Cannonballs and Conquistadors at Riviera

[Sven Nilsen]

In 1926 during the early stages of the construction of Riviera, relics from the early history of the conquest of California were discovered.

The cannonball and human remains were covered in a series of articles from the Los Angeles Times.  It makes one wonder if the 21 foot cypress is still around.

March 7, 1926 Los Angeles Times -



May 23, 1926 Los Angeles Times -



June 6, 1926 Los Angeles Times -

[Tom_Doak]

A sycamore tree more than 1000 years old?  That's wild.


All of them in southern California are threatened now, due to a bug called the shot hole borer.  Some of the biggest sycamores at Bel Air were damaged enough that we were told to take them down as part of our work, rather than leaving them to deteriorate once the course re-opened.

[Jeff Schley]

Sven..... where do you find this......... stuff? 

Alot of hours scanning old mircofiche converted articles for sure.

[Lynn_Shackelford]

Or you could look at page 21 in The Riviera Country Club, A Definitive History.

[mike_beene]

Just when I thought the bunker in the middle of 6 was going to be explained.

[Tommy Naccarato]

Or you could look at page 21 in The Riviera Country Club, A Definitive History.

LOL!

[Sven Nilsen]

Or you could look at page 21 in The Riviera Country Club, A Definitive History.

LOL!

Always nice to see a club history book that matches the actual story.

[Tommy Naccarato]

Or you could look at page 21 in The Riviera Country Club, A Definitive History.

LOL!

Always nice to see a club history book that matches the actual story.

Yes!  As well as the accuracy of who actually designed the course!




Happy New Year Sven.  Hope the holidays have been good and healthy to you and your family.

[Sven Nilsen]

Yes!  As well as the accuracy of who actually designed the course!

Good, I'm glad they mention Watson's involvement.


Merry New Year back at you.

[Tim_Weiman]

Or you could look at page 21 in The Riviera Country Club, A Definitive History.

LOL!

Tommy,


Nice to hear from you. Hope all is well.


Tim Weiman

[Tommy Naccarato]

Sven, This is something that you have to work on: objectivity and being able to read the words of the day while recognizing that newspapers made and still a lot of factual errors.  Your work with newspapers is really not as much of a gold strike as you think most of the time, as many of these articles your digging up were found many years ago.  Further, some of your conclusions are downright bizarre!  But it’s admirable how you work at it.  Let’s just make one thing clear: Your no David Normoyle or Rand Jerris!


Watson was involved with only one thing at Riviera and that was the second course and the second course, only if it was going to get built, which it didn’t because of the popularity of polo was at an all-time high as a sales tool, because the land being part of the further development of the Riviera.  (Riviera was really a real estate development for the area, just like Bel-Air.  It was only different because of the involvement of the Los Angeles Athletic Club in the club itself).  Watson’s name was merely bandied about in planning and advertisement. That’s it.  So if your inclusion of his name is in jest, then your going to need more then an emoticon to say that!  But if you think this is fact, go ahead and continue to believe it, just like you believe MacKenzie designed and built Capuchino.  I’ll be the guy two miles away from the club that’s laughing my ass off at your conclusions!

[Sven Nilsen]

Tommy:


I think you missed the joke.


Sven

[Tommy Naccarato]

Sven , if you read, I wasn’t sure, but yes!  Thanks!  My bad!

[Tommy Naccarato]

Or you could look at page 21 in The Riviera Country Club, A Definitive History.

LOL!

Tommy,


Nice to hear from you. Hope all is well.


Tim Weiman

Tim, Just thinking about you!  Let’s try to talk soon!

[Sven Nilsen]

Sven, This is something that you have to work on: objectivity and being able to read the words of the day while recognizing that newspapers made and still a lot of factual errors.  Your work with newspapers is really not as much of a gold strike as you think most of the time, as many of these articles your digging up were found many years ago.  Further, some of your conclusions are downright bizarre!  But it’s admirable how you work at it.  Let’s just make one thing clear: Your no David Normoyle or Rand Jerris!

Tommy,



I hope you take the following as an attempt to start a constructive conversation.  I want to avoid turning this into a back in forth of emotional responses, which seems to happen a bit too much around here.


First of all, I'm curious if "objectivity" is really the word you're looking for.  I have no agenda in any of these historical discussions.  All I am trying to do is investigate and understand what actually happened.  I don't represent any specific architect's society or association, I'm not trying to publish a book or protect or promote anyone's legacy and in no way other than respecting the truth do I have any skin in this game. 


