Taylor and anticompetitive behavior

[BCrosby]

Reading MacK's SofSA last night (please, don't ask), I came across a passage in which he notes that J H Taylor tried to bar non-professional golfers from designing golf courses. MacK went on to note how happy he was that Taylor came a cropper in his efforts.

Does anyone know more about any of that?

One of the themes in the book that I had not appreciated before is MacK's discussion about how only "educated men" are able to design good courses, while "professionals" (a/k/a Taylor and Braid) are only capable of designing courses that fool people into thinking they are good courses.

It's pretty rough stuff. Gotta love the halcyon Golden Age.

Bob

[Peter Pallotta]

Bob -

neat. Interesting to look at it not from our perspective/times but from Mac's.  I wonder what qualities of temperament and intelligence and aesthetic sensibility Mac assumed the educated class possessed that the working class didn't. Maybe it was simply the "good taste" not to place bunkers exactly where they'd cause the most trouble. I look forward to the insights of my betters...

Peter

[Jim_Kennedy]

Looks like they were both wrong.

[Garland Bayley]

Bob -

neat. Interesting to look at it not from our perspective/times but from Mac's.  I wonder what qualities of temperament and intelligence and aesthetic sensibility Mac assumed the educated class possessed that the working class didn't. Maybe it was simply the "good taste" not to place bunkers exactly where they'd cause the most trouble. I look forward to the insights of my betters...

Peter

So Peter,

Are you admitting to being fooled into thinking some courses are good?
 

[Michael Dugger]

Gentlemen,

I am inclined to think Mac meant the professionals would only design courses which cater to their particular skill set.....

While an "educated" person would understand the game needs to serve all people, not just the excellent players, and would reflect such in their designs.

[Tony_Muldoon]

At time of writng the 'educated' golf designers were
Mac, Colt, Simpson/Fowler and a select few others.


The professionals offering designs included
Park, Braid, Taylor, Vardon, Herd, White, Rolland, etc etc etc

I think he was trying to drum up business for his folk.  Much of his writng reads like a sales pitch to me.

Does anyone know how mcuh e.g. Braid got for acourse designin 1910, 1920, 1930 etc?

Shortly after this period Taylor teamed up with Hawtree who as far as I know was never a professional golfer.

[BCrosby]

Tony -

It's interesting that the architects that MacK thought were good were not only educated at Cambrdge or Oxford, but most were members of the Oxford Cambridge Golfing Society and would have stayed in touch by way of society meetings and matches. I would include on your list Low, Paton, Croome, Alison and Campbell.  

MacK was a Cantab man, but never a member of the OCGS.

I was struck by the vehemence of the passage in SofSA. Take a look at it. There were some pretty serious town and gown tensions in the Golden Age in Britain. I can't think of parallels in the US at the time.

Any information on MacK's claim that Taylor once tried to corner the UK golf architecture market for the pros?

Bob

P.S. Betsy says hello.

 

[Peter Pallotta]

Bob -

not related exactly, but I think it was in the early 1920s that Taylor started the Artisans' Golfers Association (to serve as the working class parallel to the upper-crust and university golfing socieites).  Looked it up now (with google) and a book mentions 12 clubs with 350 members, the highlight being when one of the members -- William Sutton of the West Chesire Artisans -- won the 1929 Amateur.

Bayley - yup, I have a feeling that I'm fooled more than most around here into believing a golf course is good....even when I think it's ugly!

Peter

[BCrosby]

Peter -

Yes, the artisans society movement I knew about. Taylor was also a big advocate for more public golf courses. He was key in organizing the British PGA into a trade association not unlike the US PGA. He never abandoned his working class roots.

That he didn't like the college boys with their blue jackets fits nicely into the overall picture. Golf architecture in Britain was not immune to a bit of class warfare.

Bob

[Peter Pallotta]

Bob - this might interest you. I had stumbled across the Artisan society once when reading about Taylor, and when I googled it again now that book I mentioned is called "Playing the Game: sport and British society, 1910-45" by Derek Birley (1996) -- sorry, Sir David Birley, and the book is part of a 3-volume set that he wrote after retiring from a distinguished career as an university administrator in the north of Ireland.

Again not related, but I remember reading that writers like CS Lewis and his gang of Oxford Inklings purposely wore the heavy and non-descript and colourless flannel pants and tweed jackets as a conscious rejection of the toffs and dandies they felt were taking over Oxford in their undergraduate days and in the decade after the war.  (Maybe not coincidentally: Lewis spent some time visiting St. Andrews once, and wrote to a friend telling him about the place and how fond he was of it...but can you guess the one thing he didn't mention?)

Peter

[Tom MacWood]

I don't remember all the details but I believe Taylor was the head of the PGA and was trying to protect his constituints. It turned out to be a mayor PR fiasco. Amateur architects led by Colt were revolutionizing design, and no one wanted to stop the progress. I don't believe Taylor said they couldn't or shouldn't practice but that they should forfeit their amateur status, which technically they had done based on the letter of the law at the time. The result was they changed the wording of the rule to permit amateur golf architects. When the issue came up in America a few years later the powers that be took a completely different course and deemed fee collecting architects professionals. American amateurs had a long history of 'shamteurism' so the different response it not all that surprising.

