Willie Campbell & Myopia

[Travis Dewire]

Nope,

just to the people that can't fathom the idea that these gentleman had good reason to be in Hamilton, in the Winter

[DMoriarty]

Travis Dewire,

I didn't mean to speculate about all the members, but rather those who were reportedly involved in the creation of the course.  The Boston gossip columns often reported when these families would be closing their winter homes and opening their summer homes for the season, and most of those men appear to have been in greater Boston.   As TomM notes, most of the men in question were not expected in Hamilton until late May or early June, and were in greater Boston, and reportedly playing golf and/or watching golf at the Country Club well into May.    

The one exception I have found is A.P. Gardner, who reportedly was at Hamilton in mid-April.

Surely they all could have gone out there earlier in the year, but normally it seems they did not go out until late May or June   And given the reports that the links had not been laid out until just before the tournament and after mid-May, it seems likely they didn't make a special trip this year either.  
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Tom MacWood,

Are you sure Campbell started at Essex in April?   I have read reports of him at The Country Club well into May.  Could it be he was hired in April but would not settle in Essex until June.  

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TEPaul,

Funny take on that, but I believe the article said "at the Kennels" not "in the Kennels" "At the Kennels" shows up quite often and seems to have been a shorthand way of referring to the Hamilton location.  

I suppose one could say that the club apparently did have a "kennel" of sorts for the single men in the main house.  It was reportedly called "The Raving Ward" and consisted of rows of beds like a hospital ward.  As of 1894, that was apparently where Bush, Francis , and other members stayed.

As for the "three months" it would take to lay out the course, did that information come from Weeks history book or the club records themselves? Because there are multiple reports that the course had only been laid out for a short time by the opening, including the one report above indicating that as of mid-1894 it had not even yet been laid out.  

[Tom MacWood]

Travis
According to the book you just linked the hunt season at Myopia ran from Labor day until the first frost, which was normally around December 1. So you are right they could have been at Hamilton in early winter.

TEP
Leeds must not have disliked the press that much since he kept a scrap book. The Boston newspapers followed his every move, and I'm guessing he provided some of the information. Mr. Parker mentioned in the first blurb was Leeds male companion.

[Tom MacWood]

David
Campbell started at Brookline (The Country Club) in April....that first day was at Brookline.

[DMoriarty]

Also Travis, it is not a matter of whether they "could" have gone to Hamilton, for they certainly could have.  The question is, did they?    And for most of them it sounds like a trip out there in winter would have been a bit unusual for that time of year.  

Why do you doubt the accounts that indicate that course was not laid out until shortly before the opening, and that it still had not been laid out as of mid May?  


Note that most of your suggested reasons for them to have gone out there don't apply in this case.   The year in question is 1894, and the club was well established at Hamilton by then.  While the land was not purchased until 1891, they had been leasing the facilities for may years.  They had hunted at the Hamilton location for more than a decade, and had built the kennels a dozen years before.   And the old farmhouse was their clubhouse, so they had a place to stay.  Some of them already had "summer seats" in the area.  

And you are right I don't know the men, and neither do you.  All we have to go by are the facts available to us.  And thus far the facts available to us apparently contradict the conclusions from Myopia's history book, and indicate that Willie Campbell laid out the course, probably sometime in May 1894.  

If there are facts out there that say otherwise, I haven't seen them.  Have you?  
 

[Travis Dewire]

Nopppe,

I lost my mind there, haha

I was just saying that there is no reason to deny that they couldn't have been there in the winter

[Mike Cirba]

David,

Too funny...where do you think S Hamilton is in relation to Boston? 

A summer resort?!  Sheesh...you guys really need to get out from behind your computers.

I'm serious.

[TEPaul]

"TEP
Leeds must not have disliked the press that much since he kept a scrap book. The Boston newspapers followed his every move, and I'm guessing he provided some of the information."


There are a number of people still at Myopia or thereabouts who remember seeing the Leeds scrapbook that Weeks refers to and from which he quoted or referred to in his 1975 Myopia centennial history book. It was apparently more of a diary than something in which he put newspaper clippings or whatever. As such I view it as a potential motherload of valuable information on his ideas on golf and his travels to do with such as well as the evolution of Myopia's golf course etc.

From your #485 it seems you think the Run Book was Leeds Scrapbook or vice versa as it seems you assumed (or mistakenly assumed I said) that the Run Book was lost. It's the Leeds Scrapbook that appears to be lost.

[DMoriarty]

David,

Too funny...where do you think S Hamilton is in relation to Boston? 

A summer resort?!  Sheesh...you guys really need to get out from behind your computers.

I'm serious.

As usual your attempt to portray others as fools backfires squarely on you.  I know where Hamilton is in relation to Boston.  In 1894 Hamilton was very much a summer place, and where some the well-off had their "summer seats" or their "summer cottages."   

"Resort" is your description not mine.

[Tom MacWood]

David,

Too funny...where do you think S Hamilton is in relation to Boston?  

A summer resort?!  Sheesh...you guys really need to get out from behind your computers.

I'm serious.

