[PCCraig]

About 4 months ago I came across a copy of Golf in America: The First One Hundred Years by George Peper and the Editors of Golf Magazine at a charity book sale. In in I was pleased to come across a neat essay by Tom Doak called "The Course of Architecture."

In reading the essay, I came across an interesting point in which Tom claims points out that Oakmont was America's first "Milestone" golf course. However, I wasn't entirely sold on his reasoning;

"America's first milestone course was the Oakmont Country Club outside Pittsburgh, founded in 1903 by Henry and William Fownes, whose philosophy of design was stated emphatically: 'A poorly played shot...should be a shot irrevocably lost.' Since William Fownes's standard of what constituted a well-played shot was very high, his Oakmont layout was an extreme test of golf. In its heyday, the Oakmont eighteen included narrow fairways, about 220 bunkers, 21 drainage ditches, sharply tilted greens maintained at breakneck speed, and more length than any course of its day, because Fownes anticipated the acceptance of the livelier Haskell ball. Oakmont spawned a wave of early courses that imitated its penal philosophy."

So would you agree with Tom's assessment with Oakmont being the first "Milestone" course built in America over places such as Chicago Golf Club, Newport, Myopia Hunt, The Country Club, and Maidstone? Does a course have to be hard to be considering a "milestone?"

[Adam Clayman]

Yes, because it focuses on difficulty.
 Since Tom builds courses that can be both fun and difficult, I'd submit the subtext is a negative one regarding the milestone. After all, wasn't that the crux of the Confidential Guide that American golf had taken a wrong turn?

[Tom_Doak]

Pat:

Nice find!  Did you ever wonder when you write something whether people 20 years later will take it so seriously? 

I don't think I meant to say that every "milestone" course [a term that never caught on] had to be a hard one, just that Oakmont's toughness and attitude made it one.  Out of the other courses you listed which predated Oakmont, only Myopia could really be considered an important milestone as far as golf architecture is concerned ... and Oakmont has had far greater long-term impact, if not short-term.

Adam:

I never said American golf had taken a wrong turn as early as 1903.

[Bill_McBride]

Adam:

I never said American golf had taken a wrong turn as early as 1903.

Given the rudimentary and geometric designs of most pre-1900 courses, almost everything after that had to be a right turn, at least until after WW ii.

[Adam Clayman]

Tom, I never said you said. Plus, I never read the book. It's the impression I've had about the subtext from the first time i'd heard about the book.

Wasn't it Behr who started saying it the 20's?

Good one Ace!

[PCCraig]

Pat:

Nice find!  Did you ever wonder when you write something whether people 20 years later will take it so seriously? 

I don't think I meant to say that every "milestone" course [a term that never caught on] had to be a hard one, just that Oakmont's toughness and attitude made it one.  Out of the other courses you listed which predated Oakmont, only Myopia could really be considered an important milestone as far as golf architecture is concerned ... and Oakmont has had far greater long-term impact, if not short-term.

Tom-

To think I found the book for $2 at the Newbury Library's annual charity book sale!

Do you mind explaining why Myopia would be considered more architecturally significant at the time than Chicago Golf Club?

I think the way I initially read your article, I read it as you thought Oakmont was the first course built in the States that could compete architecturally with the great courses of the British Isles.

And when you mention above that Oakmont had a greater long term impact, do you mean in that it was the first course in the US to successfully institute a "parkland" style layout and to get away from trying to replicate the great links courses like many of the early courses tried to do on this side of the pond?

[Tom_Doak]

Pat:

I don't think the original Chicago Golf Club was considered that great of a golf course ... it was influential only because Macdonald was influential, and because it was in the "west".  Indeed, Macdonald himself did not seem to consider it influential; he never spoke of it in those terms when he was doing the planning for The National.

As to Oakmont, I'm not sure that its stark, treeless design was really that much of a clean break from the aesthetics of Scotland ... I just said it had more long-term impact because it's stayed relevant for more than 100 years, which Myopia has not.  Hard to say which of them had more impact in their day.  Both were Open venues, but Myopia was abandoned as a championship site fairly early on; I don't know if that was just that Fownes pulled more weight than Leeds.

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