[Peter Pallotta]

Bob - hope you don't mind, but I'm going to quote you back to you. I remembered a thread I started about an article called "Thinking Golf" from 1906, but in looking for that I came across this, and it was more interesting and relevant:


"Now whatever sorts of courses Taylor actually built (I've never seen one), at least at one point in his career (1910 to about 1925), he advocated for what most would call today a penal theory of architecture. It was sometimes muddled up with a bunch of other ideas, but there's not much question that for a period Taylor's sine qua non for good design was that all bad shots were to be punished immediately and hazards should be located to make that happen. He leavened that with talk about graduated penalties and proportional punishments. Mallaby-Deely (St. George's) was another architect, slightly older, who could sound very similar to Taylor. I would add Crane too, who was slightly younger, but who had some similar views.    

But all that's not what I think is interesting. What is interesting is that the views of Taylor and others probably come closer to popular views about what constitutes good design than the views of the much more famous strategic architects. Yet it was the latter who wrote the histories that shaped our understandings of the history. As such, the views of Taylor and others, even though they are probably representative of the biggest slice of the golfing universe, didn't get written about very much. They are more or less minor footnotes. They are the crazy uncles that the history of gca hides in the basement...."

Good stuff, even the second time around

Peter

[Tom MacWood]

Peter
I take it you are not a fan of Taylor's. What do you know about his design career?

[Peter Pallotta]

No, that's not right, Tom. I know only a little about Taylor's ideas re: gca, just from a few early articles, and I don't feel strongly about them one way or another. And if I've learned anything in my time here it's that those early days and early ideas were a lot more nuanced and fluid than I first thought. That's why I found Bob's quote a quality one. And any fellow who could start an Artisans' society in that time and place is okay by me.

Peter

[Bob_Huntley]

I think it important to understand the chasm that existed in England between the classes. As far as MacKenzie and others of his ilk, the Taylors of the world were nothing but indentured servants. Their accents alone placed them in the hierarchy of nearly untouchables. For all the accolades that Mackenzie receives from this site, he was at best, a prickly sort of chap, at worst, a bit of a whiner.


Bob

[Sean_A]

I think it important to understand the chasm that existed in England between the classes. As far as MacKenzie and others of his ilk, the Taylors of the world were nothing but indentured servants. Their accents alone placed them in the hierarchy of nearly untouchables. For all the accolades that Mackenzie receives from this site, he was at best, a prickly sort of chap, at worst, a bit of a whiner.


Bob

Bob

I always get the impression of Dr Mac being an outsider in the business eve when partnering Colt.  However, I have never found anything to suggest he was particularly targeted.  

Concerning penal architecture.  I do believe Taylor was a proponent of this design theory back in the day, but I don't think it quite means the same as today in terms of harshness.  Relative to today, the designs of Taylor and Braid (to name two prominent pro player archies) would be considered rather forgiving if not actually strategic.  They understood the target audience and designed accordingly.  To my knowledge, not a single course these guys built would accurately place them as penal designers in today's terms.  In fact, I think the true concept of penal design was properly developed in the Golden Age in the USA.  Archies like Flynn, Tilly, Crump and probably most especially Fownes created much more penal designs than in the UK - mind you it was on purpose.

Ciao    

[Tom MacWood]

Taylor advocated penal architecture? I don't think so. Wasn't Taylor the fellow who warned that American courses were becoming too difficult for the average golfer and Tilly took exception?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Tony

I have a report of Braid receiving £25 for the modification to the course at Brora in the early 1920’s. Its must be stated that the report states that Braid was only on site in the afternoon. Apparently arriving by train Am and returning Pm the same day. The Fee was £25 plus the normal expenses.  I have other information but am going out now, if I remember I’ll look them up later.

Melvyn

[BCrosby]

Sean - I think the term "penal' is a misnomer, but that's a topic for another day. Whatever it means, it's not a particularly American concept. Taylor and many others in the UK were talkn' the talk at about the same time that Fownes was.

MacK's problem with Taylor wasn't just about the rules of the profession. They had honest to goodness different design philosophies.

Bob

[BCrosby]

I think it important to understand the chasm that existed in England between the classes. As far as MacKenzie and others of his ilk, the Taylors of the world were nothing but indentured servants. Their accents alone placed them in the hierarchy of nearly untouchables. For all the accolades that Mackenzie receives from this site, he was at best, a prickly sort of chap, at worst, a bit of a whiner.


Bob

Bob -

MacK also seems to have been a bit of a boor. I've read reports where it was suggested that he embarrassed Bob Jones and Cliff Roberts with his antics in the evenings at the Bon Air Hotel bar after their workdays at Augusta.

