Pre and Post Depression public and resort community courses

[Chris DeNigris]

You guys know the whole world can read this stuff, don't you?

[Dan Herrmann]

Tom M,  Nah...  Wrong word.  I consider Tom Paul a friend, and friends don't need to resort to that type of false flattery.

Anyway, back to topic....  What exactly was the raison d'etre of this thread?

[DMoriarty]

Dan.   I know what 'snarky' means.  

Next time you may want to try a real dictionary rather than relying on "Greg's" third place entry on urbandictionary.com.  Generally, if "Dane Cook" is mentioned as the first entry, it is probably not a reliable dictionary.  

Were you really complimenting TEPaul for making the same tired crack he has made dozens (hundreds?) of times, often with descriptions of Birdsong being 7'9' and covered with tattoos from head to toe?   I hope it pays off for you.  

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Sean

To give you an idea of the depth of quality public courses during that era, here is a quote from an American Golfer Article written in 1929.  

Although I have had the privilege, and that privilege still stands, I be- lieve, of playing over nearly all the private courses of the State, I want to say right here that I would just as soon play such public layouts as Montebello, Westwood, Sunset Fields, Western Avenue and the Griffith Park courses in the Southern part of the State and Harding Park and Lincoln Park in the San Francisco district as almost any privately owned golf course I know. They are beautifully kept up and represent the very finest there is in modern golf architecture.

Some golf writer puffery, no doubt, but from what I can tell these were all quality layouts by well respected designers on good sites. There were more quality public courses in California than that (bad ones as well-- the author mentions that some of them should be overhauled) but only half of the mentioned courses make Tom's list.  

Maybe other regions were different, but there were some very good public courses out here.

[Dan Herrmann]

I guess I'm off to Far Hills with Mike. 

[Mike Cirba]

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[Tom MacWood]

Who is Laura?

[TEPaul]

"often with descriptions of Birdsong being 7'9' and covered with tattoos from head to toe?   I hope it pays off for you."



You see Danderino, that remark above is why Moriarty is a sham and a fake and a virtual con artist in the realm of history----history of all types---the history of the architecture of Merion, and now the history of the remarkable Timucuan Indians, a North Florida tribe from which Tommy Birdsong came.

I've spent a good deal of time in North Florida around Amelia Island and Fernandina Beach etc. This area was the home of the remarkable Timucuan Indians.

And I get up always very early in the morning, always before daybreak, to see the incredible colors in the eastern sky over the Atlantic as the sun begins to rise and then to hie on down towards the Jacksonville Naval Base on old AIA and across both Big and Little Talbot Islands (a state park) on which there are some of the most beautiful natural blowout dunes and dunescapes to study and commune with that allows me to become more and more of a genius on natural golf course architecture. And after studying that remarkable dunescape for a few early morning hours I drive back up again and study the shapes of the waterways dilineated by sea grasses which give me great inspiration for wonderful and original golf holes shapes and strategies.

When Fernandina Beach opens up I go up in there and study the history of the remarkable Timucuan Indians----a tribe that anthropoligists say were perhaps the gentlest people in the history of human kind. Part of their culture was they were tatooed from head to toe. And they were also reputed to be perhaps the tallest people ever known.

But my indepth research on them proved to anthropoligists that was not actually true.

I discovered that another part of their culture was they never cut their hair and so they simply piled it on top of their heads and it got ever higher and higher as life went on, leading other peoples, other people like the white man (of which Moriarty is one of the most despicable and unintelligent examples, albeit extremely pompous) to assume they were the tallest people ever known.

Tommy Birdsong actually looked 7' 9'' but in fact he was only about 5' 4''. The top 2' 5" of the man was actually his cultural Timucuan pompadour!

Do you think Moriarty ever knew any of that or could ever figure out something that historically important? Of course not! Moriarty is no researcher and no historian. It appears he knows no more about Tommy Birdsong and the remarkable Timucuan Indians than he does about the architecture of Merion East and Hugh I. Wilson.

And he has obviously never seen or even heard of Fernandina Municpal golf course, Tommy Birdsong's career architectural tour-de-force and the greatest hidden gem in the world. Matter of fact it has clearly the most strategic Spanish Moss ever known in golf and architecture.

[TEPaul]

"Who is Laura?"


And now you're asking who Laura is, MacWood? For someone who keeps claiming on here he is an expert researcher you definitely ask far too many questions of others followed by claims that they are wrong about things you apparently had to ask about in the first place. What, by the way, is THAT constant MO all about? You really are an idiot in your Ivory Tower in Oh-Hi-Hee who knows less than zero about Philadelphia and Philadelphia architecture.