TEP
Will you please explain to Mike the history of the different blueblood summer colonies both north, south, east and west of Boston - the Boston North Shore, Bar Harbor, Newport, Dark Harbor, Berkshires, etc? Don't the old money wealthy typically go north in the summer and south in the winter?

[Tom MacWood]

Nopppe,

I lost my mind there, haha

I was just saying that there is no reason to deny that they couldn't have been there in the winter

That is true, and there is no reason why they couldn't have been deep-sea diving in Massachusetts Bay looking for sea monsters.

[Travis Dewire]

Right....

But it doesn't seem that crazy to travel the <30 miles to Hamilton, even in Winter

[Mike Cirba]

'''Especially if one was assigned to a subcommittee charged in early spring with bringing golf to the club in the coming season.

Unless of course one's responsibilities as Master of the Hounds.was simply a summer gig as well.

There's about as much chance of finding a sea monster than finding the truth here on this thread because it is less about considering evidence of actual events than propagandizing for another itinerant early pro in an effort to tweak Tom Paul.

[Tom MacWood]

Travis
What makes you think the course was built in the winter? All the evidence points to the course being built in the spring: the annual meeting in mid-March, the report in May the course was yet be laid out, the reports in June the course was coming to fruition.

Mike
That is interesting speculation. Do you have any evidence support it? There are at least three contemporaneous reports (from three different sources) stating Campbell laid out Myopia. There are similar reports stating Campbell laid out the courses at Myopia's sister clubs The Country Club and Essex County during the same timeframe. I'm not sure why you continue to argue the point without any evidence to the contrary.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

Didn't you read the April 15 and June 10 articles I posted a few days ago?

[Tom MacWood]

Mike
I don't think so...I was too busy propagandizing another itinerant early pro. Why don't you repost them.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

Don't let me stop you$  .

[Tom MacWood]

That's what I thought.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

The articles are only a few pages back...I'm not at a computer today or I'd repoat for you.

Just be willing to consider the whole story....I don't see it as mutually exclusive.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TMac,

I won't get into this, because I am the Sgt. Shultz of this topic...."I know nothink!"  But I am tending to agree with Mike C that somehow both the members and WC had some input, with Campbell perhaps "laying out" and building the greens on the ground, since pros were brought over to do triple duty in those days, and just getting it done seemed to be the order of the day back then.

I did spend some time reading the early pages of this thread last night (insomnia) and wanted to thank you for your earlier research and writings on Willie C.  He was quite a fascinating character.

Two questions came to mind in reading your research.  First, would his tendency to challenge the Open winners to later matches and then embarrass them be considered "sporting" in those days?  Did that affect his reputation?

And possibly related, why was he relegated so soon (five or six years max) to the "lowly" public courses after working at high end clubs?  Did they let him go as his energy sapped from early stages of cancer, because he continued some of his possibly abrasive ways (golf challenges?), or did he go willingly to promote public golf with his wife?

I didn't see anything in those quick reads discussing why he moved to Franklin Park, but I may have missed it.  Thanks in advance.

[TEPaul]

Jeffrey:

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say Willie Campbell embarrassed Open winners by challenging them or that he may've been relegated to a public course (I suppose you mean what he did with Franklin Park).

Those early exhibition matches between the good early Scottish professionals in America beginning in the early 1890s were actually the events which served to truly spark interest in the game of golf with Americans. They afforded the opportunity for those who were first learning the game over here to see how it was played by the best.

And as far as Campbell being relegated to a public course (Franklin Park) I seriously doubt that. Obviously Campbell was a guy who was doing all kinds of things with golf following his arrival in the spring of 1894 and up until he died young in 1900 (aged thirty eight or so). There is no question in my mind that when we was encouraged to come over here (presumably by Washington B. Thomas of The Country Club) it would've been natural for Thomas and his friends in early golf in Boston (the likes of Laurence Curtis, Hunnewell, Bacon, Windelar, Leeds, Appleton etc, etc) to help the guy out by using him and his services such as to teach the game, perhaps supply clubs and balls and do some golf architecture as well as playing exhibitions with other really good Scottish immigrant professionals.

I cannot imagine that Campbell could've been able to do what he did with the numerous clubs he had something to do with or even Franklin Park without the help, politically and financially, of the people in Boston who were socially powerful back then and newly interested in golf. All those people from the early clubs of TCC, Essex, Myopia etc knew one another anyway. And actually many of those prominent early golfers at those clubs used Franklin Park anyway and almost to the exclusion of others they used it so much in the beginning.

And then there is the incredibly interesting story about Campbell's wife, Georgina! She came over here a few years after Willie but her story and history with golf in this country is incredible in a specific aspect----eg she survived Willie by nearly fifty years, she may've been the first woman professional in this country, and perhaps in the world, she ran Franklin Park for years, she was a constant and excellent teacher and one could not possibly deny that the woman was truly loved and admired in golf around Boston for many years.

If American golf and particularly American woman's professional golf has a true "God Mother," in my opinion, and in the opinion of others, it would very arguably be Willie Campbell's wife and widow, Georgina Campbell.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

Go back to early pages of this thread and TMac posted an artile showing that WC finished second in many majors in GBI before coming here but was in the habit of challenging the victor to a rematch, and according to the reports would be them by large margins.

