[Jeff_Brauer]

Did the early and then Golden Age (or thereabouts) American architects stray too far from its Scottish roots?

Was it turf and natural conditions that forced the change?  Or an American desire to put a stamp on the game?

Could their designs have looked more like the early courses?

And, should they have?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Based on further discussion with Melvyn, perhaps we can add the additional desire for maximum profit that seems to be (perhaps stereotypically) associated with the American mindset?

[Garland Bayley]

Did the early and then Golden Age (or thereabouts) American architects stray too far from its Scottish roots?

My impression is that the early American architects did stray far from Scottish roots. However, CB and others provided examples of how to do it like Scotland, and the situation improved.

Was it turf and natural conditions that forced the change?  Or an American desire to put a stamp on the game?

It is my understanding that natural conditions seldom let American courses play remotely like Scottish links courses even though the improved designs resembled the Scottish links.
...

[Jim_Kennedy]

Jeff,

In an article I read some time ago one of those early Scottish Pros took exception to the idea that he and his brethren were building rudimentary links of rather poor quality for their American clients and that they should know better, having come from the home of golf. He said that they did 'know better' but that few if any American clubs were willing to spend the monies needed to build something of quality.

That's sounds perfectly logical to me, but once golf caught on (especially after Travis' '04 British Amateur win) the tide turned in favor of more thoughtful construction. It also coincided with the introduction of the Haskell ball (there was no golf boom in the USA using feather or solid guttie balls) and the Heathland courses, so I tend to think they had an influence on our GCA at the turn of the 20th century.   

 

[Josh Tarble]

Jeff,
It's an interesting question, and I hope my answer is succinct enough, but I think we perhaps give early architects too much credit. For the most part it seems the best really early courses came about because of the best land and soil.

Maybe I'm off base, but maybe the early architects just didn't know either a) what type of land to look for b) what to do on non-ideal land/soil

[Mike Hendren]

With perhaps the exception of Donald Ross, American architects are responsible for introducing stress to the game, primarily through their use of water hazards.  Put it another way, they distorted recreational golf.

Bogey

"Golf should be a pleasure, not a penance."
- Donald Ross

[Bill_McBride]

Since most early American golf was directly influenced by Scottish immigrants, it's difficult to say it strayed too far from those Scottish roots. 

[Sven Nilsen]

The goal was always to replicate the golf played in the UK, the problem was that in most cases the land wasn't naturally suited for it.

They did the best they could with what was available, including the amount of money clubs were willing to spend on construction.  Many of the best courses from the early days (Myopia, Garden City, Pinehurst, Shinnecock, Onwentisa, Oakmont, etc.) didn't start out as masterpieces, but evolved after years of constant tinkering, lengthening and working with the turf. 

In response to Josh's point above about location, in most cases the architect did not chose the land.  Early courses were built in accessible areas, whether close to where the members were going to live, or where they vacationed, often on land already owned by a member or that could be leased cheaply as it wasn't needed for other purposes. 

I give those early guys a ton of credit.  They were building courses on all types of land, with rudimentary tools and without the natural benefits provided by links.  Its easy to make a cake when you have flour, sugar and eggs.  Its a lot harder when any of those ingredients are missing.

When the Golden Age came about, courses were being built just about everywhere you could get to with an automobile.  And the architects of those courses were most definitely trying to build "ideal" golf courses.  To do so they were filling in swamps, carving courses out of forests, blowing up and dragging away glacial debris and working with non-native grasses to produce courses that played like the ones they studied as their inspirations.

It seems like the easiest comparison is to take course X in the US and try to measure it up against any of the seaside links in the UK.  The better comparison would be to try to compare the American courses with the great inland courses of the UK, those that were built starting in the 1890's and later. 

Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

As an aside, I'd suggest that the real departure away from the origins in the United States occurred much later than has been suggested here.  Perhaps the best example of this is to look at what ANGC was when it opened, and compare it to what it has become.

Sven

[Mark Bourgeois]

At the risk of painting a gross oversimplification, and I am, the problem is that Americans love technology and the appearance of progress aka "new and improved." See a problem, fix a problem. Don't accept it. See an inefficiency eliminate an inefficiency. See a constraint remove a constraint.

Architects pioneered as well as gratefully received any and all inventions and innovations that enabled golf course to be designed and built faster, better, cheaper. They led golf to a place far away.

And it didn't / doesn't have to be that way. They eschewed core design ideas and templates. Things would be a lot better if they had just kept to the principles even as they threw out older ways of doing things they saw as a product of inefficiencies and constraints. (Better, but still not ideal.)

