"With that in mind, what WAS "pre-modern" or "pre-scientific" design? Was it steeplechase golf or something different?"
Dan:
Instead of us just guessing and speculating about the realities and meaning of this subject why don't we just consider the words of those who were there at that time and were the best observers and critiquers of those so-called "pre-modern" and "pre-scienific" designs. The following is from Part One of Tom MacWood's "Arts and Crafts Golf".
"Naturally with the game’s widespread popularity came a need to establish new golf courses and most importantly a new type of expert to lay them out. Those first golf course designers were the greenkeepers and professionals, men like Old Tom Morris, Willie Dunn and Tom Dunn. They were the native sons of the old natural golf links -- St. Andrews, Musselburgh and Prestwick. But despite their familiarity with these ancient models their work was very disappointing.
Tom Simpson wrote, 'They failed to reproduce any of the features of the courses on which they were bread and born, or to realize the principles on which they had been made. Their imagination took them no further than the inception of flat gun-platform greens, invariably oblong, round or square, supported by railway embankment sides or batters . . . The bunkers that were constructed on the fairways may be described as rectangular ramparts of a peculiarly obnxious type, stretching at regular intervals across the course and having no architectural merit whatever.'
One of the reasons these men failed was due to the methods they utilized in laying out these golf courses, or the lack there of. The ancient links may have taken centuries to be formed, these men preferred a much shorter duration. There was very little time and even less forethought put into the design of a golf course.
As Bernard Darwin’s described, 'The laying out of courses used once to be a rather a rule-of-thumb business done by rather simple-minded and unimaginative people who did not go far beyond hills to drive over, hollows for putting greens and, generally speaking, holes formed on the model of a steeplechase course.'
Harry Colt recalled a particular incident, 'A leading man on the subject was introduced for the first time to 150 acres of good golfing ground, and we all gathered around to see the golf course created instantly. It was something like following a water-deviner with his twig of hazel. Without a moments hesitation he fixed the first tee, and then, going away at full speed, he brought us up abruptly in a deep hollow, and a stake was set up to show the exact position of the first hole. Ground was selected for the second tee, and then we all started off again, and arrived in a panting state at a hollow deeper than the first, where another stake was set up for the second hole. Then away again at full speed for the third hole, and so on. Towards the end we had to tack backwards and fowards half a dozen times to get in the required number of holes. The thing was done in a few hours, lunch was eaten, and the train caught, but the course, thank heavens, was never constructed!'
Stories like that became common place as a result of the great demand to build courses near or within the large towns and cities, especially in urbanly concentrated England. In the early years the game was exclusively seaside, but the new generation of golfers were busy men unwilling or unable to waste precious time traveling. Unfortunately many of the inland sites were ill suited for the game, featuring heavy soil and poor drainage. The weaknesses of the sites were compounded by their odd Victorian design methods.
C.H.Alison wrote, 'The construction of these courses was simple in the extreme. There was only one form of bunker. This consisted of a rampart built of sods with a trench in front of it filled with a sticky substance, usually dark red in colour. The face of the rampart was perpendicular. It was precisely 3 ft. 6 ins. in height throughout, and ran at an exact right-angle to the line of play. The number of these obstacles varied according to the length . . . A stranger, therefore, was able to ascertain the bogey of hole by counting the number of bunkers, and adding two to his total . . . There were no side-hazards except long grass and trees. The fairways were invariably rectangular, and the putting-greens were square and flat . . . It will be realised that this stereotyped placing of bunkers rendered the game extremely monotonous . . . moreover, the rampart style bunker did not add to the beauty of the landscape, or lend an additional thrill to the stroke by its awe-inspiring appearance. Another notable feature . . . was the extreme flatness of the approaches. Any bold features which existed were used as hazards for the tee shot if they were used at all. Very seldom was a green placed in such a position as to render the approach play naturally interesting, while to create grass slopes or hollows artificially was an unknown art.'
New seaside construction also suffered, 'some excellent courses already existed in 1890, but in constructing new course near the sea there was in the Victorian Era a tendency to take all hazards at a right-angle and to include a very large number of blind approaches.'
Golf architect Alister MacKenzie added, 'In the Victorian Era . . . almost all new golf courses were planned by professionals, and were, incidentally, amazingly bad. They were built with mathematical precision, a cop bunker extending from the rough on the one side, to the rough on the other, and similar cop bunker placed on the second shot. There was entire absence of strategy, interest and excitement except where some natural irremovable object intervened to prevent the designer from carrying out his nefarious plans.'
Of all the inland creators Tom Dunn seemed to be the busiest and most notorious.
Horace Hutchinson described the scene, 'He went about the country laying the courses out, and as he was a very courteous Nature’s gentleman, and always liked to say the pleasant thing, he gave praise to each course, as he contrived it, so liberally that some wag invented the conundrum. ‘Mention any inland course of which Tom Dunn has not said that it was the best of its kind ever seen.’ His idea---and really he had but one---was to throw up a barrier, with a ditch, called for euphony’s sake a ‘bunker,’ on the near side of it, right across the course, to be carried from the tee, another of same kind to be carried with the second shot, and similarly a third. It was a simple plan, nor is Tom Dunn to be censored because he could not evolve something more like a colourable imitation of the natural hazard. A man is not be criticized because he is not in advance of his time."