The Beginnings of Golf Course Architecture

[TEPaul]

PeterP:

I see another aspect to what Macdonald did with NGLA that may've created some future confusion or perhaps dissatisfaction amongst American architects with Macdonald's new idea and concept with NGLA----eg all the holes and features and principles he used for NGLA came from GB or abroad!

Why did he not use at least some from American architecture that preceded NGLA such as Myopia or GCGC? Good question indeed, and to proffer an opinion, I might say that he felt golf was so new in America at that point (1901 when he got the idea to 1906 when he identified the site of NGLA) that even if some of the holes at Myopia or GCGC were very good they were still so new that they could not yet be considered "time tested" or traditional to past the test of being "classical" and therefore worth copying.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I for one, would love to find out who was the first architect (and when) to use topo maps to aid in the routing of a golf course... I think that is a significant development... It is the not the beginning but it is a good milestone on the incremental steps that Tom MacWood refers to...

[TEPaul]

"Golf architecture began when the first golfer laid down Point A and Point B, and then dug a hole. Since then there have been a series of incremental developments that have gotten us to where we are today. Some developments have been more significant than others but they are still a continuation of the developments that come before. I don't believe you can point to a date or project in the late 1890s or early 1900s and say this was the beginning of golf architecture."


Tom MacWood:

It would certainly seem C.B. Macdonald did not agree with your opinion on that. You should read his book very carefully and you may see why---but of course you may not too.

I couldn't agree more that the history and evolution of creating golf courses is definitely a continuum from way back in history that constituted a number of interesting milestones and stepping stones involving all kinds of improvements and technologies in planning or construction or whatever. However, I am far more interested in trying to understand what someone like C.B. Macdonald's opinions were of those stepping stones or milestones in that continuum than I am of what the opinions of someone on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com are 

[Mac Plumart]

Tom P...

Do YOU believe that CBM was the first golf course architect?  I understand why he wrote that and I get it, but I most certainly don't consider him the first golf course architect.  However, I could make the case he was the most important golf course architect...but I can't agree he was the first.

[Sean_A]

"To build requires a design requirement to enable the build to proceed.
Carnoustie was built to a design twice in the 1840’s.
Why make it complicated, why give credit to late generations for a design and build process that started in Scotland circa 1840’s."



Melvyn:

What I'm talking about is the first use of a PRE-construction topographical survey map (with contour lines) used to route and design a golf course on before any construction on the ground. Are you aware of something like that with Carnoustie in the 1840s? If so I would love to see it or hear about it. That would definitely be quite the significant research find and truly important to the understanding of the history and evolution of golf architecture, in my opinion.

I'm talking about a drawing on a contour survey map before construction, not after the golf course is built.

Tom P

While first use of topo maps may be interesting to note as a side issue just as first use of a bulldozer (or equivalent) would be, these are tools of the designer, not what defines a designer. 

Ciao

[Phil_the_Author]

I think it would help all interested in discussing this question to take a look again at Ed Oden's wonderful "Compilation of Drawings" thread. The first few posts are Ed identifying courses giving dates for the drawings posted and then telling one where to look within the thread (post #), thus giving an interesting perspective on this question.

First of all, the early drawings are not design drawings, but are mostly finished as-built drawings, and most of these are simply stick figure routing drawings. What struck me in going through these last night is just how LATE the idea of producing a DESIGN drawing prior to building began.

In my opinion the idea of "architecture" is far more than identifying a spot to tee it up and putt it out and where a hole is placed in the ground. That is simply building a playing field, more akin to youngsters placing 4 sweaters on the ground in a park and playing two-on-two baseball or several yougsters setting up two garbage cans to define where the goal is and then the 6 of them playing socc... I mean football.

The concept of "architecture" in golf is far more complex than that...

[Jim_Kennedy]

".....he(CBM) had also essentially condemned the entire idea of novelty and innovation in golf course creation and clearly that met with disagreement among some of what would become the best of the American golf course designers or what would come to be referred to as golf course architects!"- TEP

Macdonald was an innovator in his approach to the ideal golf course, his methods of construction, and his use of professionals from other disciplines to help him create his work.

The novelty he shunned was the creation of poor golf holes that had little to do with the sport. The other successful architects from the period did the exact same thing CBM did, they tried to create meaningful architecture. The only difference was in their respective creations, not the basic idea behind them.

[TEPaul]

"Tom P...
Do YOU believe that CBM was the first golf course architect?"