We live in an interesting time in that every day more and more digital information becomes available to be found.  Twenty years ago it would have been almost prohibitive for someone living on the coast of Oregon to travel to and gain access to the reams of microfiche you'd need to go through to get what you can access today from the various online resources.  The fact that you bring up Normoyle and Jerris in this conversation is interesting.  They are both professionals in what they do and they've been studying the history of golf in this country longer than me.  Their time with the USGA has given them access to a treasure trove of resources.  But they don't participate here.  I wish they did, but perhaps this venue is better suited for the "amateurs" in this game like me.


I wasn't around here during the bulk of the Merion and other [in]famous conversations.  I was reading this site, but I didn't start participating in the discussion group until most of the conflagrations had died down.  I did notice a decided unwillingness from many posters to engage in historical conversations after those debates.  It was a shame to see, as those types of conversations (but not necessarily those exact conversations) were a big part of the draw for me to want to be here.  I had a great deal of respect for the work done by Tom MacWood, Chris Clouser, Joe Bausch, Dan Moore, Mark Chalfant, Ed Homsey and a slew of other history enthusiasts.  I read a lot of what Pat Mucci, David Moriarty and Tom Paul wrote during their time on the site, and I wish all three of them were still here and willing to participate.  There are still a few of the old guard participating today that enjoy the same types of historical puzzles that I do, namely Mike Cirba, Bob Crosby, Anthony Pioppi and Jim Kennedy.  And there a number of folks that joined the site around the same time I did that I've learned a lot from, such as Nigel Islam, Rees Milliken and Bret Lawrence.  But for the most part, it seems like the reticence to engage in historically oriented conversations has diminished.  And that is a shame to me.


The quote that accompanies each one of my posts was written by one of the folks named above a number of years ago.  Part of the way I choose to spend my free time is to continue scratching that surface.  There's been a bit of conversation hereabouts of late on credit.  I'm not as interested in figuring out if Course X should be be listed as having been done by Architect Y as I am in collecting and presenting all of the facts surrounding the architectural development of a course.  Cornish and Whitten tried to do this as best they could as space allowed.  That work was the start, and can and should be improved, updated and expanded.


With that thought in mind, I'm curious as to exactly what conclusions I've made that you consider bizarre.  I can only work with the facts I know of, and I'm always interested in learning more and seeing new evidence from the historical record. I'd be happy to discuss each one with you either here or offline. 


Seem like it would be a bit more productive than laughing at each other.


Sven

[Tommy Naccarato]

Sven,
You put to much faith in newspaper articles where errors are made—often!


Little news for you:  I’m the one that first started posting articles on this forum as well as pictures many years ago.  When I see you disagreeing with Tom Doak, especially when he is correct and is trying to explain to you that all your posting has to be literally be deciphered by those who are objective that the material they dig up, whether it’s accurate or not.  Capuchino is a perfect example.  You can bring out a thousand articles talking about MacKenzie’s involvement but ultimately what’s more accurate five newspaper article saying Mackenzie was there or one advertisement by the club talking about their Max Behr Design?  (I in fact have I think it’s three adverts from the club saying Max Behr.)


But no.  You want to go on about some sort of involvement that:


-Never happened
-Possibly could have been built by American Golf Course Company with one of Behr’s guys over-seeing construction
-that it’s an Alister MacKenzie Design


That’s my point.  You work hard at it from 2000 miles away, but those, not just me, but others who have researched information out here years before are all wrong, because a newspaper article says so.  Sadly, this is what’s wrong nowadays.  Assumptions, Speculations leads to Revisions!  Revision is bad because it’s not fact.


Little story here:  When I originally found an article in the LA Times, stating that a Noted Authority was lauding a golf site in Dana Point, Tom Doak doubted it.  I myself bit my tongue as I also found out in the same newspaper, weeks before that Billy Bell and Max Behr both were expounding the perfection of the land for a golf course in Dana Point.  This became an interesting can of worms!  But, I was down, because I wanted so badly that the course be a mythical MacKenzie that once existed! I even eventually found an article saying the clubhouse and ad ertisment had been built!  I had no facts, just newspaper articles.


