North Shore CC Long Island: Tillie - Raynor

[TEPaul]

"Was Pickering ever hired to design a golf course?"


That may be a fairly decent question. It seems to me you tried to make the point ON HERE some years ago that it must have been Fred Pickering who designed the course at Heartwellville, Vermont that has always been attributed as William Flynn's first design.

Do you deny trying to make that point on here some time ago, claiming that at the time William Flynn may've been too young or too inexperienced to have been capable of designing a golf course? This appears to be the very same logic mantra you tried to ply on here endlessly with the likes of David Moriaty about Hugh Wilson and Merion East!  

It seems to me that the impression most on here have gotten from you two dimwits with that particular illogical mantra is just how much the two of you fail to appreciate that everyone starts somewhere and with some of the early architects their first foray into golf course architecture was extremely impressive and enduring-----including some of the most significant golf architecture in history!  

Really strange, isn't it, what some NOVICES are capable of? 

[TEPaul]

"And White was more than the run of the mill professional he was elected the first president of PGA of American in 1916, and was founder of the American Society of GC Architects."



Yes, Robert White was one of the founding members of the ASGCA, but in that case it may be you comparing apples to oranges since the ASGCA was not founded in the teens (North Shore was designed in 1914-15), it was founded in 1947. Are you aware of something called a "TIMELINE" in historical research?  


There actually was an attempt to form a professional golf course architect association in the teens and early 1920s but for various reasons it never got off the ground. If you got off your lazy ass and did some of your own research instead of depending on me to hand you everything on a silver platter you may even be able to see some interesting reference to it from the likes of Alan Wilson in the early 1920s!  

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
You have a very poor memory. I've always contended Hartwellville was designed by Alex Findlay.

Please show some self control. If you want add something of substance on North Shore, feel free, but based on your last four posts in succession I'm woried you are going to ruin a good thread.

[Tom MacWood]

Here is a before and after of the 10th at North Shore, the Eden. Is this typical of a Raynor Eden?

[TEPaul]

"TEP
You have a very poor memory. I've always contended Hartwellville was designed by Alex Findlay.

Please show some self control. If you want add something of substance on North Shore, feel free, but based on your last four posts in succession I'm woried you are going to ruin a good thread."



I'm sorry about that. You're absolutely right, and I stand corrected; you did say that you contend Alex Findlay designed Heartwellville even if I don't recall you producing, as usual, any cogent evidence to support that fact. I believe Heartwellville felt it was designed by William Flynn.

I'd be glad to add something of substance to this North Shore thread.

On your last post you showed to photos of NS's 10th hole and asked if it was represeentative of Raynor Eden holes. I would say it is representative of Eden holes he was involved with which include Piping Rock (1913) and The Creek (1923), both of which he worked on with Macdonald.

You probably wouldn't need to ask that question if you'd ever actually seen these courses and those holes but since you seem uninclined to establish a relationship with these clubs you seem so interested in the architectural history of, apparently you'll never be able to know such things first-hand.  
 
 

[Jerry Kluger]

Could I ask a couple of questions?

Presuming that White did the construction and Raynor did the design, what exactly was CBM's role and where can it be seen.  Also, what other courses were CBM and Raynor working on at that time - I don't necessarily mean together. Thanks

[Phil_the_Author]

Jerry,

The only mention found in which CBM is mentioned is this:

"On March 12, 1916, at the Club’s Annual Meeting, the President, Henry Calman, noted that the links were now complete with the exception of some bunkers and traps and that the course should be opening by Decoration Day. He said the results are the product of the deep thought of Robert White, our greens expert, Seth Raynor, the leading golf architect in the United States and Charles B. Macdonald, the recognized authority among amateurs on golf course construction and the well considered work of our Greens Committee. He went on to state that although the Board appropriated $37,00.00 for the work, the work will not exceed $32,000.00."

There is no other time that his name has come up in any document, article or anywhere else that has been found so far. Therefor there is no way to determine exactly what his involvement was at this point.

