Golfing In America: article from the June 16, 1895 edition of The Sun

[Joe Bausch]

The Chronicling of America web page from the Library of Congress is a blast to search for golf articles.  Just today I stumbled upon a full page article entitled "Golfing in America".  It is a very fun read with stick diagrams for a number of early golf courses in this country.  It would be too difficult to post here in parts, so I just give you a URL to the article.  Once there, you can download it as a PDF to your computer and read using whatever software you like:

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1895-06-16/ed-1/seq-16/

[Rich Goodale]

Fascinating article, Joe.  Thanks.

Rich

[Rich Goodale]

Joe

Maybe you would get more interest from the philistines on this site if you could post a few of the stick diagrams (Shinnecock, St. Andrews (ny), and Tuxedo would be good).  If that doesn't work, let's all go back to watching the non-stop very slow motion train wreck which is the current Merion thread........

Rich

[Joe Bausch]

Rich, good suggestion.  Here they are:

[Rich Goodale]

Who ever said that those architects from the Dark Ages didn't know their quirk?

[Niall C]

Joe,

Fascinating stuff. I see that the plan for Tuxedo clearly shows a hole that has an "Alps" as a hazard. Who designed Tuxedo ? I'm just wondering where the idea came from, was it one the itinerant Scottish/English professionals who designed the course and who would have been familiar with the original or was it someone local who read about the design idea from somewhere (does Hutchinson mention it in his book and when was that published ?).

Niall

[RSLivingston_III]

All those stone walls they are playing over makes N. Berwick look tame. It also reinforces that that era was not a ground game and did require aerial shots.
I thought the identification of the slave quarters was interesting (St A GC), wasn't that over and done with by then??.

[Mike_Cirba]

I didn't realize that Tuxedo had an early "Alps", but know that Ardsley also had one by 1896.

These concept holes based on great holes overseas were clearly known to many in the early game in America, both because of the early overseas professionals but also because of men like Alex Findlay.   Also, many of the early American golfers made pilgrimages overseas, and were familiar with the great courses simply from having played them.

Some would have us believe that only Charles Macdonald had and could dispense that type of knowledge, but that is far from the truth.

Instead, Macdonald's unique and brilliant notion was simply to try and place 18 great holes on a single course.   Even the best courses abroad only had a handful of holes universally acknowledged as "great".

[Ulrich Mayring]

The notion of template design is widely attributed to CBM, so I think this is a significant find. I don't think any templating can be observed in the UK (or possibly anywhere?) at that time.

Ulrich

[Adam Clayman]

All those stone walls they are playing over makes N. Berwick look tame. It also reinforces that that era was not a ground game and did require aerial shots.

It never ceases to amaze how the ground game (or the era) is mis-interpreted.  No one has ever made the contention that getting one's ball air born was not, or is not, integral to golfing your ball. There should be a balance, and, on a firmer canvas, much less boring.



 

[Bradley Anderson]

I didn't realize that Tuxedo had an early "Alps", but know that Ardsley also had one by 1896.

These concept holes based on great holes overseas were clearly known to many in the early game in America, both because of the early overseas professionals but also because of men like Alex Findlay.   Also, many of the early American golfers made pilgrimages overseas, and were familiar with the great courses simply from having played them.

Some would have us believe that only Charles Macdonald had and could dispense that type of knowledge, but that is far from the truth.

Instead, Macdonald's unique and brilliant notion was simply to try and place 18 great holes on a single course.   Even the best courses abroad only had a handful of holes universally acknowledged as "great".

Mike,

This is exactly the point I have tried to make with David M. I contend that there were very early attempts to build golf holes in America after the principles of the great holes abroad. It just seems that this would be a natural thing to do because those hole concepts were written about and discussed. But David seems to imply that any golf club that had a template hole, or a concept hole, could have only learned about the concept from CBM.