Old Elm, Harry Colt and the Start of the Golden Age in America
There is a straight line from Old Elm to Pine Valley and to the true onset of the Golden Age that goes directly through Harry Colt and his 1913 visit to North America.
In the same way the Depression and WW2 erased the memory of the Golden Age and its principles of golf course design for decades until Pete Dye came along, World War 1 obscured and later erased the memory of how the Golden Age originated in the United States and Canada.
Colt’s Second Journey. In April and May 1913, Harry Colt travelled to North America on the second of three visits. At the beginning of the journey, he worked for nine days on the creation of Old Elm and created a complex routing and drawings for each hole. At the end of his journey, Colt labored at Pine Valley for seven days. Perhaps it's hyperbole, but Colt’s 1913 visit might be the most critical step in the history of golf architecture in the United States. When will the historical impact of what Colt created on his journey to the U.S. and Canada in 1913 get its due?
Old Elm History Once Lost. The history of Old Elm’s creation was forgotten after WW1 and then miscast after the Depression and WW2. The club thought it was a Donald Ross design until the beginning of the 21st century.
Roles of Harry Colt and Donald Ross at Old Elm. In the beginning, Old Elm distinguished clearly between what it expected of Harry Colt and what it expected of Donald Ross, who was paid at $50 per day. Old Elm paid Colt 25 guineas a day or at $5.11 per guinea, i.e. they paid him more than double - just over $127 per day.
Harry Colt – First Golf Architect. Colt was a British lawyer who was responsible for carving out golf course design from the responsibilities of the golf professional and creating a new profession: golf architect. Like C.B. MacDonald, he was an amateur turned golf course architect who changed the paradigm. During the three weeks Colt spent in Chicago, first at Old Elm and then on visits to Chicago Golf, Indian Hill, Glen View, and Exmoor, he must have talked to Ross about his decision to leave his role at Sunningdale and go into full-time course design.
Donald Ross, the Reincarnation of Old Tom Morris. When Donald Ross was hired at Old Elm, he was still employed at Essex C.C., He epitomized the golf professional in the Old Tom Morris mode: a golfer, teacher, clubmaker, organizer of tournaments, and greenskeeper. For some years, he had been laying out courses, but he was more of a golf course constructor than a designer. Old Elm hired him for his expertise in construction when he was still a traditional blue collar golf professional, though he had already created a number of golf courses and was on the fast track to becoming the nation’s top full-time architect/designer.
From 1907-1912, Donald Ross was evolving from Boston’s into America’s Old Tom Morris. He had begun his career as an apprentice in Old Tom’s shop in St. Andrews. He was liked and admired by everyone. In Boston and Pinehurst, he had worked at and succeeded in every golf task and role. He received constant recognition in the media of the day as the consummate American golf professional.
Transition From the Victorian Age to the Golden Age – 1907 to 1912. Until 1910, Ross' approach to the laying out of golf courses, like that of other golf professionals, was traditional. In 1910, Ross followed Walter Travis’ and C.B. MacDonald’s lead and visited Scotland and England to better understand golf course architecture there. He returned and began to apply his learnings at Essex CC and Pinehurst. It is an interesting question whether what Ross learned was in the C.B. MacDonald vein of analysis of the structure of the greatest holes in the U.K., what Keith Cutten calls "evidence-based" design, or in a deeper understanding of the strategic design conceptualizations of Hutchinson, Low, Colt and Darwin.
Second Generation of U.S. Golf Professionals. Donald Ross was a member of the second generation of golf course designers in the U.S.. In the 1890s and 1900s, golf courses in Chicago had been laid out by the Foulis brothers, H.J. Tweedie and Tom Bendelow, among others. They were golf professionals. Like Donald Ross, they played in tourneys, taught golf, made clubs, and some of them laid out courses. In Boston, as a golf professional, Donald Ross worked in a similar manner to these Chicago professionals.