Mac:

Not really, but I now believe I understand much, much better why C.B. Macdonald referred to NGLA as the first example of golf course ARCHITECTURE he was aware of.

But I doubt I would ever be willing to agree with him on the beginning of the use of that term or word (golf course ARCHITECTURE) for the simple reason I just can't imagine what other term would be appropriate for all that came before NGLA!  

I also believe that the very reasons he gave for considering NGLA to be the first example of golf course architecture really did create plenty of misunderstanding and perhaps dissatisfaction with future architects in America and seemingly elsewhere.

I don't think it was so much that he so strongly proposed that ARCHITECTURE (golf course) must only be the use of "time tested", traditonal holes and features and principles ("Classical") but also that Macdonald roundly and firmly condemned the entire idea of novelty and innovation in the creation of golf courses even if apparently with the use of pre-existing natural landforms used for golf essentially untouched.

I don't just think, I know, that a number of American architects took exception to that and some actually wrote about it----eg Tillinghast and Travis---and I feel that others took exception to it as well without ever really mentioning it----eg probably the likes of Wilson and Flynn or even Ross or Thomas or even the rest of all of them put together.

I just do not think that any future architect felt that kind of limited "codification" or "standardization" applied to architecture was a good or healthy thing for the artform or whatever one choosed to call it, and I think that sentiment extended from many of Macdonald's contemporaries all the way to Doak or C&C, Hanse, Fazio, Hurzdan, RTJ, Dick Wilson, Rees Jones, Kelly Blake Moran, etc, etc, et al.

I am not necessarily saying I think Macdonald's concept (copying time tested holes and features and principles from abroad) was wrong at all (I think of his copy concept of what he called "classical" from abroad was just a very interesting milestone or stepping stone along the progressing continuum of golf course architecture) only that in the over-all all that he said in that context was truly misunderstood!

And I also feel very strongly that Macdonald himself came to know it had been misunderstood and his eventual reaction to it very much showed in not just what he did in the future but also in what he said and what he wrote in the future (from NGLA), particularly in his book, "Scotland's Gift Golf."

Always in the back of my mind with Macdonald I keep thinking----what was it he apparently objected to with golf course architecture into the teens and 1920s and on to his death. It was definitely something and something significant in his mind because I'm pretty sure his famous remark---eg "it makes the very soul of golf shriek" (that was not written in 1906 as many have thought but in 1926) was not referring so much to what came BEFORE NGLA but AFTER it!!

And as a way of perhaps confirming that on the flipside I am also not aware of anyone else's architecture Macdonald actually praised other than Merion East's (before it was built) and Pine Valley's in perhaps 1913. Perhaps I'm wrong about that and the other good researchers on here can supply us with some examples of the work of others that Macdonald actually praised in the teens and 1920s.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Tom W, Mac , Tom P

Had you bothered to read my second paragraph, you may have understood my actual comment.

“The basic of crediting the above is that they actually did more than just one and had a record of multi course designs by 1860. The standard of modern design was started in circa 1842 and from that humble start we get the modern concept of designing golf courses.” 

Who was the first one , who knows but of the modern era then I have submitted names that did multi designs proving that course design is not a modern idea in the 1890’s or 1900’s

As for CMB being the first GCA, brilliant just love it but what a load of pure fantasy and total bollocks.

Come on guys stop read their books and start looking at the facts – design was alive and kicking well before CBM was born, though you were meant to know something about the history of golf, you certainly seem not to be showing any real knowledge of what happened pre 1860.

I stick with my statement that the modern era was when architects/designers started to the process we know today as GCA and that started around 1840 for the reasons I gave above.

Melvyn 

[TEPaul]

"What struck me in going through these last night is just how LATE the idea of producing a DESIGN drawing prior to building began."


Phil:

That is precisely what struck me so much some months ago!

And it seems like some on here are struggling to see what the real significances of this may be. One on here said it doesn't say much about a designer but only about the tools of his trade.

Yeah, sure that is certainly true to say but we need to look carefully at what those improved tools (such as PRE-construction contour maps) created in the future. One thing it helped create is the effectiveness of earthmoving planning (cut and fill preconstruction planning that is the basis of engineering planning) and cost effectiveness and the other thing it clearly created is far more effective high production architectural projects that were actually good architecture rather than the former quick in and out process generally known as "Eighteen Stakes on a Sunday Afternoon" that was the process of the likes of Bendelow and others of the early years who apparently never used such tool as PRE-construction topographical contour maps.