[BCrosby]

As an aside, I'd suggest that the real departure away from the origins in the United States occurred much later than has been suggested here.  Perhaps the best example of this is to look at what ANGC was when it opened, and compare it to what it has become.

Sven

Agreed. ANGC makes for an interesting litmus test. The test results are not encouraging.

Bob  

[Sven Nilsen]

At the risk of painting a gross oversimplification, and I am, the problem is that Americans love technology and the appearance of progress aka "new and improved." See a problem, fix a problem. Don't accept it. See an inefficiency eliminate an inefficiency. See a constraint remove a constraint.

Architects pioneered as well as gratefully received any and all inventions and innovations that enabled golf course to be designed and built faster, better, cheaper. They led golf to a place far away.

And it didn't / doesn't have to be that way. They eschewed core design ideas and templates. Things would be a lot better if they had just kept to the principles even as they threw out older ways of doing things they saw as a product of inefficiencies and constraints. (Better, but still not ideal.)

Mark:

Its an interesting theory, but without the who and when I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about. 

Were the early fairway rollers taking the game further away from its roots?  Did the ability to fill in the land for the Lido lead to "a far away place."  Were the years of research into what grasses work best in what environs mean we were changing the game? 

Or was all of this simply part of an overreaching theme of trying to replicate the way things were in places where golf simply wasn't "found."

There's an element of the changes in how the game was played that needs to be addressed as well.  The game in 1895 was much different from the game in 1925.  And the architecture adapted, as it should have.

Sven

[Jason Thurman]

The answer is no. Early and Golden Age architects in the US built some of the greatest courses the game has ever known. To suggest that Oakmont, Pebble Beach, Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Pinehurst No. 2, Augusta National, Merion, National Golf Links, Shinnecock Hills, Chicago Golf Club, and dozens of other courses failed by straying too far from Scotland's roots and aesthetics is utterly ridiculous. It's like suggesting The Beatles strayed because they didn't sound enough like Vivaldi.

[Tom_Doak]

The answer is no. Early and Golden Age architects in the US built some of the greatest courses the game has ever known. To suggest that Oakmont, Pebble Beach, Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Pinehurst No. 2, Augusta National, Merion, National Golf Links, Shinnecock Hills, Chicago Golf Club, and dozens of other courses failed by straying too far from Scotland's roots and aesthetics is utterly ridiculous. It's like suggesting The Beatles strayed because they didn't sound enough like Vivaldi.

I agree with this.  I think it was Robert Trent Jones and Dick Wilson who lost touch with the game's origins, and set the standard for most other modern designers to ignore how the game had been played in the past.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I think its a longer continuum than the WWII break, honestly.  I see all the writings of the GA guys, and they concerns with fairness, etc. seemed to evolve away from the luck of the links slowly over time.  I agree more with the American attitude to put a stamp on it, sort of in our national "new world" mentality, together with the can do attitude of problem solving, were big factors, even with the early Scots starting the process.

Grass doesn't grow naturally?  Sprinklers!  That kind of thing.

Just MHO.

[Tom_Doak]

Grass doesn't grow naturally?  Sprinklers!  That kind of thing.

Just MHO.

I vividly remember Mr. Dye telling me that his mentor, Bill Diddel, refused on principle to install fairway irrigation on his golf courses.  Pete thought that was a good stand to take, but Mr. Diddel told him not to make it, that he would never get any work that way. 

But, that was 1958, not 1928.

Jeff, I'd be curious if you could cite a couple of passages from books by MacKenzie or Thomas or Simpson or Colt, where they are overly concerned with fairness and eliminating the rub of the green.  Those are the four main books of the period, aside from Robert Hunter's THE LINKS, and I know you're not going to find it there, when he is waxing poetically about his little match with John Ball at Hoylake.

I think you're projecting.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Ralph seems to believe that almost no one got the seaside right - even Dr.M at ANGC. 

[Sven Nilsen]

I think we're also forgetting that many of those UK links were being reworked (or built) around the same time golf in the US was getting off the ground.

And most of the major players in UK golf architecture would find there way over here at some point in their careers.  

Can't imagine Harry Colt had an epiphany as to how to do things differently while crossing the Atlantic.  Perhaps he saw new things when he saw the land in Detroit, Toronto or New Jersey, but I don't think it amounted to a fundamental change in his design philosophy.

Sven

PS - Just saw Jim's post.  Interesting that the courses derided were by MacKenzie, Fowler and Tippett.  While the one attempt to replicate the seaside links that was praised was by MacDonald.

[Jim_Kennedy]

I think we're also forgetting that many of those UK links were being reworked (or built) around the same time golf in the US was getting off the ground.