Golf Professionals and Amateurs. The U.K.'s next generation of golf professionals, individuals like Willie Park Jr. and J.H. Taylor, hoped to become successful at the business of designing golf courses too. They were having a difficult go of it because amateurs and college-educated men like Colt, MacKenzie, Simpson, and Fowler were getting the best jobs. Ox-Cam changed everything in the U.K. but there wasn't as powerful a force of change in the U.S.. Like Donald Ross, Willie Park Jr. and countless other golf professionals came to the greener fields of the U.S. to get jobs. American amateurs such as C.B. MacDonald, Walter Travis, and Devereux Emmet did secure many design jobs, but the golf boom was underway and there was room for everyone with a design knack, amateur and professional.
Harry Colt, The “Thomas Edison” of Strategic Golf Course Design. Like Willie Park Jr., Donald Ross may have been reading Horace Hutchinson, John Low and others in regard to naturalistic and strategic golf design. The new design ideas they had conceived and were promoting were in the wind. It was Harry Colt, the “Thomas Edison’ of strategic design, who first and most successfully put these ideas into practice. Before Colt’s 1913 U.S. journey, it is safe to say that Donald Ross and other American golf course designers had not fully integrated the strategic, Golden Age design framework into their golf course layouts.
Old Elm - A Colt Classic. Like all golf courses, Old Elm was a collaboration, but Colt was undoubtedly the designer and Ross the constructor. Ross did make some changes in Colt's precise plans as he built the course, and Colt did want Ross to have a “free hand,” but Colt wouldn't have wanted too much change in the location, size and shape of the greens, bunkers, tees and corridors. Colt was meticulous and resolute about his routings and course designs. In his instructions, Colt says, “Everything is marked out on the land and with this book of plans and with the accompanying blue print there should be no difficulty in carrying out the work.”
Colt Designed Old Elm on the Ground and in Drawings. Colt made his Old Elm plans and drawings as he walked over the grounds and worked out the design. He didn’t draw the plans for Old Elm later from memory in the summer/fall at his desk from his home in England. Donald Ross had never made drawings before, but he learned the technique and the professional value of making them from Colt. If the war and life had not intervened, Colt would certainly have returned to edit and make improvements to his Old Elm masterpiece.
Colt’s Impact on History Lost and Rewritten. Colt never came back to Chicago and only briefly to Detroit and Toronto in 1914. The ideas he brought on his three pre-war trips to North America went viral. The history of his impact was rewritten by the winners and those who remained. Colt was the messenger who initiated and carried the fundamental principle of the Golden Age of golf course design, the theory of naturalistic and strategic design for inland golf, and put it in the ground in North America at Old Elm, Pine Valley, Toronto Golf, Hamilton, and the Country Club of Detroit, among others.
New Design Framework. Armed with first-hand experience, Donald Ross capitalized on the opportunity and the design framework he had witnessed Harry Colt creating at Old Elm. Ross saw how “the attitude of golfers as a whole (had) undergone a big change” and how “everywhere, now, the prime object of the leading men in different golf and country clubs is to have their courses up-to-date…and oblige the golfers to improve their standard of play to cope with the difficulties involved.”
Ross’ Career Skyrocketed After Old Elm. After Old Elm, Ross’ career took off into the stratosphere. He "took the ball and ran with it" building and remodeling courses by the dozens in the war years, not only in the northeast and southeast, but now around Colt’s former foothold in Chicago and Detroit.
Courses Designed by Donald Ross. As his business grew, Ross followed Colt’s lead, turned over the construction of those courses to his associates, donned the hat of the full-time architect, and realized his career calling. The primary construction experts and partners Ross collaborated with and relied upon throughout his career to manage the building of his designs are not seen as co-authors of his courses today, although Ross would certainly have given them freedom in the field too. Colt, Ross and the great architects of the 20th century are given full credit for their designs even though they were often not present during construction when vital decisions such as green contours were being made.
Old Elm Club and The Golden Age – H.S. Colt, the Author. Old Elm is a pure H.S. Colt creation. As the Golden Age of Golf Architecture emerged in North America, Colt’s three journeys to North America in 1911, 1913 and 1914 might be the most influential force in causing the changes in the golf architectural landscape that were fully realized after the Great War ended.