It's beginning to look to me like the first to use that tool may have been some of the first "amateur/sportsmen" architects, notably Macdonald and Wilson and Crump!!  

But I am sure willing to encourage anyone to predate them (NGLA, Merion East and Pine Valley) with the use of PRE-construction topographical contour survey maps. Let's see someone actually do that though and then we can discuss what it means again.

[Phil_the_Author]

The reason why a pre-construction and layout design plan is important in this is because up until even the mid-teens it was quite common to lay a course out on the ground, build it and see it open for play, and ONLY THEN, after identifying where people would be hitting their shots, locate and build many, if not most, of the bunkers.

With the rapid growth of the game in those years and the coming age of the professional golf course architect building more expensive courses, the owners began expecting a finished product on day one, not an experiment in hopes it would turn out well...

[JC Jones]

Tom W, Mac , Tom P

Had you bothered to read my second paragraph, you may have understood my actual comment.

“The basic of crediting the above is that they actually did more than just one and had a record of multi course designs by 1860. The standard of modern design was started in circa 1842 and from that humble start we get the modern concept of designing golf courses.” 

Who was the first one , who knows but of the modern era then I have submitted names that did multi designs proving that course design is not a modern idea in the 1890’s or 1900’s

As for CMB being the first GCA, brilliant just love it but what a load of pure fantasy and total bollocks.

Come on guys stop read their books and start looking at the facts – design was alive and kicking well before CBM was born, though you were meant to know something about the history of golf, you certainly seem not to be showing any real knowledge of what happened pre 1860.

I stick with my statement that the modern era was when architects/designers started to the process we know today as GCA and that started around 1840 for the reasons I gave above.

Melvyn 

Melvyn,

For my clarification, is there a difference, in your opinion, in the definition of these words: design, build, construction, architecture?

Does architecture encompass all of the other 3 or can it be 1 or 2 of them; or, is it something entirely different?

[TEPaul]

"Had you bothered to read my second paragraph, you may have understood my actual comment.

“The basic of crediting the above is that they actually did more than just one and had a record of multi course designs by 1860. The standard of modern design was started in circa 1842 and from that humble start we get the modern concept of designing golf courses.”



Melvyn:

I am not talking about multiple designs; I'm talking about the first use of PRE-construction topographical survey maps and the use of them to route and design golf courses before constructing them. Maybe you just don't see the difference-----frankly with you it's sort of hard to know since your everlasting mission on here seems to only be defending very early GB designers from being disrespected somehow.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Tom P

Clearly you do not understand how courses we designed or constructed in the mid 19th Century otherwise you may have more respect for your comment "18 Stakes on a Sunday Afternoon".

I am very surprised with you, I expected better, you ARE better than that. All I will say for the moment is why did courses back then take many weeks to many months to open from initial design. On average it seems to take 3 months, so 18 stakes on a Sunday after noon is not helpful. Anyway which Designer in Scotland worked on a Sunday afternoon?  Tom your facts are a little wrong I would suggest.

Melvyn

PS Philip what about the models made in the 1880's of Greens etc, pre Plasticine age which was an early 20th Century product, seems to question this idea of pre -construction. Thought and design must have been paramount including site survey etc., etc. back then so who was the fist architect!!!! - oh yes CBM because he told us.

 

[JC Jones]

"Had you bothered to read my second paragraph, you may have understood my actual comment.

“The basic of crediting the above is that they actually did more than just one and had a record of multi course designs by 1860. The standard of modern design was started in circa 1842 and from that humble start we get the modern concept of designing golf courses.”



Melvyn:

I am not talking about multiple designs; I'm talking about the first use of PRE-construction topographical survey maps and the use of them to route and design golf courses before constructing them. Maybe you just don't see the difference-----frankly with you it's sort of hard to know since your everlasting mission on here seems to only be defending very early GB designers from being disrespected somehow.

Is it disrespectful to say that someone laid out a golf course or built it rather than calling the person a golf course architect?  Why do some find architect(ure) to have a more positive connotation than the others (build, design, construct)?

[Melvyn Morrow]

No Tom

Its just that you do not understand what went on here pre 1900 and your interests quite understandably is with USA golf. But to make claims you need to know what happened, regrettable from your comments you do not.

Melvyn

[TEPaul]

"Tom P

Clearly you do not understand how courses we designed or constructed in the mid 19th Century otherwise you may have more respect for your comment "18 Stakes on a Sunday Afternoon".

