Link Between Old Tom Morris and C B Macdonald

[Anthony Gray]

As Bill alluded to and provided the link, according to CBM in Scotland's Gift,  CBM met Old Tom his 2nd day in St Andrew's when his grandfather took him to Old Tom's shop and set him up with a locker and some clubs before his first round on the Old Course. 

  Dan,

  Thank You.

  Anthony

[Anthony Gray]

I thought this was a pretty good article when I originally saw it.  Anthony, I hope you can find time to read this.

http://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/Article/Charles-Blair-Macdonald/1047/Default.aspx

  Read it. THank you John it was what I was looking for.

  Anthony

[TEPaul]

Anthony:

What Dan Moore said there! You know what this means, don't you?

[Anthony Gray]

Anthony:

What Dan Moore said there! You know what this means, don't you?

  I'll be waiting for you on your second day at St Andrews. Can't wait to carry your clubs!!

  Anthony

[TEPaul]

No, it means there is no question at all that OTM is the driving force behind ALL good American golf course architecture and there is no question at all that it is OTM and not Macdonald who should be considered the architect of Merion East!

[Anthony Gray]

No, it means there is no question at all that OTM is the driving force behind ALL good American golf course architecture and there is no question at all that it is OTM and not Macdonald who should be considered the architect of Merion East!

  Thanks Captain...............I have always wanted to author a 100 page thread.


   Anthony

[TEPaul]

"I have always wanted to author a 100 page thread."


Go for it Anthony but I suggest you first write and In My Opinion piece with a title such as "The OTM Faces of Merion."

Kind of makes them sound like some type of cash machine, don't you think?

[Anthony Gray]

  Well Old Tom was responsible for bringing golf to Chicago. Any intelligent golfer from the second city should have great respect and admiration for Old Tom if they know anything about golf.

  Anthony

[Rich Goodale]

Rich, I haven't picked the book up in a while, but weren't a number of the matches written about in the newspapers and included in the book?

Andy

I haven't read the book in years, either, but as I remember CBM's accounts they showed only tangential "matches", i.e. stroke play rounds where both competed but not, as I recollect, together.  As I also recollect, CBM rarely came within 20 strokes of OTM or YTM, which would be logical as he was then very much a beginner.  Anybody who has Macdonald's magnum opus at hand, please enlighten us.

Rich

[Melvyn Morrow]

Tom P

At last, you now know who was behind Merion. It is totally down to the design concepts laid down by OTM, wow, don’t you just want to be part of his family.

First via CBM learning all about golf from the Old Master & his gifted son, then HW due to copying many of OTM ideas when he visited GB&I in 1912. Yes, I see, well I could follow that, I suppose.

So after 100 plus pages, as you have confirmed it was all really down to OT. Pity as I thought it may well have been down to HW & his Committee but clearly they just looked after the construction of the course. That’s all they did, nothing more, again I presume that is the point which you are stating formally, to the world at large. Great Merion history being re-written thanks to some obscure comment by Mr. A Gray, what a find, well done all, great post and a conclusion to boot, just what is happening to GCA.com?

What a small world we live in - I’m not talking about the physical size of our planet but the mental size of some of the minds on GCA.com.   

Melvyn

[Garland Bayley]

...  Anybody who has "S of St. A" at hand, please enlighten us.

Rich

Why would Dr. Mac be documenting OTM, YTM, and CBM matches?

[Anthony Gray]

  Does enybody else find it fascinating that the father of golf course architecture (Old Tom Morris) and the father of american golf and architecture are linked? I want to know more about their relatonship.

  Anthony




 

[Bill_McBride]

  Does enybody else find it fascinating that the father of golf course architecture (Old Tom Morris) and the father of american golf and architecture are linked? I want to know more about their relatonship.

  Anthony

The only first hand report is in "Scotland's Gift," a book you refuse to buy or read.

[Dan Moore]

  Does enybody else find it fascinating that the father of golf course architecture (Old Tom Morris) and the father of american golf and architecture are linked? I want to know more about their relatonship.

  Anthony

 

I find it fascinating it took 2,328 posts to make that connection.  

For some reason this post reminds me of this video with St Andrew's as the bone and Merion as the ship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrdCC9ZHhwY

[TEPaul]

"Does enybody else find it fascinating that the father of golf course architecture (Old Tom Morris) and the father of american golf and architecture are linked? I want to know more about their relatonship."


Anthony:

Fascinating in what way? Do you mean fascinating in the sense that it is something that WE are just beginning to learn or former generations did not realize?

If that's what you mean, I don't think so. I think that is something that has always been known and if some of us really interested in this subject today never knew it before we should have.

The truly fascinating thing to me, anyway, is in many, many ways he really was unique both to what came before him and even what came after him for a time that was arguably longer than most of us today can imagine!

There is no real mystery in what OTM meant to early golf and golfers, that's for sure. If you look at him historically squarely and accurately you may even find he was more central to the beginnings of organizational golf itself and its rise and its coming spread and popularity than he was to golf course architecture.

But, and this is a big one; OTM as truly unique as he was may've paled by a factor of a hundred or a thousand or even ten thousand to the real engine behind the rise and spread and popularity of golf and even architecture in his own age and era. Oh course I'm referring to the Industrial Revolution in GB, the Continent and America and the consequent blanketing of all of them by the oncoming railways systems of OTM's time.

Those latter two things did more for golf's rise and spread and popularity and golf architecture's permeating understanding than any single man or group of them ever did or ever could.