Laura is Dan's wife and the driving force behind French Creek GC. There is also quite clear evidence that she routed and designed it too, perhaps even in her spare time, and she is such a sweet and non-proprietary person she actually let Gil Hanse put his name on it as the architect!

[Tom MacWood]

Was that the woman at your winter get together last year or the year before?

[Chris Buie]

Wasn't Starmount Forest designed by Perry Maxwell?  I could be wrong but I seem to remember it that way.

[Tom MacWood]

Chris
No, you're right Maxwell has been credited with SF for years. I believe both the Maxwell and Stiles biographies set the record straight that Stiles and Van Kleek actually designed the golf course.

[DMoriarty]

TEPaul,

You've posted over 60+ times on this thread, yet you know nothing about the topic and have contributed nothing of value or substance.  

You should read the profile of the real Tommy Birdsong to which Dan linked.  His life was infinitely more cogent and compelling than your mocking fantasies.

[TEPaul]

MacWood:

It seems you are virtually incapable of getting anything right with architectural attribution. Starmount Forset wasn't designed by Stiles and Van Kleek it was designed by the prominent jewelery firm Van Cleef and Arples.

[DMoriarty]

Make that 61.

[Sean_A]

Dan.   I know what 'snarky' means.  

Next time you may want to try a real dictionary rather than relying on "Greg's" third place entry on urbandictionary.com.  Generally, if "Dane Cook" is mentioned as the first entry, it is probably not a reliable dictionary.  

Were you really complimenting TEPaul for making the same tired crack he has made dozens (hundreds?) of times, often with descriptions of Birdsong being 7'9' and covered with tattoos from head to toe?   I hope it pays off for you.  

_______________________________________________________

Sean

To give you an idea of the depth of quality public courses during that era, here is a quote from an American Golfer Article written in 1929.  

Although I have had the privilege, and that privilege still stands, I be- lieve, of playing over nearly all the private courses of the State, I want to say right here that I would just as soon play such public layouts as Montebello, Westwood, Sunset Fields, Western Avenue and the Griffith Park courses in the Southern part of the State and Harding Park and Lincoln Park in the San Francisco district as almost any privately owned golf course I know. They are beautifully kept up and represent the very finest there is in modern golf architecture.

Some golf writer puffery, no doubt, but from what I can tell these were all quality layouts by well respected designers on good sites. There were more quality public courses in California than that (bad ones as well-- the author mentions that some of them should be overhauled) but only half of the mentioned courses make Tom's list.  

Maybe other regions were different, but there were some very good public courses out here.

Well Dave - all I can say is I would much rather play a 2010 list of publics than the one posted by Tommy Mac.  I don't believe his list in anyway compares with the privates of 1930, but today it is a totally different story.

Tommy Mac

I suspect my standards of what is really good is much higher than yours.  I have seen most of those courses you mention and I wouldn't maake a special effort to play many of them nr would I recommend other travel to see many of them.  Rackham falls well down the list and that is how I know the course isn't special - plus I have played it.  Believe me, the course is more important as a historical "black club" than it is architecturally. 

I think your list of wonders would be far more believable if folks had heard of half of them.  I suspect even you didn't know many of these courses existed until conducting your recent search.  Tell me again, what is the point of what is now known as The List?   

Ciao  

[Tom MacWood]

What were the really good golf courses in Detroit in 1930?

Higher standards? It goes without saying you have higher standards than just about everyone on GCA. What exactly are your standards for what constitutes really good?

Rackham has been redesigned over the years. The front nine is no longer Ross; the back is mostly intact, but the original course has been severely compromised. You can not compare Rackham of today with the Rackham of the 1920s and 1930s. By the way I forgot to add Essex CC and Red Run to my Detroit 1930 list, which brings the total to an even dozen.

I knew the majority of the courses because I've researched the majority of the architects.

I answered your question in post 349. I believe for anyone truly interested in golf architecture history it has been a very interesting and educational exercise. What more can you ask.

 

[Mike Cirba]

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[Tom MacWood]

Earlier in the thread you asked this same question, but obviously it slipped your mind. I've played a handful, and a couple of them would not be on the list had I relied on their current state (Sharp Park and Community). I doubt Cobbs Creek would make the list based on its current state. The only effective way to put an historic list like this together is through contemporaneous reports. For example six or seven of the courses are NLE; hard to play those courses unless you have a time machine a la TEP.

The architectural attributes of a number of these courses have been discussed on other threads and in books like Daniel Wexler's Lost Links. Even after pages and pages of posts I don't recall the architectural attributes of CC being discussed much (if at all), but I have to admit I stopped reading those threads a while back. It seems to me those threads have been more about who contributed to the design and how you would change that course in a perfect world.