That was until one night while at Barnes & Noble, I picked up a book on the history of Dana Point.  Thumbing through it to see if I could find anything regarding a golf course, I came across a picture of WP Woodruff, the developer of Dana Point, with his “Engineers”. The engineers were both MacKenzie, and an especially dapper Robert Hunter, stand8ng in front of a huge water tank that said, Dana Point Water Company!


Despite finding that, there is no photo evidence of an actual course.  No aerial photos from that timeframe show an existing course on the land.  Factual information says, NO!  The course simply had never been built.  So, sometimes you have to take the Bad with the Good.

[Sven Nilsen]

Tommy:

Show me the advertisements noting Behr at Capuchino and we can put it to bed.  Offline works if that's best for you.

You said all my postings had to be deciphered.  Did the first post of this thread have to be deciphered?

How about this one:  http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,66471.msg1587256.html#msg1587256

I've read over 20,000 newspaper articles from prior to WW II.  They got it right way more often than wrong.

What you don't understand about my work is that I don't read those articles in a vacuum.  They are read against the context of all the other information I have available, including facts sourced from other newspapers, periodicals, books and the information found in the 21 different golf guides from the era.[/size]

When I found the Mackenzie/Hunter July 10, 1926 article on Capuchino back in August (and I am in no way trying to claim I was the first person to find that article), the first thing I did was see how it fit in with the information I already had on Capuchino. 

There was no conflict with the Annual Guide data, which contained the following information:

1928 Guide - 1928, 18 holes, Par 72, 6,371 yards, Grass Greens, Ray De Haven as Professional.
1929 Guide - 1928, 18 holes, Par 72, 6,371 yards, Grass Greens, Ray De Haven as Professional.
1931 Guide - 1928, 18 holes, Par 72, 6,371 yards, Grass Greens, Ray De Haven as Professional.
1938 Guide - 18 holes, Wm. Goggin as Professional, noted as El Camino GC in San Bruno.

Next I checked it against the other reporting I'd seen on the construction of the course.

Feb. 9, 1926 The Times notes plans for a public course with work to start on April 1. 
Aug. 10, 1926 Los Angeles Times notes start of construction of the 18 hole course. 
Aug. 25, 1926 The Times notes golf course under construction. 
March 12, 1927 San Francisco Examiner notes a driving competition taking place on the new course. 
May 14, 1927 San Francisco Examiner notes course nearly complete with play taking place on 9 holes. 
April 14, 1939 The Times notes closing of the El Camino G&CC which used to be the Capuchino club.

I spent a good bit of time looking for additional sources confirming Mackenzie and Hunter at Capuchino, and didn't come up with anything.  This included examining the Mackenzie Timeline to see if the facts noted in the article jived with his whereabouts in 1927.  They did.

What followed was an exhaustive search to try to find out where the Behr and Whiting attribution came from.  I searched this site and your site for all mentions of the course.  I searched a number of online resources for contemporaneous reports.  My search came up with nothing, other than the clue that Sean Tully had been noting this as a Behr/Whiting project for quite some time, and you had followed suit.  My guess (and it was only a guess) was that Sean might have seen something in Country Club magazine or another source that I couldn't find here.  I reached out to Sean directly, and although he responded he didn't send on anything on Capuchino.

I also spent a good bit of time combing my files and doing research on

I did all of this before I posted the article on this site.

So how would you analyze all of the above, absent having seen anything concrete on Behr and Whiting?

If and when the facts available to me on this one change, I'll revisit my analysis.

Sven

[Jeff Schley]

Tommy and Sven, anyone who spends so much time helping piece together what we all are passionate about here, I respect them for volunteering their time without compensation.  So thank you to both of you in addition to dozens of others who have the motivation for doing legwork for the rest of us who work and have families can enjoy the fruits of their labor. I don't demand 100% accuracy from people who are volunteering, I trust their good faith efforts.


You both sound like you are passionate about the same things, which are GCA and further to that researching golf course architecture in historical documents.  You are a rare breed and why not work together and support each other as opposed to bash the other for some reason? I have only been here about a year, but you both are probably in pretty small company sharing that passion and talent for research about GCA, so when you meet here why not support and help each other for all of our benefit?
Also I love Riviera CC and its history which is noteworthy.

[Sven Nilsen]

Thanks for that note, Jeff.  I hope my posts don't sound like I'm bashing Tommy here.  I'm trying to avoid that kind of discourse.


Sven