[Jerry Kluger]

Philip: Are there any features in the design which appear to be the work of CBM?  How much of the original course remains? Tom Doak said it was not one of Raynor's better designs and is there a reason for that - did the greens committee influence the design which resulted in shall we say a more restrained design?

[Phil_the_Author]

George Bahto or Tom could answer that question far better than I. Hopefully they will. I would think, though, that it would take a VERY trained eye to see any. The course is now more than 90 years old and the designer was the man who had been building courses for CBM. So is it that some of the details in the CBM designs were the product of Raynor's sculpting hands? That is why I think identifying CBM features become very difficult in this case... especially as CBM is only mentioned this one time in a very non-specific way.

[Tom MacWood]

Could I ask a couple of questions?

Presuming that White did the construction and Raynor did the design, what exactly was CBM's role and where can it be seen.  Also, what other courses were CBM and Raynor working on at that time - I don't necessarily mean together. Thanks

That's a damn good question. It seems like his involvement is being brushed aside as well. The fact that they went out of their way to mention him is noteworthy.

[Tom MacWood]

I found these other examples of Raynor's Eden (on Ran's profiles). How do these holes compare and contrast to NS's?

[TEPaul]

"That's a damn good question. It seems like his involvement is being brushed aside as well. The fact that they went out of their way to mention him is noteworthy."


Macdonald's involvement was brushed aside as well? Brushed aside by whom? Where does this kind of commentary from you come from anyway?

Macdonald's involvement wasn't brushed aside at all; it was presented on here precisely the way the club's president presented it, and the good researchers who recently found this important material did not engage in a ton of unsupportable and tortured speculation about what any of it means, as you've engaged in and continue to engage in with White.


"On March 12, 1916, at the Club’s Annual Meeting, the President, Henry Calman, noted that the links were now complete with the exception of some bunkers and traps and that the course should be opening by Decoration Day. He said the results are the product of the deep thought of Robert White, our greens expert, Seth Raynor, the leading golf architect in the United States and Charles B. Macdonald, the recognized authority among amateurs on golf course construction and the well considered work of our Greens Committee. He went on to state that although the Board appropriated $37,00.00 for the work, the work will not exceed $32,000.00."


Raynor was hired to produce a design for a fee, White was hired per annum as a construction foreman/greenkeeper and Macdonald apparently did some consulting along with his protege Raynor as a non-paid amateur consultant.

That is directly from the president of the club in 1916 and in my opinion that is the way North Shore and their new owner, Mr. Zucker, should present the architectural history of the course in 1914-16. Hopefully, they will just ignore the unsupportable and tortured speculations of someone like you, including your remark that Macdonald's involvement was in some way brushed aside by someone.  

[Tom_Doak]

Tom MacWood:

Your photo comparisons are interesting but not particularly relevant, since I was responsible for all of the bunkers in two of the last four pictures.

Jerry K:

I could not begin to tell you what, if anything, was C.B. Macdonald's influence on North Shore, if he had any at all.  The club's minutes thanked him at the end, but other than that there is zero record of his involvement there, including in his own book ... I suspect he just gave them some fatherly advice when they contacted him, and told them to hire Raynor.  But even if he did make a site visit and give some instructions to Raynor or White or whomever, there is nobody alive who could tell you that.  George B. might have an opinion, but he would just be making it up. 

[TEPaul]

"The club's minutes thanked him at the end, but other than that there is zero record of his involvement there, including in his own book ... I suspect he just gave them some fatherly advice when they contacted him, and told them to hire Raynor."


TomD:

I've always found Macdonald's own description of the courses of his career a bit curious. By that I mean many think of Macdonald as a huge ego and perhaps a self-promoter but it seems to me by his own admission he really only gave serious personal attention to about a dozen regulation courses in his career, and even with some of those he seemed to gloss over them in his autobiography. I have a hunch on why he glossed over a few of them such as The Creek, and frankly I can't remember that he even mentioned his Shinnecock course.

[TEPaul]

"George B. might have an opinion, but he would just be making it up.     "


TomD:

That's OK; he sure wouldn't be the first. One time I was talking to Ken Bakst about the Flynn book and I think I mentioned I was having a hard time figuring out what to say (definitely not Wayne's problem  ) and Ken just said: "Well, then just make stuff up----everybody else does."  