I am very surprised with you, I expected better, you ARE better than that. All I will say for the moment is why did courses back then take many weeks to many months to open from initial design. On average it seems to take 3 months, so 18 stakes on a Sunday after noon is not helpful. Anyway which Designer in Scotland worked on a Sunday afternoon?  Tom your facts are a little wrong I would suggest."



Listen Melvyn, the term "18 stakes on a Sunday afternoon" is just a term; it does not have to mean that an architect actually always had to do it on a Sunday for God's Sake!!  

The point of that term was that numerous architects apparently used that process to be in and out of a site and project in a day or two and back to their day jobs or on to another project! That's all they were paid for and that's all they were asked to do. If that was true of some of them, and it obviously was, that would then mean that they simply were not there to oversee the construction of a course's features and then that would mean that was left to others to do----others who may have had little to no idea of what to do or how to do it other than something really rudimentary.


I am not saying that is the process Old Tom Morris used or a few others did who may've actually worked at some of those golf courses in other capacities.

Do you deny that with other architects like the Dunns or some such as Tom Benedlow?

You don't need to take MY word for this but I do remind you that others who were intelligent and close observers over there at that time said it and wrote it too, such as Bernard Darwin and Horace Hutchinson. I realize you have condemned them too as virtually perpetuating a lie or a myth but come on Melvyn who are we supposed to believe here----you or the likes of Darwin and Hutchinson who were there and saw it?  

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood:

It would certainly seem C.B. Macdonald did not agree with your opinion on that. You should read his book very carefully and you may see why---but of course you may not too.

I couldn't agree more that the history and evolution of creating golf courses is definitely a continuum from way back in history that constituted a number of interesting milestones and stepping stones involving all kinds of improvements and technologies in planning or construction or whatever. However, I am far more interested in trying to understand what someone like C.B. Macdonald's opinions were of those stepping stones or milestones in that continuum than I am of what the opinions of someone on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com are 

I have read his book very carefully. CBM had his opinion; Guy Campbell, Tom Simpson, Bernard Darwin, HW Wind and Cornish & Whitten had their own opinions too. I'm giving you my opinion.

[Tom MacWood]

Golf architecture began when the first golfer laid down Point A and Point B, and then dug a hole. Since then there have been a series of incremental developments that have gotten us to where we are today. Some developments have been more significant than others but they are still a continuation of the developments that come before. I don't believe you can point to a date or project in the late 1890s or early 1900s and say this was the beginning of golf architecture.

Good stuff, Yom.  If I understand , you are defining golf course architecture as the laying out of golf holes on the ground.  This, ad opposed to some sort of pre-construction planning and design?

Yes, and even the earliest and most simplistic golf hole involved some level of planning and design.

[TEPaul]

"No Tom
Its just that you do not understand what went on here pre 1900 and your interests quite understandably is with USA golf. But to make claims you need to know what happened, regrettable from your comments you do not."



Melvyn:

I very much do understand what some did in the 19th century and what others did differently in the 19th century and I do respect some for what they did in those very early years. I also do not exactly disrespect what the others did who were quickly in and out of projects in a day or two and only were paid for that. It is simply that I recognize what the limitations were that were put on them to have to do it that way.

Obviously all these distinctions and differences are totally lost on you as it seems you can just never get over this fixation of yours that it only means some of those early architects are being disrespected by us.

That is not true and furthermore it is not even the point here on this thread.

[TEPaul]

"I have read his book very carefully. CBM had his opinion; Guy Campbell, Tom Simpson, Bernard Darwin, HW Wind and Cornish & Whitten had their own opinions too. I'm giving you my opinion."


Tom MacWood:

I completely understand that. It's just that I am most interested in the opinions of CBM, Guy Campbell, Tom Simpson, Bernard Darwin, and even HW Wind and Cornish and Whitten on this particular subject.

I am not interested in your opinion and as time goes by I become less and less interested in your opinions, as they really do seem to be less and less historically accurate and factual and consequently less and less credible or interesting. Most of the time they don't even come close to engaging the actual and specific subject being discussed, as it seems your constant and ongoing fixation on here seems to be little more than just proving others wrong.

I guess you think that gives you some currency and credibilty on this website. I don't believe it does and haven't for years now and that is why I have always said you are a good raw researcher but a very disappointing historical analyst.