[DMoriarty]

Tom MacWood,

Griffith Park - Wilson seems to have fallen off your list (if it was ever on)  and I think you should consider including it.   It was designed (or redesigned) by George Thomas in 1923, hosted three Los Angeles Opens (1937-1939), and was considered by some to be among Southern California's best courses.  (See blurb above, for example.)

On the eve of the Los Angeles Municipal Championship in 1927, the Los Angeles Times had this to say:

The Woodrow Wilson Course, one of the very finest municipal layouts in the United States, has been carefully groomed for the championship opening Monday.

(Those signed up to play included top golfers from all the area clubs, with a particularly strong team from Lakeside featuring George Drugstore Cornes, Howard Hughes, and Jack Neville.)

A 1938 Times article announced that the Griffith Park courses would again host the Los Angeles Open in 1939:  

Held the last two years at Griffith Park, the tournament drew the largest total attendance in its history with Southland fans flocking by the thousands to the beautiful public courses, said to be the finest municipally owned links in America.

(Competitors planning to play included Eddy Loos, Joe Degal, Jimmy Thomson, Sam Snead, Horton Smith, Ed Dudley, Lawson Little, Byron Nelson, Harry Cooper, etc.  Prior hosting courses had included LACC North, Riviera, and Wilshire CC, and the tournament returned to LACC in 1940.)

Take it for what its worth because he is certainly no Mike Cirba, but here is what Daniel Wexler wrote about the Griffith Park Courses in 2007:

Griffith Park, Harding and Wilson Municipal Golf Courses (Los Angeles): Though golf made its debut in Griffith Park in 1914, today's facility dates to a 1923 expansion to 36 holes by the legendary designer George Thomas — a project that the philanthropic Thomas reportedly augmented from his own pocket when city funding ran short. The site of three late-1930s L.A. Opens, as well as the longtime home of 1961 PGA champion Jerry Barber, Griffith Park once ranked among the world's finest period municipal golf facilities. Today, after decades of ill-advised modifications (e.g., Harding course's now-removed "water bunkers") and the building of the Golden State Freeway, it remains among the most historic.

Don't get me wrong.  I am not claiming it was the absolute best public in the country -- such a claim would be asinine-- I wasn't there so how would I know??   But surely it deserves consideration to be added to the list . . .
 

[Tom MacWood]

David
If I'm not mistaken it was the longer and tougher of the two, although most reports I've seen say the other course was the more interesting and fun. There are a couple of courses I'm considering adding and I'll will add it to that list.

[DMoriarty]

David
If I'm not mistaken it was the longer and tougher of the two, although most reports I've seen say the other course was the more interesting and fun. There are a couple of courses I'm considering adding and I'll will add it to that list.

 I think that Wilson was always a bit longer.  Both courses have suffered through too many changes, including encroachment by the Los Angeles Zoo and I-5, yet still they are both fun routings with good use of the available land.   I believe that in 1938 and 1939 they played the first two days of the LA Open on both courses and the final round on Wilson.  Not sure about 1937.  I don't think it was ever a case of a very strong A course and a much lesser B course, like some. I would have loved to have seen them in the late 20s.  

Wilson is currently a bit longer (about 6950 compared to about 6540) and probably a bit harder. Currently I'd say they are fairly comparable as far as interest and fun goes, with maybe a slight edge to Harding.  More a matter of preference. When I used to regularly play LA Tee Time Roulette I was equally happy to get a time at either.  

The toughest tee time in the city is still Rancho Park (ineligible for the list because it was built as a hotel course) so I suppose Rancho is the top municipal in the City of Los Angeles, but I think that might have something to do with Rancho's more recent history of hosting professional tournaments.   In their current forms Rancho may be a bit better but all three are pretty comparable and a few steps above the other LA City munis.    

P.S.   Don't get excited Mike.  The course is named after Woodrow Wilson, the former President.  Not Hugh.  

[TEPaul]

There was a pretty interesting connection between President Woodrow Wilson and the Wilson brothers of Merion, at least an "almost connection." The Wilson brothers via their contacts, Piper and Oakley, at the US Dept of Agriculture, and Walter Harban of Columbia CC, and with the support and backing of their friends and fellow board members of the USGA came remarkably close to convincing President Wilson to get the US Government (via the Dept of Agriculture) to completely take over and fund agronomic reseach and the development of golf grasses (dwarf grass, and particularly what became known as the "bent vegetative process").

[Dan Herrmann]

Tom,
I just thought of a good western course that isn't in your list...  Why didn't you include Rose City?  IMHO, it's better than some on the your list that I've played.

[Tom MacWood]

I've never heard of Rose City. In the 1920s and 30s how did it rate with the other public courses in the Pacific NW?

[Mike Cirba]

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