Was Charles Blair Macdonald really the father of Golf Architecture in America

[TEPaul]

David Moriarty:

Let me just say this, and if you really consider it carefully, I think it can serve to get us off the dime of this constant adverserialness on here, at least about C.B. Macdonald and what his career was all about not just in and of itself but how it may've affected other architects and their approach at the time and afterwards----at the very least in an architecturally "symbolic" sense----ie Man as the ultimate Creator of GCA or Land (Nature itself) as the ultimate Creator or canvas.

I just reread the first page and a half of that six year old thread of yours "Re: Did Macdonald 'Jump the Shark' with The Lido?" and I can very clearly see how your primary point was pretty much misundertood as most of the rest of us (not all to some extent but most of us) sort of compartmentalized the thread into other points or subjects or Sub-subjects that didn't have much to do with your point. Some seemed to understand your point or premise but just rejected it out-of-hand fairly quickly.

Your first post really wasn't bad at all or misleading at all (with my recent rereading) as you claimed it may've been on your post #33. That post (#33) was very clear as to what you were trying to say.

I think this (that thread) is a large and fascinating and very important subject and I think it should be reprised (or restarted on another thread) and thoroughly discussed on here.

The irony may be that even though I apparently missed your point in that thread six years ago I don't think I am missing its point now, and I also believe I pretty much completely agree with the point you really were trying to make on that thread.

Frankly, I don't think it even matters if no golf course like a Lido was done again for the next half century; it occurs to me that the fact The Lido happened the way it did very well may've turned much of the Golden Age and some of its most signficant architects down a road that was essentially the opposite of Lido and that may even explain some of Macdonald's later discontent with the things he saw around him into the 1920s and beyond! 

[DMoriarty]

1.  I never claimed you guys were the first to call him arrogant.  Rather, I wrote that your guys have never bothered to back up or support your long continuing gossip and innuendo about his supposed character flaws.  See Wayne's "Macdonald's Gift: Golf" post in the Lido thread, for example. 

2.  My take on Wayne's recent email (and the insults and cheap shots it contained, especially at the end) is a bit different than yours.  Nonetheless, while it is none of your business, I did respond to him and invited continued dialogue so long as it was civil.   He declined the invitation.

3.  Last night you were ranting against me, insulting me, trashing my efforts on the old thread, harassing me via private email despite my requests that you leave me alone, and demanding that I be kicked off the website, and threatening to leave if I was not kicked off.  This morning you want to rehash this six year old discussion as if things are peachy keen?   No thanks.

[V. Kmetz]

I think the last post for this thread should come not from me, or from any other actors, but from JC Urbina who posted the original inquiring thread; something like...

"Well JC, you've seen it from all corners and watched it played in many winds...what do you now think about the question you posed?"

[john_stiles]

 
Based on what was in CBM's rear view mirror, the date he started his GCA, and his accomplishments, I am agreeing with HW Wind.

[Mac Plumart]

Vinnie...

I wanted to thank you for your post #38.

Right about the time this thread started my Scotlands Gift arrived in the mail.  I'd previously read your post and thought it was good, as are all your posts.  But as I began reading the book and especially that chapter on his time in St. Andrews and then his returning home to nothing but garbage golf courses...your post really hit home with me.

I can't imagine being so deeply in love with golf, being in the home of golf, playing with others who love the game as much as you, and then going somewhere where there is no golf to speak of.  I would be crushed, depressed, and in agony.  As I imagine CB MacDonald was...and your post really hit home on that one.

Terriffic work.  And I mean this sincerely, I think reading your post while at the same time reading Scotlands Gift opened up my eyes to how fortunate I am to be in such a golfing mecca and  have all these opportunities to play this great game at almost anytime I want.

It is truly a blessing.

Thanks!!!

As an FYI to all GCA'ers...there is a 99% chance that I will have an unfilled spot in a foursome at East Lake the 3rd of December.  Pop me an private message if anyone has interest.  The spot has now been filled...FYI.

Anyway...that is all.

[TEPaul]

JohnS:

Interesting what you just said there. I was rereading Herbert Warren Wind's Forward in the Classic Books reprint of C.B. Macdonald's 1928 autobiography, "Scotland's Gift Golf" and I believe he definitely summed up in seven pages CBM's life and times a whole lot better than anyone on this website ever has, but then again, none of us are a Herbert Warren Wind.