[TEPaul]

"The reason why a pre-construction and layout design plan is important in this is because up until even the mid-teens it was quite common to lay a course out on the ground, build it and see it open for play, and ONLY THEN, after identifying where people would be hitting their shots, locate and build many, if not most, of the bunkers.

With the rapid growth of the game in those years and the coming age of the professional golf course architect building more expensive courses, the owners began expecting a finished product on day one, not an experiment in hopes it would turn out well..."




Phil:

That is a remarkably good and important point to make!

That is also why some of those famous "amateur/sportsmen" architects of the likes of Leeds, Emmet/Travis, the Fownses, Macdonald, Wilson and Crump had a definite leg up on those professional architects who were their contemporaries.

This is of course not a knock on that professional contingent back then or a condemnation of their inherent talent; it is only the recognition of a reality back then!

The reality was the professional contingent in those early years simply were not given the time or the opportunity to work with a project over the time and in the ways those above mentioned "amateur/sportsmen" architects enjoyed.

We are talking literally years here. There was no professional architect I'm aware of who took that kind of time or had that kind of opportunity on a project with perhaps the single exceptions of Ross with Pinehurst and Flynn with Merion.

This fact and reality was practically the sole theme of my article in the 2009 Walker Cup program (Merion) entitled "Hugh I. Wilson and the Age of the Amateur/Sportsman Architect."

[Tom MacWood]

"I have read his book very carefully. CBM had his opinion; Guy Campbell, Tom Simpson, Bernard Darwin, HW Wind and Cornish & Whitten had their own opinions too. I'm giving you my opinion."


Tom MacWood:

I completely understand that. It's just that I am most interested in the opinions of CBM, Guy Campbell, Tom Simpson, Bernard Darwin, and even HW Wind and Cornish and Whitten on this particular subject.

I am not interested in your opinion and as time goes by I become less and less interested in your opinions, as they really do seem to be less and less historically accurate and factual and consequently less and less credible or interesting. Most of the time they don't even come close to engaging the actual and specific subject being discussed, as it seems your constant and ongoing fixation on here seems to be little more than just proving others wrong.

I guess you think that gives you some currency and credibilty on this website. I don't believe it does and haven't for years now and that is why I have always said you are a good raw researcher but a very disappointing historical analyst.

I thought this was a discussion group...my mistake.

[Mac Plumart]

Tom W, Mac , Tom P

Had you bothered to read my second paragraph, you may have understood my actual comment.

“The basic of crediting the above is that they actually did more than just one and had a record of multi course designs by 1860. The standard of modern design was started in circa 1842 and from that humble start we get the modern concept of designing golf courses.” 

Who was the first one , who knows but of the modern era then I have submitted names that did multi designs proving that course design is not a modern idea in the 1890’s or 1900’s

As for CMB being the first GCA, brilliant just love it but what a load of pure fantasy and total bollocks.

Come on guys stop read their books and start looking at the facts – design was alive and kicking well before CBM was born, though you were meant to know something about the history of golf, you certainly seem not to be showing any real knowledge of what happened pre 1860.

I stick with my statement that the modern era was when architects/designers started to the process we know today as GCA and that started around 1840 for the reasons I gave above.

Melvyn 

Melvyn...I did read your post and I believe my post #10 shows that I agreed with you and, furthermore, that is why I asked Tom P. if he really believed CBM to be the first golf course architect.  His answers was, in short, "not really".  He went on to describe how CBM's work went on to mark an important milestone in golf.  Which I agree with.

Also, in my early post on this thread I state that Allen Robertson and Old Tom would be pioneering architects.

But I don't feel there is anything wrong with discussing all the important milestones in GCA history. 

In short, I did read your post and I agree with you.

[TEPaul]

"I thought this was a discussion group...my mistake."


Tom MacWood:


There's no mistake at all on your part. This is a group discussion and as far as I'm concerned anyone is completely free and welcome to join in on it. But with that you should not be under some presumption that everyone must be interested in your opinion or mine or anyone else's and/or agree with those opinions.

Probably the greatest benefit and vitality of this discussion group is that some of us do not agree with others on here on a number of things to do with the history and evolution of golf course architecture, and what happened when, why, how and by whom.

I mean, come on, do you really expect that anyone with even a modicum of commonsense would believe that ridiculous contention of yours that HH Barker somehow jumped off a train from New York to Georgia and designed Merion East simply because you think you found some train schedule he took?

THAT just might be the Mother of ALL Ridiculous Contentions ever made on this website in its eleven year history. But the most interesting thing is you still seem to be sticking to it.