he designed utilized fences and other very unnatural hazards, so it makes clear to me that golf architecture didn't go off the rails and away from the lessons of the linksland in the United States first...it went awry first when it moved inland in GB&I, apparently.

Then, when guys like Campbell, and Willie Dunn, and Tom Dunn, and Willie Tucker Sr.,  Mungo Park and some other of the earlier practitioners and supposed "experts" built much of the same very geometric, very forced, and very reiterative design styles here in the US they were simply doing the same type of inland architecture already being practiced on inland sites in the old country.

It makes me wonder, then, why some argue that America needed professional "experts" from abroad to come here and show us what a good golf course looked like;  especially when there were men like Macdonald and Wilson and Crump and Windelar and TIllinghast and Leeds and a host of others who went abroad and studied the linksland and brought back the real lessons of what made golf courses great.

It seems unfortunate to me that many of the early "experts' who came from the old country were much more pragmatic than artistic, and much more interested in expanding their personal financial opportunities than expanding great and interesting insight into golf course architecture.

[Mike Benham]

After a solid 10 minutes of complete disinterest, you pull the thread, which now causes the rest of us to flock here like moths to a flame.

1 hour 40 minutes by my watch ... on a Friday, 4:25 PST, 7:25 EST of the last Friday before Christmas.

I don't think it went stale, give it another go during "peak" times ...

[Mike Sweeney]

Where do those Simpson's writers come up with their material!

[Melvyn Morrow]

Mike C

It was worth removing my topic just to read your comments.

I was in two minds whether to submit this information which has come to light whilst undertaking my on going research on the early course designers. I have been encouraged by a few others interested in the history of GCA to pass on all my finding to this site (after advising the clubs/courses concerned). Being a site dedicated to GCA I foolishly believed that many may well be interested.

I have been monitoring the last couple of historical topics to assess reaction and Mike you are right in saying “I'm sure somewhere there are architectural historians who think it makes some point in their favour”. The majority on this site don’t seem to share much interest in the early history of Golf. There is of course the real possibility that I have scared most off by just associating my name with the subject or alternatively and less likely is that the subject has no real interest to the majority of the American Members of GCA. Regrettable, I tend to share my information as I have no agenda. I just want others to be aware of the great history of our Game, but clearly I am the one that is responsible and puts members off reading these finds.

My dilemma is do I keep posting my finds so a few can read them or just pass them on to the clubs concerned.

I have my answer when I see the result and reaction to my deleted topic.

Sorry, I am not saying that I am walking away from GCA.com, far from it. I intend to stay and keep posting on subjects close to my heart. But future finds, well if it has an American connection I will certainly advise my fellow Members. For GB club hopefully you may read some of the new information on their own web histories.

Thanks Guys and in particular Mike for opening my eyes and here is to Mark and his aerial topics which I have really enjoyed, please do not stop posting them.

Melvyn

PS Mike S – Hope you are not a police profiler, because you are way off mark. I am actually a happy fun loving guy who enjoys life, prefers to help than hinder people and for your information most comments about me on this site make me smile, but of course some can touch a raw nerve. 

PPS Do not have red hair either!! 

[Mike Sweeney]

PS Mike S – Hope you are not a police profiler, because you are way off mark. I am actually a happy fun loving guy who enjoys life, prefers to help than hinder people and for your information most comments about me on this site make me smile, but of course some can touch a raw nerve. 

PPS Do not have red hair either!! 

Melvyn,

You will be happy to know that we were saying nice things about you the other day at Hidden Creek, WHILE WE WERE ALL CARRYING OR ROLLING OUR OWN BAGS!. No carts were used!

Merry Christmas.

[TEPaul]

I don't get it. Are we supposed to discuss the subject of a topic deleted due to lack of interest? 


Melvyn:

Frankly, I'm really interested in that early time over there with the likes of Campbell and certainly when people like him came over here early. If I were you I'd read again and very carefully consider what Mike Cirba said in post #10 and then regenerate this thread. I think this is an area and subject that is truly important in the history and evolution of golf course architecture, despite the fact some of the details of it  seems to have been sort of lost in time. To me this was the real first connection between architecture over there, particularly INLAND, and architecture over here of the earliest type and what was to follow it around the turn of the century.

To me the question is why did it begin to change so dramatically INLAND both over there and then over here?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Mike S

Good for you.  Love to hear about golf the way I believe it should be.
Kind words, wow, I am indeed most honoured, but OK what was the punch line? 

Merry Christmas to you all

Melvyn

[Joe Bausch]

I don't get it. Are we supposed to discuss the subject of a topic deleted due to lack of interest? 

Yes, Tom.  This is sort of the 180° opposite of the restaurant in NYC that Yogi Berra said nobody was going to anymore b/c it was too crowded.   

[TEPaul]

Joe:

Today, where are the Yogi Berras and the Casey Stengels and their hilarious remarks when we really need them?


"He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious."

[Kyle Harris]

Kind words, wow, I am indeed most honoured, but OK what was the punch line? 

Consider the cow a sphere...

[BCrosby]

"Consider the cow a sphere..."

Kyle - I have no idea what the joke was, but it doesn't matter. That punchline stands on its own. 

Most good punchlines also serve as good pick-up lines. One of my college roommates picked up a gorgeous girl on a flight back to Boston once. As they were eating a rubbery chicken Kiev lunch, he turned to her and said, "Isn't it nice we have teeth." As she recounted to me later, she fell immediately and hopelessly in love.

Melvyn - Please do not despair. Many of us enjoy enormously your historical postings. In my case I usually have little to add of interest. But I do read them and look forward to more.

Bob

[Andy Hughes]

I have been monitoring the last couple of historical topics to assess reaction and Mike you are right in saying “I'm sure somewhere there are architectural historians who think it makes some point in their favour”. The majority on this site don’t seem to share much interest in the early history of Golf.

Melvyn, I think you have that backwards. Many of us actually are interested and read those types of post quite religiously.  But for those like me, we have little to add and any post we make would just be vanity or a distraction. Do not take our lack of a post as a lack of interest--they are not the same.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I Kant cope with all this philosophy.

[BCrosby]

I'd bet you can if you Russell up a little gumption.

Bob

[Mike_Cirba]

Melvyn,

I'm confused...did my post offend in any way?   It was certainly unintended and I truly enjoy all of your historical posts.

I think what I tried to say, however poorly, is that the finding about Campbell seems to indicate that some of the very strangely unnatural golf "features" like fence rails, hedges, and roads that we know are part of the American inland golf architecture history also seems to have had some precedence in the first attempts at inland courses in Great Britain.

That was somewhat startling to me.

Like Andy, and Tom, and Bob, and I'm sure many others, I always read your historical posts and even when I can't respond right away, or perhaps have nothing of value to add, they are still appreciated and valued.

I apologize if I gave the wrong impression through a poorly worded late night response, but I have to tell you...the main reason I still devote as much time to this site as I do is because of my love of historical golf course archeology, philosophy, and forensics.

People like you, and Joe Bausch, and others add tremendous value to this site.   So did Wayne Morrison and Tom MacWood, so my Christmas wish is that both return here soon, because even though we have disagreed among ourselves about the meaning and derived conclusions of some of the evidence and facts that have been uncovered, the truth always manages to rise to the surface once enough shared light is shed.
Mike

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