While some say that enhanced his reputation, I simply wonder if his reputation would be damaged for not being able to play when the official stakes were high, but could play later when motivated by money and revenge.

I also still question why he departed the country club set and agree they may have been generous benefactors, perhaps setting him up at the public job when his strength no longer afforded him the ability to meet their needs, and thus taking care of one of their own, but perhaps it was too depressing to see him around their places when his cancer struck.  Just speculation, but I don't have the impression that disease was handled all that well socially in those days.  They tended to pack troubles away to homes, asylums, etc. rather than face the awkwardness of dealing with a sick individual.  A gross generalization, I know.

[TEPaul]

Jeffrey:

One really good new source of information on the details of the early and earliest days of golf in America and particularly in Massachussets is John de St. Jorre's new book "The Story of Golf at The Country Club" (published in 2009). It goes into the very first days of golf here and in Boston with a liberal offering of some personal reminiscences of the first to develop it there as well as enough about them and who they were. It also goes into the experiences of Willie and Georgina Campbell too.

It's a good source of information and very well and logically presented but knowing MacWood, when he gets a look at it, he will probably declare it too to be a work of largely fiction as he did the books of Tolhurst on Merion and Weeks on Myopia. They are not examples of and the purveyors of fiction with early golf and those early clubs----Tom MacWood is, in my opinion. He may find a few heretofore not well remembered newspaper snippets from back then but his problem is, and always has been, he then tries to make far too much out of them and who they mention.

I suppose he does that because he figures they must be his discoveries and he just tends to exaggerate and completely overblow them and their historical significance. And then of course it sure would help if he would ever actually research the records of some of these clubs to see how and why some of those newspaper snippets he finds don't exactly square with the records of those clubs from back then. But on the latter, don't hold your breath; I'm sure not going to hold mine.  

[TEPaul]

"While some say that enhanced his reputation, I simply wonder if his reputation would be damaged for not being able to play when the official stakes were high, but could play later when motivated by money and revenge."


Jeffrey:

Whatever Campbell's history and reputation was over in the old country with other good professional golfers I doubt translated over here to the earliest days and people in Boston. They probably weren't even aware of it and if they were I doubt they would care. What Campbell did over here was a new world for him and the others like him who were the early immigrant professionals essentially showing the Americans how to play the game because so few of them had ever been aware of it before.

And there was very much a massive social divide over here then, particularly in the world of golf with the likes of TCC, Essex, Myopia etc that Campbell first plied. I know and understand that that historical aspect is both unattractive and perhaps bothersome to most of us today but it was a reality that we just can't deny if we want to be competent and credible historians of that age and area in American golf.

Certainly not all of those types were outright elitists or snobs or whatever we want to call them but some sure were. The worst I have ever heard of that way was actually Herbert C. Leeds. He made absolutely zero bones about it or even any excuses for it and that too is very much part of the history of Myopia----they do not deny it at all. I don't believe they necessarily agree with it but they recognize at least it was an historical reality.

But I doubt that has a thing to do with why Weeks' book never mentioned Campbell because it sure does mention lovingly a number of other Scottish immigrant professional golfers who worked for the club for years. And it does not deny the fact that Campbell probably did do something to help Myopia with its original nine in the spring of 1894; but apparently not something that was significant enough to the club to mention in their administrative records of the time (a club like Myopia did not exactly have to read a newspaper account of what they were doing to inform them of how to understand and accurately record what they actually were doing ), and certainly considering that before Campbell got to America, Appleton, Merrill and Gardner had already staked out and measured the club's first attempt at nine holes of golf.

[Niall C]

Jeff/Tom P,

I've just zoned into the last page of this thread and the discussion on Willie Campbell and his status. In the early 1890's Willie Campbell was a prominent figure in Scottish golf (for that read world golf at the time), particularly in the west of Scotland where he and Willie Fernie were battling it out in a friendly fashion to see who could beat who at matchplay, who could beat who at strokeplay and who could layout/design the most courses. Strokeplay comps in those days weren't the be all and end all that they are now. Back then they were an excuse for pro's to gather and participate in money matches beforehand and after. Willie Campbell, like Willie Park, was adept at issuing challenges and winning more than he lost. That I would suggest would have formed a fair bit of his income.

My impression from those times there wasn't really the specialisation in jobs that later evolved and the likes of Willie played the game, taught the game, layed out and built courses and tended them. No doubt the later being the harder work which might account for Willie's itinerant nature.

In the recent book about Tom Morris there is plenty of excellent background about golf in general in those days (including some background info on Willie Campbel if memory serves me right) and how Old Tom was something of a one man employment agency, referring job opportunities to various St Andrews luminaries such as WC. Whether Willie was of the right social status to get an invite to dinner to the Leeds residence is neither here nor there IMHO. What mattered was his golfing know how and in that regard he is likely to have had Myopias respect.

With regards to the administrative records, was Myopia a new club and if so how good would the records have been back then ?

Niall