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood:

Your photo comparisons are interesting but not particularly relevant, since I was responsible for all of the bunkers in two of the last four pictures.

What stands out to me is the free form bunker short of the green. Have you seen anything like that before with a Raynor Eden (or an Emmet Eden).

[Tom MacWood]

Raynor was hired to produce a design for a fee, White was hired per annum as a construction foreman/greenkeeper and Macdonald apparently did some consulting along with his protege Raynor as a non-paid amateur consultant.

That is directly from the president of the club in 1916 and in my opinion that is the way North Shore and their new owner, Mr. Zucker, should present the architectural history of the course in 1914-16. Hopefully, they will just ignore the unsupportable and tortured speculations of someone like you, including your remark that Macdonald's involvement was in some way brushed aside by someone.  

TEP
I take it you have dismissed Wayne's speculation that Flynn deserves co-design credit for Merion-West. To my knowledge there is no similar report at Merion that Flynn assisted in laying out the course like there is at NS. If you want to call that report speculation, feel free, I call it evidence.

As far as CBM's Macdonald's involvement it is interesting to read his quote about Raynor in his book. He seems to be saying in the book that Raynor went out on his own 1917. Should courses prior to 1917 be considered Macdonald/Raynor courses, is that a more accurate representation?

Not only do I think White and CBM are being given a short stick by you and others, Emmet the original designer is really being swept under the rug. I don't see him even mentioned in your quote above.

[Tom_Doak]

T Mac:

I agree that the free-form bunker in your picture of North Shore is very unusual for what we see of Raynor today.  [Is there a date on that picture?]

Then again, photos of the bunkers at High Pointe would not remind many people here of the courses of mine with which they are most familiar, even though I can personally assure you the High Pointe bunkers were my own design.  I just didn't have as much practice at building bunkers at the start of my career.

[Jerry Kluger]

Tom D: I really don't think George would be making it up if he gave an opinion concerning CBM's involvement in the design of NS. George's extensive research would certainly give him a credible opinion as to what type of people we are dealing with and if CBM would have given all the credit to Raynor even if he had done a significant portion of the design work.  We can see it today with respect to some of the most well known designers such as Pete Dye.  So I would agree that we will never be able to ask a living person what actually happened back then but there are accounts being written today concerning many events in history where there are opinions based upon known facts but they are accepted as educated opinions.

[TEPaul]

"TEP
I take it you have dismissed Wayne's speculation that Flynn deserves co-design credit for Merion-West. To my knowledge there is no similar report at Merion that Flynn assisted in laying out the course like there is at NS. If you want to call that report speculation, feel free, I call it evidence."



I think the key to the remark above is 'To my knowledge.'




"As far as CBM's Macdonald's involvement it is interesting to read his quote about Raynor in his book. He seems to be saying in the book that Raynor went out on his own 1917. Should courses prior to 1917 be considered Macdonald/Raynor courses, is that a more accurate representation?"



I doubt that was what Macdonald was saying about Raynor in 1917, therefore I don't think all courses done by Raynor before 1917 should be considered Macdonald/Raynor courses or would be a more accurate representation. I think the courses Macdonald gave considerable personal attention to are chronicled in his book. However, I have no doubt that Macdonald was more than willing to support Raynor's career and his projects at any time if he felt that was necessary, even though it appears he sort of allowed the cause of certain problems with a 1923 course to be assigned to what he called 'the engineer.'



"Not only do I think White and CBM are being given a short stick by you and others, Emmet the original designer is really being swept under the rug. I don't see him even mentioned in your quote above."



The important thing, in my opinion, is the way NS treats their own architectural history. From what I've seen from them recently it appears they now understand the first course was Emmet, the second was not Tillinghast but designed or redesigned by Raynor with Macdonald consulting and White acting in the capacity of the greenskeeper/construction foreman in 1914-1915. And it also appears they will leave alone the unsupportable speculations on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com of people such as yourself who it appears they don't take seriously. That makes sense to me as the proper way for NS to treat their architectural history.

