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Dan Herrmann

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Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« on: March 17, 2009, 10:38:49 PM »
Just to start a discussion... 

I've always wondered why Travis isn't mentioned more often.    But his work would seem to indicate that he was one of the best ODG's.

Does modern golf course architecture acknowledge his contributions adequately?

Yannick Pilon

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #1 on: March 18, 2009, 10:39:50 AM »
Great question, Dan.

I think Walter Travis should get a little more credit for his work.  Especially for his greens, which are some of the most imaginative and scariest greens I have seen so far in my relatively short career.

I beleive, however, that he might not be as highly regarded as others because of the relatively simple or odd looking fairway bunkers and mounds that seem to pepper his courses everywhere.  I have only seen some of his work, so far, and most of it in pictures, but that is the general feel I get so far:  Great greens but quirky and odd stuff all around them.

These days, I beleive quirky is not so much loved, it seems....  I love it dearly, but I fear this is not the norm.

YP
www.yannickpilongolf.com - Golf Course Architecture, Quebec, Canada

Mike_Cirba

Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #2 on: March 18, 2009, 11:13:56 AM »
Travis and Alex Findlay.


TEPaul

Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2009, 11:37:51 AM »
Dan:

Yours is a good question, and not the least reason being it seems like a number of the periodicals and newspapers from the first decade of the 20th century felt that Travis was probably the most knowledgeable man in America at the time on all kinds of things to do with golf, and certainly including golf course architecture!

Tom_Doak

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #4 on: March 18, 2009, 11:50:50 AM »
Two reasons why Travis is underappreciated:

1.  All his work is confined to a small area of the country (the northeast) which is brimming with great golf courses from many sources.  Travis would be better known if he'd moved to L.A., like Thomas, or to some other city where his work would stand out.

2.  Travis was a short hitter, and tended to design testing but shorter courses than others in his day.  As a result, when distance boomed in the steel shaft era, his were not the courses selected for championships ... and so they didn't keep growing, like, say, Baltusrol.  [A lot of Travis' work is at least as good as Baltusrol.]  In fact, you might well conclude that Travis kneecapped himself by not leaving more room for expansion, because he was too busy doing the most efficient possible job of fitting a course to the property he had.

TEPaul

Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2009, 12:00:10 PM »
It may be well to look into the fact that Travis may've been one of the first or the first to both propose and actually create some pretty sexy putting greens (contours and otherwise) over here.

If he was I guess it would have to have been done at Equinox (1899) or otherwise I personally would have to give that attribution to perhaps Herbert Leeds at Myopia (1898-1900)! I've never seen Equinox though, so I wouldn't know about its greens.

Tom_Doak

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #6 on: March 18, 2009, 12:04:13 PM »
Tom P:

Equinox was totally changed by Rees Jones about 15 years ago.

David Kidd was actually on the construction crew for that project, since it was redeveloped in conjunction with Gleneagles.

John Mayhugh

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #7 on: March 18, 2009, 12:52:09 PM »
I think Herbert Strong is a good candidate for this title.

Dan Herrmann

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #8 on: March 18, 2009, 04:47:07 PM »
John,
Could you add some info on Herbert Strong?

Tom_Doak

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #9 on: March 18, 2009, 04:50:22 PM »
Strong would be a pretty good choice, too.  He doesn't fit as neatly into anyone's "family tree" of architects, and he didn't build too many courses.  But he did do some pretty wild stuff [Inwood, Engineers, Canterbury] and nobody EVER talks about him.

John Mayhugh

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #10 on: March 18, 2009, 05:12:54 PM »
John,
Could you add some info on Herbert Strong?

Here's Ian Andrew's take on Strong.
http://thecaddyshack.blogspot.com/2007/05/architect-21-herbert-strong.html

I've only played one of his courses, Engineers.  Ran profiles the course (and Strong) far better than I could. 
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/engineers2.html

As Tom Doak noted, he built some wild courses.  The green complexes at Engineers need to be seen to be appreciated.  His "2 or 20" hole is a prime example.  Under 100 yards, but disaster looms if you miss the green.  I would love to see more of his work.  He really pushed the envelope.

If you've not seen them before, here are a couple of holes from Engineers.  This is the second green from the fairway.
http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s196/jmayhugh/engineers/?action=view&current=eng2fwy.jpg

And the "2 or 20" hole. 



The green from the left rear.  The slope doesn't look very friendly for a recovery shot, does it?





Ronald Montesano

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #11 on: March 18, 2009, 09:49:08 PM »
Back to Travis for a moment...His work at Cherry Hill and Lookout Point in Ontario, Stafford and Orchard Park near Buffalo and his other non-NYC area courses rarely stray beyond 6600 yards, so what Doak says is confirmed.  His greens at Stafford, Lookout, Cherry Hill and others (Orchard Park is a notable exception) are beguiling, heaving, lurching, and ennervating.  Travis' courses place a premium on the game from 150 yards and in...Thinking about the Travis courses I know, the premium on driving, indeed, the inspiration for driving, is not present.  The drive is seen almost as a prelude to what he considered the true part of the (w)hole.  As such, much as I love these courses, they are somewhat incomplete when compared with courses that place a premium on all facets of the game.  That's why Travis is not discussed as much.  Have at it.
Coming in 2024
~Elmira Country Club
~Soaring Eagles
~Bonavista
~Indian Hills
~Maybe some more!!