Bob 

[Peter Pallotta]

Here's a nice bit, a bridging of the divide, from a January 1928 article by Darwin entitled Professionals vs Undergraduates:

"I went to Oxford the other day to see a golf match rather out of the common. The illustrious professional, J. H. Taylor, has a son, J. H. Jr., who is now in his third year as an Oxford undergraduate, one of the most popular figures at his college, and a shining light of the University Golf Team. Here then was an opportunity not to be missed. The father brought down a team of his brother professionals to play against the son and his brother undergraduates.

It was just about as good a team as he could get, save for Mitchell, Duncan and Compston. It had a strong leaven of the last Ryder Cup team, including the Captain, Ray, the two Whitcombes, Haver, Gadd and Tolly, and three of our most famous veterans in Taylor himself, Braid and Herd. The professionals came purely for fun and love of the game, paid their own expenses and did not receive one penny. They all stayed in college rooms, in Christ Church; they dined in Magdalen, and in short for a day and a night became  undergraduates themselves.

I think they enjoyed themselves fully as much as did their hosts. Indeed it was as thoroughly delightful and friendly an occasion as could be but the golf was very serious for all that, and when Taylor and Herd pulled their four-ball match out of the fire by a marvelous finish they could not have been more pleased, if they had each won another championship. I heard Sandy Herd say to J. H. Jr., "Your Dad and I are great fighters," and he said it with a genuine ecstacy, as did Alan Breck when he exclaimed, "And oh! man, am I no a bonny fighter?..."

Taylor seemed to have lived a long and fine and well-respected life, with much success.  Must have made him proud that he son was an Oxford man.

Peter

[Niall C]

Peter

Thanks for posting that passage. Reading anything by Darwin is always a joy.

This passage would seem to suggest that any antogonism that Taylor had with Colt, MacKenzie etc might have been purely to do with winning business and I'm sure for MacKenzie at least I know he had his problems with Braid also.

I think it is documented (don't ask me where) that MacKenzie tried to get the commisiion to design Gleneagles but this went to Braid and CK Hutchison, and that MacKenzie had been withering in his comments on the completed course (was this in S of StA ?).

I also read a newspaper article from the early 1920's where MacK was remodelling some of the holes at Pollok GC which included rerouting some of the course and adding features. The article states that after Braid had paid a visit to play the course during the work, he had spoken out about one of MacK's ideas which was to switch the 1st and 18th fairways so that the first would be played downhill and the 18th on a level as opposed to the existing arrangement of a level start and an uphill finish. As a consequence of Braids comments the club decided against this particular aspect of MacKenzies design and to this day the course 1st and 18th have remained as they were. The article does say though that MacK was going to be coming back to add features/bunkers to those two holes, although from what I can see I don't think he did. It wouldn't be hard to imagine MacKenzies thoughts on Braids professional discourtesy.

Niall

[Bob_Huntley]

Peter

Thanks for posting that passage. Reading anything by Darwin is always a joy.

This passage would seem to suggest that any antogonism that Taylor had with Colt, MacKenzie etc might have been purely to do with winning business and I'm sure for MacKenzie at least I know he had his problems with Braid also.

I think it is documented (don't ask me where) that MacKenzie tried to get the commisiion to design Gleneagles but this went to Braid and CK Hutchison, and that MacKenzie had been withering in his comments on the completed course (was this in S of StA ?).

I also read a newspaper article from the early 1920's where MacK was remodelling some of the holes at Pollok GC which included rerouting some of the course and adding features. The article states that after Braid had paid a visit to play the course during the work, he had spoken out about one of MacK's ideas which was to switch the 1st and 18th fairways so that the first would be played downhill and the 18th on a level as opposed to the existing arrangement of a level start and an uphill finish. As a consequence of Braids comments the club decided against this particular aspect of MacKenzies design and to this day the course 1st and 18th have remained as they were. The article does say though that MacK was going to be coming back to add features/bunkers to those two holes, although from what I can see I don't think he did. It wouldn't be hard to imagine MacKenzies thoughts on Braids professional discourtesy.

Niall

Niall,

In regard to Braid's professional discourtesy, is it not possible he was asked to comment on the Mackenzie layout and opined it might be better as he stated? Perhaps Tom Doak can butt in here and tell us that he has himself has made a similar suggestion from time to time.

Bob

 

[Niall C]

Bob

It is me who is saying Braid was professionaly discourteous. I've no idea what MacKenzie would have said but I can guess.

I am perhaps jumping to conclusions but what I gathered from the article was that Braid was playing the course (from memory the article doesn't say why, it might have been an exhibition game) and was not being being paid professionally for his view. That being the case I think trashing a competitors design idea, and Braid the architect was a serious competitor, is discourteous. Remember he's not comentating on a finished product but actually coucelling against another professionals advice.

I dare say GCA didn't have those kind of professional standards then but I would imagine they do now. Any GCA out there care to comment ?

Niall

[Tony_Muldoon]

..and who says there aren’t any great threads on GCA these days?

Peter that's a marvellous find.  I buy into the distinction between the classes, and the Professionals vs. the Players but in your story golf seems to have put all that aside.  Who’d have thought Taylors son could have gone to Oxford? A tale worthy of Hardy with, (I trust) a Hollywood ending.