[Tom MacWood]

"TEP
I take it you have dismissed Wayne's speculation that Flynn deserves co-design credit for Merion-West. To my knowledge there is no similar report at Merion that Flynn assisted in laying out the course like there is at NS. If you want to call that report speculation, feel free, I call it evidence."

I think the key to the remark above is 'To my knowledge.'

Let me rephrase that....there is no similar report at Merion stating Flynn laid out the West with Wilson. So based on your non-answer I think it is fair to say you have a double standard.


"As far as CBM's Macdonald's involvement it is interesting to read his quote about Raynor in his book. He seems to be saying in the book that Raynor went out on his own 1917. Should courses prior to 1917 be considered Macdonald/Raynor courses, is that a more accurate representation?"

I doubt that was what Macdonald was saying about Raynor in 1917, therefore I don't think all courses done by Raynor before 1917 should be considered Macdonald/Raynor courses or would be a more accurate representation. I think the courses Macdonald gave considerable personal attention to are chronicled in his book. However, I have no doubt that Macdonald was more than willing to support Raynor's career and his projects at any time if he felt that was necessary, even though it appears he sort of allowed the cause of certain problems with a 1923 course to be assigned to what he called 'the engineer.'

That is very interesting conjecture on your part, but its not based on the facts. In his book CBM chronicled the major projects prior to 1917, but there were also good number of courses we know he was involved with prior to 1917 that he did not mention, like Greenwich, Merion, Shinnecock and East Lake. The fact that he did not mention North Shore or Mountain Lake, should not be construed as an indication he was not involved.

"Not only do I think White and CBM are being given a short stick by you and others, Emmet the original designer is really being swept under the rug. I don't see him even mentioned in your quote above."

The important thing, in my opinion, is the way NS treats their own architectural history. From what I've seen from them recently it appears they now understand the first course was Emmet, the second was not Tillinghast but designed or redesigned by Raynor with Macdonald consulting and White acting in the capacity of the greenskeeper/construction foreman in 1914-1915. And it also appears they will leave alone the unsupportable speculations on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com of people such as yourself who it appears they don't take seriously. That makes sense to me as the proper way for NS to treat their architectural history.

Have you already forgotten about the report in the minutes metioning White assisting in the layout of the course prior to it being constructed, or are just ignoring it?

[TEPaul]

"Let me rephrase that....there is no similar report at Merion stating Flynn laid out the West with Wilson. So based on your non-answer I think it is fair to say you have a double standard."



Not at all. No double standard at all. We know about as precisely as is possible what Flynn did at Merion West and when. It has all been made part of Merion's record anyway but far more comprehensively recently by the years long dedicated research of Merion's architectural historian Wayne Morrison.

Despite that, however, I have no doubt at all you will continue with these kinds of irrelevent and ridiculous analogies. Frankly, I'm OK with that because I think it has served to decrease your analytical credibility on here to an old time low which appears to be close to zero at this point. I feel you have more than earned that lack of credibility.

[Mark Hissey]

TEPaul:

I think your last statement there is spot on. That is exactly how we are looking at things.

A few more points to add:

It has been mentioned at various points that two, three and five holes from the Emmet course remain. I don't think anyone knows for sure. I have also seen it mentioned that it may have been both a nine hole track (hence the need for an immediate reconstruction of a 2-3 year old course) and an eighteen hole track. I think that eighteen holes would have been impossible on the abbreviated property even if it was only 5000 yards long. But more importantly, on December 23rd, 1914 the head of the Greens Committee, J. Clarence Davies reports that the woods on the easterly side of the property will probably be used for the new golf course. The fact thta there are back-to-back par 3's and par 5's may indicate that two of these four holes are part of Emmet's routing.

Given that Emmet's routing was one for a very short course at best, and probably for a 9-holer, and given that between 2-5 holes remain, I don't think it is accurate to say that this was not an original Raynor design. In my mind it was. He barely used any of Emmet's work if at all.