Philippe Binette

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #12 on: March 18, 2009, 10:09:08 PM »
I love every inch of Ekwanok... but true, you can't go out and add 200 yards to that course...

one of the best, if not the best course within 4 hours driving of Montréal

Blake Conant

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #13 on: January 09, 2017, 06:10:02 PM »
Travis for all the aforementioned reasons, plus what fascinates me most about him:  his ability to generate reversible routings on the most impossible terrain e.g., Westchester and Pine Valley.  He's built better greens with more variety than any other architect I've seen as well.


Langford because I can't think of another architect who produced as many quality golf courses in such sparsely populated areas. 
Small towns in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, (and at one time Florida) still have quality golf (even if their fairways and greens shrunk, trees encroached fairways, and bunkers fallen into disrepair).  Something to be said for the architect who built great golf for largely blue collar people.

Anthony Gholz

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #14 on: January 09, 2017, 09:07:31 PM »
First to the two Toms:  Ewanok or Equinox?


Second:  Regarding Travis and short courses.  Lochmoor in Tom D's adopted state is a John Sweeney routing with heavy on site suggestions from Travis.  It was over 7,000 yards from the back tees.  Per The American Golfer September 1919 the tees were 6317/6647/7057.  I have several Detroit newspaper articles from the time period that confirm this. 


Anthony




MCirba

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #15 on: January 10, 2017, 07:26:48 AM »
Yes.
"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge

https://cobbscreek.org/

Jaeger Kovich

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #16 on: January 10, 2017, 07:53:32 AM »
Blake - I've got a man crush on Walter Travis at the moment too ;)

MCirba

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #17 on: January 10, 2017, 08:13:16 AM »
Let's not forget his involvement in the early development of both Pinehurst #2 and NGLA.
"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge

https://cobbscreek.org/

BCrosby

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #18 on: January 10, 2017, 08:58:40 AM »
Travis might have also had a hand in the routing of East Lake.

As for Herbert Strong, let's not forget Ponte Vedra. When it opened in the late 1930's it was a big deal.  PV was set to host the Ryder Cup in '39, but the event was cancelled when Hitler invaded Poland.

PV was thought to be so difficult that Trent Jones, of all people, was brought in to soften it in the early '50's.

Bob

Anthony Gholz

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #19 on: January 10, 2017, 09:34:07 AM »
The American Golfer 9/19 confirming the Lochmoor yardages

Richard Fisher

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #20 on: January 11, 2017, 07:00:04 AM »
It's probably not coincidental, in this context, that Travis's favourite inland course in the UK (and NB that in general he was far from over-enamoured with British golf) was Huntercombe. The latter was if anything longer (at 6500 yards) when WT encountered it than it is now: the wild Park greens have always been a feature.

Ed Homsey

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #21 on: January 11, 2017, 09:21:26 PM »
Richard--You need to read Travis's 1901 article, "Impressions of British Golf" to understand his great respect for the golf course in the UK.  The origins of his ideas about golf course design included his summer of 1900 month playing UK courses. 


The Travis Society has no record of Travis involvement at East Lake,  If there is legitimate documentation of his involvement there, I would like to see it.


Re posts by Tom Doak and TPaul.  As Tom Doak indicated, the Rees Jones firm did major redesign of the Equinox course, though the Travis routing remains basically the same.  I do not know if there are any remaining green sites that retain the original Travis green surfaces. 


TPaul refers to the 1899 design of "Equinox".  Knowing Tpaul's commitment to detail, I'm sure he misspoke.  Equinox was designed in 1925 and opened in 1927.  Ekwanok CC was designed in 1899 by John Duncan Dunn, perhaps with some assistance from Travis. 


I totally disagree with Montesano's assessment of Travis's lack of emphasis on the drive.


Travis's career in golf design began relatively late in his life.  From 1896 to 1916, his golfing life was consumed by his unparalleled amateur golf career, though he played a role in the design of a few courses prior to his retirement from competitive golf in 1916.  He did not devote his life, full-time, to golf design until 1916, at age 55.  From 1916 through the early 1920s, he was in great demand, throughout the U.S. and Canada.  Basically, his design career spanned 10 years, from 1916 through 1926.  His health declined sharply in 1926.  During the summer of 1927, when he attended the opening of his course at Equinox and examined the construction of his course at the CC of Troy, he was in very bad shape.  Hard to know how his career might have gone, if health issues had cut short his life in August 1927.

Ronald Montesano

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #22 on: January 11, 2017, 09:23:51 PM »

Knowing Ed Homsey as I do, I would go with his opinion of Travis' emphasis on the drive over my own, eight days out of seven.



I totally disagree with Montesano's assessment of Travis's lack of emphasis on the drive.

Coming in 2024
~Elmira Country Club
~Soaring Eagles
~Bonavista
~Indian Hills
~Maybe some more!!

Richard Fisher

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #23 on: January 12, 2017, 04:32:53 AM »
Ed. I'm sure you are right - but Travis was famously not very enamoured of the Brits who played golf, even if he approved of their courses! That reputation may, of course, have been the early 20th-century equivalent of fake news...

Niall C

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Re: Is Walter Travis the most unappreciated ODG?
« Reply #24 on: January 12, 2017, 06:07:06 AM »
Richard

I think Travis's relationship with the Brits changed over time. When he came over at first for his tour in 1900 (or was it 1901 ?  ???) he was well received and played many matches on many courses with the leading lights of the day. He later wrote enthusiastically about his tour.

Where I think his thoughts changed was on subsequent tours when he didn't get quite the same red carpet treatment claiming that leading golfers were reluctant to play with him. Then of course there was the bunker incident in the Amateur Championship which from a British perspective didn't cast him in a very good light.

All in all it seems he was quite a feisty guy who could easily fall out with someone at the smallest provocation.

Niall 

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