The history of the USDA's development of early American bent grass

[TEPaul]

"Any idea why Boston area courses might have been so far ahead of the turf curve at the time? It seems odd."


Bob:

One reason might've been that both Leeds and Windeler were two who apparrently went abroad a lot and very early on. Leeds did it because he was a first class yacht racer (I think he actually sailed around the world) and was probably involved in Cowes or even early America Cup racing competitions. So he was over there a lot.

Windeler was actually and Englishman who came over here and expatriated eventually. I see it in a 1903 New York times article that mentions he went abroad annually at least.  



Bradley:

That Richard Whitney speech is a marvelous chronicle of the beginnings of the USDA's involvement in turf grass for golf. It does not surprise me that Walter Harban was the first participant (1906) with golf as he was right there in Washington and he was the moving force at Columbia CC.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

I did not know Windeler was English.

I wonder how much the New England head start on turf had to do with the care and feeding of polo fields. They played a lot of polo in and around Boston. BTW, Joshua Crane was a star player for a time.

Bob

[TEPaul]

Bob:

Although Boston doesn't like to admit it, Polo was just as big in New York back then as it was in Boston.

I would tend to look less at polo and more to really early cricket fields, croquet, and grass tennis courts (lawn tennis) in the earlier eras before grass was actually comprehensively seeded or sodded on golf courses.

[Bradley Anderson]

What a terrific thread this is.

Bradley Anderson...thanks for typing all of that!! 

Mike,

You're on to me. All I do is copy and paste this stuff from the USGA archives and the LA84Foundation. Ever since I discovered those sites I spend a lot of time reading about all of this. How nerdy is that?

It is really amazing what you can learn there.

I also have known a lot of the older greenkeepers over the years and I am able to piece together some of the stories with this stuff.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Well?




"...Mr. Macdonald's importation from Holland of the first creeping bent grass seed used in this country..."


Source: Chicago Tribune, 12 September 1950

[Jim_Kennedy]

That should probably read "first creeping bent grass seed used in this country..." on a golf course. Creeping bents, Rhode Island bents, etc. were being used for lawns in the early 1870s.

[Mark Bourgeois]

So does anyone know the first person to discover creeping bentgrass's suitability to golf? To consciously decide to use it for this purpose? Did Macdonald figure this out first? And what is the significance?

[Sven Nilsen]

So does anyone know the first person to discover creeping bentgrass's suitability to golf? To consciously decide to use it for this purpose? Did Macdonald figure this out first? And what is the significance?

What were Park et al using for the inland courses in the UK before the turn of the century?

[Mark Bourgeois]

Good question!

[Mark Bourgeois]

From Tom Paul:

Mark:
Thanks for bringing back this old thread. It's interesting. I'd forgotten it existed.

It would be good to know what golf course(s) first comprehensively used seed or sod in America, and who was responsible for proposing and developing it, but I have always wondered who was the first course in the world to comprehensively use seed or sod. I do recall from this thread that I have long believed that very early "inland" courses abroad probably just used pre-existing meadow grasses for their courses, and the very early "linksland" courses used pre-existing, naturally occurring agrostis (bent) and festuca (fescue) on their swards (fairways). It had been my feeling that the first courses abroad that may have comprehensively sodded or seeded were probably in the Heathlands (exs: Sunningdale and Huntercombe). It's hard to say if a course in America preceded that or preceded GB.

I agree with what Jim Kennedy said above----eg some form of bent grass or dwarf strains were used in various applications previous to its use for golf. Those preceding uses for sports or recreation were apparently lawn tennis, cricket, perhaps croquet or even some of the huge landscape-architectured lawns of massive parkland estates in GB and/or France, Germany, Italy etc. And I do recall doing some research on the history of some seed companies such as Carters Tested Seed Co. The interesting thing is a company like that one is as old or older as the history of golf architecture itself (perhaps as early as the 1830s for Carters).

I do recall some years ago looking through a fascinating photo scrapebook at NGLA that was filled with very early photographs of golfers playing on massive lawns of what looked to be parkland estates in GB (they were not playing golf on golf courses, just massive lawns).

Bob Crosby:
For your information G. Herbert Windeler (TCC) was British born (married a Bostonian) and he was also the first foreign born president (1903) of the USGA. It was during his presidency that the USGA invited the Oxford/Cambridge golf teams over to play the Americans in 1903.

[Jim_Kennedy]

This is the thread Sven started which is a compilation of all the known golf courses in the US pre-1895:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,57954.0.html

 Somewhere in there is the answer to what was the earliest course that was fully seeded tee to green,   but I think it's going to be hard to find something earlier than NGLA, it'll be like looking for a needle in the sward. 

  I sent Mark an old GCA thread that gave Sunningdale the nod as the first fully seeded course in the UK.  

[Sven Nilsen]

This is the thread Sven started which is a compilation of all the known golf courses in the US pre-1895:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,57954.0.html

 Somewhere in there is the answer to what was the earliest course that was fully seeded tee to green,   but I think it's going to be hard to find something earlier than NGLA, it'll be like looking for a needle in the sward. 

  I sent Mark an old GCA thread that gave Sunningdale the nod as the first fully seeded course in the UK.  

As always, the Oracle of Hotchkiss will have the answer.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Thanks for the responses online and offline everyone.

Okay, I get that it needs better documentation / additional  sourcing but still: this is a statement by Chicago GC's historian. He could not have consulted the club's records, which would date to after the clubhouse fire in 1912. Right? Perhaps he heard it from the super. I doubt he got it from CBM (directly or second hand) because isn't this the sort of thing Mac would have put in his book?

So maybe his sourcing was not solid. In his speech, the Tribune reported, he said the 1922-23 redo was done "with the aid of Mr. Macdonald and Chick Evans." The wording allows for the possibility Black mentioned Raynor and the reporter missed it, but I have not seen credit anywhere else given to Evans. Anyone?