Naturally, we can't diminish the importance of the massive developmental change in the latter half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century of oceanic travel.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I have a new marketing plan. I will advertise that I channel OTM and have someone hide behind the curtains telling them in a ghostly voice what I want to design.  Old Tom will say, "Use bunker liners, ya old galloooot! I aaaalwaws wanted perfectttt lies!"

[Anthony Gray]

  Does enybody else find it fascinating that the father of golf course architecture (Old Tom Morris) and the father of american golf and architecture are linked? I want to know more about their relatonship.

  Anthony

The only first hand report is in "Scotland's Gift," a book you refuse to buy or read.

  Bill,

  I had 7 surgical extractions today, when I got home I spent two hours walking around the block following my two year old on her tricycle. It is on my list of things to do beleive me. What is the big secret?

   Anthony

[Anthony Gray]

  Tom Paul,

  Fascinating in that was it fate? How did OTM affect CBM? Did CBM say to himself one day I want to be the american OTM? Did CBM have a vision of the future american golf early in his life? Se Ri Pak wins a major and now look at weomens golf. Did OTM influence CBM the same way? Did CBM ever mention to his friends his times with OTM? Doesn't Tom Doak post about his times spent with PD?

  Anthony

[Bill_McBride]

  Does enybody else find it fascinating that the father of golf course architecture (Old Tom Morris) and the father of american golf and architecture are linked? I want to know more about their relatonship.

  Anthony

The only first hand report is in "Scotland's Gift," a book you refuse to buy or read.

  Bill,

  I had 7 surgical extractions today, when I got home I spent two hours walking around the block following my two year old on her tricycle. It is on my list of things to do beleive me. What is the big secret?

   Anthony

Just kidding, get the books for your golf architecture library and read them when you get a free moment.  You won't be sorry.

[Anthony Gray]

  Here is a list of ones that were inducted to the World Golf Hall of Fame in years prior to C B Macdonald's induction in 2007.

  John Jacobs
  Neil Coles
  Sir Michael Bonallack
  Deane Beman
  Karsten Solheim
  Harvey Penick
  Marlene Stewart Streit
  Bernard Darwin
  Mark McCormack
  Garland Bayley



  All deserving I'm sure,but how could their contributions be recognized before those of CBM.

  Anthony

  Does this fascinate enybody?

  Anthony

[TEPaul]

"Tom Paul,

  Fascinating in that was it fate? How did OTM affect CBM? Did CBM say to himself one day I want to be the american OTM? Did CBM have a vision of the future american golf early in his life? Se Ri Pak wins a major and now look at weomens golf. Did OTM influence CBM the same way? Did CBM ever mention to his friends his times with OTM? Doesn't Tom Doak post about his times spent with PD?

  Anthony"



Anthony:

Slow down buddy, sit in your dentist chair if you have to and tell your sec to clear the patients for the day. Take some relaxation drugs if you have to; smoke some dope if you have any; meditate or medicate, whatever, or best yet call me on the phone and I'll straigthen you out!

Don't try to squash the virtual understanding of all this stuff into some Blue Thunder Moment. All this stuff took about a hundred and fifty years to evolve as it did and we just need to appreciate it. But look, Tony, I think I can feel what you might be going through at the moment with what might be perhaps a Uber revelation. It happened to me back in '98 as I was passing Exit 7a on the New Jersey turnpike and it hit me so hard I swerved off the road and I think I killed some God-danged stray cat who had the dumb or damn sense to be near the NJ turnpike when a guy like me was having his first golf architectural or Ideal maintenance Meld Blue Thunderbolt Revelation.

[Rich Goodale]

...  Anybody who has "S of St. A" at hand, please enlighten us.

Rich

Why would Dr. Mac be documenting OTM, YTM, and CBM matches?

I think I read in one of the Merion threads that Macdonald actually wrote "Spirit of St. Andrews" as well as "Scotland's Gift," but I may have been wrong....

Oh yes, and I'm still waiting to hear of any independent corroboration/verification of Macdonald's relationship with the old and young Toms.....

[Bill Brightly]

It happened to me back in '98 as I was passing Exit 7a on the New Jersey turnpike and it hit me so hard I swerved off the road and I think I killed some God-danged stray cat who had the dumb or damn sense to be near the NJ turnpike when a guy like me was having his first golf architectural or Ideal maintenance Meld Blue Thunderbolt Revelation.

And then Tom exited the Turnpike at 7A, played Forsgate, felt the power of the Evangelist, and realized that Macdonald's influence was EVERYWHERE !!!  He tried to spread the word to his Philadelphia brethren. There were doubters like Wayne Morrison and Mike Cirba, but Tom knew the TRUTH!

[TEPaul]

"And then Tom exited the Turnpike at 7A, played Forsgate, felt the power of the Evangelist, and realized that Macdonald's influence was EVERYWHERE !!!"


BillB:

You know where I was coming from when I had that Blue Thunder revelation around Exit 7a and swerved and killed that New Jersey Turnpike frequenting cat?

Some on here seem to think I diss Macdonald. No way. I probably had more Macdonald in my early blood than anyone on here. I didn't play much golf until I was about 34 or 35 but when I did in Long Island as far as I can remember it was always on five courses---one Dick Wilson and four Macdonald's. So I would wager I grew up with more Macdonald than anyone on here.

I should amend that----eg only six courses, the other one was a Flynn.

[Anthony Gray]

  Tom Paul,

 What a charmed life. When I was a kid the only time I went to Macdonalds was for a birthday or after I pitched a no-hitter in little leage. Loved the happy meals.

  Anthony