On April 27th, 1915 the Board authorized a payment of an extra $50 per month to Robert White from May 1st-October 31st. My speculation is that he wanted more money for his work in supervising the construction of the course while simultaneously working as the Golf Professional for $1200 per annum. I think he was doing so much at this point that the extra pay was justified. It would appear that he was working as a Golf Professional nevertheless which would have to mean that there actually was some golf being played there as construction was going on.

Mr. Bahto's book says thats Raynor worked on the course in 1923-34. Clearly the course had been completed by then and Raynor must have been back at the course at that point for more work.

The club appears to have been delighted at the fact that construction cost $32,000 instead of the original $37,000 which was budgeted.

The first record of the project to establish North Shore was a $13 expense incurred by the "Country Club Committee" in October 1913 though oddly there is no prior mention of this committee being established even though the club was always incredibly dilligent and formal in how they recorded these committees.

On February 26th, 1914, Henry Claman made a presentation to the Board of the Harmonie Club on behalf of the Country Club Committee. The Board thanked him for his dilligent work and called a follow up meeting to be held on March 15th, 1914 at 3:15pm.

Glenwood was purchased from the Brooklyn Crescent Club two days before this meeting.

Henry Calman presented a letter to the Harmonie Club Board at the March 15th meeting. This letter still exists in the archives and is bound into the minutes. I had hoped that Raynor's 1916 letter would exist in a similar fashion but unfortunately it didn't.

In the letter, Isaac Mackie, described as a golf expert, stated that he had looked at the course and said it was in "perfect shape". He estimated that it would cost $1500 to get it in pristine condition.

In June of 1914, they comment that the club owns 189 acres and that they could build an additional nine holes on the property. This seems to contradict the theory that it might only have been a nine hole course. However, these were laymen talking and they may have had no idea of how much land was needed. In any case, some of the land was sold to raise an extra $100,000 and this reduced the property to its current size.

[TEPaul]

"Have you already forgotten about the report in the minutes metioning White assisting in the layout of the course prior to it being constructed, or are just ignoring it?"





I haven't forgotten that at all and I'm certainly not ignoring it. The club recorded that Raynor was hired and paid a design fee to design the course and White was put on the per annum payroll to act as the greenskeeper/construction foreman.

I have no doubt Raynor and White (and apparently Macdonald) consequently entered into a collaboration on the course. To me this is of no difference than with Frederick Pickering and the Wilson Committee with Merion East and West, and with Crump with Jim Govan with Pine Valley.

I have no doubt at all that both Pickering and Govan engaged in a lot of collaboration on those initial designs but I just don't think either club needs to give either of them co-design attribution. This isn't exactly rocket science, MacWood, so perhaps you should simply desist from crowing this distinction over and over again like some broken record.

I think everyone understands what you are saying probably including the club at this point; it's just that no one seems to agree with your interpretation on design attribution so why don't you consider accepting that fact, at this point?  

[TEPaul]

"In his book CBM chronicled the major projects prior to 1917, but there were also good number of courses we know he was involved with prior to 1917 that he did not mention, like Greenwich, Merion, Shinnecock and East Lake. The fact that he did not mention North Shore or Mountain Lake, should not be construed as an indication he was not involved."



Having read and referred to "Scotland's Gift Golf" at least three dozen times at this point most of it is now committed to memory so you need not remind me what he said himself in any of it.

I'd prefer to just take Macdonald's own words for what he did and the extent of what he did architecturally anywhere in his career rather than your speculations and often fanciful interpretations of what he did that he never even bothered to mention himself.

One could certainly speculate or interpret the fact that he never mentioned Merion or Shinnecock or East Lake in his book should not be construed as an indication he was not involved with them to some extent; however, it seems it would be more prudent since he never mentioned them in his book that he did not consider that he had as much to do with them as some on here, such as yourself, have been constantly trying to imply he did.

You also frequently use the term 'we know' in some of your posts. Who is the "we" in your term 'we know?' If it is just your own speculations and fanciful interpretations completely unsupported by fact then I suggest you stop using that term "we know" because it is wholly inaccurate too, and not to even mention I really don't see a single person left on here or anywhere else who seems to agree with much of anything you've been saying recently.