And most of the major players in UK golf architecture would find there way over here at some point in their careers.  

Can't imagine Harry Colt had an epiphany as to how to do things differently while crossing the Atlantic.  Perhaps he saw new things when he saw the land in Detroit, Toronto or New Jersey, but I don't think it amounted to a fundamental change in his design philosophy.

Sven

PS - Just saw Jim's post.  Interesting that the courses derided were by MacKenzie, Fowler and Tippett.  While the one attempt to replicate the seaside links that was praised was by MacDonald.

Trost must not have 'liked' Dr.M -  in another article he wrote that he his greens at Bayside also had to be tempered.

[Paul Gray]

The answer is no. Early and Golden Age architects in the US built some of the greatest courses the game has ever known. To suggest that Oakmont, Pebble Beach, Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Pinehurst No. 2, Augusta National, Merion, National Golf Links, Shinnecock Hills, Chicago Golf Club, and dozens of other courses failed by straying too far from Scotland's roots and aesthetics is utterly ridiculous. It's like suggesting The Beatles strayed because they didn't sound enough like Vivaldi.

I agree with this.  I think it was Robert Trent Jones and Dick Wilson who lost touch with the game's origins, and set the standard for most other modern designers to ignore how the game had been played in the past.

Thank you.

I refrained from posting this very point for fear that I'd be accused of making the same old argument.

[Sven Nilsen]

There's a great deal of context that needs to be considered in this conversation, specifically how the game was changing in its early years.

Now that the ball-makers have successfully ruined most of our leading courses, it remains for the golf architects to so design the greens that they shall be both difficult of access and that the putting shall demand care and skill in judging slopes and undulations. - W. Herbert Fowler

Add in steel shafts and other innovations in the clubs themselves, and you have a constantly changing game.  Bendelow and others were ahead of the curve, espousing the design of courses of added length to keep up with the changes in how far players could hit the ball.  Here, Fowler describes taking the concept a step further, in added difficulty around and on the greens.

And I don't think this paradigm shift was merely an American phenomenon.  It was just that more new courses were being built over here.

Sven

[Sean_A]

Sven

Sure there was a constantly changing game, but I do think the idea of built for purpose championship golf is largely an American concept...and remains so to this day.  The advent of a great many US courses were after the Haskell.  Two areas which were focused on included length and more hazards...and hazards more deliberately placed....for a lot of courses which were never truly championship venues.  Many fine British courses have long been playing catch up and some are still doing so today. 

Whether or not the archies strayed too far from origins I cannot say, but I have to believe that a great many of the well known US courses were very difficult for handicap players. 

Ciao

[DMoriarty]

I see all the writings of the GA guys, and they concerns with fairness, etc. seemed to evolve away from the luck of the links slowly over time. 

Do tell . . . what are all these writings of the GA guys?  I must have missed them.
_______________________________________


As for the original question, and with all respect to Melvyn, I am not sure I understand what he means by "Scottish roots."   The great links courses?  If so, then perhaps there was plenty of straying on both sides of the ocean very early on, but then the early golden age designers (on both sides of the Atlantic) tried to return to those "roots," or at least some of them.

Perhaps the greatest departure was the dissemination of golf onto land not naturally suited for that purpose (to paraphrase Melvin) but again I don't think this was solely an American departure, nor one started by the Golden Age architects.  

I think it escapes Melvyn that many or most of the earliest American courses were laid out by Scottish professionals.

[DMoriarty]

Sven

Sure there was a constantly changing game, but I do think the idea of built for purpose championship golf is largely an American concept...and remains so to this day.

I'm trying to think of the first "built for purpose championship golf" course and I am guessing that it may have been Muirfield, although it took them several attempts. 

[Sean_A]

Sven

Sure there was a constantly changing game, but I do think the idea of built for purpose championship golf is largely an American concept...and remains so to this day.

I'm trying to think of the first "built for purpose championship golf" course and I am guessing that it may have been Muirfield, although it took them several attempts. 

David

You miss the point.  American archies like Flynn and Tillie were building very tough courses because that is how they believed US players would get better.  This idea of champ courses for courses which never hold championships was very much a US idea.  For the most part, champ courses in Britain were treated differently...so as to challenge top players, but the very good private courses were not treated in the same way.  Colt and co were not building champ courses for club memberships.  In the main they were still building fairly short courses which were not meant to overpower golfers although some must have been quite difficult jsut the same.  We can still see what a lot of these courses would have looked like and even with some added yards over the last 80-90 years.  As I say, I don't know if that is straying too from origins because I am not sure what origins really means. 

Ciao

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